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Book Riot’s Read Harder Challenge: (More Than) Mid-Year Progress Report

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I’m taking on the Book Riot Read Harder this year. I’ve tried in the past, but each time I’ve tried, I’ve found myself feeling too pressured to read certain books over others. I don’t know what clicked this year, when I realized that the point of those categories was to stretch myself in ways that could still work for my reading life: I don’t have to read something in a completely different genre or category to find a book within, say, YA or adult nonfiction, that perfectly meets the goals of the category. It’s a stretch beyond the comfort zone, without feeling like I need to read for the person I think I should be, rather than the person I am.

For those unfamiliar with the Read Harder challenge, the goal is to read one book from twenty-four different prompts throughout the year. The idea is that you’d read two books a month to fit the challenge. You can, of course, do it however it works best for you, but when you break it down to two books per month, it feels super manageable.

One of the things that’s made this work well for me this year, aside from a shift in my thinking, is that the spreadsheet I like to use to track my reading includes a space for tracking titles which might fit the challenge categories. This means every time I finish a book, I’m able to flip through the tasks and see if it fits. I’ve found myself naturally picking up some books that fit, without ever once wondering if it would fit a specific prompt. That makes the challenge even more enjoyable for me, since it’s nice to see that I’m able to naturally pick up books that hover just beyond my normal reading diet.

The year is more than half over, and I thought it would be worthwhile to not only see where I was in terms of progress, but to also consider and solicit ideas for the remaining categories.

Completed Tasks

 

A book published posthumously

I picked up I’ll Be Gone In The Dark by Michelle McNamara for this one, and I listened to it on audio. This was right before an arrest was made, so seeing that hit the news after reading the book made the experience that much better.

An engaging and engrossing exploration of the Golden State Killer, and further, an engaging and engrossing exploration of putting together an investigation of a crime pieced together in part by the author and the notes she left upon her untimely death.

The book and the story of the book sell.

The audiobook was great, and the introduction by Gillian Flynn a nice touch. I’m a fan of journalistic true crime, a la In Cold Blood by Truman Capote, so this one scratched that itch nicely.

 

A book of true crime

Another one I did on audio, and this time it was You All Grow Up and Leave Me by Piper Weiss. An absorbing memoir/true crime read about Piper Weiss’s life intersecting with Gary Wilensky. Wilensky earned her trust, as well as her family’s, but it was through this grooming behavior that allowed him to then pursue further attempts at relationships with his young clients. His attempts to capture and seduce one of his students went terribly wrong, which led Wilensky to end his life, and Weiss’s book is an attempt to not only explore who he was and what drew him to behave this way, but it’s also a look at how being a teenage girl is a land mine of men like Wilensky. Weiss is privileged and well-off in Manhattan, with access to so much, yet a man like him was able to gain her trust, her parents trust, and the trust of so many others like her.

This is an exploration of why not her, and yet, why her at the same time. It’s a book about the way adults groom and earn the trust of young victims, about the ways that those advances can be brushed aside and ignored.

It’s hard to say much more. Weiss is, by all accounts, as average as someone with her status could be, and her experiences with Wilensky are as a victim without being “the” victim. In a lot of ways, this makes her story relatable and something so many women will identify with.

The audiobook for this was great. Brittany Pressley gives a great performance and offers up just enough intonation to give more depth to the book itself — her voice sounds like a teen girl, on the cusp of adulthood, and here, it works perfectly.

 

A comic written and illustrated by the same person

I’ve actually read a number of titles that fit this task, but the one I logged was Thornhill by Pam Smy. Jane Eyre The Secret Garden set in 1982 and 2017. It’s creepy, delicious modern-set gothic horror. The art is fantastic, the story completely engrossing, and a super fast read.

Ghosts! Dolls! An old as hell creepy abandoned house! There’s so much to love. All the trope-y goodness.

 

A book set in or about one of the five BRICS countries (Brazil, Russia, India, China, or South Africa)

I counted Girls Burn Brighter by Shaboa Rao for this one, and I wrote more in-depth about this excellent adult fiction title with tremendous teen appeal earlier this summer.

This is about friendship: the fierce, fiery kind of friendship that exists between two girls who understand their place in the world as girls, their place in society as girls in India of a lower class, their place in society as girls who can only rely and depend upon one another. Savitha and Poornima only spend a small portion of the book together, but it’s the spark between them that keeps them connected through tragic event after tragic event.

What I loved most is what they carried of one another inside them. Poornima saw Savitha as the brave, self-assured girl, but in the end, Poornima pulls that same energy to find Savitha again, who has found herself in a situation not unlike the one Poornima was in during her marriage. Lost. Adrift. Alone.

