Breathing Room by Marsha Hayles ★★★★☆ Evvy Hoffmeister is thirteen years old when her family brings her to Loon Lake Sanatorium to get cured of tuberculosis (TB). Evvy is frightened by her new surroundings; the rules to abide are harsh and the nurses equally rigid. But Evvy soon falls into step with the other girls in her ward. There’s Sarah, quiet but thoughtful; Pearl, who adores Hollywood glamour; and Dina, whose harshness conceals a deep strength. Together, the girls brave the difficult daily routines. Set in 1940 at a time of political unrest throughout the U.S. and Europe, this thought-provoking novel sheds light on a much-feared worldwide illness. Hundreds of thousands of people died each year of TB, and many ill children were sent away to sanatoriums to hopefully recover. Although Breathing Room is a few years too young for me, I was intrigued by the story of a young TB patient. Although the book doesn't really get into the grittiest details of the disease, it remains realistic and sobering. The book is full of historical documents and photos detailing life during the TB epidemic. It also touches on World War II. I enjoyed Evvy's steady narration of daily life in the sanatorium, her quiet determination, and the friends she made there. Middle-school kids interested in history would love Breathing Room.
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Ask the Passengers by A.S. King ★★★★★ Astrid Jones desperately wants to confide in someone, but her mother's pushiness and her father's lack of interest tell her they're the last people she can trust. Instead, Astrid spends hours lying on the backyard picnic table watching airplanes fly overhead. She doesn't know the passengers inside, but they're the only people who won't judge her when she asks them her most personal questions...like what it means that she's falling in love with a girl. Astrid can't share the truth with anyone except the people she imagines flying over her at thirty thousand feet, and they don't even know she's there. But little does Astrid know just how much even the tiniest connection will affect these strangers' lives--and her own--for the better. Some books with characters who are questioning their sexuality are incredibly disappointing; the characters end up straight and their questions turn out to be a ploy for LGBTQ readers. But Ask the Passengers was anything but disappointing. I loved that Astrid ad her girlfriend, Dee, had already been dating for a while. YA likes to focus on the "falling" part of love, and overlooks couples who've been dating for a few months and are just starting to run into their first problems. It was kind of refreshing to see people working at love and mending all its holes, instead of thinking there won't ever be any. Ask the Passengers is a reminder that love isn't straightforward or easy, but it's worth a lot more that way. Ask the Passengers isn't just a love story, though, and it will get you thinking about a lot. Astrid's character is easy to love, and she's relatable. It's not just gay people or people questioning their sexuality who can relate to her, but people with dysfunctional families, friends, and small-town lives. Anyone grappling with their reputation will be comforted and encouraged by Astrid's story. My copy of Ask the Passengers is sprouting post-it notes bookmarking highlighted passages and quotes. People like to say that words and stores are powerful, but it's hard to understand that until you've read a book like this one. King's words made me think, and hit home in a way only two or three books have before. I'm probably going to shove this book into the hands of every other person I meet so it can do the same for them. This is a book I will read to my children someday. Gated by Amy Christine Parker ★★★☆☆ - In the Community, life seems perfect. After the 9/11 terrorist attacks, Pioneer invited Lyla’s family to join his group and escape the evil in the world. They were happy to be chosen, happy to move away from New York and start over in such an idyllic gated community. Now seventeen, Lyla knows that Pioneer is more than just their charismatic leader, he is their prophet … but his visions have grown dark. Lyla is a loyal member of the Community, but a chance encounter with an outsider boy has her questioning Pioneer, the Community—everything. And if there’s one thing not allowed in the Community, it’s doubt. Her family and friends are certain in their belief. Lyla wishes she could feel the same. As Pioneer begins to manipulate his flock toward disaster, the question remains: Will Lyla follow them over the edge? It’s hard to imagine why anyone would join a cult, especially one of the kind that Lyla’s part of, when you’re not actually in a cult. But Parker tells the story of traumatized people preyed upon by a power-hungry villain. The quotes from Jim Jones and Charles Manson, leaders of real-life cults, add a terrifying element of reality to the book. I liked that the story progresses both from Lyla’s perspective and from an outsider’s. Although it’s told from Lyla’s point of view, Parker throws in enough details for an “outsider” to realize there’s something off. The closer you get to the end of the book, the more dangerous it feels. The ending isn’t really a surprise, though. Although the Community was well-developed and portrayed, Parker never mentioned Pioneer’s motives. Obviously he was a madman, but he still had some sort of reason or logic behind