To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before by Jenny Han

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Genre: YA Contemporary
Format read: audiobook
Rep: POC (asian), mixed race
Rating: planchet-3

Wallflower Laura Jean can’t confess the way she feels to her crushes, so she writes letters to them instead. But when someone uncovers her secret love letters and mails them, it sends her into a tailspin. Not only have all of her old crushes gotten letters, but so has her current crush and neighbor, Josh. Even worse, Josh also happens to be her older sister’s recent ex.

To help save face and convince Josh she isn’t really interested in him–and maybe to convince herself, too–she and another letter recipient, Peter, decided to pretend they are a couple. Bonus points: Dating Laura Jean will really piss off his ex, Genevieve.

But the lie soon gets out of hand, and neither Laura Jean nor Peter can tell what’s real and what’s just the fantasy anymore.

I was late catching the train on this one. Honestly, I don’t regret it too much. I liked the movie, and though it was pretty cute. I’m a bit less keen on the book (I know, I know. *Ducks flying objects*).

While I loved Laura Jean’s voice, I’m not crazy about Josh or Peter. Josh is a cabbage–that is, a character that could be replaced with a cabbage, and no one would notice. He has very few opinions and the only time we see him express an actual emotion, it’s jealousy.

Peter is the obnoxious kind of boy that I avoided in high school, and the type of man that makes me roll  my eyes and leave the room. Even worse, the narrator for this one did a really annoying voice for him. It was completely in character, but so annoying to listen to. Honestly, I think Laura Jean could do better than both of them.

While the “falling for my fake boyfriend/girlfriend” trope is one of my favorites, I’m still only lukewarm on this book. I do want to finish the series, but it was still only about 3-3.5 stars for me.

The Kiss Quotient by Helen Hoang

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Genre: Adult contemporary
Content warnings: Sexual harassment
Representation: SE Asian, mixed race, autism
Format read: audiobook
Rating: planchet-4

I have been wanting to read this book since before it came out. I finally got to sit down with it on my flight to Portland, and inhaled in about  hours. It was so good. 

This book follows Stella, an adult with low support autism (aka Asperger’s). She’s an economist with a great job. She’s not bad looking. But she has some odd habits and difficulty connecting with people that make it nearly impossible for her to get a date. And second dates are unheard of.

This is unfortunate because she would like to one day get married, and maybe even have children. But how can one do that what dates always end abruptly, and there’s never a follow up?

Taking the advice of a college, Stella decides that the only way she’s going to change anything is if she gets better at sex. That seems to be the sticking point with all of her experiences so far. Once they get to the bedroom, things rapidly go downhill.

But how does one improve at such a thing? Clearly, expert advice is in order.

Enter Michael. Half Vietnamese, he’s stunning, funny, a great cook–and he’s for rent.

Michael is a gigolo, driven by the economic hardship threatening his family–and his mother’s cancer treatments. Stella finds his profile online and quickly compiles a series of lesson plans she hopes he’ll help her with–everything from blow jobs to different positions.

But it quickly becomes clear that Stella’s meticulous plans aren’t suited for the job at hand. When things start to go faster than she hoped at their first meeting, she panics, completely locking up.

Eventually, Stella is able to alter her game plan, and hires Michael to be her “practice” boyfriend, to help her learn how to better connect with people, to relax in intimate situations, and maybe–possibly–even learn to enjoy sex. Or at least not suck at it.

The money is way too good for Michael to turn down, even though he feels guilty about the whole thing. The more he listens to Stella talk, the more he realizes that she’s not the problem–it’s the assholes she keeps dating. Reluctantly, he agrees. But only because of his mom. No, really. And maybe because he likes Stella and doesn’t want to see her hurt. But mostly it’s his mom.

This is a funny, sweet story that is not short on sexy romance. Usually romance/love scenes leave me completely cold in books (sorry, aro/ace over here), but I loved the relationship between Michael and Stella. They were good friends.They learned to adapt to each other.

