Tag: YA

nonfiction

Book Review: The 57 Bus: A True Story of Two Teenagers and the Crime that Changed Their Lives by Dashka Slater

Stephanie3 Comments

Book friends are really the best, aren’t they? A few weeks ago, in our weekly ‘what are you reading’ book discussion, a friend said she was reading The 57 Bus: A True Story of Two Teenagers and the Crime that Changed Their Lives by Dashka Slater (Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 2017). I checked it out on Goodreads and immediately clicked the want-to-read button, because the premise so intrigued me, and on a recent trip to the library with my oldest child, who has been doing a lot of reading from the YA section lately, I grabbed a copy of this book from the small YA nonfiction section. And I wasn’t disappointed. If you’ve ever thought that crime was cut and dry, black and white, lock them up and throw away the key because crime is committed by horrible people, this is a book that will have you reconsidering everything you thought you knew.

Sasha, an agender teenager, was riding the bus home from school one day when another teenager, Richard, who was getting rowdy with and being egged on by friends, lit their skirt on fire, thinking it would only smolder before waking Sasha up, and that this would be a good prank. Instead, Sasha’s gauzy skirt lit up, leaving them with second and third-degree burns over something like a third of their body. Richard is arrested and charged with a hate crime, tried as an adult despite the fact that he was a teenager, and in a way that leaves him facing life in prison. But the story isn’t as simple as ‘this kid committed a hate crime, lock him up and throw away the key.’ Dashka Slater does an amazing job of taking a hard look at a lot of complex topics, and she does it all in a way that’s accessible to teens learning to understand these issues.

Heavy subjects here. A good portion of the book deals with gender and gender identity; Ms. Slater was learning about the topic herself and lays everything out in a way that’s easy to understand. Sasha was lucky to be born into a family and community of people who accepted them for who they were, amongst a crowd of friends who rallied around them and loved them unconditionally. Richard, who grew up in a family and a community mired in poverty and violence, wasn’t so fortunate (to be entirely honest, his family seemed completely normal; I really felt for his mother while reading this); the choices we as a society make about poverty and who deserves what lead to communities beleaguered by the problems Richard’s community faces. We also compound the problem by immediately absolving ourselves as a society of any responsibility for these problems and the crime they so often lead to, and this is obvious in the way that Richard was quickly charged as an adult, with life in prison on the line. We also like to discount the science of brain development and ignore the fact that teenage brains are not adult brains. They make stupid, shitty, impulsive decisions because their brains are literally not yet fully formed. It’s like sending your newborn to their room without dinner because they waved an arm they’re not fully in control of and hit you in the face. We all know it takes babies a few months to even figure out they can willfully move their arms and hands around and use them with purpose; teenage brains are the same in terms of development, but instead of understanding this and incorporating that knowledge into our society, we’ve turned that completely normal underdevelopment into a problem for which the only solution is throwing the whole teenager away.

The strength of Sasha and their family in this book is enormous; their understanding and willingness to look beyond their own pain and the media’s narrative is remarkable. I’m not sure I would be so quick to understand or move on, honestly; I like to think I *could* get there, but it would take some work. The pain and bewilderment of Richard’s friends and family was a lot to read about. They were confused, still struggling with the realities of their everyday lives while trying to figure out why Richard did what he did and trying to be supportive while he fought to even have a future at all. 

This was just so sad and hard to read, and Ms. Slater does such a fabulous job of illustrating the depth of problems in our society surrounding all the issues covered in this book: understanding of gender, safety for LGBTQ+ folks, poverty, income disparity, violence, the many, many problems with our justice system, and so much more. I read this all in one day, but it’s a story that will stick with me forever.

Visit Dashka Slater’s website here.

Follow her on Twitter here.

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!

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. 

fiction · YA

Book Review: Clap When You Land by Elizabeth Acevedo

Stephanie1 Comment

I enjoyed reading Elizabeth Acevedo’s With the Fire on High so much earlier this year, I immediately put her other book, Clap When You Land (Harper Teen, 2020), on my TBR. And on the last trip I made to my library in its old building, even though I already had a huge stack of books to read, I grabbed this one as well – and I actually did get to finish it before the new library opened up! (It opens Saturday! We’ll wait and go Monday, when there are fewer people. We’re so excited!)

