Month: May 2023

Mini reviews

A whole bunch of mini-reviews!

Stephanie1 Comment

Arright, friends. It’s been a time here. The whole house has been down with COVID (ZERO idea where this came from; we’re still being incredibly careful and masking everywhere. My last trip to the dentist was far enough away from my onset of symptoms that I’m not confident it came from there. SO weird), so I’ve gotten a bit behind in reviews. Thus, we’re going to do a catch-up post where I speed-run a few books in order to get everything reviewed that I want to! Ready? Here we go!

Where the Jews Aren’t: The Sad and Absurd Story of Birobidzhan, Russia’s Jewish Autonomous Region by Masha Gessen (Schocken, 2015)

Full of history and the depressing-ness of 20th-century Russia and its hatefulness toward Jews. Masha Gessen’s books pack a massive intellectual punch; they’re not light reading, but I always learn so much from her. I read this for the 2023 Pop Sugar Reading Challenge, in the category of ‘A book with a map.’

Unfuck Your Habitat: You’re Better Than Your Mess by Rachel Hoffman (St. Martin’s Griffin, 2017)

I needed a book that I thought my best friend would like for Pop Sugar, so without asking her, I chose this one. In a Facebook conversation that arose totally organically, I learned that she indeed does own an audiobook copy of this (but has yet to listen to it). GO ME!!! 

I’ve been a longtime fan of Rachel Hoffman’s Unfuck Your Habitat on various forms of social media, so I was really looking forward to reading her wisdom in book form, and she did not disappoint. This book really helped me refine my tidying routines, and it cemented in me the wisdom of 20/10’s – cleaning for 20 minutes, resting for 10. Surprisingly, this makes a HUGE amount of difference, and I’ve absolutely adopted it into my routine. Along with Soulful Simplicity, I used what I learned from this book to finally tackle my gross refrigerator (and taking several days to do it, which REALLY works well for me! No overwhelm, no taking massive blocks of time, just a little here and there, and it’s clean now!), and daily cleaning gets done like this as well. Cannot recommend this book highly enough! 

Vincent’s Starry Night and Other Stories: A Children’s History of Art by Michael Bird, illustrated by Kate Evans (Laurence King Publishing, 2016)

Grabbed this before our library closed for the big move and read it all out loud to my daughter for school. An excellent book that tells the history of art (and the history of the world) via paintings and stories about their painters. We really enjoyed this!

Fire and Rain: The Beatles, Simon and Garfunkel, James Taylor, CSNY, and the Lost Story of 1970 by David Browne (Da Capo Press, 2011)

Another Pop Sugar selection, for ‘a book with a song lyric as its title.’ SO GOOD. I was sad when it ended. I’m a big fan of music of this era, and getting to live vicariously through the makers of some of the best music ever written was just an absolute joy. It was especially bittersweet reading this in the wake of David Crosby’s recent death. If you’re a fan of this era of music, you don’t want to miss this delightful book.

The Giant Book of Tiny Homes: Living Large in Small Spaces by John Riha (Centennial Books, 2021)

I’m big-time obsessed with tiny homes, so this was a fun one to look through. Some were actually too big for my tastes, and others were second homes (the idea of second homes, when so many can’t even afford a first, really grosses me out) and were more…curated and carefully decorated than felt organic to me, but it was enjoyable to flip through this and read the musings and little bits of technical tiny house info (did you know marine heaters are a good choice for tiny homes? I think that’s so cool) on a Sunday afternoon.

Overbooked: The Exploding Business of Travel and Tourism by Elizabeth Becker (Simon & Schuster, 2013)

Another Pop Sugar selection, for the category of ‘a book you meant to read in 2022.’ (Turns out the library that I wanted to get it from had weeded it, which is why it was never in whenever I checked for it! Picked it up from a different library a few weeks before I got sick.) This is a FABULOUS hard look at the dark side of tourism: what happens when tourists and second-home owners crowd out the locals, what happens to the infrastructure when it’s overwhelmed, the damage done to native species when they’re constantly trampled on or their habitat is infringed on by hordes of people, the destruction of tourist hotspots that were never meant to host millions of people, and the outright disgustingness of cruise ships and the absolute havoc they wreak on the environment. Holy cow, this was an intense read. I’m not a traveler, but woof, if I were, this would have me taking a good long look at my behavior and plans. It was written well pre-pandemic; I hope she writes a follow-up about travel in a world plagued by COVID.