 

A book about nature

I listened to the audiobook for an Alex Award winning book called The Wasp That Brainwashed The Caterpillar by Matt Simon. It’d been on my to-read since it was named an award winner, and during the weeks I was cleaning my house to prepare for the move, this one was one I devoured on audio. 

If you love the bizarre adaptations of nature, then this is the book for you. I happen to be someone who digs these weird facts and stories, and this book was a DELIGHT to listen to. At times on audio, the jokes didn’t seem to deliver as well as they would in print, but in addition to being really interesting, this has a lot of humor packed in what can sometimes be downright horrifying for humans to think about.

 

A western

One of my favorite YA books this year was the title perfect for this task: Devils Unto Dust by Emma Berquist. Set in west Texas in 1877, the story follows Willie (real name: Daisy, but that’s too dainty for her) as she has to find her father, as he’s stolen a load of money from McAlister. McAlister promises revenge if that money is not returned.

The thing is: no one steps out of Glory alone. Outside of the gates are the shakes. The shakes are hungry, vicious, and will turn you into one of them in an instant. Willie has little money, but needs to hire herself a hunter to help her track down her father in another town. Enter the Garrett brothers.

Willie leaves behind her brother and twin brother and sister as she goes, but not for long. Micah can’t stand the idea of her venturing alone, even with the hunters, and he, along with neighbor Sam, catch up with the crew on the journey.

Enter the shakes.

Berquist’s first novel is the perfect blend of western and horror. The pitch “True Grit” meets “28 Days Later” is absolutely spot on. From page one, I was riveted and loved the entire arc of Willie’s story and character. The exploration of grief and guilt is thoughtful and thought-provoking, particularly as Willie sees herself to blame for a lot of the mess that occurs. Saying more would be a spoiler, of course.

The writing is pitch perfect, with descriptions of desolation in the desert palpable. Every minute I was not reading this, I was thinking about it and thinking about Willie.

Bonus: there is not a romance in this book. Sure, there’s a kinship that emerges between Sam and Willie at the end, but we know nothing more will be coming of it.

And then there’s what happens when they find Pa and ask him what happened to that money. And what happens when they return to Glory to face McAlister again.

Mega appeal to fans of westerns, of zombie stories, and to books that are fast paced and action-packed (but without making your head spin). The 500 pages speed by, and it’s a stand alone, perfectly contained read.

 

A comic written or drawn by a person of color

I chose one that had a person of color who did both (which would also fit the task “a comic written and drawn by the same person”). Jen Wang’s The Prince and the Dressmaker was one of my favorite comics in a long time. Perfect and sweet with outstanding art.

Didn’t even end up putting the bookmark on a page because I read it cover to cover in one big, quick gulp.

 

A romance novel by or about a person of color

Jasmine Guillory’s The Wedding Date did both. I gulped this one down while on a trip out to Boise earlier this year, and I discovered the joy of reading a romance novel while enjoying an adult beverage by myself at the hotel bar. It’s a lovely, flirty, and fun read that plays with the fake relationship trope (which I’ve come to discover is one I like quite a lot). The publicist for this book just sent along Guillory’s next book, The Proposal, and I can’t wait to read it.

 

An Oprah Book Club selection

I used to devour the Oprah Book Club books as a teenager. They were such a nice way to ease into different types of adult literature beyond the classics. For this  task, I went with her most recent pick, The Sun Does Shine by Anthony Ray Hinton.

What makes this book less brutal to read is knowing that Ray walks out of prison and away from the death sentence he was handed as an innocent man.

What makes this book more brutal to read is knowing there are many other Rays sitting on death row who may never see that fate.

I’ve always been fascinated with prison stories — fiction and nonfiction. I’m firmly against the death penalty, and believe that we have the means as human beings to do better when it comes to criminal justice and rehabilitation. Ray’s story isn’t about crime and punishment, though. He was an innocent man who, prior to being framed for murders he didn’t commit, made some sophomoric mistakes that he has no problem owning up to. Those mistakes were borne not from evil but from desperation and from his own background growing up poor, black, and outside Birmingham. It was those very things that led to his wrongful conviction.

Ray is an unbelievably positive human throughout his story. He waited 30 years for justice, and despite the fact nothing was ever expected of him on death row, he didn’t sit and wait for the inevitable. He not only fought for his innocence, but he made his life and the lives of those around him better. He began a book club with fellow inmates that helped give them all something to look forward to, a way to pass time that allowed camaraderie in what is otherwise a lonely place. He kept faith, over and over again, despite the fact he saw the cards stacked against him.

We’re lucky he can tell this story. But what a damn shame he has to.