his actions. He was scary and obviously manipulative, but he lacked a bit of depth because of that. I liked the apocalypse-preppers side of the Community, and it added a lot of suspense throughout the book. I could realistically see Pioneer talking a group of people, traumatized by personal and national tragedies, into believing that the world would end to punish the wicked. What didn’t seem so realistic is that he would be able to convince them the world would end when the earth’s rotation was reversed. That isn’t scientifically possible, and if it didn’t ring true with me, I don’t see how Pioneer convinced so many well-educated people of it. Pioneer’s strange new religion was also kind of off to me. Again, it was realistic that he claimed he was a prophet and gained a cult following of his new religion. But Parker took it too far when she added in aliens. Even if some of the Community members had believed in aliens before meeting Pioneer, it seems like when he told them the Brethren were watching them and choosing to save them from the outer reaches of space, they’d have called bullcrap on the whole thing. Other than a few hiccups and overdone plot points, though, Gated was a fascinating and captivating read. The romantic part of the plot had the feel of instalove, but since the story mainly revolved around the Community and Pioneer’s control over it, that didn’t bother me too much. Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro ★★★☆☆ As a child, Kathy – now thirty-one years old – lived at Hailsham, a private school in the scenic English countryside where the children were sheltered from the outside world, brought up to believe that they were special and that their well-being was crucial not only for themselves but for the society they would eventually enter. Kathy had long ago put this idyllic past behind her, but when two of her Hailsham friends come back into her life, she stops resisting the pull of memory. And so, as her friendship with Ruth is rekindled, and as the feelings that long ago fueled her adolescent crush on Tommy begin to deepen into love, Kathy recalls their years at Hailsham. She describes happy scenes of boys and girls growing up together, unperturbed – even comforted – by their isolation. But she describes other scenes as well: of discord and misunderstanding that hint at a dark secret behind Hailsham’s nurturing facade. With the dawning clarity of hindsight, the three friends are compelled to face the truth about their childhood–and about their lives now. Never Let Me Go is told in a disconnected sort of way, more a collection of anecdotes than a proper plot. The plot of the book left me sort of underwhelmed; it wasn't too dramatic, and the romance seemed forced. The characters were interesting and they all had their quirks, but they didn't really seem to go together - there wasn't any chemistry for the romance, even though it was a huge part of the plot. The plot, like I said, is rather disjointed and more a collection of short stories. It adds to the effect that Kathy is looking back on her life, but it overlooks a lot of the emotional impact of donations. We don't hear about the history of the donations and the donor children until the very last chapter, although we do get glimpses and a basic understanding throughout the book. The donor children were the most interesting part of the book. Both the children and the "normal" people's reaction to them providing an interesting look at humanity, but again we don't really get the full effect of it until the last chapter. Because of the vague way Ishiguro told the story, I wanted to keep reading and find out more. In some ways, I suppose Ishiguro was telling us about the donations the way Kathy and her friends were told; a little bit at a time so it was never too shocking. Looking back on it, there was a lot I enjoyed about Never Let Me Go, and it's definitely a book that will stay with me. Me and Earl and the Dying Girl by Jesse Andrews ★★☆☆☆ Greg Gaines is the last master of high school espionage, able to disappear at will into any social environment. He has only one friend, Earl, and together they spend their time making movies, their own incomprehensible versions of Coppola and Herzog cult classics. Until Greg’s mother forces him to rekindle his childhood friendship with Rachel. Rachel has been diagnosed with leukemia—-cue extreme adolescent awkwardness—-but a parental mandate has been issued and must be obeyed. When Rachel stops treatment, Greg and Earl decide the thing to do is to make a film for her, which turns into the Worst Film Ever Made and becomes a turning point in each of their lives. There are numerous “cancer books” and a lot of them focus on the fighting cancer bit and how strong and inspiring that is. I really liked that Andrews didn’t do that. He didn’t turn Rachel into a martyr because of her illness. Actually, I’m hesitant to even call Me and Earl and the Dying Girl a cancer book, because it doesn’t focus on the cancer, which was actually pretty great. What the book does focus on is Greg’s stupid. There’s quite a lot of stupid. Some of it adds to Greg’s character, like his awkwardness and inability to have a conversation, but a lot of it, like his constant insistence that his book sucks, is just annoying. It’s like when people insist something they’ve made is awful just so people will say it isn’t. Andrews’ book isn’t bad, and it definitely had some good points. They just got weighed