I loved the autism rep in this book sooooo much. For me, Stella is highly relatable in the way she interacts with people. I really need to get my hands on the companion book, The Bride Test, now.

Queen of the Air by Dean N. Jensen

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Genre: Nonfiction
Secondary genre: biography
Content warnings: rape/sexual assault of a minor, child abuse, use of G*psy to refer to non-Romani people, mental illness.
Representation: POC/immigrants
Format read: audiobook
Rating: planchet-3

**This review contains mild spoilers**

Leitzel was one of the most famous, most adored performers of the early 1900s. But she wasn’t a singer, or a dancer. She was an aerialist who seemingly broke the laws of physics and gravity, going beyond what it was thought the human–and especially the female–body could achieve at a time when powered flight hadn’t yet been accomplished.

She went on to marry another circus performer, Alfredo Cordona, a Mexican trapeze artist. Their doomed romance would enchant the entire would.

But in order to understand both Leitzel and Alfredo, we need to go back further, to the late 1800s, when their parents were working in the circus.

This book dedicates it’s first quarter or so to the story of the older generation, describing how Leitzel and Alfredo came to be on opposite sides of the planet under wildly different circumstances.

I feel like there is very little I can tell you about this book that wouldn’t be a spoiler, as it is a biography and there for about someone’s life. There isn’t a plot, per say, just the events that happened, and wow, were they a doozy. If this had been a work of fiction, I could write paragraphs about what a twisted mind the author has, but alas, all of these events are true, from the abuse to rape and murder.

There are bright spots: happy times, challenges overcome, family reunions. But this is definitely not a cheerful book.

If, however, you enjoy biographies, the circus, or stories that are frequently untold, then this might be one to pick up.

Twenties Girl by Sophie Kinsella

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Genre: Contemporary
Secondary genre: paranormal
Format read: audiobook
Rating: DNF

**This review contains mild spoilers**

Lara is in a lurch. She quit her job to start a company with her best friend, only to have said friend elope to another country. Her business is failing, her family is disappointed in her, and even worse, her wealthy relatives keep rubbing it in her face. To top it all off, her boyfriend dumped her.

And now she’s seeing ghosts. Well, a ghost. Of her great-aunt Sadie, whom she’s never met, but whose funeral she’s expected to attend.

The sad service–no flowers, only seven guests, and no one who’d ever actually met Sadie–is a huge disappointment on many levels, until suddenly Sadie’s ghost, circa 1927, swoops in and starts screaming about a lost necklace. And Lara’s the only one who can hear her.

This book should have been a home-run for me: Ghosts! The 1920s! A broke millennial finding her way in the world!

But no. I was cringing within the first five minutes.

Lara as a character is a wet noodle. She’s clingy, calling her ex so often he changed his phone number. She routinely put people in her life (like said ex, and her absentee best friend) who take advantage of her. This isn’t entirely surprising, considering her family  is a cluster of assholes. From a psychological standpoint, she’s drawn to what she knows.

Then we have Sadie. Sadie, of the screechy voice, the “look at me!” personality, and a complete lack of respect or consideration for the people around her.

The two of them butt heads from the first, and I couldn’t stand either of them. They were both extremely annoying. Just when I would start to feel sympathy for Sadie, she would go off and do something annoying again.

And Lara’s method of dealing with Sadie is to tell lie after lie…to the police. I’m not talking little white lies that might be funny later. I mean things like “I think someone at the nursing home murdered my aunt!” (shouted in desperation when Sadie pesters her to stop the funeral and subsequent cremation).

The fact that she would a) purger herself and b) put other people at risk without even thinking sent me so far over the edge that I DNFed this book at around 25%. It was a disappointing thing to do, especially after reading Finding Audrey and loving it so much. I don’t think I’ve ever read an author with both a 5 star read and a DNF before. But I just couldn’t stand listening to the two of them bicker, or watching as Lara sent her train wreck of a life straight over a cliff.