 

A book of social science

I have so many titles to pick from for this task, in part because I read exclusively nonfiction on audio, and much of that nonfiction leans toward social science. But I noted Votes for Women by Winifred Conkling for this task. This is a compelling, engaging, and balanced look at the women’s suffrage movement which doesn’t shy away from the racist attitudes of some of the movement’s most well-known (and historically beloved) leaders. Complete with interesting images and great back matter, this is a book for readers looking for a solid history of the American push for the right for women to vote. I’ve read more than one book on this topic for young readers, but this is the first one I’ve read which doesn’t shy away from the ugly.

Hand to readers who love nonfiction, to budding feminists, and to any reader who needs a starter history of the women’s movement. Other reviews have noted this reads like a textbook, but I disagree. This is narrative nonfiction at its best; the challenge is that, with such a simultaneously broad and limited topic, the focus can dwell on certain aspects more than others, meaning some readers might not be as engaged with those aspects as others.

In terms of writing, I especially loved how this was bookended with the decision in Tennessee — the decision for ratification of women’s suffrage came down to a vote there, by a man influenced by his mother. Little page time is given to that, and instead, more time is spent showcasing what it was the women did to help get that man to that point.

 

A one-sitting book

This one could have worked for a number of books. I’m generally not a “read it in one sitting” kind of person, even for short books, but if I don’t have plans for the day and am really engrossed in what I’m reading — be it 100 or 500 pages long — I can do it. I used Blood Water Paint by Joy McCullough for this one. Perfect for fans of Ruta Sepetys, McCullough’s debut verse novel tells the story of Artemisia Gentileschi in the early 1600s. A young painter, apprenticed by her father — who was, of course, profiting from her work — she dreams of capturing the true essence of the women whose stories her deceased mother told her into her art. But when she is raped by a potential client, her life turns upside down and she turns to the strength of those women to find her voice and speak up and out about what happened to her.

Powerful, moving, and despite the setting, utterly contemporary, this is a book about women, about power, and about discovering the ways your voice, by virtue of being female, can change your life (for better or for worse). The writing is gorgeous and evocative, made more painful and raw by how this book could be set today and still resonate.

This was the second historical novel about women and power I’d read in a short time span — Circe by Madeline Miller being the other — which is far less about women’s place in history and much more about women’s place in contemporary society. For as much “progress” as we’ve made, we’ve barely moved.

 

A first book in a new-to-you YA or middle grade series

I picked up Somaiya Daud’s forthcoming Mirage for this one after seeing so much buzz about it, and I wasn’t disappointed. This one was well out of my normal reading area, and I’m really glad I pushed myself. Taken from her home which has been ravaged, Amani is pulled into the royal palace of the Vathek Empire. She’s nearly identical in appearance to the Princess, and her job will be to play the role of the Princess in situations where danger could arise. Amani doesn’t want that — she wants to be at home, with her family, dreaming, reading poetry, and in a place not dominated by a society like the Vathek’s. But she doesn’t get what she wants…..

She has to make what she wants to happen do just that.

A really lush fantasy about identity, about truth, and about trust. Who do you trust in a world where you have few you can depend on? And what happens when you’re torn away from them? Amani’s voice and determination propel her forward in this story and allow her to make decisions that put her life at risk for the betterment of her own people.

There’s a romance here, built perfectly within the narrative. It’s dangerous and forbidden but doesn’t detract Amani from her bigger goals and purposes.

 

A sci fi novel with a female protagonist by a female author

I thought this one might be tough, but then it turns out a book I’d picked up because it was by a YA author I love — Katie Williams — fit the task perfectly. Tell The Machine Goodnight is her first foray into adult fiction.

A smart, savvy, and funny novel about our culture’s obsession with technology and happiness. Pearl’s job is to run the Apricity, which doles out the steps one needs to take in order to become happy. Some of those steps are bizarre — wear a velvet suit, cut off the tip of your right index finger — while others are pretty benign — write poetry. Then there are those who get advice which is so startling, it comes without a real list of steps to take. Pearl’s son Rhett falls into this last category, and Pearl is dead set on figuring out how to make her son, who suffers from an eating disorder, to be happy.

Wrapped into this are the stories of other people in Pearl’s world, including her boss (who seems to get promotions and demotions left and right, as one does in Silicon Valley), her ex-husband (who she is still somewhat in a relationship with), and her ex-husband’s new wife (who harbors a pretty terrible secret she won’t tell the husband but we get to become privy to). The revolving voices can at times get a titch confusing, but there’s something somewhat logical in that confusion. This is, after all, a tale about how technology can mess with us when we become too dependent upon it.

At heart, it’s a book about what it means to be human, good, bad, pretty, and ugly. I devoured it in a single afternoon. It’s science fiction with a literary bent to it.

