memoir · nonfiction

Book Review: Killing Season: A Paramedic’s Dispatches from the Front Lines of the Opioid Epidemic by Peter Canning

Stephanie2 Comments

No matter how much we think we understand something, we can always deepen our understanding, right? Addiction is a subject that I’m always trying to increase my understanding of, and thankfully, there are others, especially professionals, who feel the same. It’s for this reason I put Killing Season: A Paramedic’s Dispatches from the Front Line of the Opioid Epidemic by Peter Canning (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2021) on my TBR. It’s an utterly remarkable read.

Peter Canning has worked as paramedic for the majority of his adult life (he’s also worked in politics), and when he first started, he had the attitude toward addiction that was pervasive at the time: addicts are the way they are due to personal weakness or some other character flaw. But as his career progressed and he worked with more and more people caught in the clutches of opioid and heroin addiction, he came to the striking realization that this is a condition that could happen to almost anyone.

Mr. Canning did something remarkable, something more medical professionals need to do: he talked with the people he served. He asked them questions. He listened. The most profound question he asked was, “How did you start using?” or something similar. And to his surprise, almost every patient responded with something like, “It was after I got in that car accident,” or “When I hurt my shoulder at work,” or “I had surgery on my ankle.” Almost every single patient got hooked after an illness or injury where they were prescribed opioids. If you’ve ever been in that situation, you could’ve been one of the people Mr. Canning stops from overdosing on the streets of Hartford, Connecticut. Opioids are that easy to become addicted to.

The tides have turned a bit in terms of how we look at and treat addicts, but not enough, and Peter Canning is working hard to turn them a bit more, to try to push society to understand that substance use disorder isn’t a moral failure; it’s a medical condition whose sufferers deserve to be treated with respect and dignity, and harm reduction measures are so important in order to maintain the health and safety of those caught up in the clutches of these substances. Corpses can’t go to rehab; people need to be taken care of until they’re ready to make that step.

This is an utterly remarkable book that will change the way you look at addiction and the people suffering from it. It’ll break your heart, and it’ll challenge everything you ever thought you knew. Opioids have their place (as someone who suffers from chronic pain, I understand this – and I also understand how dangerous they can be), but we need better options, better understanding, better education, more science – on pain control, on rehabilitation measures, on everything surrounding addiction medicine. We as a society deserve this, and people suffering from substance use disorder deserve the dignity of being seen and treated as the human beings they are. I’m so very, very glad I read this book.

Visit Peter Canning’s website here.

Follow him on Twitter here.

memoir · nonfiction

Book Review: Refocusing My Family: Coming Out, Being Cast Out, and Discovering the True Love of God by Amber Cantorna

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Cults and high-control religious groups are a longtime fascination of mine, and there are definite factions of evangelical Christianity that fall into this group (someone I attended high school with has fallen into one of these groups, unfortunately. It might actually be more than one; I’m not sure which group the second person affiliates with). I end up reading everything I can about these groups, and it was digging through a list of these books that I discovered Refocusing My Family: Coming Out, Being Cast Out, and Discovering the True Love of God by Amber Cantorna (Fortress Press, 2017).

Amber Cantorna grew up the daughter of one of Focus on the Family’s top employees; her father worked for Focus almost his entire career. If you’re not familiar with this organization, it’s an evangelical Christian organization that guides families using a strict evangelical interpretation of the Bible. Amber was homeschooled, she grew up steeped in purity culture, and she knew her future would be one of marriage and motherhood, because that was the only acceptable future for a Christian girl. But as Amber grew, things didn’t quite fit in place the way Focus on the Family demanded them to, and she was left feeling…out of place. Not quite right.

It wasn’t until her early adulthood that Amber realized she was a lesbian. Coming out to her parents took a lot of courage, work, and help from her therapist, and it still couldn’t have gone worse. Her parents ended up cutting off contact. They weren’t there at her wedding, and as of the writing of the book, it seems as though they no longer speak to her.

