Take a photo of a barcode or cover
challenging
emotional
medium-paced
Ugh, extreme Christians, amirite? Tia grew up in a church where the man is the head of the household, even if he's a violent alcoholic whose intelligence is far inferior to that of his wife. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
As Tia begins the story, despite being creative and intelligent, she's buying everything the church is selling and puts maybe too much faith in the church's teachings. She marries a man whom her priest deems her incompatible, but she thinks love can conquer all. She works hard at it, and bears five children. The family moves around from state to state, town to town, and church to church. Somehow Tia survives many tribulations, as do her kids (as far as we know--no tell-all books from them yet).
Hooray for Tia for getting through it and having the fortitude to tell her story. I wish her and her kids the best!
As Tia begins the story, despite being creative and intelligent, she's buying everything the church is selling and puts maybe too much faith in the church's teachings. She marries a man whom her priest deems her incompatible, but she thinks love can conquer all. She works hard at it, and bears five children. The family moves around from state to state, town to town, and church to church. Somehow Tia survives many tribulations, as do her kids (as far as we know--no tell-all books from them yet).
Hooray for Tia for getting through it and having the fortitude to tell her story. I wish her and her kids the best!
hopeful
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Nasrin is a first year student at NYU--hooray! But, depending on who you ask, she's in the wrong school. Or maybe not, since her parents think she's at Stern, not Tisch. The actor-singer-dancer makes fast friends with recovering child star Beckett, whose new role is Gay Best Friend. Caught up in her lying to the parents and acting in a web musical, Nasrin falls easily into the trope of neglecting the people she cares about. It's a good enough story; maybe I'm just in a bad mood while writing this!
adventurous
challenging
dark
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
Yes
Given current events, a book about fighting Nazis has a lot of appeal, even more so when the resistance comprises witches and the witch-adjacent. It's a fine read, but maybe not quite as compelling as I'd hoped? The love story doesn't add anything, and not just because it's a heterosexual couple. The question of fighting fairly is an interesting one, again, because of current circumstances. I highlighted this exchange
"It's dark magic. Evil. We don't do that sort of thing." Lydia didn't look entirely convinced by her own argument.
"It would save lives."
"It would end lives, that's what it does."
Rebecca was quiet for a long time. "They would do it to us."
"We're not like them."
"Maybe we should be."
Lydia turned, surprised. "You don't mean that."
"I do, actually."
Lydia stared. "I don't think you know what you're suggesting."
Rebecca was suddenly furious with this stupid, naive Englishwoman, lecturing her on morality with such
confidence. "You know what I think? I think you've only heard about war on the BBC. You've never seen it up close. You have no idea what it's really like here."
SIGH. Fighting a war against people with no morality (but supposedly fighting in the name of morality?) is confusing. How do you win when logic and honor do not exist???
Slayers, Every One of Us: How One Girl in All the World Showed Us How to Hold On
Jenny Owen Youngs, Kristin Russo
emotional
funny
fast-paced
Buffering the Vampire Slayer was a podcast by a couple who decoupled during the podcast's run, but being lesbians, not only did the couple remain friends, they kept the podcast going. Their story is funny, sweet, and reflective. Knowing Buffy lore probably helps, but I imagine you could enjoy the book without it. Definitely listen to the book so you can hear the songs!
inspiring
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Libby snatched this book back before I could grab any of my highlights, so I'm trying to write this from memory. Basically, it's a girl (and one boy and one nonbinary kid) gang story where the wronged unite to take back the night from popular boy (and SAer) Luis Ortega. Most of Luis's targets had not previously been friends, or even had a lot of friends, so this is a story of learning to trust, work together, and to enjoy having homies. The love stories aren't the focus, but they do exist (including in a we're-here-we're-queer kind of way).
emotional
hopeful
medium-paced
I swear Christianity and other religions should have warning labels like cigarettes do. Joy Lenz grew up Christian and then found her way into a culty lil Christian sect that more or less worshiped some dude who was a creep and had creepy sons, one of whom Joy marries .
The story mostly centers on Lenz's acting and singing career and how it took second place to a gross cult leader who cooked meat badly. If you can handle the outrage, it's a solid listen (read). It made me start watching One Tree Hill again lol.
The story mostly centers on Lenz's acting and singing career and how it took second place to a gross cult leader who cooked meat badly. If you can handle the outrage, it's a solid listen (read). It made me start watching One Tree Hill again lol.
adventurous
funny
informative
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Before we even get into his novel, Lukoff gives us a twist on the tragically trans narrative, quoting fellow trans fiction writer Julian J. Jarboe.
God blessed me by making me transsexual for the same reason he made wheat but not bread and fruit but not wine: because he wants humanity to share in the act of creation.
14-year-old protagonist A (chose name still to be chosen) isn't self-hating, nor are his friends, despite how their bodies and lives are controlled by their parents who drag them to a group called Save Our Sons and Daughters SOSAD. SOSAD has ties to a conversion therapy establishment. While A and his buddies aren't self-hating, that doesn't mean they aren't as depressed, desperate, and suicidal as trans kids are all over the US.
After their friend Yarrow is sent for conversion, A and Sal, a 16-year-old trans girl
At first I thought she hated me, but I soon found out that she hated everything. She was a useful person to be friends with despite--or because of--that. ''
(Kyle is so funny and clever, isn't he? That description of Sal and A's reaction to it are so relatable.)