 

A comic that isn’t published by Marvel, DC, or Image

My local library puts its new comics in a space on the new books shelf, which I absolutely love. It’s given me more opportunities to pick up comics when I might otherwise forget how much I enjoy them. That said, the one I wrote down for this task was Imagine Wanting Only This by Kristen Radtke and I remember nothing about it. I should have maybe put New Shoes by Sara Varon here instead. My notes from Goodreads call Radtke’s book a quick read and worthwhile, but uneven and at times, a stretch (which, fairly, she explains away a bit as her grasping to understand everything and pretending even when she doesn’t).

 

An essay anthology

I could have noted so many for this one, as essay anthologies are something I gravitate toward in my reading life. It’s weird whenever I see people say anthologies aren’t popular or ask “who reads them?” The answer is me! It’s not just that I like them from the writing standpoint. I also love seeing how they’re constructed, what all they accomplish, and whether or not they’re successful. I also just like reading well-thought pieces from people who are passionate about something. For this task, I hit the jackpot with They Can’t Kill Us Until They Kill Us by Hanif Abdurraqib.

An outstanding collection of essays about music, race, and life in contemporary America. Hanif is a black Muslim who grew up in Columbus, Ohio, and his writing on being who he is in that Midwest space is out of this world good.

All of the essays have a connection to pop culture, and most to music, and it doesn’t matter whether you know or like any of the thematic threadings of the pieces. They’re about much, much more.

(And that Carly Rae Jepson piece!)

Those who love and laud Roxane Gay would do really well to pick this up, too.

For a little taste of what made this collection so grand, I have to share the link to one of Abdurraqib’s pieces in the New York Times about why Alanis Morissette’s Jagged Little Pill is the album American needs right now.

 

Outstanding Tasks

If you have any great recommendations for these categories beyond what I’ve noted as possibilities, let me know! Nine tasks in a little over four months is easy enough, and given how much I am reading with the inclusion of audiobooks in my daily life, I feel this is totally doable.

 

A classic of genre fiction

I’d really like to read a classic contemporary romance for this one, but I am a little unsure what that might be. I’m not too worried about finding one in time, though, since I also know there’s a whole swath of amazing horror classics to enjoy, too. I’m toying with picking up a Shirley Jackson or maybe another Stephen King read (after It last year, I might go for something a lot shorter, though!)

 

A book of colonial or postcolonial literature

This is a tough one, but a title on my radar for audio is A Moonless, Starless Sky: Ordinary Men and Women Fighting Extremism in Africa by Alexis Okeowo. Are there any really solid YA titles that might fit here? I’d love to hear any ideas.

 

A children’s classic published before 1980

My summer reading goal includes a full read of Anne of Green Gables by LM Montgomery, so as soon as I start on that, I know this will be an easy task to tick off.

 

A celebrity memoir

I’m kind of surprised this one is still left. When I was taking stock of my progress on the challenge, I immediately went and put Retta’s So Close To Being The Sh*t, Y’all Don’t Even Know on hold at the library.

 

A book of genre fiction in translation

I picked one up on my last library trip on a lark, and I think it’ll fit the challenge perfectly. Fever Dream by Samantha Schweblin and translated by Megan McDowell is a horror novel translated from Spanish.

 

A book with a cover you hate

Honestly, this one will be easy when I go through my bookshelves. There are a lot of covers I just plain dislike among them. I’m curious: what might you choose for this task? What book covers are just not working for you?

 

A mystery by a person of color or LGBTQ+ Author

I guess technically I have accomplished this already a few times this year looking at my list, but I want to go into the book with one of these things at the forefront of my mind (in other words, I know White Rabbit by Caleb Roehrig fits, but I didn’t go into the book knowing Roehrig identifies as gay — I looked it up afterward). On my library checkout list right now is Sherri L. Smith’s Pasadena, which I have been wanting to read for a long time and know will work perfectly here.

 

A book with a female protagonist over the age of 60

This task is one I sort of suspect will be the last one I do. When you read a lot of YA, finding a book where the protagonist is over 60 ends up being nearly impossible. Any suggestions of adult fiction or nonfiction I might enjoy? I wonder if a memoir would work well here.

 

An assigned book you hated (or never finished)

So many options for this one. I’ve been assigned Virginia Woolf a few times and never read it. I’ve also been assigned a few other titles I didn’t bother with or that I just plain didn’t like. I’m a nerd who has kept track of every book read since high school, so I need to peruse that list and go with something that conjures up immediate disgust.

 

 

Are you taking part in the Read Harder Challenge this year? I’d love to hear how you’re doing!

Graphic Novel Roundup: Summer Vacation Edition

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Be Prepared by Vera Brosgol

In her second graphic novel after Anya’s Ghost, Brosgol tackles middle grade with a more realistic (but perhaps just as terrifying) story about sleepaway summer camp, based in large part on her own experiences. When nine year old Vera hears about Russian summer camp from an older friend, she’s so excited about the prospect that she convinces her mom to send her and her little brother. Finally, Vera thinks, she’s found a place where her Russian culture won’t make her different.

