This is a really moving as a work of art but a little hard to know what to do with as a book. It's an illustrated adaptation of an open letter to the police written by Jonnie when she was 14. The letter went rightly viral online, and it's beautifully written and moving but it is also...a letter, so it's very short. Might work in a classroom setting or to spark discussions?

this FUCKING guy

https://www.frowl.org/worstbestsellers/episode-195-get-out-of-your-own-way/

Read this for book club. It was a quick, whimsical read. I actually haven't read any of the Oz books so I'm not sure how this compares to the prose. I could see it being a fun bedtime read for a younger kid. I'm kind of obsessed with the abrupt rude ending where

Spoiler

after all that, Zixi doesn't even get her wish just because fairies don't like witches lollllll

ok I see a lot of folks are mad at this book for its ~unlikeable woman protagonist~ and honestly I liked Charlie a lot. i love a messy magic-user.

HOWEVER I confess I was a lil disappointed in this book for other reasons. I LOVE [b:White Cat|6087756|White Cat (Curse Workers, #1)|Holly Black|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1358274572l/6087756._SY75_.jpg|6264661] and the rest of the Curse-Workers trilogy so much, and I've spent years hoping HB would write something else like it again--a contemporary urban fantasy crime story. Which is what Book of Night is, yay! BUT, I've re-read White Cat multiple times and each time I am so impressed by how smooth the world-building is and how clearly it establishes the world's rules of magic (so that you can be impressed when Cassel breaks them). That is...not the case with Book of Night, unfortunately, which was disappointing. I feel like the basic shadow magic idea is cool and there could be a really rad book with this premise, but this one feels like it needed another pass from an editor or something.

I still thought it was a fine read but just like...not as good as White Cat sadly!!!

I haven't read a ton of historical romance novels, and I'm like the only person who didn't LOVE Hall's book [b:Boyfriend Material|50225678|Boyfriend Material (Boyfriend Material, #1)|Alexis Hall|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1575987260l/50225678._SX50_.jpg|73590298], but I gave this a chance anyway and had a delightful time with it. (maybe because it was for a historical era that I'm not super familar with, I was more willing to be like "sure that seems legit" than I was for a contemporary story like Boyfriend Material where I kept being like "sorry what planet is this")? Very charming, good for them, would read a followup book about

Spoiler

Mira's future lady loves

!!!

this was a really sweet read! It was also a really frustrating reminder to me that I'm an adult and YA books are for teens. Like when Noah gets his credit card cut off because of spending too much money on Ubers instead of walking?? I was like NOAH that card was for EMERGENCIES you KNOW your family is having a hard time financially right now!!! Like I too had an emergency credit card as a teen that I don't think I ever used bc I wasn't sure what would constitute an EMERGENCY and I didn't want to get in TROUBLE.

Anyway that stuff is like a minor part of the book but it really had me clutchin my pearls. This does not reflect the quality of the book it just reflects what kind of teen I was.

The romance is sweet here and I like that it also doubles as a kind of Intro to Pronoun Etiquette that I think a lot of teens will find helpful/validating to read.

ok like the reporting here is great and I respect the work Carreyrou (and the brave whistleblowers!) did to bring this fucked up story to light. But I think for me at this point in time, like, this was really more information than I personally required. And the audiobook narrator is...fine, but not really enhancing this.

I think at this point in time I would have been better off watching one of the TV adaptations (somehow I haven't watched any of them yet) and/or just some articles, maybe a podcast. Readers who are more interested in the scientific nitty gritty of how Theranos was supposed to work/why it didn't would likely get more out of this but I was like...whatever, she's a scammer, I get it.

I read and lovedddd this as a kid. In my memory it was mainly a book about psychically communicating with dolphins? I forgot about all the really lovely grief stuff, and I definitely forgot about the sub-lovely love square between a 15-year-old girl and 20-, 19-, and 17-year old boys?? oh well it was the 80s, what can you do.

https://www.frowl.org/worstbestsellers/episode-196-a-ring-of-endless-light

hmm sooo I didn't like this as much as [b:When You Trap a Tiger|44901877|When You Trap a Tiger|Tae Keller|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1561618498l/44901877._SY75_.jpg|69558825]. but, I LOVED When you Trap a Tiger. And also I still definitely ugly cried at this and I think the specific middle school girl dynamics it captures are so true and so important, both in fairly universal ways as well as calling out specific anti-Asian microaggressions.

But I'm knocking off a star for pacing/structure because I think the extremely delayed reveal of The Incident was...too much? Too delayed? It was distracting. But still really strong realistic middle grade novel with BIG FEELINGS.

This has a lottt of elements that are similar to Harry Potter in a way that I think some readers might call out as derivative but like JKR didn't invent them either and also it's great to have those tropes/elements in a book about a cool Black girl that wasn't written by a TERF so hell yeah Amari keep on keepin on