August Wrap Up

 

As the last month of summer vacation always does, August went by quickly. I spend the month trying to prepare for going back to school in my new role and for becoming a graduate student. I cleaned out and moved my classroom, attended a whole bunch of meetings, and bought an armful of pricy textbooks. I also took a vacation to Niagara Falls with my family. There were some good moments, but it was also a bit stressful thinking about all the tough stuff that's about to start. I kept up with my reading, but didn't get much else done.

I continued reading 100 pages a day throughout the month. It's probably going to be my last month doing that, as I have to build more time for studying into my schedule now, but it was cool to make it to the end of another month.  I read a total of 10 books and 3,287 pages. I ended up really liking a good amount of what I read. Here's everything I finished:

Year One by Nora Roberts (1 star)

Sadie by Courtney Summers (5 stars)

Anne of West Philly by Ivy Noelle Weir (5 stars)

Isla to Island by Alexis Castellanos (5 stars)

Three Dark Crowns by Kendare Blake (5 stars)

One Dark Throne by Kendare Blake (4 stars)

Two Dark Reigns by Kendare Blake (4 stars)

Five Dark Fates by Kendare Blake (3 stars)

The Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead (5 stars)

The Nickel Boys by Colson Whitehead (5 stars)

My favorite read of the month was The Underground Railroad, which was both brutal and beautiful. My least favorite was definitely Year One, which I found to be a very disorganized and boring fantasy. That book has the distinction of being my one one-star read this year so far.

I didn't purchase any new books this month, which is good. I think I'm finally getting that impulse under control and reading what I have. It's only taken me 36 years to get to this point! I ended up donating Year One, Sadie, Three Dark Crowns, One Dark Throne, Two Dark Reigns, and Five Dark Fates. A total of six books left my shelves.

My plan for September is to pull back a little bit on my TBR list to allow more time for studying. I'm going to focus on some of the shorter reads on my shelves so I will still get to finish some things too. Here's my list: 

On a Sunbeam by Tillie Walden

Paradise on Fire by Jewell Parker Rhodes

The Complete Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi  

Frankie and Bug by Gayle Forman

Black Birds in the Sky by Brandy Colbert

Sadly, I didn't make any puzzles or complete any other craft projects this month. I was too busy prepping for work. I'm hoping to sneak some of that back in throughout September, but I have a feeling that it's going to be tough on that front for a little while. All the sacrifice will be worth it in the end though. I hope.

The Underground Railroad and The Nickel Boys by Colson Whitehead

 

 With both my job and my master's degree classes starting up this week, I decided to try and clear a few more books off of my Finally in 2022 Challenge List. I've been making steady progress on it throughout the year, but there were still five books left. With my last week of freedom for a good, long while, I read two of those: The Underground Railroad and The Nickel Boys, both by Colson Whitehead. They are also both winners of the Pulitzer Prize, so I was pretty confident I was going to like them. I'm combining my reviews for these into one post. First up is The Underground Railroad.

The plot of the novel follows Cora, an enslaved person working on a cotton plantation in Georgia. After witnessing and experiencing several acts of horrific violence, she decides to flee North with her friend Caesar. Their method of escape is the underground railroad, an actual secret train that runs through underground tunnels. As she travels the rails, she makes stops in several states and learns about how race and power function in different parts of the United States. She is unable to stay in any one place for long; she is being pursued by a cruel and determined slave catcher who will not rest until he apprehends her. Fighting for her life, Cora keeps moving forward chasing a freedom that seems to be slipping further and further away.

This novel was absolutely phenomenal. It was definitely deserving of the Pulitzer it won. The writing was beautiful, the characters were well-developed and interesting, and the story was consistently engaging. Whitehead's depiction of the horrors of slavery and its accompanying racism was gut wrenching and emotional. Cora's journey was often difficult to read, but her experiences gave the reader a lot of worthy topics to think about. This is one of those books that feels wise and important. I really enjoyed it and was deeply impressed with Whitehead's skill as a writer. I was very happy to pick up The Nickel Boys when I finished this one.