Once she gets there, she changes her tune. Vera is the youngest girl in her proscribed age group and shares a tent with three other girls who are several years older and don’t appreciate having such a young kid hanging out with them. The bathroom is simply an outhouse, the other girls bully her, she’s terrible at capture the flag, and she’s made fun of for not being able to read Russian very well (though she can speak it fluently). In a place she thought she would easily fit in, she sticks out.

Brosgol’s part-memoir, part-fiction is funny and full of heart. Kids who have been to summer camp will recognize a lot of common elements, like the gross bathrooms and “beautiful” nature that seems to want to kill you. Social structures and the struggle to make friends are universal to all kids, even those with no experience with summer camp. The fact that Vera is at a specifically Russian summer camp adds another layer to the story, and non-Russian kids will be fascinated. As part of the back matter, Brosgol reproduces an actual letter she wrote while at camp when she was a kid, begging her mom to pick her up because summer camp is so terrible. It’s hilarious and perfect, and her graphic novel is a wonderful distillation of the summer camp experience.

All Summer Long by Hope Larson

Hope Larson brings us another middle grade graphic novel about summer vacation, this time about staying home while your best friend goes off to camp. Thirteen year old Bina is disappointed (an understatement) when her best friend Austin decides to go to soccer camp for a month during the summer instead of hanging out with her like he usually does. So Bina watches a lot of tv, plays a lot of guitar, and listens to a lot of music. Things start to get more interesting when Austin’s older sister starts to befriend Bina; I felt a lot of familiar feelings when she took Bina on a babysitting assignment and then left her to watch the baby while she went to meet her boyfriend. Were any of us at thirteen years old actually qualified to babysit?

When Austin returns home from camp, he’s acting even weirder than he was before he left. Bina doesn’t know what’s up; the reader might hazard a guess, but she’d probably be wrong. The real reason is more mundane and perhaps also more complex than readers are conditioned to think.

This isn’t an action-heavy, event-heavy comic. It’s a pretty true catalog of what a middle schooler’s summer vacation might look like, but it doesn’t bore. Larson is good at getting inside Bina’s head and making us care about her; thirteen year old readers will definitely identify with the pains of a friendship changing, of feeling out of place when the things you’re used to are all topsy-turvy, even though the adults in your life don’t seem to think any of it is a big deal. I wouldn’t call this a standout story, but it’s fun and real and a great way for a kid to pass a summer day.

 

 

 

Scarlett Hart: Monster Hunter by Marcus Sedgwick and Thomas Taylor

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Apparently I have a thing for graphic novels featuring plucky heroines who fight monsters and other scary creatures. Curiously, all five of these, including Scarlett Hart, are written and illustrated by men. Is it the archetype of the “strong female character” – meaning physical strength and a lot of fighting rather than force of personality or conviction – that so appeals to male creators? It also appeals to me, and certainly did so when I was a kid too. And I’m sure there are graphic novels featuring this kind of girl created by women too, I just haven’t read enough of them. (This is a longer discussion for a different post.)

Scarlett Hart is tons of fun. It’s set in an alternative Victorian England that’s been overrun by actual monsters: mummies, ghosts, killer dogs, and more. Scarlett’s parents, wealthy aristocrats, were the best of the monster hunters, but they were killed during a fight while Scarlett was a little kid, leaving her an orphan. Scarlett is a bit older now, but not old enough to legally fight monsters. That doesn’t stop her, of course – she just has her faithful butler/sidekick, Napoleon White, take the credit. Scarlett and Napoleon have a nemesis in Count Stankovic, who steals their monsters and constantly tries to turn Scarlett in for underage monster hunting. When they discover the Count is involved in a conspiracy to – well, if I told you, that would be spoiling things – they know they must stop him.

The book doesn’t break new ground in terms of the adventure comic, but it retreads existing tropes well. It’s funny throughout: Scarlett has a lot of inventive and innocuous “curse” words that will make young readers giggle, and sometimes Scarlett and Napoleon are just comically bad at monster hunting, which they acknowledge by repeating the phrase “we stink” at well-timed parts of the story. Scarlett uses Napoleon’s beloved car, which he’s named Dorothy, to travel around to find monsters, and Napoleon’s fear that Dorothy will be irreversibly harmed in the course of the hunt is a recurring theme (you can imagine how well a car survives a fight against a twenty foot tall monster). The monsters themselves are creatively depicted, and Scarlett has a number of contraptions to fight them that echo those of Bruce Wayne or James Bond.