Jacob Have I Loved by Katherine Paterson (HarperCollins, 1980)

Still another Pop Sugar selection, for ‘a book published the year you were born.’ #old I read this over and over again as a kid, so it was interesting to read it again as an adult. Most of my original opinions still stand. Still not a huge fan of the ending. The book is way more literary than most young adult novels these days, I think, or maybe I’m just not reading the right YA. Who knows. My grandmother (who was a librarian and a teacher) loved Katherine Paterson, so this was a nice trip back into one of her favorites.

Jewish Literacy: The Most Important Things to Know About the Jewish Religion, Its People, and Its History by Rabbi Joseph Telushkin (William Morrow, 1991)

We used this in my conversion class, and I did all the assigned reading, but we didn’t read *everything*, so I wanted to go back and read the entire book. So I did, reading two entries per night before I started on my regular reading. And I finished the whole thing, all 688 pages of it! Go me!

Pickled Watermelon by Esty Schachter (Kar-Ben Publishing, 2018)

A PJ Library book that I read out loud to my daughter. It’s 1986, and Molly is on her first trip to Israel with her family, meeting her Israeli family for the first time and discovering the complexities and beauty of the country. We really enjoyed this.

A Man Called Ove by Frederik Backman (Atria Books, 2014)

Read for the Pop Sugar Reading Challenge, for the category of ‘a book becoming a TV series or movie in 2023.’ This got made into a movie starring Tom Hanks, and bonus, I owned a copy of the book, thanks to a book sale last year! Charming story of a crusty old man who’s set in his ways and not coping well after the fairly recent death of his wife, but his new neighbors slowly worm their way into his heart and life. I always enjoy Frederik Backman.

And that’s it! Whew. Told you I got behind! And now I’m caught up, which is always a nice feeling. : )

memoir · nonfiction

Book Review: Action Park: Fast Times, Wild Rides, and the Untold Story of America’s Most Dangerous Amusement Park by Andy Mulvihill with Jake Rossen

Stephanie1 Comment

Another 2023 Pop Sugar Reading Challenge: a book by a first time author! I dug through my TBR and came up with something I’d been wanting to read for a while: Action Park: Fast Times, Wild Rides, and the Untold Story of America’s Most Dangerous Amusement Park by Andy Mulvihill with Jake Rossen (Penguin Books, 2020). My older child is super into amusement park history and has told me about Action Park before, so I was really curious about this book (plus I’d heard great things about it). It was, however, at a different library, and I just hadn’t made it over there yet. But for this challenge, my hand was forced, and this ended up being a very good thing.

Action Park in New Jersey was known for sending its park-goers home with injuries, some of them serious. Guests could expect bruises, bumps, abrasions, broken bones, concussions, all the way up to drownings and death. No, really. But to Andy Mulvihill, the park was his childhood and his young adulthood. Created by his father, Gene, the park put the guests in control of the action…but, as we know, people often don’t behave as they should.

Go-cart-style cars were crashed and flipped. Scooters that raced down a mountainside at top speed led to scars and broken bones. The wave pool, with its murky water, had the lifeguards on high alert at all times, and with good reason: the number of people they had to rescue each shift was appallingly high. Fights broke out in the park often, sanitation was nearly impossible to keep up with, and the whole thing seemed to be uncontrollable chaos. But this place was beloved, and Andy Mulvihill’s love for both the park and his dreamer father are evident on every page.

This is a fun, FUN book. The way Mr. Mulvihill and Mr. Rossen describe the many horrifying incidents at the park had me laughing out loud multiple times (and then questioning if I should be laughing at that at all!). A few times, I burst into my older kid’s room to relay something that they inevitably already knew, but I was just so shocked by. Gene Mulvihill made so many choices for his park that would never, ever fly today (and Andy Mulvihill acknowledges this), but somehow, the park’s attendance just kept growing, year after year. Product of its time and place, I suppose.

Seriously, this is a SUPER fun book, both a memoir and a history of the wildest amusement park I’ve ever heard of, and I cannot recommend it highly enough. What an absolute delight it was to spend a few days lost in its pages.

fiction

Book Review: After by Anna Todd

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Arright, friends. Buckle up, because this one is…something.

For the 2023 Pop Sugar Reading Challenge, I had to read a book that started out as fan fiction. And that was fine with me. I love the idea of fan fiction; I love the idea of people loving a set of characters so much that they want to continue on with them, take them on their own adventures that they, the fans, created. That’s amazing to me, and I’ve heard of some published authors anonymously writing fan fiction as a way to further hone their skills. I’ve read some in the past, some really well-written stuff, but nothing recently. 