The plot of The Nickel Boys follows a teen boy named Elwood who is sent to a reform school in Florida in the 1960s after being caught in the wrong place at the wrong time. Elwood is very intelligent and sheltered, so learning to live at the Nickel Academy does not come easy to him. The school is abusive and racist. Beatings and other cruel punishments are common, as is sexual assault. Sometimes boys that break the rules are murdered by the adults there. Elwood runs afoul of the rules shortly after arriving and is beaten so badly that he is hospitalized for weeks. After he recovers from that, he manages to make a few friends and settle into a routine. He is still quite angry about the schools' practices, however, and he begins to record evidence of their offenses. He is determined to escape from the Nickel Academy, and he plans to bring down the whole school to do it.

This story was based on a real reform school in Florida that abused and murdered its students. Much like in The Underground Railroad, Whitehead's writing brought this story to life in an emotional and beautifully written way. What Elwood and the other boys experience at the Nickel Academy was horrific, and his struggle to survive it was difficult to read, but the journey was worth it in the end. Whitehead explored themes related to racism, criminal justice, and corruption in ways that were interesting and very thought-provoking. I became emotionally invested in the story instantly and was really rooting for the boys to make it out safely. Again, this book was well-deserving of the all the acclaim and awards it received.

So obviously, my week reading Colson Whitehead was a resounding success. These are probably two of the strongest books I have ever read, and I would highly recommend both to anyone interested in literary fiction. These will definitely be considered classics in the future. I can't wait to see what this author will come out with next.

Challenge Tally

22 in 2022: 19/22

Total Books Read in 2022: 84

The Three Dark Crowns Series (Books 1-4) by Kendare Blake

 

Over the past couple of weeks, I decided to tackle one of the many young adult fantasy series I have sitting on my shelves. I settled on the Three Dark Crowns books, which I first heard about through YouTube and been interested in checking out for a while now. I ended up powering through them all pretty quickly, so I thought I'd combine my thoughts for all four into one review so I can comment on the series as a whole. This will be spoiler-free.

These novels are set on a mysterious and dark island named Fennbirn. Magic exists there, and many people are born with powers that fall into one of five possible areas. There are elementals, who can control things like wind, water, and fire, there are naturalists, who can make things bloom and control animals, and there are poisoners, who are unaffected by poisons themselves and adept at poisoning and healing others. The last two possible gifts are rare, but still possible to have--the war gifted, who excel at fighting and battle, and seers, who have visions of the future and can make prophecies. Each type of magic has its own region on the island, and most people choose to live in communities composed of people like them. Fennbirn is ruled over by a single queen, and the process for how this title is passed down is bloody and brutal. The current queen always, at one point, becomes pregnant with triplet girls--one will be an elemental, one will be a naturalist, and one will be a poisoner. They are raised separately and trained by experts in their gifts all throughout their childhoods. When the girls turn sixteen, they engage in a battle to the death to determine which one will rule next. This process has been the tradition on the island for hundreds of years.

The plot of the entire series concerns the latest generation of queens to battle for the crown. Mirabella is the elemental queen, Arsinoe is the naturalist queen, and Katherine is the poisoner queen. As their sixteenth birthday approaches, tensions are rising for all three, and not just because of their upcoming battle. Poisoners have held the throne for the past several generations, so the pressure on Katherine to beat her sisters is intense, but there is a problem. Her poison gift appears to be nonexistent. She's had to build up immunity to poisons the old-fashioned way - by continually ingesting them and getting sick, and this method hasn't worked that well for her either. She's had to fake ceremonies and demonstrations to appear strong, and it's clear that if she's going to continue the tradition of a poisoner sitting on the throne, she's going to have to cheat to win. Her powerful friends are putting complex political schemes into place to help her, but it may not be enough.

Similarly, Arsinoe shows almost no aptitude for her magic either. She's a naturalist queen, but is incapable of making flowers bloom or calling to animals. She hasn't been able to develop a relationship with a familiar either, an important part of the naturalist culture. She has a close friend named Jules who is inordinately powerful, and she tries to look out for her, but it's clear that Arsinoe's gift is very weak, if it even exists at all. She has come to accept that she will be easily slaughtered in the competition after her sixteenth birthday arrives, but as that date approaches, she becomes more and more afraid of this probable fate. She decides to turn to a low and dangerous form of magic to give herself a fighting chance, but this kind of magic always comes with a price.