Thomas Taylor created the cover art for the original UK edition of Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s  Stone, and his art is well-suited to the graphic novel format here (it differs slightly in style from the image in the link). Scarlett is characterized by large, expressive eyes and a red braid that always flips out to the side. The determination on her face contrasts humorously with Napoleon’s facial expressions, which usually communicate “This is a very bad idea but I suppose we’re doing it anyway.” Taylor’s monsters are delightfully detailed, toeing the line between silly and scary. Colors are bold with an emphasis on reds, lending a gothic/steampunk atmosphere to the story.

This is the first Marcus Sedgwick book I’ve actually finished. After trying a few, I’ve learned his prose novels just aren’t my speed. But I appreciated his weirdness here, and he certainly knows how to tell a fun, fast-paced story. He wraps up the main storyline in this volume while leaving plenty of stories to tell in subsequent ones, which I hope we’ll get. This is a good pick for older middle grade readers who like their comics a little spooky but don’t want to be truly terrified.

Fairy Tales Retold

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I’ve loved fairy tales my whole life, and the publishing world isn’t tired of them yet either. (Give us another thousand years or so and check back.) I did a big roundup as part of a genre guide in 2014, then highlighted a whole slew of them in 2017. I review retold fairy tales periodically as I read them, but I’ve never put together a post where I discuss my favorites, including those I read before we started this blog in 2009. I thought it would be fun to showcase a few of the books that made an impression on me: those I remember fondly from my childhood, those I frequently recommend to others, and those I occasionally re-read. They span all ages and formats. What are a few of your faves – the ones you find yourself coming back to again and again?

For Kids

Ella Enchanted by Gail Carson Levine

For a kid born in the mid to late 80s, this book is It when it comes to retold fairy tales. It is The Book, The Only Book, The Best of All the Fairy Tale Books. It’s a retelling of Cinderella about a girl named Ella who is cursed to always be obedient by “that fool of a fairy Lucinda” (I did not have to look up that quote, I remember it as the opening words from memory) who thought she was being benevolent. When Ella’s mother dies and an evil stepmother and two awful stepsisters enter the picture, you can imagine how bad forced obedience can be. But Ella is resilient, rebellious, and determined to break the curse. Levine’s story is set in a magical land with fairies and ogres and princes and a pitch-perfect romance for an eleven year old reader. The concept is clever and the writing is fresh and funny. Is there anyone who hasn’t yet read this book? If that’s you, get on it.

Princess Princess Ever After by Katie O’Neill

This is a graphic novel retelling of Rapunzel, but this time it’s a headstrong black princess, Amira, who rescues a white princess, Sadie, in the tower. They then go on a series of fun, small adventures, culminating in a bigger adventure where they confront the person who put Sadie in the tower in the first place. And yes, they fall in love, and there’s a sweet lesbian wedding in the epilogue, where the two girls are now adults and have accomplished much in their lives – and have come back to each other to live happily ever after. Not only is it important that this book presents a queer fairy tale for younger middle grade readers (an age group that’s tough to find comics for in the first place), it’s also just a really fun story with great art. I listed it as one of my top reads of 2017.

The True Story of the 3 Little Pigs by Jon Scieszka, illustrated by Lane Smith

Fractured fairy tales were hilarious when I was a kid, and this is the best of the lot. It’s Scieszka’s and Smith’s first collaboration, after which they would go on to do The Stinky Cheese Man and Other Fairly Stupid Tales and Math Curse, also excellent and funny books – but nothing beats this first one. After reading it, you too may come away believing that the Big Bad Wolf has been unfairly maligned. He can’t help it if he has a cold and sneezes, nor can he help the fact that the pigs’ houses were so poorly constructed that they collapsed under the force of said sneezes, killing the pigs. And there’s no reason to waste a perfectly good ham sandwich…right? Scieszka and Smith are the perfect partners; the art is just as funny as the text.

Mufaro’s Beautiful Daughters by John Steptoe

I have a confession: I was never that into Reading Rainbow when I was a kid. Sure, I appreciated the fact that we were watching television in school, but the books? I felt I was pretty much over them. They were all picture books and I considered myself too old and advanced for such things. Still, there were some books that stuck with me, and this is one of them, due to a combination of its story (similar to the Cinderella story I couldn’t get enough of) and Steptoe’s striking art. I didn’t realize until I was a librarian how important this book and its creator were to the history of kidlit.

For Teens

Poisoned Apples: Poems for You, My Pretty by Christine Heppermann

Heppermann’s collection of poetry retells several classic fairy tales, putting a feminist spin on them and drawing parallels between the girls from the fairy tales and real, modern teenage girls. They’re poems about beauty and obsession and misogyny and sex and food and everything that goes into a teenage girl’s life: what’s expected of her, what’s forced upon her, what she wants for herself. I’m not generally much of a poetry reader, but these are short, accessible, and full of mystery and truth. This is a collection worth revisiting.