Anyway, the choices I found weren’t much up my alley (most of them, the original just wasn’t my thing), so after squinting at the list for a bit, I finally settled on After by Anna Todd (Gallery Books, 2014). I knew going into it that it was originally Harry Styles fan fiction that came from Wattpad, and the reviews for it I read were…not great. Which only made me more curious. I’m not opposed to a good hate read.

But.

Y’all.

This was just…

BAD.

Like, BAD.

Like, insulting to all the other well-written books on the shelf kind of bad. Embarrassingly bad. 

Here we go, friends. Hang on tight.

She’s a prissy, over-the-top naive Pick Me with a stick up her ass the size of a giant redwood. He’s a tatted-up bad boy with anger issues and a likely cornucopia of undiagnosed mental health problems. Together, they’re that toxic couple from your high school that everyone wished would finally break up so they’d stop fighting in public and making everyone else listen to their complaints about each other.

Tessa is dropped off at college by her controlling mother and cardigan-and-loafer-sporting younger boyfriend while wearing a zip-up dress, so that should tell you everything you need to know about her right there. She and her mother are horrified at the first site of her roommate Steph and her gutter-trash friends; they’re all tatted up, dyed hair, piercings, and ripped clothing (they’re not ‘Gothic,’ however, as Tessa will later insist. Yes, really). She’s both repulsed by and drawn to Hardin (IS THAT NAME OBVIOUS ENOUGH FOR YOU???), the super-hot, tattoo-covered British bad boy with a lip ring and eyebrow piercing, and they get off to a rocky start that never actually ends.

Despite having a boyfriend with whom she has an elderly-married-couple-straight-out-of-the-50’s vibe, Tessa can’t seem to stay away from Hardin, and the two of them end up making out and groping each other every time they find themselves in the same room together, which is like every scene. They argue at parties, they scream at each other in public, they start shouting matches in class and storm out to continue the argument outside. SO HOT, AMIRITE??? Tessa makes out with Hardin, goes skinny-dipping with him, and is barely conflicted about letting him go down on her, all the while not breaking up with her boyfriend and still calling other girls sluts. It’s different with her, y’all. She’s not like OTHER girls. *eyeroll* Seriously, if ever that gross attitude were a character, it’s Tessa. Get bent, Tessa. Other girls are awesome. You, however, suck balls.

Hardin is verbally abusive and violent, constantly getting into bloody fights and doing scary shit like busting up computers and throwing stuff all around his room in a way that we’re supposed to think is super hot and mysterious but that is really just a series of increasingly flappy red flags. But don’t worry; Tessa and her magic man-healing female bits are here to save the day, no therapy needed! Because of her, Hardin of course begins to heal the trauma of his past and repair the damaged relationship with his family. Because of course he does. Why wouldn’t he? Magic vagina heals all, y’all.

Hardin’s super, super into Tessa’s innocence (which is just so many kinds of gross; get back to me about that in thirty years, Hardin, you weird creep), and in scene after unsexy scene, he of course manages to get her off expertly, even though – and OF COURSE – she’s never even touched herself before. YAWN. Can we cut this shit out for good, please? The scenes where Tessa and Hardin are getting busy aren’t the least bit sexy; they honestly read like they’re written by someone who has either never had sex before, or they’re those of someone who has a lot of work to do in the writing department. Sorry, not sorry. I had to go back multiple times, squint at the pages, and go, “Wait, are they done? Did anyone finish here?” Yiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiikes. 

The whole book is full of riveting dialogue such as this:

“I’m just wondering, you said you had plans anyway so I was just wondering.” 

Scintillating. 50 Shades of Grey-esque, except – and I hate to say this – I think that book was better-written. So much of the dialogue in this book sounds like it comes from robots. I had to wonder if the editor was asleep at the wheel for a lot of this, or if they just flat-out gave up. Understandable, really, because where do you even start when this mess hits your desk.

Anyway. 

The whole book wraps up with a scene where it turns out that getting into Tessa’s pants was, in a move that surprises no one who grew up watching 90’s teen movies, just a bet to Hardin and his gross friends (Hardin, you’re no Freddie Prinze, Jr), but of course he fell in love with her on the way. It ends on an entirely unnecessary cliffhanger, because of course this is a series; who wouldn’t want another *checks Goodreads, then weeps* three books plus a prequel of all of…this? 