Camino lives in New York City with her parents. Her father goes back home to the Dominican Republic every summer for business; Camino’s relationship with him hasn’t been good for the past year, ever since she discovered his secret. And it’s just after he’s left for one of these summer trips that Camino receives the terrible news: her father’s plane has crashed, and everyone is presumed dead.

In the Dominican Republic, Yahaira, another teen girl, is also receiving the devastating news of her father’s death in the same plane crash. Her life has always been on the edge; she lives with her aunt, and her American father supports them and makes what few comforts they have possible. And now, with his loss, Yahaira’s entire future has become uncertain.

In time, the two girls discover the truth: the existence of one another, the fact that they shared a father, and the complicated meaning behind all of it. 

Told as a dual narrative in verse, Clap When You Land is deeply emotional. Camino is far from privileged – her parents work incredibly hard for everything they have, and they’re nowhere close to rich – but compared to the poverty that Yahaira and her aunt are surrounded by, she’s practically a princess. Yahaira is tough; she’s had to be, growing up in a place where tourists visit and take from and never think about what lies outside the walls of their resorts. She’s been on the radar of the local trafficker for years, and now that the protection of her father is gone, he’s following her like a dog. Camino’s life isn’t so precarious, but she’s experienced a lot of pain and fear in her life, and she understands Yahaira better than Yahaira suspects.

This story has a lot of similarities with With the Fire on High; both books tell stories of teenage girls in difficult circumstances, fighting to improve their lives and, occasionally, just fighting to survive. The settings here were so different, though, and the style in which it was written – verse – made it so different from Fire. The two sisters’ lives are so different from each other…but then again, they’re not so different at all. The story ends in a way that wraps everything up, but it’ll still leave you wondering how everything works out once the screen goes dark.

I really enjoyed this one. It’s been a minute since I’ve read a novel written in verse, and I always enjoy that.

Visit Elizabeth Acevedo’s website here.

Follow her on Twitter here.

fiction · YA

Book Review: You’ll Miss Me When I’m Gone by Rachel Lynn Solomon

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Next up on the 2023 Pop Sugar Reading Challenge: a book about a family. Not a difficult prompt to fill whatsoever! Tucked away in my TBR was a book I’d been wanting to get to for a while, You’ll Miss Me When I’m Gone by Rachel Lynn Solomon (Simon Schuster Books for Young Readers, 2018). I’ve read several of Rachel Lynn Solomon’s YA books and have always enjoyed them, but this book is on a whole other level of serious. Don’t open this book looking for an easy, relaxing read. You’ll Miss Me When I’m Gone is an emotional punch to the gut.

Tovah and Adina are twins, on the cusp of adulthood and figuring out their senior year of high school. Tovah is dead-set on becoming a surgeon after college and med school at Johns Hopkins; Adina, a viola prodigy, is destined to become a soloist. The two have never gotten along, and to complicate matters even more, their mother is stricken with Huntington’s disease, a genetic neurodegenerative disorder. The twins have a 50/50 chance of inheriting this condition, and after they turn 18, they get tested, something Tovah has pushed for, but Adina has resisted.

The horror of it:

Tovah tests negative, and…

Adina tests positive. She’ll eventually develop symptoms and die in the exact way they’re watching their mother slowly die in front of them. 

This new information widens the gap between the sisters and sends Adina absolutely reeling. Who will she be when her body no longer works, when everything she’s worked for will be gone? She lashes out at her sister even more and begins an affair with her older viola instructor, all the time panicking that she’s already developing symptoms. Tovah, laden with an early form of survivor’s guilt, draws a little closer to the mother she’s never felt close to, begins her first relationship with a boy, and struggles with what the future will be. The two sisters will have to learn to live with knowing exactly what their futures will be, when half the family will eventually be dead from the same disease.

This was such a heavy book. I knew it would be, but phew. The sisters start out disliking each other, which I think actually made it a little easier. It would’ve been even more emotionally devastating if they’d been best friends and each others’ everything, but it was hard enough to read about the pain both of them were carrying due to the effects of Huntington’s (interestingly, this is the third book I’ve read in 2023 that has included Huntington’s disease. In two, it’s been featured; in one, just mentioned, but still. Wild coincidence).