Cruel Beauty by Rosamund Hodge

I loved this retelling of Beauty and the Beast, a story that’s always tricky to tell in a way that doesn’t make excuses for the Beast and create an inherently unequal or even abusive relationship between him and Beauty. But Hodge pulls it off remarkably well, and what’s more, she does so while also creating a fully-fleshed world of her own with a thorny protagonist and a plot that surprises at multiple turns. And the writing is gorgeous. This is one of my favorite retellings.

 

Castle Waiting by Linda Medley

I first read this book in library school as part of a class, and I credit it with being the book that got me into graphic novels. The castle of the title – Castle Waiting – provides sanctuary for fairy tale characters who have fled bad situations, like abusive husbands (as with our main character Jain who is on the run in the beginning of the book) or discrimination and persecution (as with a group of bearded nuns who find a home there). It’s one of those stories that puts a bunch of fairy tale characters together and has them interact with each other, much like Bill Willingham’s Fables (see below), but Castle Waiting is much less action-heavy and focuses primarily on the characters, who are funny and caring and weird. You’ll wish you could hang out with them. Medley’s story is wonderfully feminist and a joy to get lost in.

Zel by Donna Jo Napoli

I read every single thing Donna Jo Napoli had written at the time when I was a young teenager, but Zel was (and is) my favorite. It’s a re-telling of Rapunzel without much change from the original story, but it’s fleshed out to the length of a YA novel. In so doing, Napoli expands upon the characters and their relationships and motivations, creates a memorable setting (including a market that Zel occasionally goes to, not always locked up in the tower), and gives her readers all the details the standard story omits. What I remember most is how dreamy her writing is here, almost like poetry. I felt swept away while reading this as a teenager.

For Adults

Fables by Bill Willingham

In Willingham’s imagination, all the people and creatures of fairy tales and fables live in the same magical shared universe. When the Adversary conquers the lands they live in, they escape to New York City and set up Fabletown in an apartment building. There, they make a new life, hiding their origins and abilities from the “mundys,” ordinary non-magic people like you and me. In the world of Fabletown, the Big Bad Wolf is the sheriff, King Cole is the mayor, Snow White is the deputy mayor, Cinderella runs a shoe store as a front for espionage, Beauty works in a bookshop, Prince Charming is a womanizer with several broken relationships under his belt, and Briar Rose gets rich off the stock market. There are a few main story arcs over the course of the series, but the first and best one involves the characters of Fabletown taking on the Adversary, whose identity must first be discovered. Willingham takes these characters in new and creative directions each volume, building their relationships with each other, playing upon and twisting their traditional backstories, and cleverly portraying just how they would survive in the human world. Decidedly mature, this comic book series shows that fairy tales were indeed originally meant for adults as much as children.

Snow White, Blood Red edited by Ellen Datlow and Terri Windling

Datlow and Windling edited six different fairy tale anthologies in the nineties, and this is the first. As in most anthologies, the quality is hit and miss, but since it’s Datlow and Windling, there are many more hits than misses. I first found these as a teenager at my public library and go back to them when I want something short that I know will be good. Having so many different kinds of retold fairy tales in one book is a great way to sample the breadth and depth of the subgenre, to see all the fresh and exciting ways people continue to adapt these very old stories and make them new again.

Adult Books With Teen Main Characters: Three Recent Reads

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As much as I am a huge reader of YA, one of my other big reading loves is adult books with teen characters at the center. Having read so much of both, finding those sorts of markers which separate YA from adult has become a little easier through the years. Where YA has an immediacy to it and a specific type of voice and perspective, adult fiction with teen characters comes with a little bit greater sense of self-awareness, reflection, and slight removal from immediacy. It tends toward being less about emotions in the moment and more about consideration of those emotions and what it is they might mean. That isn’t to say YA doesn’t have that, but it’s done so differently.

 

adult books with teen characters

 

But one of the things I really dig about adult books with teen main characters is that often, they have tremendous appeal for teen readers. I think about how I read as a teen, and I read a lot of literary fiction. YA was around, of course, but I didn’t gravitate it in the same way I did adult fiction. The happy medium came with adult books but with characters who were around my age.

Here are three books that hit shelves so far in 2018 and feature both teen protagonists, as well as solid appeal for readers — teen and adult — of YA. Interestingly, all three are also debut novels. I wouldn’t be surprised if we see one or more of these books pop up somewhere on the Alex Awards list or its associated vetted nominations list next winter. As a bonus, for readers seeking more inclusive books, all three of these fit the bill.

 

brass xhenet aliu book coverBrass by Xhenet Aliu

In many ways, this book rang like the kind of book readers who loved the film Lady Bird would want to pick up. Told through two points of view eighteen years apart, Brass is the story of a mother and a daughter during that pivotal year.