It’s painful still, but Amber has managed to salvage her faith and grow into the person she was meant to become, with her wife at her side. She writes books and speaks to groups about living as a gay Christian and the importance of inclusion. Despite being abandoned by the family who once told her they would always be there for her, she’s managed to craft a beautiful life for herself. Living well truly is the best revenge.

Tough read in terms of story, but it’s ultimately one of triumph. I’m glad Ms. Cantorna has turned her pain into support for others, and I hope all the people who need to hear her story will find their way to this book.

Visit Amber Cantorna’s website here.

Follow her on Twitter here.

fiction · YA

Book Review: The Life and Crimes of Hoodie Rosen by Isaac Blum

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Woohoo, Jewish books! Always looking to add them to my list, and I was super excited to learn about the existence of The Life and Crimes of Hoodie Rosen by Isaac Blum (Philomel Books, 2022). There aren’t a ton of YA books set in an Orthodox community (I do manage to find some from time to time!), so this one particularly excited me.

Yehuda ‘Hoodie’ Rosen’s Orthodox community recently moved from its mostly-Jewish area to a smaller, non-Jewish area, and everyone is feeling the strain of being the new folks in town who don’t fit in (no thanks to the longtime residents who don’t exactly roll out the welcome mat). He’s a bit of a slacker at school, kind of laid-back, but things start to change in his life when he meets Anna-Marie, the daughter of the mayor. Hoodie starts to fall for her, despite her not being Jewish (really, he shouldn’t be talking to her at all, as per community norms…), and when his family finds out, Hoodie is in t.r.o.u.b.l.e.

But things aren’t going well for his community. There’s antisemitic graffiti. Nasty comments. Violence. Hoodie’s just trying to reach out, form some bonds, make things better, right? It doesn’t much matter; Hoodie’s definitely on the outs for spending time with not just an outsider, but a girl. And then the shooting happens.

This is a fabulous look into a world most of us don’t get to see. If you’re not Jewish, there may be a term or a concept here and there that’s unfamiliar; in that case, Google is your friend (understanding these things really does add depth to the story, and hey, learning is always good, so don’t miss out! And feel free to ask me in the comments if you read this and need help with anything. I’m always happy to help!). Hoodie’s world may seem a little small, but it’s really not; it’s rich with family, friends, community, learning. It may not always be the best fit for everyone, and some people may struggle a bit (and this is illustrated in the story in gentle ways), but I really appreciated Mr. Blum’s fair look at this particular community.

Hoodie’s attraction to Anna-Marie is a little heart-breaking, at least it was from my adult perspective. It’s doomed from the start, and Anna-Marie has an entirely different mindset from him, along with a streak of…I don’t want to say cruelty, maybe indifference, that shows up later on. Both characters have some growing up to do – entirely understandable, as they’re both teenagers – so they struggle to navigate their differences and places in the world, and Anna-Marie’s reasons for getting to know Hoodie in the first place aren’t exactly noble. But the violence wrought upon the community changes everything, and Mr. Blum does a phenomenal job at handling this. Truly fantastic writing in the final quarter of the book.

I really enjoyed this. The characters are complex and well-crafted, each one a distinct personality; the Orthodox community is portrayed wonderfully and fairly, and the novel as a whole works really well. For a debut novel, this is amazing, and I’m seriously looking forward to reading everything Isaac Blum writes in the future.

Visit Isaac Blum’s website here.

Follow him on Twitter here.

Monthly roundup

Monthly Roundup: December 2023

Stephanie2 Comments

Happy New Year!

2023. I was born in the 80’s; 2023 sounds like we should be at the height of futuristic technology: flying cars, hologram traveling, that sort of thing. Instead, we have a pandemic that won’t die because we’ve decided it’s more important that the economy is strong and thriving than humanity.

OY.

