I read this after seeing (and loving) the movie! I really enjoyed getting a fuller picture of these women's lives and the community surrounding them. (Also, I'm not here to be like "The movie changed things! It wasn't 100% accurate!" Like I totally get eliding things to make it fit into 2 hours, I'm here for it.) But it was even more impressive in the book since it maps a longer arc toward change, beginning during WWII and earlier. (Also Kevin Costner never took down that segregated bathroom sign, Katherine Johnson just started ignoring the sign.)

Anyway, a great, engaging read whether or not you saw the movie.

Also I have to say I'm not one of those people who's like, into space per se but I still really enjoyed this. If you are a person who just loves the idea of space/NASA/etc (I know you're out there), you'll probably get a +1 enjoyment from this.

I'm fully NOT the target audience of this book and I think it will be truly beloved by young sports fans. For me, it was a quick, engaging read. It's kind of a scrapbook of ~inspirational sports quotes~ and short poems and memoir-y snippets from Kwame Alexander's child/teenhood athletic endeavors. The photographs are nice, too. It's put together in a way that's easy to just devour quickly and it like, really hammers home the message that effort and practice are important and nobody is just good at things overnight. Which is a great message! But also, somehow, it doesn't feel super didactic, even though...it is in fact extremely didactic. But in a good way?!

This was like basically Fast in the Furious in space and I was pretty into it. It's prob a 3-star comic but I'm awarding a bonus star for the panel of Leia punching Han in the face.

This was just so WEIRD. I've read a lot of books (#brag) and it's hard for me to feel surprised or confused anymore, but this whole time I was just like WHAT EVEN IS THIS, WHAT IS HAPPENING???

???

It was like Tudor history + Mean Girls + Animorphs + IDK

But I was into it.

GIVE ME JULIE OF THE WEREWOLVES OR GIVE ME DEATH

http://www.frowl.org/worstbestsellers/episode-40-twilight-life-and-death/

I really enjoyed the extreme sports vampire parts of this, but the Mastermind serial killer was really :/

http://www.frowl.org/worstbestsellers/episode-66-violets-are-blue/

I enjoyed this! I probably wouldn't have picked up a book of straight-up Norse myths if it hadn't been written by Neil Gaiman, and uhh it helped me contextualize Rick Riordan's Magnus Chase series? So...there's that. IDK, it was a fun, quick read and I appreciated the flow of the myths--it's not exactly a full narrative arc but they do call back to each other in a pleasing way.

If you're like a hardcore Norse mythology fan you probably already know all this stuff but it feels like a good introduction to me. There's some ~crude humor~ but an interested teen (ie a reader of Rick Riordan's Magnus Chase books) would probably enjoy this just fine. (I mean, they'd prob enjoy it more due to the crude humor, just pointing out for parents/librarians.)

This book totally lived up to the hype for me. So moving and so deft. It really covers a lot of territory and I especially thought the teen friendships were very realistically portrayed. (A lot of drama based on Tumblr likes and unfollows, for example.) There are a LOT of moving pieces to the plot and a few things may have resolved a bit too neatly BUT I did think the more important pieces (the police/trial and the school/friendship/relationship plots) were great. And I loved Starr's family so much, and the humor mixed in with the tragic situation was great. I think this is a book that might be hard for some white readers to read but hopefully it will help understand the impact of microaggressions, institutionalized racism, etc etc. But also, like when I say stuff like that last sentence I just said, it can make books sound kind of "mediciney" and this was also just a good book to read.

PS ALSO it can be hit or miss when contemporary YA characters are real into 80s/90s stuff but I felt like her love of Fresh Prince was so great because there still aren't a lot of other shows like that. ALSO a lot of teens I know still do love Fresh Prince because that shit is TIMELESS.

A [book:Code Name Verity|11925514] prequel? Don't mind if I do! I loved the interesectionality of character layers here--gender matters, class matters, ethnicity matters, disability matters, sexuality matters (and can be flexible and explored)...and you can be a disabled woman who abled people look down on, and still look down on Irish Travelers. For example.

I wasn't as invested in the mystery element (of the tituarl pearl thief) so much as I just loved (most of) these characters. If you've liked Elizabeth Wein's other books in this series-ish thing, you'll definitely want to pick this up. It could also standalone if you like historical mysteries.

One note: I read this from an e-arc and I *think* there was a formatting error, in that it kept repeating a few scenes? Like some of it I got was due to her memory loss and things coming back to her but there were a few repeats that didn't seem to make sense. (Also they were in different font.) I'll skim through a finished copy when it comes out and see about that. It wasn't a huge deal but it was a little confusing?

I'd been meaning to read this for awhile, since it was repeatedly hyped on Jay & Miles X-Plain the X-Men and it sounded up my alley. It was intended as a kind of entry-point into the X-Men, which I don't exactly need at this point, but it was a fun, sweet story that reminded me of a lot of stuff I like about the X-Men. Also, I don't always notice art in comics (SORRY) but Jamie McKelvie is really terrific and there are a lot of panels that are just really made by facial expressions here. I'll co-sign their recommendation of this as a starting point for X-Men comics, but also just a nice standalone read.