Mirabella is in the opposite side of the spectrum from her sisters. She was born incredibly powerful--the most powerful elementalist born in decades, in fact. She can control the air, fire, water, and earth with ease. Her supporters believe she will win the throne easily, and the religious leaders of Fennbirn have broken with their traditionally neutral stance on the competition and have started openly supporting her. Her problem is simply that she has a kind heart. She doesn't want to kill her sisters. She remembers them from the short time they were together before being separated and has no desire to murder them for the throne. Reluctantly, she participates in the ceremonies leading up to her sixteenth birthday, but the most powerful amongst her supporters fear that she won't be able to go through with the killing in the end. So, they also begin a plot to cheat and get her on the throne without her actually having to complete the ritual. 

Over the course of the four books, the sisters battle each other for the throne in their own ways. As they go through the process, many secrets are revealed and they begin to break with the established traditions, throwing the whole island into a chaotic and rebellious state. When a mysterious mist begins creeping over the island and killing people indiscriminately, they begin entertaining the idea that their goddess is displeased with them and that perhaps the tradition is meant to be broken in this generation, but aren't sure why or what that would look like. If there isn't one victorious queen to rule over everyone, who would rule? What would happen to the established bloodline? Each of them must show courage, exercise their intelligence, and make sacrifices to find out and bring peace back to Fennbirn.

I was surprised by how much I enjoyed this series. A big part of the reason for that was the excellent world building. Kendare Blake really did an excellent job creating a world that was weird, complicated, and totally engrossing. The magic, the brutal rules and rituals, and the complex lore of Fennbirn was easy to get lost in and formed the perfect backdrop for the story. I liked the characters as well. Mirabella, Arsinoe, and Katherine all felt genuine and unique from one another. The story changes perspective between them with each chapter, and I found each perspective equally entertaining. My favorite sister out the trio changed throughout my reading as they grew and changed over the course of the story, which really shows how dynamic they all were. I also appreciated that while romantic storylines were included, they were not the sole focus of the story. Themes of family, friendship, and sacrifice were at the forefront and they were compelling. The story remained consistently interesting and everything about the books felt well-crafted.

Despite all of the good things about the series, there were a few things that I didn't enjoy as much. This series fell prey to the same thing that happens with a lot of young adult fantasy novels--the books got a little less interesting with each new installment. The first book in the series was phenomenal. I rated it five stars. I loved learning about the world and was intrigued by all the mysteries the book posed. The second and third novels were still great, but I was a little bit less engaged with them. I thought some parts dragged a bit and some of the mysteries weren't addressed in a way that was satisfying to me. I rated them four stars. The last book was the weakest of all for me. I felt like more of the story dragged here and I found myself wishing that some of the supernatural elements were a little more understandable. I rated that one three stars. I still liked it and thought it was a decent end to the series, but it wasn't my favorite. So, taken all together, I would rate the series as a whole at four stars and say that it was better than most young adult fantasies.

So ultimately, I was happy to have picked up the Three Dark Crowns series. It was well-written, dark, and very entertaining. Blake packed a surprising amount of emotion and complexity into these books, and I enjoyed my time in Fennbirn very much. I would definitely recommend this series to anyone that enjoys the young adult fantasy genre. 

Challenge Tally

Finally in 2022 - Series Edition: 34/28 - Finished!

Total Books Read in 2022: 82

Isla to Island by Alexis Castellanos

 

Isla to Island by Alexis Castellanos was the second graphic novel I read while I was on vacation at Niagra Falls. This turned out to be a good choice to read in the car, because as I discovered, there is almost no words in this one--just a whole lot of beautiful illustrations to look at. The lack of words don't diminish the story in the slightest though, and this was the perfect book to get lost in on a long road trip.

The story follows a young girl named Isla who is sent from her home in Cuba to live with an adoptive family in New York City as part of Operation Peter Pan in the 1960s. At first, Isla is desperately homesick and sad, but her foster family helps her to gradually come out of her shell. She starts attending American school and learning English, and she discovers a passion for plants and books that help fill her days. She eventually flourishes under difficult circumstances and watching her grow from a frightened little kid to a confident and intelligent young woman shows what is possible with kindness, understanding, and determination.