It wasn’t a bad year here at the Library household, though. We’ve all remained healthy, knock-on-wood (we’re still extremely careful: N95s everywhere we go, hand sanitizers in every car, no hanging out maskless with anyone, everyone is up to date on vaccines. I have ZERO desire to get long COVID). My daughter came home from public school to be homeschooled when the mask mandates dropped, and we’re finally in a really good place, with a great schedule that works for both of us, and learning methods that really seem to work for her. I had to play with it a LOT this year, shifting things around when her behavior made it clear that what we were doing wasn’t working, but that’s all been a good reminder for me to stay flexible and never get too dialed in to whatever it is we’re doing. The point is that she learns, not necessarily that she learns with the first thing we try.

But let’s talk books and get this roundup started, shall we?

Books I Read in December 2022

1. The Egypt Game by Zilpha Keatley Snyder (no review; read out loud to my daughter)

2. The Viral Underclass: The Human Toll When Inequality and Disease Collide by Steven W. Thrasher

3. The Whipping Boy by Sid Fleischman (no review; read out loud to my daughter)

4. The Life and Crimes of Hoodie Rosen by Isaac Blum (review to come)

5. My Father’s Dragon by Ruth Stiles Gannett (no review; read out loud to my daughter)

6. Refocusing My Family: Coming Out, Being Cast Out, and Discovering the True Love of God by Amber Cantorna (review to come)

7. Killing Season: A Paramedic’s Dispatches from the Front Lines of the Opioid Epidemic by Peter Canning (review to come)

8. The Worst Witch by Jill Murphy (no review; read out loud to my daughter)

9. A Wolf at the Schoolhouse Door: The Dismantling of Public Education and the Future of School by Jack Schneider and Jennifer Berkshire (no review)

10. The Travel Book: A Journey Through Every Country in the World by Roz Hopkins (no review; read as part of my daughter’s school)

11. The Worst Witch Saves the Day by Jill Murphy (no review; read out loud to my daughter)

12. Lost Girls: An Unsolved American Mystery by Robert Kolker (review to come)

13. Life on the Line: Young Doctors Come of Age in a Pandemic by Emma Goldberg (review to come)

14. After the Fall: Being American in the World We’ve Made by Ben Rhodes (no review; I’m not smart enough for that)

15. Eva and Eve: A Search for My Mother’s Lost Childhood and What a War Left Behind by Julie Metz (review to come)

16. You’re Never Weird on the Internet (Almost) by Felicia Day (review to come)

Lots of reading to my daughter this month! The Egypt Game was one I missed as a kid, but both my daughter and I really loved it. The Travel Book is something I pulled off my shelves at the beginning of the pandemic, and we began learning about one country per day, moving the magnetized pin on our wall map onto the country of the day. And this month, we finally finished it! Such a cool experience. We may go back to the book in the future, but for now, we’re using different books in the morning: some nature stuff, a history book with a small entry each day, and a very large poetry book.

Still behind on posting reviews, but I’ll catch up, I promise!

Six fiction, ten nonfiction; five books read aloud to my daughter. Ten of these books came from my TBR.

Reading Challenge Updates

Okay, friends. Buckle up.

I’ve been doing a lot of thinking about my reading lately. Now, y’all know how much I love nonfiction and challenging my brain a little bit. But I’ve been thinking a lot about balance lately, and how I really do need to dive into fiction a little more frequently. And so this year, I’ve decided to take part in the 2023 POPSUGAR Reading Challenge!

There are so many good categories this year, and out of the 50 categories, I can still fit in 25 books from my TBR, so that’s what made this challenge the winner for me. And for the remaining 25, I’ve got a lot of stuff that I’ve wanted to read, but that never made my TBR, so it’s really a win-win all around. I’m really excited to get started on this, so stick around to follow my progress. If you’re participating in this challenge as well, let me know!

The last reading challenge I completed was the 2020 POPSUGAR Reading Challenge, and then the pandemic screwed with my schedule and I couldn’t get it together to do any others, but I’ve got everything planned out this year, and I’ve totally got this. : )

State of the Goodreads TBR

Last month, I started off at 127 books. A few got taken off, a few got added on, leaving me currently at…125 books.

Book math, y’all.

But it really could be worse. It didn’t explode back into the 150’s or 160’s like I was kinda expecting it to, so I’m definitely happy with this number.