Adina isn’t a likable character, so be warned. She’s actually kind of awful: standoffish, hateful, manipulative, snobby. She’s gorgeous, she knows it, and she uses it to get what she wants. Her relationship with her viola teacher is just over the line of being legal yet still extremely icky and uncomfortable to read, but it highlights both her manipulativeness and her immaturity, and it made me feel deeply sad for her. Reading this book as an adult is, I think, a lot different of an experience for me if I had read it as a teenager; Adina’s diagnosis is frightening, and as an adult who can see just how quickly those post-high school years go, all the adults telling her, “You have plenty of time!” didn’t much make me feel better. It only made me feel panicky and depressed for her.

Tovah is also a little selfish and immature. She’s so focused on her goals of getting into Johns Hopkins and becoming a surgeon that she kind of forgets to do things just for fun, and to reach outside of herself. She’s never intentionally nasty like Adina is, so that automatically makes her the more sympathetic character. There’s also the guilt of having pushed Adina to get tested, and knowing what Adina’s positive result means for their lives.

The Jewish representation in this book is, of course, amazing. Tovah is more observant; Adina has abandoned it all. Tovah’s love interest is Jewish but not very observant, and the twins’ dad became more observant as an adult. These two characters serve as points of explanation for readers who may not be as familiar with Jewish culture and tradition, which I love. Mom is also Israeli and has some complicated family relationships in her past, so that provides even more tension – with Mom, between the twins, and with their family history. This is all woven into the story like threads of gold in an intricate tapestry; it’s all so well-integrated.

You’ll Miss Me When I’m Gone is a tense story of an already complicated sibling relationship strained by the results of a genetic test. It’s not an easy read, and one of the sisters is immediately unlikable, but it’s incredibly well-written and so multifaceted that despite its extremely heavy subject matter, I’m glad I read it. This will stick with me.

Trigger warnings exist for mental illness, self-harm, inappropriate relationships, Huntington’s disease, a lot of talk about long-term illness, decline, and death.

Visit Rachel Lynn Solomon’s website here.

fiction · YA

Book Review: Eight Nights of Flirting by Hannah Reynolds

Stephanie1 Comment

Coming up next for the 2023 Pop Sugar Reading Challenge: a book about a holiday that’s not Christmas. Super simple for me; I peeked at my TBR and there sat Eight Nights of Flirting by Hannah Reynolds (Razorbill, 2022), the follow-up novel to her The Summer of Lost Letters, which I loved. As you can probably tell from the title, Eight Nights is set during Hanukkah, so it was a perfect match!

Shira Barbanel is spending winter break and Hanukkah at her grandparents’ house on Nantucket, along with the rest of her large extended family. Her main plan is to get a boyfriend – namely, smart, studious, solid Isaac, who’s working as her grandfather’s assistant. She’s never had a boyfriend before, but Shira’s determined. Her plan is foiled from the get-go, however, when a winter storm keeps her family away the first night and forces Shira and her former crush, Tyler, together overnight. The two strike up a deal: super smooth Tyler will teach awkward Shira to flirt, and Shira will introduce Tyler to her great-uncle, in the hopes of him gaining an internship.

Tyler’s not exactly the surface-only playboy Shira thought him to be, however. His smooth exterior hides a multitude of insecurities, and as he and Shira grow closer, she realizes there’s more to him than she ever thought. At the same time, a decades-old mystery at her grandparents’ home comes to light, and Shira and Tyler will work together to discover the truth behind the mysterious contents of the box from the attic. And along the way, they just might discover how perfect they are for each other.

Hannah Reynolds is a master of creating a wonderful setting. Just as in The Summer of Lost Letters, Eight Nights is set on the island of Nantucket, and though I’ve never been, Ms. Reynolds was able to transport me there amidst the raging snowstorm, the winter winds whipping along the coastline, the charming shops and stores still open during the off-season. I’m not much of a traveler, but she *really* made me want to go there immediately.

Shira and Tyler are great characters. Shira is flighty and awkward, unable to open up to friends or commit to activities she’s not 100% perfect at. Tyler puts up a front of being nonplussed and a major flirt, but he keeps a lot hidden, something Shira realizes fairly quickly. Despite their rocky history, the two make a good team with a huge amount of chemistry, another thing that Hannah Reynolds is a master at writing.