Look, I get why this stuff gets published. It makes money (*sob*), and that money goes to fund the other stuff in the industry, and it’s unfortunately necessary. But UGH. It’s not good. It’s not well-written, it’s not well-plotted, and the relationship between the main characters is toxic and abusive and shouldn’t be touted as super-hot and dreamy but instead as a stunning example of what to run from at Usain Bolt-like speeds. That teen girls and young women are reading this and thinking it’s hot and sexy is, frankly, terrifying to me, and depressing, both from a literary standpoint and from a life standpoint. Giving anyone the idea that you should stick around for escalating verbal abuse from a guy you’re attracted to because you think you can fix him is the most HORRIFIC message out there, and I’m frankly appalled that the industry keeps fucking pushing this message. You won’t fix him, ladies, and he’s not the end-all, be-all, no matter how hot he is. Find someone who’s got his shit together and leave the Hardins of the world to either find their way to therapy or wallow in a pool of self-destruction. We all deserve better in relationships and in literary content than this.

And the fact that they made a movie out of this? Excuse me, I’m going to go throw myself directly into traffic. 

To sum it all up: I don’t often drag books this hard, but After deserves it. Terrible writing, terrible message, just all-around terrible, and an insult to women and readers. Don’t waste your time with this.

blog tour · fiction · YA

Blog Tour: Straight Expectations by Calum McSwiggan

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Welcome to the latest stop on The Write Reads tour for Straight Expectations by Calum McSwiggan!

*insert wild applause here*

I’ve been reading some *really* heavy stuff lately, and so when Dave from TheWriteReads offered me a spot on the tour for Straight Expectations by Calum McSwiggan (Penguin, 2023), I took one look at that adorable, rainbow-splashed cover and I was IN. YA fiction full of queer characters, and the main character wakes up in an alternate reality? Yes, please! I love alternate reality stories. This was bound to be fun, I thought…and I was right.

Max is queer, proud, and fully at ease with himself, his strong fashion sense, and his fabulously manicured nails. He’s got supportive parents, the best friend group anyone could ever ask for (Dean is also queer, Alicia is not), and a super supportive queer group at school. He’s a little iffy on what the future holds, but his best friends both seem to have everything mapped out. That’s a little tough to deal with, as is the fact that Max is single with a capital SINGLE. He can barely figure out how to talk to Oliver, his crush, and all the strain from these things finally lead Max into a major blow-up scene with Dean and Alicia. Mixed in with a whole bunch of other hurtful things he doesn’t truly mean, Max wishes he were normal, that he could just wake up and not be gay and that he could have an easy life like one of the normal kids.

POOF.

When Max wakes up the next day, everything is…different. His life is similar, but everything is just a little bit off. Gone are all his attractions to boys. Alicia is now…his girlfriend?!?!? His parents are no longer divorced, but they’re not happy, either, and worst of all, Dean seems to have disappeared entirely. Devastated by the complete absence of his best friend, Max sets off on a journey to figure out what the hell happened, and discovers that Straight Max hasn’t always been the coolest guy. Can Max even begin to put things right???

This was a really fun and thought-provoking read. Straight Expectations’ cast of characters is instantly likable; I feel like Calum McSwiggan did an excellent job balancing the creation of an excellent friend group (including both the Max/Dean/Alicia trio and the queer group at school) with taking the time to point out the many ways in which Max has privilege. OG Max throws a tantrum before making his wish, which some reviews have clocked as being spoiled, but I think he’s also in a place in life where it can feel *really* frustrating when everyone around you seems to have things figured out, and you just…don’t. He does say some really hurtful things to his friends, but I’m also willing to cut him some slack here because boy, do I get what that feels like. Growing up is tough, and as Max shows, it’s an exercise in making mistakes and learning to come back from them. Having forgiving friends also makes things a little easier.

Straight Max is so bewildered by his lack of gay feelings and all the changes his not being gay has wrought in his life. Whole people have disappeared, which is super jarring until you realize exactly where they went, and why. His divorced parents are back together, and his dad is working a job he hates…which is, in a surprising way, directly related to Max’s sexuality and acceptance of himself. It all weaves together in a beautifully complex way that will have you marvelling at how very connected everything in life truly is. 

This is a fun book. Not everyone is affirming in the book; there’s a teacher who’s a straight-up jerk to the queer kids, along with a student who’s kind of half-heartedly trying to be an ally but misses the mark most of the time, but in general, Calum McSwiggan has created a world where it’s okay to be out, queer, and proud about it, and where you never lack for friends and parents who love you for who you are. Even for someone like me, an anxious middle-aged woman, the characters here had a lot to teach me about self-acceptance and pride, and I appreciate that. I really loved how comfortable Dean and Max are with themselves, how they take who they are and what they’re into and what speaks to them and celebrate everything about themselves. I think that’s a good message for everyone – especially for the LGBTQ+ crowd, but it’s a good reminder for everyone else as well. 