NOW.

I’m ending the year at 125 books, but I started it at 162 books.

I read 180 books this year, most of them from my TBR, but MY TBR ONLY WENT DOWN BY 37 BOOKS?!?!!??

RUDE.

Books I Acquired in December 2022

I picked up a few Jewish books from Half Price Books early in the month; It’s a Mitzvah by Bradley Shavit Artson, and Remix Judaism: Preserving Tradition in a Diverse World by Roberta Rosenthal Kwall (which is on my TBR). Both came home with me, so I’m looking forward to engaging with them.  

I did buy some other books, but those were for my daughter. She received the full set of Raina Telgemeier graphic novels, and she was THRILLED! Now she can stop checking them out of the library every. single. time. we. go.

Bookish Things I Did in December 2022

No bookish events!

Current Podcast Love

Listening to Behind the Bastards as I fall asleep; Robert Evans is so smart and funny and such a great researcher and writer, and I really enjoy this one a lot. I’ve also been listening to some Ologies with Alie Ward, which is always lovely.

I’ve also been working on a lot of cross-stitching lately, and as I stitch, I listen to Leaving Eden, the story of Sadie Carpenter’s life in and exit from the IFB cult. I adore this one SO MUCH, and I’m so very, very far behind in it, but I have a *lot* of stitching to do, so I may get caught up yet! I also listen when I’m in the kitchen, so that helps as well.

And when I bike or treadmill at night, I’m listening to Digging Up the Duggars, which is also a lot of fun and keeps me looking forward to exercising!

Stephanie’s Read Harder Challenge

Still making my way through The Good Earth by Pearl Buck. I don’t have much left to go; when I finish, I’m already planning on starting Uncle Tom’s Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe, which I’ve somehow managed to not read yet. It’s already waiting for me on my footstool!

Real Life Stuff

Another pandemic year down in the books.

It’s been another weird one. Started out pandemic-normal, and then the schools near us dropped their mask mandates, and we pulled our daughter out of school and became instant homeschoolers. Not as crazy as it sounds; I homeschooled my older son until he went to fourth grade (at or above everywhere he needed to be in terms of grade level, tyvm!), so I knew what I was doing. It hasn’t been without its challenges; my daughter is a completely different kid in terms of personality, so it’s taken a LOT of switching things up and around to figure out what works for her. I *think* we’re in a good place right now in terms of the kind of schedule and learning methods that work for her. We’re far beyond the place I thought we would be at this point in terms of what we have done, so I’m happy with her progress. We’re going to be focusing a lot on her writing in this new year. She’ll eventually go back to school, and I want her to be a strong writer when she does.

My grandmother died this past month. It wasn’t unexpected; she was in her late 80’s and had pretty severe Alzheimer’s and cancer, so we’re glad she’s not suffering anymore. She was my last grandparent. I feel pretty fortunate to have lived to 42 having grandparents in my life. She was a librarian and a teacher, and my love of books is, in a large part, thanks to her. I find comfort in the fact that I’ve passed that love on to my children, that I taught them to read, and that that little part of her lives on in us, in my children, every time they read a word.

Other than that, December was a pretty quiet month around here. No hustle and bustle here, just Hanukkah candles, a delicious platter of latkes (I get better at making these every year!), a low-key Christmas, and lots of reading during the cold snap.

In terms of New Years goals, I’ve got plans to continue my personal Read Harder challenge, and I’m going to use that to encompass reading everything in the house. This has been on my mind for a while; I own so many books that I *want* to read, but that I just don’t make time for. This will be a way to force me to make them for them, even as I continue (slowly) reading down my TBR. (WHICH I WILL. I WILL CONQUER YOU, TBR.) So stay tuned as I update my progress on that.

