Witches are known to the general population, but not a lot is known about them, and they're not necessarily widely trust. Budding ornithologist Pike Alder isn't a fan of witches. He's interning on a nature preserve, not knowing that the owners, Isobel, and her daughter Iris are witches. Iris finds Pike as repugnant and Pike does witches and every other damn thing he's always sneering at. He's an unpleasant person. Unfortunately, a combination of bad things sends the two up a mountain to bring back a rare owl, and things happen.

Supposedly the print volume is 320 pages, but my Bluefire galley is only 215--on my phone, so I'm wondering how big the type is. Wild feels like a short story or novella rather than a fleshed out novel. I wish I could say why. The protags--Iris is the narrator--despite having strong back stories, don't feel multidimensional.

Griffin does offer a good take on grief, though: "...don't grieve that he's gone," Pike says. "Grieve that he turned out to be such an asshole."

DNF due to lazy, selfish protagonist

Despite the hypervisibility of being raised by white parents, among white siblings, in a white town, with access to her white birth mother, Rebecca is, in some ways, invisible. No one can see, much less relate to, how she is treated or experiences the world. Despite being alt-culture hippie types with actual Black friends, her parents don't seem to see race or make an effort to acculturate their daughter with Blackness. Feeling isolated in her ultrawhite town, Rebecca becomes closer with her birth mother, Tess, who lives in a New Hampshire city. Tess, because she has had romantic relationships with men of color, and because her kids are of color, is an expert on Blackness, informing Rebecca that she, herself, is not authentically Black. Yet somehow Rebecca is in Tess's thrall.

As she gets older, Rebecca eventually meets, befriends, and dates other Black people and becomes interested and gains expertise in popular Black culture, literature, and history, but it takes a long time for her to stop trying to please Tess and her parents' versions of her and her reality.

The book is a struggle in some ways, like living it was for the author, and, spoiler, good people aren't always good parents.

Sara Crewe, Mary Lennox, and Cedric Errol meet at Miss Minchin's Select Seminary in a mashup of [b:A Little Princess|3008|A Little Princess|Frances Hodgson Burnett|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1327868556l/3008._SY75_.jpg|1313599], [b:The Secret Garden|2998|The Secret Garden|Frances Hodgson Burnett|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1327873635l/2998._SY75_.jpg|3186437], and [b:Little Lord Fauntleroy|275247|Little Lord Fauntleroy|Frances Hodgson Burnett|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1386745618l/275247._SY75_.jpg|1085162], all by [a:Frances Hodgson Burnett|2041|Frances Hodgson Burnett|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1197934848p2/2041.jpg]. Stories are altered and combined, as needed to accommodate the entwinement. Sara is from the Philippines, not India, and her mother is Filipino, ergo Sara is brown skinned, which makes her even less popular at school. She does retain her brilliance, kindness, and general perfection. Mary, still contrary is no better liked by Miss Minchin, but just like her Secret Garden persona, doesn't give a fuck. Cedric is the most changed. He is a good, kind, sweetheart, but his body is that of Colin Craven, rather than that of the Fauntleroy in the eponymous novel.

It's a clever concept, but in practice is a little tedious.

I read this as a follow up to [b:A Secret Princess|59116396|A Secret Princess|Margaret Stohl|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1632945346l/59116396._SY75_.jpg|93218067]. I was super familiar with the other two novels in the mashup, but either hadn't read or hadn't remembered Little Lord Fauntelroy. I can't tell if it's a children's book or not because it was a slow read. The little lord is an American kid, whose English dad, a well-born third-born, died out of favor with his own father, the gouty Earl of Dorincourt. Shit happens to the heir and the spare, and Cedrid gets The Call. He doesn't know what to make of it, but he's most perfect little seven-year-old angel child you've ever heard of. He and his mother, whom he calls Dearest, make their way to England and the cranky nobleman. Will they or won't they win him over with their goodness?

It's frustrating that bisexual novels typically require a him vs. her trope. I guess there's no avoiding it, and Adler does her best to make the love triangle about the protagonist, not about the virtues of the boy or the girl she might love. When we meet her, Larissa is returning from spending the summer before her senior year of high school in a wealthy beach town because of her mother's job as assistant to a rich guy. The rich guy has a daughter, Jasmine, who it turns out is the perfect YA girlfriend.