And the Hanukkah celebrations! Despite it being a minor holiday, Shira’s family goes all out with decorations and food and parties and family togetherness, and it’s all so much fun. Reading about the massive family get-together and the joyful chaos that ensued made me want to be a Barbanel as well so I could join in. 

Hannah Reynolds has become a YA favorite of mine, and I’m looking forward to reading more from her in the future.

Visit Hannah Reynolds’s website here. 

Follow her on Twitter here.

fiction · YA

Book Review: Zara Hossain Is Here by Sabina Khan

Stephanie1 Comment

I needed a book where the main character’s name is in the title for the 2023 Pop Sugar Reading Challenge. This wouldn’t have been a tough one; everywhere I go, I see books with a name in the title, so the pickings were anything but slim. Fortunately, they were also easy; right there on my TBR was Zara Hossain Is Here by Sabina Khan (Scholastic Press, 2021). I really enjoyed her The Loves and Lies of Rukhsana Ali in 2019, so I was looking forward to reading this, and this challenge was the perfect push! 

Zara Hossain, the daughter of Pakistani immigrant parents, is having a little trouble in her Texas high school. One of the students, Tyler the jock, has been being a huge dick to her about Muslims and immigrants in general. Her parents are worried, but Zara’s well-supported by Nick and Priya, her two best friends, and Chloe, a girl from another school Zara’s interested in. She’s not about to let Tyler ruin things for her.

But as his racist attacks escalate and involve other students, Zara refuses to back down. This leads to his vandalizing her house one night, and when her father goes to confront Tyler’s father, he’s shot. Suddenly, Zara’s entire future is at stake: her father’s life, his safety and ability to stay out of prison, the entire family’s immigration status. Zara had been looking forward to applying for colleges; now she’s looking at a very possible return to a country she barely remembers. But Zara’s not backing down, not without a fight.

This is definitely a timely novel. There’s been so much in the news the past five or six years about how broken our immigration system is, and this novel is the perfect illustration of how, even when you do everything exactly right, you can still be deported immediately due to the whims of other people. Ms. Khan has created characters, a family, that lives on the edge all the time, even though they’re privileged and not struggling with issues that many other immigrant families face, such as poverty. Zara’s father is a doctor, and even that’s not enough to save them from the strain of immigration-related stress. 

I did feel that the book is a bit lacking in terms of the depths of the characters, that the message takes more of a center stage at the expense of character growth. I never truly felt like we get to know Zara outside of this immediate moment, outside of the current struggles she and her family are facing. I would’ve liked to have seen a few more shades of her personality and who she is outside of her sexuality (her bisexuality is an important part of this story) and her immigration status. She’s a strong character, both determined and dutiful, but I would’ve enjoyed getting to know her a little beyond these traits.

Immigrant teens will likely see something of their own struggles and frustrations in Zara’s, but teens who aren’t part of that world need these stories just as much. Our immigration system is in dire need of a fix; my hopes lie in this next generation and the inspiration they’ll take, not just from their own stories and those of their friends, but also from reading stories like these and understanding just how badly things need to change.  

Visit Sabina Khan’s website here.

Follow her on Twitter here.

fiction · YA

Book Review: A Pho Love Story by Loan Le

Stephanie1 Comment

The 2023 Pop Sugar Reading Challenge directed me to read a book with a forbidden romance, so I browsed through some lists and came up with A Pho Love Story by Loan Le (Simon Schuster Books for Young Readers, 2021), a YA novel about two teenagers from families who own competing Vietnamese restaurants. Super cute cover. I thought I was in for a sweet, relaxing YA love story and settled in.

Not so much. 

(My apologies for not being able to do the diacritics in Vietnamese words; I’m not familiar with the language, nor am I confident I would get them correct even if I were to copy and paste from a character map. Accuracy is important, especially in terms of names, and not being able to do this really bothers me, so please accept my apologies.)