I wish you all a happy, healthy, peaceful, and prosperous 2023, full of many good books and lots of insight and introspection!

nonfiction

Book Review: The Viral Underclass: The Human Toll When Inequality and Disease Collide by Steven W. Thrasher

Stephanie1 Comment

I admit, as a book person, and as a huge nonfiction book person, when the pandemic first hit, I thought, ‘Man, the books about this time period are going to be fascinating.’ And they’ve started to roll in, and they are indeed fascinating, along with being utterly devastating. The Viral Underclass: The Human Toll When Inequality and Disease Collide by Steven W. Thrasher (Celadon Books, 2022) is one of those books, and it’ll pull you in and squeeze your heart with both hands.

Dr. Steven Thrasher is both Black and gay; both of these are markers for experiencing more adverse health outcomes. HIV/AIDS hits both these groups at a higher rate than white people, or straight people. There are groups that experience adverse outcomes in much higher rates than others, and Dr. Thrasher examines these, using the AIDS epidemic, the COVID pandemic, and various other viruses throughout history. This isn’t stodgy academic writing; he delves deeply into his own life, his experiences and those of his friends and colleagues, his communities, to drive the point that we have created a society where illness spreads more easily and more surely along class and racial lines. It doesn’t have to be like this…but try telling that to the people at the top of this hierarchy and see how fast they riot when there’s no one from those lower classes to serve them at Applebee’s. We’ve seen this type of behavior all throughout the pandemic. Members of the viral underclass are more likely to have public-facing jobs and cannot isolate or work from home, and we as a society demand they get back there as soon as possible. And thus, they die at much higher rates, and we as a society see this, shrug, and await their replacements.

This is a sobering book, and it needs to be read by everyone. I can’t vouch for other countries, since I’ve only ever lived in the US, but here, we’re all so disconnected from each other. We stick to our circles and don’t engage with people outside of them, and thus, we don’t understand the devastation caused by this stratification of society, outside of, “Huh, wonder where that one guy that worked at the gas station went. Haven’t seen him in months. Anyway…” Dr. Thrasher has really written an eye-opening account of how blasé we are a society of throwing away people who aren’t like us. It’s a major wake-up call, one I’m not hopeful that the majority of us will hear.

Visit Dr. Steven Thrasher’s page at Celadon books here.

Follow him on Twitter here.

nonfiction

Book Review: How to Keep House While Drowning: A Gentle Approach to Cleaning and Organizing by KC Davis

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I’m a homemaker, and I’m…kind of only a fair-to-middling one, to be honest. My house does NOT look like something out of Better Homes and Gardens; my meals are never perfectly plated; there are usually piles of books and toys and laundry waiting to be folded scattered in inconvenient places all over; my cobwebs have cobwebs. I’m no Martha Stewart. But I’m also always looking to improve my skills, even though I’m already kind of maxed out in terms of time and ability, so when I heard about How to Keep House While Drowning: A Gentle Approach to Cleaning and Organizing by KC Davis, LPC (S & S/Simon Element, 2020), I put it on my list immediately. Drowning? Absolutely.

This book truly is a gentle way to figure out what kind of housekeeping routine works for you, no matter what your hurdles. Depression? Chronic pain? ADHD? Sensory issues? This book covers how to get things done with all these and more, in a relaxed, friendly way that won’t leave you feeling ashamed, but rather, empowered, and confident. It’s not going to leave you with a magazine-shoot ready house (unless you follow their advice to call in outside help if it’s affordable). It will, however, make you realize that if you’re pulling rumpled clothes out of a laundry basket instead of hanging them all up, that’s okay. If you’re entirely tapped out and all you managed to do today is heat up a frozen pizza and serve it off paper plates because you can’t imagine having the energy to do dishes, that’s okay. It’s okay to set up systems that serve you during your hardest times, and this book is an excellent coach when it comes to getting you to stop the negative self-talk that keeps you from even trying to make a dent in your chores. (We all know that voice. It’s a really stupid voice.)

I’m happy to report that most of the things in this book are tactics I’ve learned to implement myself over the years, either through trial-and-error or with outside help. The parts about the inner voice really spoke to me, however, and I’ve been focused on watching how I speak to myself lately. I’ve also been taking the opportunity when I have the spoons for it to be kind to future me (emptying or loading the dishwasher at night, for example, so morning me has fewer things to do), as the book suggests. It helps.