The narrative alternates between the past and the present, and in the present, Larissa's longtime crush, Chase (a perfect YA boyfriend) finally notices her on the first day of school. Something else happens that day...Jasmine shows up unexpectedly, and internal drama ensues.

Narrator Scottie is an out lesbian varsity basketball player whose ex, Tally, broke up with her when she transferred to a private school with a better athletic program. Soccer is the only girls' sport with any traction at Scottie's high school, and the soccer star player, Charlotte, is a total b about it. meanwhile the cheerleaders, headed by Irene, think they're also athletes, which Scottie thinks is laughable. She particularly hates Irene, who once had Scottie's car towed in retaliation for Scottie accidentally spilling red wine on Irene's outfit. Speaking of accidents, neither girl giving driving her full attention leads to a parking lot fender bender and the girls' mothers arranging for Scottie to give Irene rides to school while her car is getting repaired.

Somehow their carpool leads to a fake-dating scheme (to make Tally jealous on Scottie's end and to pay for her car insurance deductible on Scottie's). It's a fine story with imperfect characters and lovable best friends.

Dial A is a cinematic read; it was no surprise to learn from the acknowledgments that it's going to be a Netflix movie. Or at least it was going to be? I'm not seeing much about it in 2022. Anyway, the aunties are Meddy's Indo-Chinese mother's sisters: two older and one younger. Big Aunt is a baker, Second Aunt does hair and makeup, Ma is a florist, Fourth Aunt is the entertainment, and Meddy is the photographer in the family wedding business (Don't Leave Anything to Chance; Leave it to the Chans or something like that).

The aunties and Meddy's mom are intrusive and loving, bickersome, and have their own moral code and expectations. They are always available in a crisis, even if a bit of cat-herding is required to keep them focused. The crisis helpline is invoked when Meddy involuntarily manslaughters (my legal hot take) her date/would-be rapist and rather than leave him by the side of the road, throws him in her trunk and brings him home to her mother, who immediately calls her sisters. Ma serves everyone mangoes before they get down to the business of determining what to do with the body because you can't have people over and not feed them!

I appreciated that while Meddy does have her frustrations with her mother and Aunts and laughs at their stereotypical Asian/immigrant-parent priorities, this isn't as much of a 1.5-generation problems novel as it might be. Meddy likes and loves her aunty posse; she doesn't seem to feel oppressed by them. Her sense of obligation is a struggle sometimes, but an internal one.

This was the second fake-dating book I read this week. I was a little wary, but the story didn't play out in the entirely typical way.

The titular fake-daters are Bengali girls in a monochromatic town in Ireland. Hani is BFFs with the popular girls and Ishu is satisfied with her nerdy pursuits. Ishu is in competition with her older sister (who is in medical school) to be the perfect daughter to her exacting parents. Hani's parents are more chill and know that Hani is bisexual. Unfortunately Hani's friends (Aisling and Dee) aren't as accepting of her sexuality. To prove that she's queer, she accidentally outs Ishu by claiming to be dating her.

It turns out Ishu is queer and surprisingly amenable to the fake-dating scheme, for her own reasons. Throughout, the girls learn about themselves, each other, Ishu's family, and Hani's douchey friends.

Angyal's take on what ballet needs to do to survive (basically racial justice, body affirming feminism) is absorbing and the right mix of citation-supported lay language, insider knowledge, and we-criticize-because-we-care-but-power-wielding-predators-fuck-off.

Chapter 1: The Hidden Curriculum has important lessons for pedagogy over all.

It's from the hidden curriculum, whether in biology class or ballet class, that students absorb assumptions, norms, and values. ... Students learn the ideal ballet dancer is silent, observant, and obedient. They also learn that she is white: the pink tights that almost every American girl is required to wear to ballet class were originally designed to mimic the color of white women's skin, and today, girls wear them with matching pink slippers.

Chapter 5: The Unbearable Whiteness of Ballet observes

As underrepresented as racial and ethnic minorities are in front of the curtain, they are even less likely to hold administrative and artistic power. If ballet is to survive, it will need Black and brown and Asian American ballet masters and mistresses, repetiteurs, choreographers, composers, costume designers, set designers, and most crucially, artistic directors.

That she lists set designers and not lighting designers when the latter is more important in dance, is troubling to me, but I forgive her for turning me onto the gleefully snarky Models Doing Ballet on Instagram.