Steampunk interests me. I can’t quite put my finger on why, but I’ve enjoyed several steampunk films I’ve seen. Mortal Engines was the first steampunk novel I’ve read. When I first picked it up I had no idea that it was a steampunk motif. Halfway through it suddenly dawned on me that this is what a lot of people talk about when they say a steampunk novel. Mortal Engines is set in the post-apocalyptic future where cities are movable and travel around devouring one another […]
Wonder
August “Auggie” Pullman has a facial deformity that attracts a lot of unwanted attention. He’s been home schooled through fourth grade and is going to start school at Beecher Prep for fifth grade. Throughout the year, he and his fellow fifth graders learn a lot about growing up, being kind, and standing up for what’s being right. On a personal level, Auggie and his family learn how to adjust their lives as their youngest member comes into his own. The story is engrossing, and frankly […]
The Black Canary
Time travel intrigues me. It’s one of those devices that can either be done well or doesn’t work at all. In this book, it doesn’t work. There’s no explanation for why there’s a time waro that exists in the basement of James’s house nor how he’s supposed to know that once he crosses into the past that he’ll return to the same moment in the future. It also leads me to question how random animals like cats, rats, etc. don’t wander into the time warp […]
“Straight people have it so much easier. They don’t understand. They can’t. There’s no such thing as openly straight.”
Badkittyuno raved about Openly Straight and its sequel Honestly Ben so, despite my old age and the crotchety nature in which I reacted to the last YA novel I read, I picked it up from the library. It was definitely better than The Upside of Unrequited with slightly more believable, fleshed out main characters. Claire Olivia is a bit of a manic pixie dream girl but she is a minor character, and not a love interest, so I’ll let that slide. Rafe was openly gay in liberal Boulder, Colorado but chooses […]
Sometimes the Drama Just Finds You
Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire by J. K. Rowling, narrated by Jim Dale
*Note: This review was completed in 2017 before the author’s views towards our trans siblings began to be widely known. My reading experience was what it was and these reviews will remain up, but it should be noted that I find her TERF values abhorrent, which have only become more clear over time, and her doubling down in Summer 2020 has made the decision to walk away from her as a creative force the only acceptable choice for me. I will no longer be supporting […]
It’s dope to be black until it’s hard to be black
The hype gets it right yet again. I avoided reading Angie Thomas’s debut novel until two days before it was the borrow expired (despite waiting over three months for my turn in the queue). I had heard great things about the book, but some days I’m not up for taking a book-driven tour through the dark places. And the blurb of this one is dark. Just in case you don’t know the plot summary: Starr Carter is a typical high school junior. She plays on her […]
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