If you struggle with getting it all done, or getting ANY of it done, you need How to Keep House While Drowning. It’s a tiny book, but it might just change everything for you.

Visit KC Davis’s website here.

Follow her on Twitter here.

nonfiction

Book Review: True Identity: Cracking the Oldest Kidnapping Cold Case and Finding My Missing Twin by Paul Joseph Fronczak and Alex Tresniowski

Stephanie2 Comments

A friend recommended True Identity: Cracking the Oldest Kidnapping Cold Case and Finding My Missing Twin by Paul Joseph Fronczak and Alex Tresniowski (Post Hill Press, 2022), and I thought it sounded fascinating, so onto my list it went. I didn’t realize it was the second book Mr. Fronczak has written about the mystery of his identity until I began reading it. It’s not necessary to read the first; I had no trouble understanding exactly what was going on throughout all of this, but if you’re interested, it’s there!

Paul Joseph Fronczak was kidnapped from a Chicago hospital at one day old. Over a year later, police in New Jersey contacted his family with news: we have a little boy, he looks like he could be yours, do you want to come see him? So the parents traveled out east and returned home with a little boy, whom they raised as their own (this was in the 60’s; DNA testing wouldn’t exist for years), but Paul always felt like he wasn’t *quite* part of the family, and he only learned about the kidnapping when he found a newspaper clipping when he was ten. His parents never spoke of it.

As an adult, DNA testing confirmed it: Paul was not the Fronczak baby who was kidnapped. So who was he? And where was the real Paul Joseph Fronczak? Through scrupulous detective work (his own and people he hired) and DNA testing, not only does Paul discover the real Paul Joseph Fronczak (though who kidnapped him and why remains a mystery), he also discovers his own identity and learns that he has…or had…a twin. Where she is remains unknown, but if you’re interested in true crime and the kind of work it takes to uncover these in-depth mysteries, you don’t want to miss this book.

True Identity is an absolute page-turner. Mr. Fronczak’s history, both the one he’s lived and the one he learns about, is complex, and I couldn’t wait to get back to this book every day to learn about what he would dig up next. I felt for him; no one in his life seemed to understand his need to learn about who he was and what happened so that he grew up with an entirely different family. I could see how his desperate need to know the truth of his past and his family might affect his time spent with his family, his finances, things like that, but these are basic life questions that most of us already have the answer to. It’s entirely understandable that someone who doesn’t have these answers would need to figure them out, and reading this, I felt like a lot of people could’ve given him a bigger break. There’s also a lot of secrets in this book. Biological family members that Mr. Fronczak interviewed were loathe to speak of something that happened over fifty years ago, reluctant to speak about people who died many, many years ago. Which just baffled me. Sorry, but if someone came to me with questions like that, I’m spilling the beans. (Sorry, fam. Don’t want your beans spilled, don’t have beans in the first place!)

Super fascinating book. Now that Paul Joseph Fronczak is on my radar, I look forward to following his case and am wishing him all the best on his search for his missing twin sister.

Visit Paul Joseph Fronczak’s website here.

Follow him on Twitter here.

memoir · nonfiction

Book Review: Shores Beyond Shores: From Holocaust to Hope, My True Story by Irene Butter

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I know I’ve said before I feel a huge responsibility to read Holocaust memoirs, because those stories deserve to be heard. I do need to ration them out, though. They’re painful to read, because so many people collectively lost their humanity, and others temporarily stashed theirs away in order to survive (sometimes understandable), and the death and damage and trauma can be a lot (hat tip to Holocaust scholars; I truly admire their strength and their ability to engage with this material on a daily basis. I wish our local Holocaust museum were just a little closer; I’d absolutely sign up to volunteer there if it were). This is how Shores Beyond Shores: From Holocaust to Hope, My True Story by Irene Butter (White River Press, 2018) ended up on my TBR, and interlibrary loan brought it into my life.