down by the bad. The characters were strong, although a wee bit overdone. A lot of them seemed off to me, actually, especially Greg. I laughed (a little too loudly) a few times, but it didn’t really impress me. For one thing, a lot of the humor is kind of offensive and the jokes that actually were funny were of the variety that makes you question your sense of humor. The short version: I loved Andrews’ point that shit happens and people die and it sucks but not everybody (actually, most people) don’t take a lesson away from that. But a lot of the humor fell flat with me and a good amount of the story grated on my nerves. Girl in Translation by Jean Kwok ★★★★★ When Kimberly Chang and her mother emigrate from Hong Kong to Brooklyn squalor, she quickly begins a secret double life: exceptional schoolgirl during the day, Chinatown sweatshop worker in the evenings. Disguising the more difficult truths of her life like the staggering degree of her poverty, the weight of her family’s future resting on her shoulders, or her secret love for a factory boy who shares none of her talent or ambition. Kimberly learns to constantly translate not just her language but herself back and forth between the worlds she straddles. I love this book. Everything about it rings true. Kwok tells harsh truths with a gentle voice; at first with the innocence of a child and then with the careful acceptance of an adult. Stereotypes and stigmas surrounding immigrants and their hardships are scrubbed away to reveal real people. Each character was colorful and interesting, and Kimberly herself was fully realized. I feel like I could run into her on the street. I especially loved that the romance doesn’t take anything away from Kim. Its purpose wasn’t to fix her, change her, or take away from her ambition, and it was done perfectly. The plot was a little slow in places, but they were few and far between. Everything else was so well done and captivating, I didn’t mind. I loved this book from beginning to end and I highly recommend it. The Miseducation of Cameron Post by Emily M. Danforth ★★★★☆ When Cameron Post’s parents die suddenly in a car crash, her shocking first thought is relief. Relief they’ll never know that, hours earlier, she had been kissing a girl. But that relief doesn’t last, and Cam’s conservative Aunt Ruth soon moves in with Cam and her well-intentioned but hopelessly old-fashioned grandmother. She knows that from this point on, her life will forever be different. Survival in Miles City, Montana, means blending in and leaving well enough alone (as her grandmother might say), and Cam becomes an expert at both. Cam keeps her secret, and no one seems to notice. But just as that starts to seem like a real possibility, ultrareligious Aunt Ruth takes drastic action to “fix” her niece, bringing Cam face-to-face with the cost of denying her true self - even if she’s not exactly sure who that is. This book is really important. Anyone struggling with their sexuality who’s from a super-religious, old-fashioned, or homophobic family or community should read it. Danforth put a lot on the table with Cameron Post, and she handled it all beautifully. The de-gaying school, God’s Promise, makes my stomach churn, but at the same time I understood why the people in charge had created the place, and I commend Danforth for that, for making them human, albeit misguided ones. All of the issues in Danforth’s novel were handled honestly, with no kid gloves, and she did a really good job. Cameron, thankfully, isn’t based on the fact that she’s a lesbian. She’s someone any teenager could relate to. Cam’s a well-developed character you can’t help but care about and root for. She was the main reason the story was so compelling; I had to know what happened to her, and I got genuinely worried for her several times while I was reading. The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson Abandoned: Page 183 ☆☆☆☆☆ Mikael Blomkvist, a once-respected financial journalist, watches his professional life rapidly crumble around him. Prospects appear bleak until an unexpected (and unsettling) offer to resurrect his name is extended by an old-school titan of Swedish industry. The catch—and there’s always a catch—is that Blomkvist must first spend a year researching a mysterious disappearance that has remained unsolved for nearly four decades. With few other options, he accepts and enlists the help of investigator Lisbeth Salander, a misunderstood genius with a cache of authority issues. Quite frankly, I hated this book. It’s highly praised and rated, but it wasn’t for me. I was drawn in by the adventure-hinting title and the promise of a kickass girl fighting crime. At the point where I gave up on the book, neither had been delivered. Eventually, I got too frustrated with it to continue. The first several chapters were laden with technical details about business, finance, and corporate sabotage that were hard to follow (they referenced a lot of famous Swedes, who I did not know of) and not wholly necessary. The chapters could have been summed up in a few pages or less. I kept reading only because I hoped that the book would pick up. It didn’t. The theme of dense, dry, and boring writing continued throughout the novel. Some of the issues I had with the writing may have been caused by the book being translated from Swedish, which it was written in. But that doesn’t account for the numerous bad transitions from Mikael’s point of view to