Huge thanks to NetGalley, Callum McSwiggan, Penguin, and Dave from TheWriteReads for allowing me to take part in this tour!

Straight Expectations is available at bookstores near you May 4, 2023. Support your local bookstores!

Follow Calum McSwiggan on Twitter, YouTube, and Instagram! Check out TheWriteReads here and here!

graphic memoir · graphic nonfiction

Book Review: Ducks: Two Years in the Oil Sands by Kate Beaton

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A while back, I learned about the existence of the graphic memoir Ducks: Two Years in the Oil Sands by Kate Beaton (Drawn and Quarterly, 2022). The premise – about a young woman’s time working for the oil companies in Alberta, far from her home in Cape Breton – sounded fascinating. I thought I’d put it on my TBR (I remember nowhere near me had it, though, so I would’ve had to get it via interlibrary loan), but weirdly, I didn’t end up having it on my list after I recognized it at a shelf on my first visit to our new library. No matter, though! It came home with me and I read it in less than a day.

Trigger warnings for sexual assault; there’s nothing graphic, but there are multiple rapes discussed in this book.

Kate Beaton is from Cape Breton, and everyone knows that in order to make anything of yourself economically, you can’t stay there. In order to pay off her student loans, Kate takes a job in the oil sands of Alberta, working for a major oil company in the tool crib. Figuring she’ll stay there just long enough to pay off her loans, Kate knows the environment will be tough, but she’s shocked by the hyper-masculinzed hellscape that it turns out to be.

There are hardly any women up there, and so the attention Kate gets from every single man around her is both overwhelming and unwanted. Sexual harassment is a daily experience; rape and sexual assault abound, and unfortunately, Kate isn’t immune to this. As her time there drags on, the environmental effects of the oil sands begin to weigh on her, along with the cultural effects that these operations have had on the indigenous populations of the area. The oil sands are a complicated place, not all good, not all bad, but Kate is relieved when her loans are paid off and it’s time to go.

Phew. This is a heavy graphic memoir about an isolated place that seems to change everyone who comes in contact with it. Kate is young, just out of college, and while she’s aware of the possibility of sexual assault, she’s really not expecting the environment she’s thrust into to be so stressful. Every guy there – even the older, married ones, even the men with families back home – make comments to her, about her, they literally line up to get a glimpse of what she looks like. Sexual assault and rape, including that of the author, are a frequent part of the scene here, and along with serving as a demand that we take a hard look at ourselves when we’re in these kinds of environments, Kate Beacon also asks that we listen to what the Indigenous residents of the area have been saying for ages: these industries are destroying their home.

The oil sands are a tough place, not all good, not all bad. It’s a place I knew little about before I read this, but I’m glad I understand a little more now. 

Visit Kate Beaton’s website here.

Follow her on Twitter here.

fiction · middle grade

Book Review: Attack of the Black Rectangles by Amy Sarig King

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Our new library opened! OMG!!!!!!!!! It’s so cool. And on our first trip there, I ran across Attack of the Black Rectangles by Amy Sarig King (Scholastic Press, 2022), which had been on my TBR for a while, but had always been checked out (which, ngl, makes me happy. I love when books I want to read so bad are also being read by my community!). But this time, it was front and center on a shelf outside the new teen area, so I snatched it up, took it home, and read it all in one night. And then I returned it the next day so another person could benefit from it. Down with censorship!

Mac is starting sixth grade, and life is complicated at that age. His dad, who no longer lives with the family, is having mental health problems that sound a lot like schizophrenia, so Mac’s relationship with him is complicated. His best friend Denis is struggling with a ton of anxiety, so Mac feels responsible for helping him deal. And there’s his friend Marci, for whom he’s developing some new feelings. To top it all off, he’s been assigned Ms. Sett as a teacher, who’s known for being strict and for being a huge proponent for the town’s many asinine rules, including what kinds of food can and can’t be sold (no junk food!), the colors houses can be painted, the town’s early curfew, no Halloween, and lack of pizza delivery. He’s trying to keep an open mind about it all.

But when his reading group is assigned The Devil’s Arithmetic by Jane Yolen, Marci points out that there are black rectangles obscuring some of the words. And when they figure out which words are blotted out, Mac and his friends are incensed. THAT is what Ms. Sett is worried about, in a book that details the horrors of the Holocaust??? Together with Mac’s hippie veteran grandpa, they begin to protest and fight against the censorship that is threatening their education and their freedom to read.