Irene Butter, known as Reni throughout the book, was born in Germany, to her parents, Mutti and Pappi, with an older brother, Werner. The family moved to Amsterdam due to the growing threat of the Nazis, sharing a neighborhood with Anne Frank (Reni knew her, but they weren’t close), but leaving her grandparents, who hadn’t received permission to move, behind. And of course, eventually, the Nazis invaded Holland as well, and like so many others, Reni’s family was rounded up.

The family was first sent to Westerbork, and then on to Bergen-Belsen. Through miracle after miracle, the family manages to stay together. Mutti and Pappi are forced to do hard labor; everyone starves; death is all around them, as is suffering in so many forms. A plan that Pappi put in place before their internment comes to fruition, though it doesn’t have all of the outcome they’d hoped for. Through it all, Irene holds it together, remains stronger than any child should ever have to be, and goes on to build a beautiful life for herself.

The story of Irene Butter’s life is one of joy, suffering, tragedy, beauty, horror, and survival. Her relationship with her brother is a deep point of joy in this book; the two always look out for and car for each other, with a healthy dose of sibling teasing thrown in for good measure. Her parents are strong and thoughtful, desperate to keep their family together and safe through it all. The book covers the time from Irene’s birth through her time in Camp Jeanne d’Arc in Algeria, a displaced persons camp; it tells a little of her life afterwards – returning to high school, attending college, marrying, having children, and eventually becoming a sought-after speaker on the Holocaust, among other accomplishments. I do wish it would’ve gone into a little more detail about her life in America post-arrival. What must it have been like to return to school, to sit at a desk surrounded by students your age who had zero idea the nightmare you’d survived? How old she must’ve felt looking around at everyone around her. My heart goes out to all that Mrs. Butter suffered, and the young child she was, and the carefree teenager she should have been but wasn’t allowed to be. She’s managed to live a remarkable life, and living well truly is the best revenge. It doesn’t make up for so much loss, of course, but every bit helps.

I hadn’t realized it until the end, but Mrs. Butter had written this book with John. D. Bidwell and Kris Holloway. Ms. Holloway wrote and Mr. Bidwell is the contributing editor of Monique and the Mango Rains, the memoir of Kris Holloway’s time as a Peace Corps volunteer in Mali and her friendship with the dynamic midwife Monique. I absolutely loved this book and think of it often, so it was a delight to read the bios at the back and realize they were a part of bringing this book to life.

Visit Irene Butter’s website here.

memoir · nonfiction · YA

Book Review: All Boys Aren’t Blue: A Memoir Manifesto by George M. Johnson

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Okay, so a few weeks ago, I attended a virtual talk on all the garbage book banners out there and the mess they’re making and the stupid things they’re doing. Seriously, what a bunch of whiny toddlers throwing super gross adult-sized tantrums. Mind your own business, skunkbags. At one point in the presentation, one of the people presenting mentioned the book All Boys Aren’t Blue by George M. Johnson (Farrar, Strauss, and Giroux, 2020). I was aware of the book, had seen it around, and knew what it was about, but it wasn’t on my TBR…until the presenter mentioned that whiny Texas governor and human sack of lawn cuttings Greg Abbott had thrown a fit over this book. Knowing what I know about that crapweasel with no taste who is grossly lacking in humanity AND leadership skills, I knew this was likely to be a good read, so onto my list it went. And hey! I was right and Greg Abbott is wrong. Shocker, I know.

George Johnson, who has also gone by Matt (story explained in the book) is a queer Black man who grew up with more feminine traits, who took some time getting comfortable with his queer identity, and was fortunate to grow up in a family who accepted him and loved him for who he was.  All Boys Aren’t Blue is the story of his life: his childhood, spending time with his beloved grandmother, called Nanny, who worked so hard to make him feel loved and accepted; his adolescence, where he began to understand some things about himself and worked to hide other parts; his college years, where it all began to come together. Through it all, George learns and grows, and begins to accept himself for who he is: a delightful, intelligent human being who lives at the intersection of Black and queer.