This book was truly phenomenal. As there are almost no written words in it, the illustrations do all of the work in getting the story across. Castellanos uses color to convey a lot of the emotions Isla experiences, with the sections where she is sad being in black and white, and color slowly creeping back in as she starts adjusting and feeling better. The art style itself is friendly and expressive. Each page was a pleasure to look at, and I often found myself pausing in my reading to appreciate the pictures further. Isla was an easy character to root for, and her adoptive parents in New York were incredibly sweet and loving. Everything about the story was heartwarming and by the time I got to the end, I was on the verge of happy tears. This book was one of those one that you can immediately tell is special.

So obviously, I absolutely loved Isla to Island. The almost wordless format and beautiful illustrations combine with the inspirational story to create a reading experience that is moving and unique. This is Castellanos' first graphic novel, and I will certainly be picking up anything else she comes out with in the future.

Challenge Tally

Middle Grade Mission: 26/24 - Finished!  

Total Books Read in 2022: 78

Anne of West Philly by Ivy Noelle Weir and Myisha Haynes

 

I went with my family on a trip to Niagra Falls a few weeks ago. It was a great trip, and the falls were definitely beautiful, but it did cut into my reading time. To make sure I got at least a little bit of reading in while I was away, I brought along some graphic novels. The first one I read was Ivy Noelle Weir and Myisha Haynes' Anne of West Philly. As you might guess from the title, this is a modernized, graphic novel retelling of Anne of Green Gables. It's the third in a series of reimagined classics for middle grades readers that have come out recently. I have already read and loved Meg, Jo, Beth, and Amy, and The Secret Garden on 81st Street, so I couldn't imagine not loving this one too. Plus, Anne of Green Gables is a story that is already near and dear to my heart, so this was the perfect blend of old and new for me. I read it in the back of the car and in our hotel room over the course of a few days, and as expected, I enjoyed it very much.

The plot follows the story of plucky orphan Anne Shirley. She is adopted by brother and sister Matthew and Marilla Cuthbert at the start of the story, and her dreamy and dramatic worldview endears her to them almost immediately. As she settles in with her new family, she has to handle hurdles like making new friends, fitting in at her school, and dealing with a pesky boy. Her exuberance and creativity get her into one scrape after another, but her winsome personality and enthusiastic spirit help her overcome them. She makes a best friend in a neighbor girl named Diana Barry and finds a passion in coding in her school's computer club. By the end of the story, she is flourishing and happy. With Matthew and Marilla's guidance she's finally found where she belongs.

This version of Anne of Green Gables had all the heart and sweetness of the original. Anne is still joyful, imaginative, and unique. Diana is still the kind of best friend kids dream of having. Matthew and Marilla are still curmudgeonly and loving in equal measure. All the classic moments from the novel are there too, but with modern twists that bring them up to date. The illustrations are also beautiful, and do a nice job of making the new setting of West Philly seem just as magical and full of possibilities as Green Gables. There's really nothing not to like about this book, and it's a wonderful way to get kids interested in a classic story.

This ended up being the perfect book to bring along on my vacation. It's easy to read, extremely sweet, and a fitting tribute to one of the best children's classics of all time. I can see myself recommending this to students over and over again. I'm really hoping that more books come out in this series in the future, as I've loved everything they've done so far. 

Challenge Tally

Middle Grade Mission: 25/24 - Finished!  

Total Books Read in 2022: 77

Sadie by Courtney Summers

 

When Courtney Summers' Sadie was published back in 2018, it got a lot of positive buzz. It seemed like everyone was reading it and everyone loved it. I, of course, wanted to give it a try as well. Obviously, I never got around to it back then, but it always stuck around in the back of my mind as a book that I really wanted to get to soon. I made it part of my 22 in 2022 Challenge this year, and I finally read it last week.

The plot of the novel switches back and forth between two characters. The first is Sadie, a teenage girl living in a small Colorado town. As the story begins, her younger sister Mattie is brutally murdered, and Sadie believes she knows who is responsible for it. She sets off on a mission of revenge to kill this person, but she ends up disappearing. The woman who has watched over the sisters since their mother abandoned them is frantic with worry and is desperate to find Sadie. She reports her missing to the police, but their investigation turns up nothing. Despairing of ever seeing Sadie again, she approaches a famous radio personality about Mattie's murder and Sadie's disappearance. Her hope is that this person talks about Sadie on the radio, he will get the public interested enough in the case to turn up some clues.