What an incredible book! Mac is a great character, raised by his hardworking, caring mother and thoughtful grandfather, whose experiences in the Vietnam war have shaped who he is an adult. These adults have had great influences on Mac, who doesn’t always get it right but who definitely tries, and eventually he gets to where he needs to be. He’s obviously struggling with his father’s challenges and can’t quite grasp what it all means, but who can, even when they’re older? His anger at being told what he shouldn’t be reading, even in assigned books, is inspiring, as are the protests he takes part in with Denis and Marci.

MARCI! She was my favorite, other than Granddad. A sixth-grade feminist not afraid to speak her mind. She’s who I wish I could have been at that age, if I hadn’t been plagued by untreated depression and anxiety. She’s the one who gets the ball rolling with noticing the censorship and informing the others (on a weekend, no less!), and she’s up front and center at the school board meetings. May we all raise kids like Marci!

There’s a lot going on with Granddad, and I really appreciated his character. He’s a Vietnam veteran who came back home with PTSD. He’s open about having killed people in the war, and he’s open about how that’s affected him. He cries in front of Mac. He meditates and carries prayer beads. He very obviously loves his grandson, and he’s stressed out because of and upset with Mac’s dad, but he always handles it really well. He’s a good model for dealing with your problems in emotionally healthy ways and he provides a nice balance for Mac at home, compared with all the other chaos in his life. 

Attack of the Black Rectangles is an excellent read and should be on the list of every tween and young adult who understands the dangers of all the crappy book bans going on out there these days (and if you’re a parent, slip this into your kid’s book stash. I’m going to have my daughter read it in a year or two; she just turned nine and I’ll think she’ll get more out of it as she matures). Read this and fight back against the people out there who would rather you didn’t read at all.

Visit Amy Sarig King’s website here.

Follow her on Twitter here.

nonfiction · YA

Book Review: This Book Is Gay by Juno Dawson

Stephanie6 Comments

Next stop on the 2023 Pop Sugar Reading Challenge: a book that’s been banned or challenged in any state in 2022. Easy pick there! Earlier this year (or maybe even late last year; who knows, time is meaningless anymore), I attended a virtual program about the uptick in book bans and challenges, put on by a local Jewish group and featuring local bookstore owners and library folks. It was fascinating and enlightening and also enraging, because we all know book banners are sad people with no lives, no hobbies, and no ability to think for themselves, so they listen to the political leaders who tell them what to think in order to better manipulate folks and go about trying to make everyone else’s lives as sad and pathetic as their own. A local bookstore owner and a librarian both mentioned the book This Book Is Gay by Juno Dawson (Hot Key Books, 2014), saying that they had a terrible time trying to keep the shelves; people would steal it or hide it somewhere so others couldn’t check it out or buy it – and they specifically mentioned it was grown-ass adults doing this. Like, okay, Karen and Brad, maybe take up knitting or geocaching and let everyone else live their lives? Anyway, I put this book on my TBR immediately, and it was a perfect fit for this challenge.

Juno Dawson has written a super helpful book for the teen LGBTQ+ crowd. When we talk to our kids about sex, we give them the facts – about straight sex, that is. Tab A goes into Slot B, and if sperm meets egg, nine months later, out comes a baby, end of story. But that’s NOT the end of the story, right? There’s a lot of the story we don’t tell our kids, and since some of those kids are statistically going to grow up to be gay/lesbian or asexual (or aromantic), our regular parenting scripts aren’t cutting it for them. Hence, Juno Dawson has stepped in to fill in the blanks in an age-appropriate manner.

She talks to teens who have questions about the different sexual identities they may realize they’re a part of, about the mechanics of sex (this is information teenagers want and need, and they’re either going to get it from us as parents, from their likely-just-as-misinformed-or-confused friends, from the unregulated, porn-filled-wilds of the internet, or from a well-researched and medically accurate book. YOU PICK), about safety in terms of both health and physical safety, and how to live in this world as someone on the queer spectrum. It’s full of stories and quotes from actual people who grew up queer and have made a place for themselves in the world, and who are here to give advice to each other and the younger generation so that things will be a little bit easier for them.