He has so many good lessons for the reader, lessons about self-acceptance, love, courage, confidence, safety, and more. I deeply appreciated how he related stories from his childhood and adolescence to show how he learned about himself, what he learned, and how he applied this to his life as a whole. I enjoyed particularly the stories he told about how he got into sports and how that surprised everyone around him: an effeminate boy who could play football and run like the wind? Don’t box yourself in. We all contain multitudes. 🙂

George M. Johnson has always lived outside the box, but he’s also always found ways to thrive, and he’s sharing everything he’s learned with the YA set. This is an important book; queer kids, and queer Black kids, deserve to see themselves in books, they deserve to have books that speak to and about them. And people outside the LGBTQ+ crowd need to read these books to get a fuller picture of what life is like for their queer friends and family.

And Greg Abbott and people like him are welcome to fuck off into the sun if they don’t have the humanity to recognize that. : )

Great book. I’d love to hang out with Mr. Johnson sometime, because he seems like a great guy and tells some fascinating stories.

Visit George M. Johnson’s website here.

Follow him on Twitter here.

fiction · YA

Book Review: The Summer of Lost Letters by Hannah Reynolds

Stephanie1 Comment

Another list of Jewish books clued me in to the existence of The Summer of Lost Letters by Hannah Reynolds (Razorbill, 2021). Modern day Jewish characters? Check. Mystery of said characters’ grandparents? Check. Love letters? Check. Blossoming romance? Check. Amazing setting on the island of Nantucket? Check. Fabulous storytelling that puts you right in the story and keeps you turning pages at a breakneck speed? CHECK CHECK CHECK. Oh, how I loved this book!!! (And there’s a follow-up; it doesn’t focus on the main characters, but it is about some side characters. Eight Nights of Flirting. It’s already on my TBR, and I’ll be reading it in 2023 for a prompt on the Popsugar Reading Challenge (yup, I’m in!).

Abby Schoenberg’s grandmother died somewhat recently, and it’s upon receiving a box of her possessions that Abby discovers some mysterious letters – love letters –  from a man named Edward, back in the 1950’s. The family never knew much about her O’ma, who was a very private person who never spoke about her past. They knew she came to the US alone at four years old, and that O’ma’s parents had been killed in the Holocaust, but that was it. Upon the discovery of these letters, Abby is determined to find out more, and she sets herself up for a summer on Nantucket, where this mysterious Edward was from.

It doesn’t take long for Abby to learn more about this small island community. Edward is Edward Barbanel, the patriarch of the wealthy Barbanel clan and head of their successful business empire. His grandson, Noah, is fiercely protective of Edward and the entire family, but little by little, he begins to allow Abby access, and the two discover long-kept secrets about the romance between their grandparents, along with growing closer themselves. But the course of true love never does run smooth, and it’ll take some growth from both Abby and Noah to not only discover the full truth, but to figure out how to be together.

Ooh, this was a fun one. Abby is mature, but doesn’t always make the right decisions, which is true for this age group. She’s stressed about her future, trying to manage her relationship with her mom (this was SO well done. She and her mother have a great relationship, but Mom can get on Abby’s nerves from time to time – realistic! – something Abby recognizes and is trying to keep in check. Again, super mature of her, which I appreciated). Her willingness to take this trip to Nantucket, to discover her grandmother’s past, made her a really interesting character.

Noah Barbanel is a good hero as well. He comes from a wealthy family, but isn’t stuck up about it. He’s protective of his family, but not to the point of rudeness, and he eventually lets Abby in. Their adventures together are fun, sweet, fascinating, and Hannah Reynolds brings Nantucket alive around them. I haven’t read too much in recent years set on Nantucket, but what I’ve read in the past, I’ve always enjoyed, and this is no different. Ms. Reynolds makes me want to pack my bags and head east.

I’m not a huge mystery fan, but the mystery of O’ma’s past was perfect, enough to keep me wondering and guessing as the story progressed. Mysteries of the past are far more interesting to me than whodunit-style mysteries, so this really checked all my boxes.

So looking forward to reading Eight Nights of Flirting now!

Visit Hannah Reynolds’s website here.

Follow her on Twitter here.