Maybe others find the things I dislike funny, but this one definitely didn’t hit the sweet spot for me.

Wish by CLAMP

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Genre: fantasy
Secondary genre: contemporary
Format: manga
Series: Wish (vol 1-4)
Content warnings: bullying, fat shaming
Series rating: planchet-4
Vol 1: planchet-3
Vol 2: planchet-4
Vol 3: planchet
Vol 4: planchet-4

Shuichiro is a normal, pediatric surgeon living in Tokyo. He has a nice house, a good job, and is pretty happy with life.

So when he accidentally saves a tiny, adorable creature claiming to be an angel, he declines her offer of a wish granted. What more could he want?

But Kohaku is insistent. She must repay his kindness. When he still can’t think of anything, she determines to stay hear him until he can come up with a wish. Thinking it only logical, he offers her a place to stay.

Unfortunately, the little angel, Kohaku (who can turn human sized when it’s daylight) came to Earth with a mission, and has a bad habit of bringing her work home with her. Soon, Shuichiro’s house guests also include an exiled angel and demon, as well as another demon and his two minions who stop by regularly to torment Kohaku.

Because this is a four volume series, I can’t go into two much detail about the individual books without giving away the plot. I will say that volume 1 is the set up, volume 2 is plot driven, while volume 3 focuses more on emotional development. The fourth and final book wraps everything up, with a plot twist that makes me cry no matter how many times I re-read this series.

This is one of my favorite manga series from when I was in college, and I don’t know how many times I’ve read it.

That being said, it does have some problematic elements.

For starters, while the book uses the terms “angel”, “demon”, “God,” and “Devil,” the actual mythology bears very little resemblance to Christian mythology–which, honestly, is pretty typical for Japanese media. Personally, it didn’t bother me, but I know it would bother some people.

Second, Koryu, a demon of roughly the same level as Kohaku, loves to bully her, and they are always arguing about who has the fatter chibi form in the first book. It was super irritating, especially since one of them was always in human form, and CLAMP is known for drawing very slender figures.

And lastly, the bullying itself. While it would be expected for a demon to give an angel a hard time, one line in volume 4 in particular was a hard pass from me: “Bullying is just another way to say ‘I love you.'” NO. Not okay.

One last little note: in book 2 we meet a white cat who changes personalities at night. In the book, he’s generally a sweet cat, though his night-time personality can be aggressive. I’m not sure how I feel about this. It didn’t bother me when I read it a few years ago, but now I honestly don’t know how I feel about it. I am not the person to decide if this is positive rep for personality disorders, so I will leave it up to you to decide.

Overall, I love this series, and I know I will read it again. But I also own that it has a lot of problematic bits that are endemic both to when it was written (the early 2000s), and where it was written (Japan in general has a lot of problems with racism, sexism, fatphobia, homophobia, etc). CLAMP is usually pretty good about avoiding racism and sexism (It’s an all female group) and if I remember correctly at least 2 members of the 4-person team are queer (I don’t know their specific identities, but CLAMP has always been very pro-LGBTQ). That doesn’t mean they get a pass on everything, however.

If, despite all that, you’re looking for a sweet, quirky romance that will tear your heart out but still give you an HEA, then consider checking out this series.

 

Abraham Lincoln, Vampire Hunter by Seth Grahame-Smith

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Genre: adult supernatural
Secondary genre: historical
Format read: audiobook
Content warnings: violence, sexism, racism
Rating: planchet

In this twisted historical, Grahame-Smith re-imagines history with one slight change: vampires. Vampires are the power behind the politics that run pre-Civil War America, and when Abe Lincoln, then only a child, discovers their dark secrets, he dedicates his life to hunting them down and destroying them after they kill his mother, and later, his fiance.

Beginning as an itinerant vampire hunter, wandering the Mississippi River Valley, Abe is somewhat aimless until he meets the mysterious Henry, a vampire who takes him under his wing…to teach him how to hunt vampires.