(Here's where I should disclaim that I am friendquaintances with Kyle and jokingly think of myself as his biographer because I wrote his Wikipedia entry)
A is so upset about Yarrow's disappearance that he tries to find Yarrow by going to Yarrow's house (Yarrow is a no-pronouns/use-my-name person). He almost gets caught by Yarrow's dad and is saved by a sudden wind chucking trash at Yarrow's dad. It turns out that wind is a golem-identified supernatural force that is in Seattle specifically to help A Save the World. (Here's where I understand and possibly disagree with the book's title, A World Worth Saving. Is this world worth saving? Especially the US?) Anyway, A is skeptical about the golem and his role in any kind of world saving struggle.
"Perhaps I am here because you are a trans 14-year-old who has already claimed the right to name himself. You are in the midst of your own creation, which gives you strength beyond imagining. And like the twilight, like the shore, like every littoral edge, one in the process of becoming is imbued with holiness."
That's kind of an incredible take on times of struggle and transition, isn't it, especially in the context of young teenhood, which I'd call the hardest life stage I've experienced so far. I suspect the only time that will be harder is the end of life transition--going from knowing to not knowing, self-control to dependence, etc.
Having been Chosen (kind of like many Jewish people consider themselves to be--I think there are some anti-Zionist themes in the book), A fancies himself special, a hero, a person who has sidekicks. His relationship with Sal, his partner in being a teen runaway, does not benefit from this attitude, and A finds himself alone. While there is a theme of good vs. evil in the novel, the main thrust of the hero's struggle isn't about his own tribulations, or it is in that A learns he cannot save the world on his own. And he has to listen. A talks to Sal about vanquishing Joanna from SOSAD and saving Yarrow.
"Don't you wish you could do something about it?"
Sal drummed her fists on her legs. "I don't want to do anything like that. I just want...I dunno. An apartment and a girlfriend, and for people to look at me and be like 'wow, what a cute lesbian.' I'm pro 'be gay do crime,' but right now being myself feels like crime enough."
A's take on "be day do crime"
"I'm only breaking your toys. I haven't even touched you!" I reminded him gleefully. "If that's your definition of violence, then you're a pretty lucky guy. Anyway, I can't change your mind by being nice, so now I don't care! And it's fun to smash things! So I'm going to do that for a while! Self-care, you know?"
Maybe I've already given away too much. The main thing is that A and Sal and their friends are fighting evil, which takes the shape of transphobia and bigotry. If they fight together, they might just make the world a better place, at least a little. Making the world better is more mitzvah than mandate, but everyone needs to at least try.
Also, it's wild how rare it feels to read a book where Jewish rituals and mythology are legible, even dominant the way Christianity typically is. (I remember a scene in the 1979 vampire romantic comedy where Richard Benjamin tries to stop George Hamilton's Dracula, but he pulls out a Star of David instead of a cross, and it does nothing.)
tense
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
It took me a minute to get into this book. I even thought of giving up on it, but in the end, I really liked it. The story is about a teenage girl, Honor, who grew up in a reality show family, the Los. She's got a twin, Atticus, a sister Skye, who is close to their age, and two older siblings, whose names I forget.
The rest of the kids, and their separated parents are all Personalities, like they're still doing the reality thing even though the show ended years ago. Even though Honor isn't an influencer or anything, her family comes first. She previously had friends, but it turns out one of her besties--she doesn't know which one--gave a painful story to People magazine. After Skye gets sick, the family rallies around her, at college in Texas, and no one is more impacted than Honor. Until she learns something awful that makes her have to make an awful choice.
From another kid with family woes
The rest of the kids, and their separated parents are all Personalities, like they're still doing the reality thing even though the show ended years ago. Even though Honor isn't an influencer or anything, her family comes first. She previously had friends, but it turns out one of her besties--she doesn't know which one--gave a painful story to People magazine. After Skye gets sick, the family rallies around her, at college in Texas, and no one is more impacted than Honor. Until she learns something awful that makes her have to make an awful choice.
From another kid with family woes
"We're suck small specks in the universe. A hundred years from now it'll be like we never dated."
I think thoughts like that all the time. This moment is so intense, but it's also...such a speck.
dark
fast-paced
This scholarly bio of three Dutch resistance fighters isn't particularly well written. It falls into the academic trap of including extraneous information just because the primary sources bore them out. Still, it's a fast read and provides a coda that I hadn't heard before--that the three women, one who gave her life to the struggle and two who had PTSD for the rest of their lives--were not properly honored for their work because they were (gasp!) communists.
Some really good quotes that resonate especially hard as we naviaget the rise of fascism in America.
Some really good quotes that resonate especially hard as we naviaget the rise of fascism in America.
The majority of the Dutch population, an estimated 90 percent, tried to continue to live their lives as normal as possible. Listening to the illegal radio station "Radio Oranje" and reading illegal newspapers were forms of passive resistance that most people related to.
...
The remaining 5 percent of the Dutch population were engaged in active resistance. This form of resistance consisted of printing and/or distributing illegal newspapers, helping people in hiding, collecting information for the government that fled to London or committing acts of sabotage.
...
After February 6, 1943, every student had to sign a "declaration of loyalty" declaring "to observe the laws and regulations in force to the best of their knowledge and belief and to refrain from any action directed against the German Empire.
...
Throughout the Netherlands, more than 85 percent of students refused to sign the declaration. As a result, university life was put almost entirely on hold. Lectures and exams were still given, although illegally, in special places.
...
The Germans have always denied that they had anything to do with [ordering the execution of Hannie Schaft], and, according to them, the Dutch were involved. It is suspected -- and [resistance fighter] Truus [Oversteegen] was reasonably convinced of this--that the communist hunt from London had something to do with it, not so much the specific order to execute Hannie, but to defuse the political left in general.
DEPRESSING