That's the set up that places Alex at the Texas statehouse in the summer of 2013 as the Senate debated HB2, a now largely-forgotten attempt to restrict abortion access. The events are a matter of public record and the book sticks largely to the facts of the case (the author was a journalist covering the protests) so the plot is less important than the story, which tracks Alex's evolution from an apolitical and apathetic young man to a committed activist. By the end of the story, his personal issues that form such a central role in his life largely fade away in comparison to his investment in the eventual outcome of Wendy Davis's historic filibuster. Of course, a few years later the repeal of Roe v Wade would largely overtake the now seemingly small fry of that debate, so the novel is really less about any historic achievement than it is about how the events impacted Alex's life. And that proves to be a surprisingly satisfying read.
Saturday, November 25, 2023
The Fight for Midnight, by Dan Solomon
Friday, November 24, 2023
The Secret Sisters, by Avi
A good historical novel for young readers that exposes readers to a variety of issues including women's enfranchisement (and the reaction against it), classism, and rural poverty. Ida's stubbornness is touted as far more of a virtue than it probably is, but the book's allegiance to standing up for your beliefs at all costs is unequivocally clear. A fast paced and enjoyable read.
Thursday, November 23, 2023
Rosie Loves Jack, by Mel Darbon
She figures out a plan and runs away from home. At first, everything goes well, but when winter storms cancel the trains, Rose has to navigate the not-so-nice streets of London. But she persists because she absolutely needs to get to Jack.
Told in Rose's voice, Darbon does an outstanding job of portraying a confusing and often threatening world as seen through the eyes of her young neurodivergent protagonist. That's a real challenge and Darbon is clever in her way of depicting Rose's fine observational skills with in the bounds of her challenges at communication. Some of the scenes in the book are downright terrifying, but the book avoids gratuitous melodrama in their depiction. Rose herself shows inspiring fortitude and strength throughout but in a way which respects the challenges she experiences in her life.
Tuesday, November 21, 2023
Down Came the Rain, by Jennifer Mathieu
Eliza comes from a well-off family, but that didn't protect them from the flood waters and they have been forced to move in with other family while their house is rebuilt. Meanwhile, the flooding of her school means that she will now be taking classes at a neighboring high school, where the students are traditionally disadvantaged.
Eliza, who has been concerned with climate change for some time, sees Harvey are a warning that she must work harder to reverse the damage, knowing that it may be too late. She decides to take action and puts together a club to educate her fellow students and promote more sustainable practices at school.
Javier was much luckier. There wasn't any damage at his place, which is good since his family would never have been able to afford to rebuild, but the hurricane still has left its mark. Whenever it rains now, Javier gets frightened and curls up into a ball. He's falling apart but doesn't understand why. Into his world (and his high school) comes Eliza and her club seems the perfect antidote for what is causing his fears. It doesn't hurt that he finds Eliza inspiring and attractive.
While the club's efforts promise lots of positive changes, Eliza becomes frustrated at her inability to speed up the changes that she knows the world needs. She loses her perspective, causing her to commit a terrible error that could well ruin both of their lives and derail their goals.
While at times preachy, the story is an entertaining and engaging young teen book about climate change anxiety. It also takes on classism and racism, but not in any particularly new way. For me, the most notable thing was the effort that Mathieu put in to showing adults struggling with the aftermath of the hurricane as well. The teachers, in particular, were much more fleshed out as people than they commonly are (naturally enough, as the author is a school teacher). This carried over to a really nice depiction of the troubled relationship between Eliza and her Dad. It wasn't so much that the adults were the subject, but it was nice to give them a little depth and show that it wasn't only the kids who were hurt.
Monday, November 20, 2023
The Language of Cherries, by Jen Marie Hawkins
Oskar has every reason to despise Americans. It was an American tourist who caused the accident where his family were killed. Five years later, Oskar hasn't been able to get over the loss and it has afflicted him with a stutter that he self-medicates with marijuana. But despite her nationality, there's something about Evie that draws him close: her paintings. She has somehow drawn pictures of his family and of events from his childhood that she could not possibly have known about. He is obsessed with finding out why.