There’s nothing explicit here more than a basic, medically accurate sex talk with a parent or a doctor would be explicit. There’s nothing in here I wouldn’t be embarrassed or upset about my kids reading. (What would upset me is if my kids felt like they couldn’t talk to me about this kind of stuff. I get kids not wanting to ask parents; holy embarrassment factor! I get that. That’s understandable. But beyond that, I hope I’ve fostered the kind of relationship with them that if they could get past that entirely normal talking-to-parents-about-sex embarrassment, they’d know they could come to me with questions about this kind of stuff. That’s the kind of relationship I’ve always hoped to build with them. But for the too-embarrassed crowd, right along with the my-parents-have-shamed-me-too-much-to-ask-this crowd, this book exists, and that’s a wonderful thing.) What is in here is information and an attitude that lets teens know what they may be feeling is okay and how to live in this world with those feelings. It’s incredibly positive and informative, and it’s FUNNY. Seriously, any book that uses the phrase ‘ghost wieners’ is okay in my book!

This Book Is Gay is a book I would have no problem handing either of my kids. I’m sad for the kids of these pathetic book-banning parents, because they’re already getting the message that their parents’ love is conditional, and should they find themselves somewhere on the rainbow spectrum, Mom and Dad will be ashamed of them. What a garbage message to send your kids. I’m glad there are folks out there like Juno Dawson to tell kids the truth.

Also, I managed to read this whole book and I’m still a religious, straight, non-hateful cisgender female with zero fashion sense. Man, what else are those book banners wrong about???

Visit Juno Dawson’s website here. 

Monthly roundup

Monthly Roundup: April 2023

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Have you seen all the Justin Timberlake memes the past few days on every social media app in existence? Now they can stop, because IT’S MAY!!!!!!!!! 

Not *quite* warmer weather yet here, but it’s coming, and I’m prepared. I got new chairs for the front porch, and Imma park my behind in them ALL. SUMMER. LONG. It’s actually been a really mild winter here this year; I don’t even think we officially reached 20 inches of snow, which is a bummer, because I really like snow. (I had friends out west get more snow in one day than we got here all winter, which is…weird.) But I’ve still spent enough time indoors, and I’m ready to get out there and read in warm weather for hours at a time. Bring it on!

But first, a recap. Let’s get this thing going, shall we?

Books I Read in April 2023

  1. Heretic by Jeanne Kadlec (no review)

2. Original Sins by Matt Rowland Hill

3. Hedda Gabler by Henrik Ibsen (no review; read as part of my personal Read Harder project)

4. Clap When You Land by Elizabeth Acevedo

5. Bad Jews by Emily Tamkin (no review)

6. Squeezed by Alissa Quart

7. The Girl with the Silver Eyes by Willo Davis Roberts (no review; read out loud to my daughter)

8. The Hate Next Door by Matson Browning with Tawni Browning (review to come)

9. Straight Expectations by Calum McSwiggan (review to come)

10. Soulful Simplicity by Courtney Carver

11. The Colony by Sally Denton (no review, but I did read this as part of the 2023 Pop Sugar Reading Challenge)

12. This Book Is Gay by Juno Dawson (review to come)

13. Attack of the Black Rectangles by Amy Sarig King (review to come)

14. Ducks by Kate Beaton (review to come)

15. Travels with Charley: In Search of America by John Steinbeck (no review; read as part of my personal Read Harder project)

16. After by Anna Todd (review to come)

Little bit of a slow month here, but it’s been a busy one as well, so less reading time overall. I haven’t been reviewing some of the heavier, more academic nonfiction; I lack confidence in being able to write about some of these books in a way that would do them justice. In terms of The Colony, it was just…okay, but I didn’t love it. It was just so much information thrown at the reader constantly, like a firehose to the face of information. It wasn’t bad, but it wasn’t really my preferred style of nonfiction, so I abstained from writing a review for that one. Heretic was a little similar; it was a good read, but I didn’t feel like my review would add anything to the conversation. 

Six fiction; ten nonfiction; one graphic memoir. Nine of these books came from my TBR, and only four of these were for the 2023 Pop Sugar Reading Challenge (yikes!). Speaking of which…

Reading Challenge Updates

I’m keeping on keeping on with the 2023 Pop Sugar Reading Challenge. Even though I only read four books for this challenge this particular month, I’m still at 36/50 books, which is pretty good! (And I’ve got a stack of library books out right now that count for this challenge, along with owning a bunch more that count, so it’s all good.) Here’s what it looks like now:

State of the Goodreads TBR

My eternal nemesis, the TBR. Last month, I ended up with 120 books; as it stands today, we’re at…

116! I’m in the teens here, people! Making progress. I love that each month it gets just a little bit lower. Fingers crossed, I can keep it going. When it gets lower, I’d love to read from my own shelves a little more, along with just kind of wander the library shelves and see where that takes me. I love having a dedicated TBR list, but I’d also love to be a bit more spontaneous with my reading from time to time. NEVER going back to a TBR in the 300’s, though!