Bao Nguyen and Linh Mai are two Vietnamese teenagers from families who own competing restaurants across the street from each other. From their early childhood, their parents haven’t allowed them to have any contact, and the families have done nothing but speak badly about each other. Though the two attend school together, they know little about each other. Linh is an accomplished artist, struggling to make her parents understand what painting means to her; Bao is content to go through life not really drawn in by anything and is uncertain what his future will hold. Both teens struggle with the reality of living with parents burdened by their refugee pasts, loss and pain and secrets a part of their families’ everyday lives.

When Linh’s best friend recruits both her and Bao to write and illustrate restaurant reviews for the school newspaper, the two get to know each other in a way that has never been allowed before, but they must keep their newfound friendship and attraction hidden from their families. Digging into the past brings long-buried secrets to light, but maybe Bao and Linh can change things for good…

So.

Up until about two-thirds of the way through this, I was struggling. Something felt…off. Not right. Slow. A little draggy. Heavy. Which isn’t necessarily unexpected, as these teenagers are first generation Americans of refugee parents. There are going to be some tough topics here. But after thinking about it a little bit, I realized that the cover had led me to expect something of a different story.

The cover is WAY more lighthearted-looking than this story is. There are deaths mentioned; neither family left Viet Nam intact, and they carry their pain and scars with them. Their struggles to build a successful life in the US continue on into the present day; running a restaurant is tough even for people who don’t struggle with PTSD and are native English speakers, so it’s doubly tough for folks who come here with trauma and have to rebuild everything, and are at constant risk of financial failure and their entire lives falling apart again. Linh and Bao live with the pressure of this every day, and Linh has the added stress of knowing her parents don’t approve of her passion and talent for art, which she has to do behind their backs. 

This is not at all a lighthearted love story. This is a story of two teenagers living in not just the shadows of but under the strain of their parents’ trauma. They’re trying to build their lives in the dual cultures they’re raised in, but the strain and pressure are incredible and intense, and the stress of this is evident on every page.

While the romance was cute, it didn’t quite have enough intensity or chemistry for me, but that wasn’t my real issue. The book is billed as a romantic comedy, which led me to expect something very different. I think it works well more as a drama, but intergenerational family trauma, financial pressure, and heavy familial expectations don’t mesh well with my idea of comedy. What this book does well is show what life is like for kids of refugees who are working almost beyond capacity in order to rebuild their lives from nothing. It shows their stress, their fatigue, their sorrows, their confusion, their struggles to meet their families’ expectations while still being true to themselves. It’s difficult growing up in a country and culture that your parents don’t fully understand, and that’s something I think this book portrays exceptionally well.

If you pick up A Pho Love Story, don’t go in expecting a lighthearted love story. Read it to understand a little more about Vietnamese refugee culture, and what family life of Vietnamese refugees might look like. Don’t let the cover or the description as a romantic comedy fool you; this book is a lot heavier than it looks, but I think it’ll speak to kids who recognize themselves in Bao and Linh and the weight of the expectations placed upon them.

Visit Loan Le’s website here.

Follow her on Twitter here.

fiction · YA

Book Review: With the Fire on High by Elizabeth Acevedo

Stephanie1 Comment

I have wanted to read With the Fire on High by Elizabeth Acevedo (Quill Tree Books, 2019) ever since it first came out. I mean, LOOK AT THAT COVER! (And I’m not usually a LOOK AT THAT COVER kind of person.) The story itself sounded fascinating as well – single teenage mom whose passion is cooking, trying to figure out her future? Yes, please. And with the 2023 PopSugar Reading Challenge prompting me to read a book written during NaNoWriMo, I finally had my chance to dive into this (AND I WON’T EVEN MENTION HOW JEALOUS I AM OF THIS AUTHOR MANAGING TO WRITE THIS WONDER OF A BOOK IN A MONTH. NOPE, NOT AT ALL JEALOUS). 

Emoni Santiago isn’t your typical high school senior. She’s a single mom to her two-year-old daughter Emma, living with her grandma, struggling through school and work and her feelings about her non-present father. Life is challenging at best, but Emoni’s making the best of it, even if she’s unsure about what the future holds. College? It’d be great, but school has always been tough, and money is an ever-present issue for Emoni and her grandmother. 