Embarrassed by his speech problems, he stays mute around her and she in turn misinterprets this as a language barrier. Liberated by the idea that he can't understand her, she opens up and freely confesses her innermost thoughts -- her anger at her mother, her longing for her Abuela back in Miami, and her loneliness. The more she confides, the more Oskar realizes he can't continue to let this go on. He needs to come clean, but worries about what will happen when she learns the truth.
An extremely slow-paced and lyrical work full of unusual eclectic elements: Evie's Cuban heritage, Oskar's exotic mix of taciturn Scandinavian and pagan Scots, and touches of magic through the cherry trees. The blurbs describe this as magical realism, but it isn't really that grandiose. Instead, this is more a subtle supernatural element that enlivens but doesn't distract. The characters are all quite memorable, but it is more of a study than a story. The plot alludes to whole slew of plot points (e.g., forgiveness, mother-daughter conflict, intergenerational understanding, and coming of age) but the book is more of a mood piece and there's very little development.
Sunday, November 19, 2023
Lola at Last, by J C Peterson
It's very rough going. Lola is a mean girl and a terrible snob. Unaccustomed to having to face consequences or take responsibility for herself, she's singularly unprepared for hiking nature trails. So, she stumbles from one bad move to another, alienating everyone around her until she has no one left. Forced to finally owns up to her situation, she manages to navigate her redemption. Part of that involves shedding her toxic former friends and ex-boyfriend and finding new (and healthier) relationships. Reconciling with her twin sister is also part of the equation.
Loosely based on Pride and Prejudice, this book is lively and quick reading. I imagine that for fans of the original, the story will be seen as amusing and clever. For myself, I found Lola too grating, nasty, and unsympathetic to ever really engage with. Lydia Bennet worked as a character because of the time period in which she was living, but in the contemporary world a vain young woman who delights in knocking others down really don't succeed. That Lola wins the nice boy and learns how to make a sincere apology in the end is not enough -- modern society has much higher expectations for young women. Were I to meet Lola IRL, I would almost certainly dislike her and I would never trust her.
Saturday, November 18, 2023
The Spirit Bares Its Teeth, by Andrew Joseph White
That's when things start getting very scary. Silas quickly notices that the Veil is particularly thin around the school, a sign of unsettled spirits. The Headmaster, it turns out, collects souvenir trophies of the people he's killed and their desecration haunts the place. But there is deeper evil afoot. The students at the school are disappearing in particularly gruesome ways -- through medical experiments conducted in the basement. But by the time Silas uncovers the full extent of the horror (and the widespread involvement of the men around her) it may be too late to do anything about it.
Beyond the extremely graphic depictions of eviscerations, involuntary surgeries (without anesthesia), and lots of blood, triggers in this novel include rape, molestation, bullying, and self-harm. In other words, there's an awful lot of difficult material to digest here. Personally, I found that I needed to take breaks (particularly in the second half of the book where the scenes become notably more intense).
So, why read it at all? Despite being a painful story, I found it compelling because it is very well written and because much of the tortures described in the book are based on the real abuses committed by the medical profession in the period. It is a work of fiction, but raises many uneasy questions about how we define abnormality and deviance. Fans of Michel Foucault's Discipline and Punish will be in their element. Readers with sensitive feels should almost certainly avoid this book.
Sunday, November 12, 2023
Actually Super, by Adi Alsaid
Ostensibly a spectacular road trip, this fascinating spiritual work about what ultimately makes us good and bad is a strikingly original work. I was drawn in by Isabel's grasping for meaning and value in a world that has grown so cynical and distrustful of such searches. When I was growing up, there were a number of popular novels that combined good storytelling with philosophical exploration -- where a fantastic journey led to enlightenment (Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, The World According to Garp, and Illusions amongst others) but that style of novel writing has largely fallen out of fashion. Alsaid, whose previous work (Before Takeoff) was about the Rapture taking place at Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport, is a bold enough writer to dust off this old form.