Lisbeth’s, or for the fact that it read like a textbook. Although if you’re interested in bizarre Swedish families or corporate sabotage, you might find it interesting. Besides the unnecessary amount of details, the novel also had a lot of “product-placement.” Every time a character went shopping, the brand of practically everything was given, and when Lisbeth wanted to buy a new computer, Larsson turned into an Apple spokesperson for half a page. The title of the book led me to believe that Lisbeth Salander was the main character, when in fact she was barely a side character and hadn’t even been connected with Blomkvist or into the main story by the time I abandoned the book. When she did appear, she was practically lifeless and had pretty much no personality. She was sold as anti-social and ruthless, but she came off as a coma patient whose body hadn’t caught up with her brain. Out of all my problems with The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, its offensiveness was probably one of the biggest. A lot of the female characters are depicted negatively, especially Lisbeth, who despite being healthy if not robust in the mental health department, was referred to quite often as “retarded.” She was also described as “anorexic” in one paragraph, but the next explained that she didn’t have an eating disorder and ate like a horse, just weighed 90 pounds anyway. The worst offense against Lisbeth was her rape, which Larsson handled awfully. Lisbeth doesn’t even react. If you’re going to write about rape, at least show how traumatizing and awful it is, don’t imply that it’s “the norm”! If that weren’t bad enough, the original title of the book was Men Who Hate Women, which, I think, is a much more accurate description of the novel. Attachments by Rainbow Rowell ★★★★☆ Beth Fremont and Jennifer Scribner-Snyder know that somebody is monitoring their work e-mail. (Everybody in the newsroom knows. It’s company policy.) But they can’t quite bring themselves to take it seriously. They go on sending each other endless and endlessly hilarious e-mails, discussing every aspect of their personal lives. Meanwhile, Lincoln O’Neill can’t believe this is his job now- reading other people’s e-mail. When he applied to be “internet security officer,” he pictured himself building firewalls and crushing hackers- not writing up a report every time a sports reporter forwards a dirty joke. When Lincoln comes across Beth’s and Jennifer’s messages, he knows he should turn them in. But he can’t help being entertained-and captivated-by their stories. By the time Lincoln realizes he’s falling for Beth, it’s way too late to introduce himself. What would he say … ? Warning! Do not read this book unless you are prepared for heavy doses of adorableness! Attachments is realistic fiction at its finest. Rowell is the master of witty banter, complicated characters, and turning the ordinary into a captivating narrative. She manages to juggle subplots without turning it into a soap opera, and keeping her pacing perfect. The book was a little bit predictable, but I didn’t mind in this instance. A few scenes read like fanfiction (which isn’t necessarily a bad thing), but the rest was literary bliss for a hopeless romantic. The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie by Alan Bradley ★★★☆☆ Flavia de Luce is an aspiring chemist with a passion for poison. In the summer of 1950, a series of inexplicable events strikes her home, Buckshaw, a decaying English mansion. A dead bird is found on the doorstep, a postage stamp bizarrely pinned to its beak. Hours later, Flavia finds a man lying in the cucumber patch and watches him as he takes his dying breath. For Flavia, both appalled and delighted, life begins in earnest when murder comes to Buckshaw. To Flavia, the investigation is the stuff of science: full of possibilities, contradictions, and connections. I have read far better murder mysteries than Sweetness. Its rambling, often disjointed writing lends to the childishness of its narrator, eleven-year-old Flavia de Luce, but makes the story hard to follow. The biggest problem I had with Sweetness was Flavia herself. She goes from singing and switching topics constantly to scientific lectures on chemistry. For her to be eleven and know and understand as much about such a complex subject as chemistry, she would have to be a genius, and the murder would’ve been solved much faster. I found it difficult to believe that she had been experimenting in her own chemical lab for years, creating poisons, and understands more about chemistry than my entire ninth grade class combined. Flavia also makes quite a few references to 1950s pop culture and famous chemists, which the reader knows nothing about, and which weren’t needed in the story. It got to the point where I’d see song lyrics and just skip over them. The end of Sweetness was actually rather good, though. As the final pieces of the puzzle clicked into place, the story got much more interesting and captivating. About the last quarter of the book is excellent, but the rest of it left something to be desired. |
Once Upon a Time...As a longtime lover of stories and a believer in the power and magic of books, I've spent my life seeking out the best reads. This blog is dedicated to reviewing the books I read - good, bad, or magnificent - to help other readers find their next favorite books. Currently ReadingKing Zeno
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