Books I Acquired in April 2023

Hmm…did I get any? I think I did; I came home from a visit to the thrift store with a book on world mythology. Not sure yet if that’s for me or for my daughter’s schooling or both, but it looks fascinating!

Bookish Things I Did in April 2023

Our.

New.

Library.

Is.

OPEN!!!!

It’s so cool! We didn’t go on the opening weekend, as much as I would’ve liked to; they had over 5500 people roll through, and that’s a big ol’ HELL NO even in pre-pandemic times for me. We went Monday after we’d finished the majority of my younger kiddo’s schoolwork, and it’s an absolutely lovely space. It’s still a bit sterile, as they just moved in, there’s not a lot of decoration yet, and there are still spaces they’re finishing up working on, but the space is 100% functional as a library, and of course I grabbed a few books while I was there. How could I not??? My older kiddo and I went back the next day to just chill out there and read for a bit; I finished the book I was reading and returned it before we left. : )

I’m very much looking forward to making new memories in this wonderful new building! At some point, I’ll get a new Monthly Roundup picture in the stacks there. 

Current Podcast Love

I needed something new at night, so I’ve been listening to History This Week, from The History Channel. It’s an absolutely delightful short podcast on a different aspect of history in each episode. I’ve learned about people, places, and events from history around the world, all while falling asleep! Still listening to Leaving Eden and Digging Up the Duggars while I do my volunteer work and exercise, though. 

Stephanie’s Read Harder Challenge

This is going so well! I finished the book of Flannery O’Connor’s short stories at the end of last month, so it was time for something new from off my basement shelves. I found a book of O. Henry’s complete short stories; y’all, this book is over 1600 pages long. The thing is, though, each story is only like three or four pages long, so I brought up another stack of shorter paperback books to go with it. Each day, I set my timer for 30 minutes, then I read one O. Henry story and spend the rest of the time reading a second book. I’m about 70 pages into O. Henry right now (whom I absolutely LOVE!), and I finished both Hedda Gabler by Henrik Ibsen and Travels with Charley by John Steinbeck (who is a longtime favorite of mine) by doing this. I’m just starting On the Road by Jack Kerouac, which should be interesting!

I also read a little bit from other books at night, before I start my before-bed reading. I’ve been plowing through Jewish Literacy by Rabbi Joseph Telushkin (some of this is a re-read, but I hadn’t read every single entry); I read two entries from this per night. And then, this winter, I also added reading two entries a day from Great Events of the 20th Century, a heavy Readers’ Digest book that I’d picked up from a thrift store or garage sale years and years ago. I’m getting a good recap on 20th century history from this. I mention this because I’m almost done with Jewish Literacy; I’ll add another Jewish book when I finish with this one. Great Events, I still have a good 200 pages to go, but this book has absolutely flown by!

Real Life Stuff

Oy. Onward with dental stuff. Still not 100% sure what’s going on. I definitely have TMJ, which has been intensely painful, but it’s calmed down a lot since it started (THANKFULLY). I’m not sure if the irritation I’m still feeling on my right side is from that, from grinding so heavily there at night (I have a nightguard; dentist is making me a gel one to try to give my jaw a break from the crazed grinding on a heavy surface, so we’ll see how this works), or if there’s more going on, but fortunately my x-rays look okay, so. *shrugs*

Last month of 3rd grade homeschool! We’ve tackled pretty much everything I wanted to get done this year, so right now, we’re just kind of learning some fun stuff. Art, art history, women’s history, media literacy, nature stuff, along with finishing up the language arts curriculum. I’ve got an extra writing assignment for my kiddo for the end of the year; I’m really pushing writing hard, because, as I’ve told her, if you can read, write, and research, you’ve got all the tools you need to get an excellent education. We finished 3rd grade math already, but that curriculum, which I do like otherwise, doesn’t require memorization of the multiplication tables, and, just, NO. So that’s her task for now and into the summer; I refuse to have a kid that doesn’t know the multiplication tables outright. It’s important. Sorry, kid!

And that’s really about it for this month, just looking forward to the end of the school year. I think our last day is something like June 2nd, so we’re *just* about there. Hang in there, friends; we’re doing this thing!

Wishing you a wonderful month full of books that speak to your soul. : )