The second character is West McCray, the radio personality who agrees to look into Sadie's case. After successfully tracing the beginning of her journey, he becomes intrigued enough to launch a podcast about it. He follows her trail through several different towns and interviews many people trying to put the pieces of what happened to her together. He comes to care deeply for her and races from lead to lead, hoping to find her safe somewhere.

This novel was very good, and actually deserving of all the hype it received when it came out. The chapters alternate between Sadie and West, with Sadie's chapters consisting of her narrating her journey to find her sister's killer and West's chapters taking the form of his podcast episodes as he traces where she's been. Summers controls the flow of information beautifully between the two voices, with Sadie and West revealing bits and pieces of the story in a way that creates suspense as they come together to present a full picture of what happened for the reader. This is one of those books where the less information you know about it going in, the better, so I'm not going to reveal too much detail here. It was very well-constructed and engaging though, and well worth the read for anyone that enjoys crime stories and mysteries.

It was also very gritty and dark. The subject matter isn't easy, and what happens to the girls could be triggering to some readers. This is definitely a book for older teens and adults. This uncomfortableness made it feel very genuine and dangerous though. I was truly kept on the edge of my seat, both excited for and dreading whatever would come next. The ending was tough, but in a way that felt true to the story. I really enjoyed Sadie's character too. She suffered through a lot and certainly wasn't perfect, but her devotion to her sister and her determination to do right by her memory shone through clearly. She was very easy to root for and well developed. Overall, this was excellent, through and through.

Sadie was one of the best young adult mysteries I have read. Its unique structure and dark plot were incredibly engaging and its messages about love and family were emotionally-charged and felt genuine. I'm glad to have finally gotten around to reading this one!  

Challenge Tally

22 in 2022: 17/22

Total Books Read in 2022: 76

Year One by Nora Roberts

 

Okay folks, strap in for this one. I don't really know why I decided to purchase Year One by Nora Roberts. Roberts is not my kind of author and I really should have known better. Now, to be fair, I know this woman is extremely popular amongst her fans and she's published north of 200 novels over the span of her career. She's a huge figure in the world of romance novels and has made valuable contributions that that genre. I don't begrudge her her success at all. Clearly, she's doing something right. Her work is just generally not for me, and I fully knew that as I picked up this book in Barnes and Noble and read the back. The plot summary seemed very promising though. It wasn't a romance novel written for women of a certain age. It was a dystopian novel. There was a pandemic in it. There was magic in it. I thought that maybe, just maybe, this book might one that I would like. So, even though this was an unusual purchase for me, I decided to give it a try. This, as it would turn out, was a mistake.

I didn't realize that right away though, as the novel starts off pretty strong. It begins with a man named Ross MacLeod shooting a pheasant on his family farm in Scotland. His actions inadvertently unleash some dark magical forces and trigger a pandemic called "The Doom" that spreads like wildfire and decimates the world's population. Before a month has passed, millions have died and society has completely collapsed. It's a full on dystopia and the remaining people are doing whatever they can to survive. There are two groups who haven't fallen prey to The Doom. The first is a small percentage of regular people who have a natural immunity to it. The second group of people who are immune (and this is where the story really goes off the rails) are magic users. Magic exists in this universe, although before the illness hit, most people born with it had very limited powers or didn't even realize they were magical at all. Now, however, everyone with the capacity for magic is seeing their powers grow in leaps and bounds in the wake of the illness, and some of these newly-powerful people are turning to serve the dark forces that unleashed The Doom in the first place. A battle between good and evil is brewing, with both magical and non-magical people falling on both sides of it.

The novel follows three main groups of characters as they struggle to survive in  the post-Doom world. Some are magical and some are not. The story takes place over the course of a year and alternates between the groups as they try to find food, shelter, and safety while society continues to collapse around them. The characters that get the most attention are Max and Lana, a young couple that find out they are pregnant just as The Doom is ramping up. They are both witches (yes, really) and can do things like move objects with their minds, perform cleansing rituals when they encounter dark magic, and push people around in fights. Early in the story, we are told that their baby is going to be the person that ends up saving the world, although details on that are left hazy in this volume. You see, Year One is the first book in a trilogy, and the story is entirely focused on how humanity fares in the first year after the disaster and how these evil magical forces are gathering strength. That's it. The story ends abruptly after their baby is born and we have to continue on to book two if we want to see how the story continues.