Elise is a waitress at a local diner and hopes the job will add up to enough money to get her out of her small industrial town. But when she meets Bashkim, a line cook at the restaurant, the course of her life is changed because she’s fallen hopelessly in love. The problem is Bashkim is married. Well, that’s one of the problems. The other is, during the course of their relationship — whatever it is — Elise finds herself pregnant.

Luljeta is the daughter borne of that relationship. Her grandparents are Lithuanian immigrants and her missing father, Albanian, so she struggles to find a place in the community and with herself being a relative outsider. She’s been rejected from her dream college and now suspended from high school for the first time, Luljeta decides she needs to unravel a bit more about her own heritage and the mysterious man her mother had a relationship with that eventually lead to her existence.

This is an emotionally-gripping story that doesn’t necessarily traverse new territory. It’s a character study of two fascinating female characters growing up in a stark, impoverished, hurting small town in Connecticut. The way Aliu weaves in what it’s like to be the child of an Albanian immigrant and the way that feeds into identity is well-rendered. It’s not a speedy read, but it’s one that’s worth savoring. The sometimes tumultuous relationship between Luljeta and Elise is center stage, and given the choice Aliu made to tell their story in interweaving ways at the same time frame in their lives is smart and makes their current situation even more powerful.

 

 

girls burn brighter shobha rao book coverGirls Burn Brighter by Shobha Rao

Rao’s debut novel begins in India, following two girls who develop a fast, tight friendship. Poornima feels something special when she first meets Savitha; after Poornima’s mother had died, things became lonely for her, but Savitha quickly fills that hole with her vivacity, her attitude, and her unwavering dedication to being herself. This, despite how it sounds, isn’t a given. Savitha comes from one of the poorest areas of a poor community, and she is able to show to Poornima how to fall deeply in love with the littlest pieces of day-to-day life. For once, Poornima feels a sense of hope she’s not yet felt. She is able to see something more than the upcoming arranged marriage her father is trying to find for her.

Finding a partner for Poornima isn’t easy. She’s not desirable to the wealthier-by-comparison families for a number of reasons, including the color of her skin. And when a match is finally made, it’s a marriage of abuse, of lies, of deceit.

But before that even comes to fruition, Savitha disappears. Now locked in this marriage, Poornima would do anything to get out and more, do anything to find the girl who she so desperately loved. And when Poornima gets out from the watchful eye of her husband and mother-in-law, she begins to travel into a dark, painful underworld in India, hoping to find her best friend.

The book ends in Seattle, and it’s that interim space between that marriage and Seattle where so much unravels. This is a book about the way men abuse women, both on the domestic front and on the larger, external front. It’s about human trafficking, too, and about the lengths that women seeking a way out will go to find that hope.

And in the end, this is a book about how fiery, how fierce, and how loyal girls can be to one another. Savitha and Poornima only spend a small portion of the book together, but it’s the spark between them that keeps them connected through tragic event after tragic event.

What I loved most is what they carried of one another inside them. Poornima saw Savitha as the brave, self-assured girl, but in the end, Poornima pulls that same energy to find Savitha again, who has found herself in a situation not unlike the one Poornima was in during her marriage. Lost. Adrift. Alone.

Great writing and great voices really make this one sing.

 

 

speak no evil by uzodinma iweala book coverSpeak No Evil by Uzodinma Iweala

Clocking in at just over 200 pages, Speak No Evil packs in two exceptionally powerful plot lines: that of Niru, a privileged son of Nigerian parents in the US who is gay but is being forced to lose this part of his identity due to his parents’ expectations and that of Meredith, the white girl who had befriended Niru and found herself angry that he didn’t lust for her in the way she felt he should. The first three-quarters of the book are his story; the last quarter, hers, though arguable, it is her side which really impacts his in the end.

There are a lot of loose ends here and a lot of pieces, but this is a story about a first-generation African American boy coming to terms with his sexuality, which defies his parents’ beliefs. It IS a tragic queer story, but it’s also one that we don’t hear enough.

Note that this paragraph is a significant spoiler, so jump down if need be (though, honestly, the read alikes will tell you many things here, too). Speak No Evil is, ultimately, about how a white girl’s lies lead to the death of Niru in the hands of police. It’s about how much she allows herself to dwell in this, how she blames herself, and ultimately, Iweala does a tremendous job at looking at the ways white people can exploit that pain in ways that benefit them and give their lives an arc they’d otherwise not have. So, naturally, the queer black character dies, but she gets no redemption arc. She has no real sympathy or empathy. She’s exceptionally typical, and it really works here.

Pass this book along to readers who love The Hate U Give, How It Went Down, Dear Martin, or Tyler Johnson Was Here. This is about the intersection of race, privilege, and social power.