Disgusted with the way his kind treats humanity, Henry feeds Abe information on where to find the most dangerous vampires, and the best way of dispatching them.

As the tensions between North and South begin to rise, however, Abe realizes that his best bet for defeating Vampires, and the slavery that supports them, is from within America’s political system.

At first I was super excited for this book. Vampires! Civil War! Lincoln! All of my favorite things, wrapped up into one great audiobook.

Alas, for me, it did not live up to expectations. The story is bookended by bits set during modern day, in which Henry delivers Lincoln’s journals to a writer for apparently no real reason. The story itself is the “biography” the author writes based on these notes, and it reads like it–like a very dry, very boring biography. The action scenes were dull, and even the deaths of Lincoln’s first girlfriend and his sons were barely a blip. The author completely missed the emotional beats of the story.

In addition, it’s rife with passive racism and sexism. I don’t think any of the women in Lincoln’s life had more than a single line of dialogue. I don’t know about you, but I can’t fathom Mary Todd Lincoln keeping her mouth shut for more than five minutes, let alone 200+ pages.

But the part that really got me was the fact that Grahame-Smith completely cut Kate Warne from the Baltimore Plot. Not only was she the one who uncovered it, but she was the one who came up with a way to save Lincoln’s life. She was with him the entire time. Additionally, she would have made an excellent fellow vampire hunter.

There’s been a lot of debate over the years about Lincoln’s position on race. While he was an abolitionist, he wasn’t as forceful about it as many of our history books would lead us to believe. He supported freeing slaves and sending them back to Africa, rather than allowing them to be free in America.

Somehow, though, the author manages to make Lincoln both more racist and a stronger abolitionist. He looks on slaves as inferior humans who are fit for little else, but at the same time calls slavery a stain on humanity, primarily because slave auctions are essentially the 1850s version of fast food for vampires. He seems to think of slavery as a necessary evil, however, until Henry reveals the vampire plot to enslave whites, as well. This is what prompts him to present the emancipation proclamation, not any sort of empathy or egalitarian leanings.

All in all, I was hugely disappointed in this book. I kept reading in the hopes it would get better, but I think I just wasted 10 hours of my life instead.

Flight by Sherman Alexie

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Genre: Contemporary YA
Content warnings: violence, alcoholism, child abuse
rating: planchet

Zits is a foster kid. He’s been bounced around to more shitty foster homes than he can count, and at fifteen he’s just about had enough.

Running away for good, he crosses paths with a charming homeless kid named Justice. Justice is his savior–he shows Zits how to survive on the streets, and he has the most amazing stories. He’s well read, self educated, and knows just what to say to keep Zits hanging on to his every word.

It doesn’t take long for him to convince his new follower that the world is a terrible place full of terrible people, and action must be taken.

Zits decides it’s his mission to commit this act of violence, but before he does, something mysterious happens and he finds himself falling backward through time, experiencing life as a civil rights-era cop, a child on a reservation, and even his own father. Through all of it, he wonders: How can you tell the difference between the good guys and the bad guys when they both say the same things?

I’m honestly not sure how I feel about this book. It was, for the most part, a 2-3 star read for me, but the ending was beautiful and heartwarming, and made me bump it up to 4 stars, though I’ve been waffling on that since.

Zits is half Native American. He’s been through hell and doesn’t have the best people skills. He’s been abused. He drinks, he smokes, and he could care less about authority.

But I am not the one to say if this is positive or even accurate representation. I’m not a foster kid. I’m not Native. I can tell you that this book made me very uncomfortable, for reasons I can’t quite articulate. Part of it was the fact that Zits wanted to commit an act of terrorism. Justice has the charm of a serpent and could easily become a cult leader one day. But the feeling goes deeper than that.

Since reading this book, I’ve been informed that Sherman Alexie is perhaps not the best person to represent Native populations in fiction. I’ve heard from some Native people on Twitter that he has caused a lot of harm to the community. I don’t know the details of this, but it is something to consider and after reading this book I can certainly see why it would be harmful to the Native American community at large.