Aside from the opening pages of the novel when the Doom was spreading and everyone was dying, I didn't like anything about this book. I usually never say this in my reviews. I generally can find a few things to like, or I can appreciate something the author was trying to do. Not so much here. The story felt poorly conceived, nothing was explained clearly to the reader, and the pacing was a disaster. The fantasy elements were so clumsily inserted that they felt like parody. The dialogue, and especially the romantic scenes, induced a level of cringe that I could feel all the way down to my toes. This was 451 pages of mind-numbing boredom punctuated by moments so (unintentionally) ridiculous that I laughed out loud. 

Let me explain some of what I mean here. First, the story itself was under-developed. We've got a clear "chosen one" trope happening, and that's asserted very early on in the story. Okay, fine. We are, however, missing a lot of details about why a "chosen one" is needed in this world. What is the evil this baby is supposed to fight against? We don't really know. Something with ravens I think. How did this evil arise? Something with a pheasant. Why did the rise of evil bring a pandemic with it? *shrug* Why did the unleashing of evil cause the magical population's abilities to increase? *blank stare* This is not an exaggeration. Nothing is explained clearly. Some of the characters think about these questions and start hypothesizing about it, but they don't know either and their theories are very vague. The vast majority of the book is just following the various characters as they wander around looting grocery stores and trying to find shelter. Occasionally, moments of horrific violence will occur too, and these moments feel out of step with the general tone of the story. Things just happen in this novel, and without having a solid base of backstory to hang this information on, it's difficult to feel the stakes behind any of it. Of course, lots of books keep details vague until deeper into a series, leaving readers with a mystery to solve as they read. That didn't feel like the case here. This felt like the missing information was just never developed. I'm sure book two goes into these questions more deeply, but the fact remains that more detail was desperately needed in this book to help the story make sense.

Next, the fantasy elements were bad. I don't have a better way to say it. There were no rules for magic in this universe, and the types of powers people had read like a Halloween roll call. As I previously mentioned, the Doom magnified people's pre-existing powers. What those powers were, though, were varied in a way that made no sense at all. Some, like Max and Lana, were witches (curiously, there is no male version of that word here - everyone's a witch). Some were elves. Some were fairies and could suddenly sprout wings and fly. Some could see the future. Some were shapeshifters. Some could communicate telepathically. Large flying monsters of unknown origin appeared. Magical babies were preternaturally intelligent. Lana's unborn fetus could give her visions and speak to her through dreams. It was too unstructured. There were no passages to lay down any kind of magic system. Even between people that had the same affiliation, like Max and Lana both being witches, there was no consistency to what their powers actually were. Their level of knowledge about their abilities was all over the map too, especially when it came to Lana. She starts off the story with barely any knowledge that she had magical capabilities, and then after a few months of wandering in the wilderness (not training or learning anything), she is instinctually able to conduct rituals to with candles and special speeches. Everything all the characters could do felt like it came out of nowhere. The story lacked fantasy-logic and relied on the least imaginative versions of fantasy stock characters. There was no sense of wonder about it.

Last, I have to mention some of the language. Everything here was cheesy, and I think that's largely Nora Roberts' style, but I couldn't get over one phrase in particular. Rather than saying two characters were kissing, she would routinely say that one had "taken the other's mouth." Something about this made my skin crawl, and it came up a good handful of times. These was another instance where she described a character as having "exotic, Asian eyes," which some editor clearly should have caught and fixed. There were lots of little things like that throughout the text that just bugged me, although those were small potatoes compared to the structural issues I found. 

So, obviously, Year One was not a win for me. I thought it had a lot of story and world-building issues. I am apparently in the minority on that opinion though, as the reviews on Goodreads for this book are pretty good. However, I do think that's mostly due to Roberts' massive fanbase. I would venture to guess that a lot of her fans (1) love her style and, by extension, everything she writes, and (2) aren't regular fantasy readers. People that are big fantasy fans and aren't already fans of Roberts, like me, will probably struggle with this one. At the very least I'm glad that I read it because now I can get it off my shelf and free up some space for books that I will hopefully like better. Every book can't be a winner, right?

Challenge Tally

Total Books Read in 2022: 75