Over on Book Riot this week…
Then tune into the new episode of Hey YA, where Eric and I talk about a great article about the growth of YA fiction alongside teen culture, YA books set in the outdoors, and we talk even more great books by and about Asian Americans.
Drift: The Unmooring of American Military Power by Rachel Maddow
I read a lot of short pieces online about various political and governmental topics, but I generally stay away from the full-length books. I’m actively trying to change that by seeking out books on interesting topics written by people I already know and trust. Maddow’s central thesis is that over the years, the American military has transformed from a small force engaged in war only when absolutely necessary into a bloated, inefficient machine with a muddled mission and ineffective tactics, a military that is now perpetually at war. That’s no denigration of the soldiers; rather, she takes issue with the power of the executive to send soldiers into war without calling it such, with the increased privatization of military action, with the military’s obsession with nuclear weapons and its myopic focus on counterterrorism, with the CIA’s de facto status as a branch of the military unsupervised in any meaningful way, with the public’s apathy toward the fact that we’re always at war somewhere, and more. She documents just how far we’ve strayed from Thomas Jefferson’s proclamation to “never keep an unnecessary soldier,” from the idea that war is to be avoided at all costs and if the nation must enter into it, it must deeply affect the general populace of the United States – so that it hurts us at home just as much as it hurts the soldiers fighting it. It’s well-argued, clearly-written, and mostly non-partisan. Maddow reads the audiobook version, which is of course the perfect choice.
Mistborn by Brandon Sanderson
For almost a decade of my life, adult fantasy novels made up 90% of my reading diet. It’s been a long time since that was the case; now I read mostly YA science fiction and fantasy, adult romance, and adult mysteries and thrillers. But I haven’t forgotten my longtime love, and I’m hoping to rekindle our romance with this doorstopper of a novel that’s universally beloved by pretty much all my fantasy-loving friends. It’s got a traditional fantasy plotline – an oppressed people fights back against their evil overlords with the help of a magically gifted, inspiring revolutionary – with an interesting magic system and detailed, well-realized world-building. At 541 pages, I’m hoping I can finish it before it needs to be returned to the library.
When Light Left Us by Leah Thomas
This is a weird one (I’m hoping in a good way!). The three Vasquez siblings’ father left their family without an explanation, and soon after, a strange being named Luz joins them. Incorporeal Luz lives inside the kids for a brief time, experimenting with each of their most valued physical features in order to explore the world around it: Hank’s hands, Ana’s eyes, and Milo’s ears. In return, the siblings’ abilities with these particular features, already sharp (Hank plays basketball; Ana makes movies), are heightened. But Luz doesn’t stay long either, and when it leaves, it cripples the very things the kids valued most. Written a certain way, this premise might come across as silly, but Thomas’ writing is dense and dreamlike, layered with emotion, and so far, it’s working.
It’s been a minute since I’ve done one of these posts, so let’s do it again. You can check out past entries here and here. The premise is simple, but the game is not as easy as it seems like it could be.
I’ll screen cap the subject headings for popular YA books, and you’ll see how well you can guess what those books are based entirely on the subject headings. These won’t be obscure books, though by the card catalog subject headings, you might think they are. Note that some of these I’ve limited to the first handful of subject headings. Answers are at the bottom of the post, and I’d love to hear in the comments how you did! Anything particularly tricky? Anything particularly easy?
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(This one had two very big giveaways as the first subjects, so I scrambled them).
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Answers below!
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1. The Astonishing Color of After by Emily XR Pan
2. Turtles All The Way Down by John Green
3. The Poet X by Elizabeth Acevedo
4. One Of Us Is Lying by Karen McManus
5. A Court of Thorns and Roses by Sarah J. Maas
6. Long Way Down by Jason Reynolds
7. We Are Okay by Nina LaCour
8. Piecing Me Together by Renée Watson
9. Strange The Dreamer by Laini Taylor (the first two subject headings were “Teens’ Top Ten Nominee” and “Michael L. Printz Honor Books”).
10. The Children of Blood and Bone by Tomi Adeyemi
Over on Book Riot this week…
I don’t read a lot of verse novels, but I really should: they’re fast reads (despite a hefty page count for many), immediately give me a sense of the narrator’s voice, and offer a new way to tell sometimes old stories. In the case of Xiomara in The Poet X, hers is a story that has been told before in that it’s a story about coming of age, about finding your voice when others try to silence you. At the same time, it’s a story not told often enough – that of a young girl of color finding her way in this country.
Xiomara is the fifteen year old daughter of Dominican immigrants, a girl whose curves developed early and whose devout Catholic mother forces her to adhere to a strict code of behavior. This code of behavior has no room for dating and boys, but it also has no room for poetry, the only outlet Xiomara has for expressing herself. She tells her story in poems, a story that includes falling in like with a Trinidadian boy from her school, her struggles with and questions about the religious faith she was raised with, and her talent for both writing and performing her poetry. When Xiomara learns about a poetry club at school, she decides to join, letting her mother believe she is going to confirmation class instead. Even as Xiomara starts to blossom in this area of her life, as she’s drawn out by a trustworthy teacher, a dependable friend, and a kind boy who treats her as a person and not as a body, her home life closes in: these secrets Xiomara keeps cannot remain secret forever.
Acevedo’s writing is so good; it’s no surprise that she’s won awards for her poetry (written and performed). Xiomara tells her story in short poems of no more than 2-3 pages each. Often the title of the poem doubles as its first line; sometimes the titles refer to each other, creating a deliberate contrast, as when Xiomara shares the draft of an assignment in English class and then shares the final version on the next page. Sometimes the poems are in Spanish or Xiomara quotes her mother in Spanish, though a translation soon follows. Xiomara tells her story mostly in free verse, but she also sometimes experiments with haiku and unconventional spacing or line breaks. Each poem furthers the story while also giving us more of Xiomara’s voice, and the resultant package is one of beauty, depth, and intensity. This is a stellar example of the verse novel format.
Acevedo’s treatment of the harassment Xiomara receives simply for being a girl that exists in physical space – especially one with well-developed curves – is particularly well-done. She’s harassed by the men on the street as well as the boys in school. She’s had to learn to stand up for herself, to protect herself against these men and boys and their words and hands, because no one else will do it for her. Acevedo also excels at portraying the relationship between Xiomara and her twin brother, Xavier, who is gay but must hide it from his parents, who at best would disapprove and at worst would subject him to the same (or worse) punishment that Xiomara receives for her many perceived transgressions. Xiomara’s Harlem neighborhood comes alive in her poems, too: the characters and the place they reside live and breathe.
Xiomara’s authentic voice, which includes some slang in both vocabulary and structure as well as a few pop culture references (Nicki Minaj and Drake, for example), will resonate with today’s teens, many of whom will find a welcome mirror in her story. Acevedo’s dedication reads, “To Katherine Bolaños and my former students at Buck Lodge Middle School 2010-2012, and all the little sisters yearning to see themselves: this is for you.” At a panel at the Texas Library Association, Acevedo explained a bit about Katherine, a girl in the English class she taught who had no interest in reading – until Acevedo was able to give her books where she could see at least a little of herself and her life. As librarians, we know these kids, and we know that the non-reader is just the reader who hasn’t been given the right book. The Poet X will be that book for many girls who haven’t found theirs yet.