The result is a book that, while set in the current day, becomes timeless in its universal search for meaning. It could not occur at a better time. We know that the past few years have been particularly hard on the mental health of young people. In our age full of cynical politics, climate change, pandemic lockdowns, and short attention spans, Actually Super speaks to recapturing meaning and appreciating the small kindness that we can all do -- the ways we can all become superheroes. A book like this calls on the reader to set aside the harmful messages and look for goodness instead in the little things that make us so similar to each other all around the world. It's an inspiration and an unforgettable read.
Thursday, November 09, 2023
Reggie and Delilah's Year of Falling, by Elise Bryant
Sunday, November 05, 2023
Out of Character, by Jenna Miller
It's not that she's particularly unpopular (her boyfriend -- before she decided that she was a lesbian -- is the school's quarterback and her best friend is one of his teammates), but that roleplaying allows her to escape from her real world problems. Over the years, she has developed close bonds with the other players and feels closer to them than to her real life friends.
In the real world, however, no one knows about these activities. All that time online is hurting her grades, but her father just assumes that the problems at school are due to her Mom. Cass is afraid to let him know what is really happening for fear that he'll cut her off and she'll lose the only support she feels that she has. Meanwhile, she's hidden this geekier side of herself from her friends, for fear of their judgment of her.
When Taylor, a girl at school, on whom Cass has long had a crush, asks her out, Cass jumps at the opportunity. Things grow complicated balancing the new romance with her secret online life. While she freely tells the girls in her group about Taylor, she can't bring herself to Taylor about them. More awkwardly, Cass discovers that she has feelings for a girl in the group and must decide whether she would rather be with this girl or with Taylor.
Cass has some serious of character flaws that make her pretty hard to like. While she cleans up her act by the end, the way she treats her friends (and Taylor in particular) is pretty reprehensible. There were definitely points where I was tempted to put the book down. The whole lying-to-your-friends thing never ends well (especially in novels) and watching this train wreck unfold over the first 250 pages is pretty painful. So, a lot is riding on those last 100 pages! Cass redeems herself by being strong and communicative, and her ability to own her faults and (largely) address them.
On the other hand, I really enjoyed the story and the representation of online role-play. As someone who does a lot of RP himself, I can totally appreciate the dynamics of the activity and the way it can easily become an obsession. The group's actual writing wasn't terribly good, but RP rarely is. Miller largely gets the fact that while it is game and a fantasy, for those people who participate in it, you develop real friendships and invest real emotions into it. And yes, RL (real life) is truly more complicated than RP, the dynamic of group on-line interaction can get pretty dramatic. A late scene, for example, where one of the players quit their group was devastating in a way that felt very familiar.
Thursday, November 02, 2023
Plan A, by Deb Caletti
At this point, the novel takes an odd turn as they take on a fairly leisurely road trip, visiting towns that are the namesakes of famous world cities (Rome, Lima, etc.). It's a little hard to understand why they drag out the trip this way and it slows down the pace of novel considerably, but Caletti has her reasons. Along the way, women come out and share with Ivy that they too have been in her position and that they also have had abortions. By the time Ivy gets to Oregon, she finds that she is far from alone.
Caletti's purpose is to demystify (and de-shame) abortions but pointing out that, as uncomfortable as the public discourse is, there's plenty of private conversation going on as a large number of women have gone through the experience. The book occasionally gets a bit preachy on the subject, but I thought it was a good talking point and allows the novel to make a constructive contribution to the issue.
Another theme in this book are frequent violations of the fourth wall as Caletti calls out the tendency to overdramatize abortions in novels on the subject. Ivy has some emotional turmoil, but she never wavers in her conviction that she's making the right decision. The procedure itself is dealt with matter-of-factly and concisely with no complicated preliminaries. There are not angry protestors, no last minute hysterics, and no drama at all. The only real tension is a bunch of petty harassment in her hometown (which seemed largely unnecessary and gratuitous). Her point is that abortion is only as dramatic as we care to make it.