So, with all that in mind, I have lowered my rating back to my initial gut feeling of 2 stars. If you’re looking for Native American rep in fiction, maybe pick another author.

Finding Audrey by Sophie Kinsella

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“I’ve often noticed that people equate ‘having a sense of humor’ with ‘being an insensitive moron.’” –Finding Audrey by Sophie Kinsella

Genre: Contemporary YA
Format read: audiobook
Content warnings: bullying (implied), anxiety attacks
Positive rep: mental health (social anxiety, depression
Rating: planchet-5

Audrey has always been a bit quiet. Reserved. Shy.

But after an Incident in March, she’s left unable to function in society. She doesn’t leave the house except for therapy sessions, wears dark glasses even indoors, and has panic attacks at the thought of using the phone, texting, or even emailing.

Her world has shrunk down to the size of a pin, encompassing just her parents and two brothers. Since The Incident, not even her best friend tries to talk to her anymore.

But when her older brother decides to enter a videogame competition and his teammate Linus starts coming over regularly to practice, it turns Audrey’s safe place upside down. Suddenly there’s a stranger in the house, and he’s not familiar with all the unspoken rules the family has adopted to help her cope–like not mentioning her dark glasses, or that the den is off limits to everyone but her.

As Linus starts coming over more often, however, Audrey starts to think he might not be so bad. Certainly not so bad as the people who caused The Incident and left her terrified of people in the first place. In fact, Linus has been challenging her boundaries–in a good way.

The thing I really loved about this book is that while there is a romantic subplot, it’s extremely minor–the story focuses more on the friendship between Linus and Audrey. And while they do get together, it’s not a case of “I’m in love, I’m cured!” Linus helps Audrey build a support system, which then allows her to heal.

I wish I’d had this book back when I was in high school and college. It’s the sort of book I wanted when I was writing The Evie Cappelli Series.

I loved all the characters, including Audrey’s wacky family. With such a closed set, the story really has to be character driven, and Sophie Kinsella does a great job of creating funny, distinct, realistic people to populate Audrey’s life.

My only complaint about this book is that we never get any information about what exactly The Incident is, though in the long run the details don’t really matter. What matters is that Audrey has suffered a trauma, and it is taking her a long time to recover from it.

If you are struggling with mental health, this is a great, light-hearted book to pick up on a bad day.

Portland Book Haul!

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I spent most of last week in Portland, OR.

And because it’s me, a good portion of that trip was spent in Powell’s.

For the uninitiated, Powell’s City of Books is an enormous bookstore that takes up an entire city block, 3 stories tall, and is filled with new and used books. The YA section alone was the biggest I’ve ever see–it dwarfed the YA section at the main library downtown here in Columbus, and that’s the largest in the city.

One of my favorite parts about Portland was the sheer number of bookstores I saw, just in the few days I was there. I could’t go into even a fraction of them, just because I was there with a group and *gasp, shock* not everyone wanted to go into a bookstore. I think I saw at least 7 bookstores, and not a single one was a Barnes and Noble or a Half Price. 3 of them were Powell’s (the flagship store, a smaller shop in…Belmont? And one location that specialized in home and garden books). And at least three libraries on top of that! I was in heaven.

I could have easily spent a couple hundred dollars at the flagship Powells, but I limited myself to just three books. Well, four, but one of them was a gift (I got Meddling Kids for Ash’s dad, since we were celebrating his birthday while we were there).

Odd and True–Cat Winters is a Portland-area author, so I wanted to get one of her books while we were in Oregon. I was hoping Powell’s would have an autographed copy, but alas.

The Prince and the Dressmaker–I’ve been seeing this one all over Booktube, and I can’t wait to read it.

Moxie–I’ve bee wanting to read this one for ages, but it hadn’t found a way into my TBR until now.

If you were in the world’s biggest bookstore, what would you pick up?