"People want to see you fail," he would tell me before every big match. "People think you don't deserve it. People don't think you are worth it. Everybody wants you to get punked. Prove everybody wrong."
For some, that would have been just an idle pep talk. But to me, it was real. Nobody really thought a poor kid with borrowed shoes
and a torn singlet deserved to be among the best wrestlers in the country. From the very beginning, this lack of faith was my fuel.

Amazing story about spirit and determination.

This book was already too bland for me. Nothing overly special or compelling. 

A more difficult, somber read for a good portion of it, considering it was dealing with children. I wasn't as emphatic (is emphatic even an appropriate word to use to describe reading a murder mystery?) during this one, but holy shit, Stacy Willingham has done it again. All the Dangerous Things is a brilliant psychological thriller meets murder mystery. There hasn't been a book by her that didn't thoroughly impress me, yet. 

Another cute one!

I just couldn't get into it, sadly, because it looks so promising. 

This just feels like something my mother would read and enjoy. Not exactly for me, at least not now. Maybe I'll try again another time...

**I tried again to read this only a few days after I wanted to give up, and gave up again. So horribly boring and mundane. 

My first immediate critique of Heroine was how fast Mickey went from normal girl -  aside from being adopted, which obviously is alluding to her addiction being genetic - to addict, or rather addicted enough to buy pills off some random lady she met in her pediatrician's office. I understand how fast that progression is, but in terms of a highschool student just beginning to grapple with the perils of opioid addiction, it doesn't feel realistic. There was no buildup to it, I felt like as a reader I was dropped in to the middle of a story, instead of having an established background, etc. Despite this, Heroine does improve, continuing steadfast with Mickey's worsening addiction. Something notable is that McGinnis doesn't try to portray this in a warped poetic way like most novels in this niche do - McGinnis depicts it just the way it is. She's blunt, and straightforward. It made it way easier to digest that Mickey's use of illicit substances wasn't described something like "heroin is a silver serpent, coiling through veins with promises of peace, yet leaving only shadows and a quiet, endless hunger." It was more like, "she shot up and nodded out, and woke up groggy and irritable the next day." Heroine is not notable in a "healing" way. Heroine is notable in that it is raw, and real, showing the hard truths and grim outcomes of drug addiction, especially so young. 

Another stunning read to start off 2025. Not even halfway through January, and A Heart in a Body in the World is the third book so far that managed to leave me jaw dropped, heartbroken, breathless...you name it. If you've been through *any* kind of trauma as a woman, you'll enjoy this novel. It follows Annabelle on an emotional and physical journey as she processes her experience of gun violence, and stews with grief, guilt, and loss. Deb Caletti's unique stream-of-consciousness and omniscient narration makes the story that much more invigorating. 

Unfortunately, this book just wasn't for me. I couldn't sit through 300 more pages of something i genuinely wasn't enjoying. 

Beautiful illustrations and the perfect story for a child with divorcing parents.