At the start of senior year, Emoni, who has a gift in the kitchen, gets the chance to take a new elective, a culinary arts class that focuses on the food of Spain, including a class trip to Spain later on in the year. This class will expand not only Emoni’s culinary skills, but her social ones as well: Malachi, the new boy, is gently pushing her boundaries and opening her eyes to the friendship-and-maybe-more she’s been missing out on during the past few years, and Chef Ayden, her instructor, is helping her to understand that a good chef also needs to sometimes follow and not just lead. Emoni’s under a lot of pressure, but this is a year of growth, and her path is as beautiful as the cover of this book.

I really enjoyed this. Emoni is strong, determined, flawed but admirable. She struggles with school but works her tail off to get where she is. She’s fierce in her parenting with her daughter; her grandmother helps out but always maintains a little bit of distance, letting Emoni parent and serving more as an extra set of hands (I truly loved ‘Buela’s later-in-the-book breakdown and desperate need to be herself and not just a grandmother and caregiver. HUGE props to Ms. Acevedo for including this; I hope every teenage girl reading this has this scene cemented in her brain for later in life, should they become parents. It’s so unbelievably difficult to maintain a sense of identity when you’re a full-time caregiver like ‘Buela is and has been for almost the entirety of her adult life, and it’s an absolute NEED that gets ignored by society most of the time. High five to Ms. Acevedo for stressing that importance and showing young girls that they should not only maintain that sense of self but demand that others allow them to maintain it). 

I loved Emoni, not only for her determination, but her consideration for everyone around her. She’s always taking care of her best friend (whose fledgling relationship is adorable), doing her best for daughter even when it’s tough (interacting with her ex’s parents is a time), with an eye on the future and what it will cost in terms of money, time, effort – not just for her, but for her daughter and grandmother as well. Life is so much tougher for Emoni than it should be, but she manages it with grace and strength, and she’s truly an admirable character.

Loved this.

Visit Elizabeth Acevedo’s website here.

Follow her on Twitter here.

fiction · YA

Book Review: Before I Fall by Lauren Oliver

Stephanie1 Comment

For the 2023 Popsugar Reading Challenge, I needed a book that takes place all in one day. I’ve read a few of these before and really enjoyed them, and as I browsed the lists of suggestions, I found Before I Fall by Lauren Oliver (Harper Collins, 2010). I had always wanted to get to this in the past and just never did, so I was glad to have an excuse to finally read it. And it’s really well done, with a main character who is so Regina George from Mean Girls that I couldn’t put the book down.

Samantha Kingston is pretty, uber-popular, and one of the Queen Bees of the school, and she and her friends won’t let anyone forget what that means. She’s dating one of the most popular athletes in the school (even if a nagging sense of doubt keeps telling her he’s maybe not the best choice for her), she and her friends skip classes with abandon, and they treat their families and fellow classmates with all the disdain they deserve. Life is good when you’re on top, right? 

But life is about to be cut short. A terrible accident takes place after a late-night party…and Samantha finds herself reliving the same day over and over again. It’s up to her to finally get this last day right, but that’s going to take some time. Samantha hasn’t exactly been a model in terms of behavior and how to treat people…

This was really good, and despite the overarching sadness (and horror at what an awful person Samantha started off as) of knowing the inevitable outcome, a really great and fulfilling read. Sam really starts off terrible. She’s awful to her parents, her little sister, the nerdy guy with a crush on her, teachers, everyone at school whom she considers lesser than her (and that’s a LOT of people)…pretty much everyone outside her friend group (and, uh, they’re not great either). The constant repeats of her last day range from ‘she tried and failed’ to ‘burn it all down,’ including one *really* uncomfortable scene with her male math teacher. (YIKES.) 

Lauren Oliver does a remarkable job of keeping the reader turning pages for a character who starts out so very unlikeable. Samantha’s redemption arc unfolds slowly; this is a lengthy book, but each day, despite being the same, ends up with a slightly different feel to it, and Sam’s growth, lethargic as it is, is intriguing to watch. The inevitable ending is sad, of course; the reader goes into the book knowing the final conclusion, so there’s no shock there, but it’s still tough to read (and it did leave me with a few questions: how will Sam’s friends and family reconcile the last-day version of her with the person she’s been all the rest of her life, for instance), yet it’s cathartic. 

I’m glad I finally got around to this. Samantha Kingston isn’t a character I’ll forget anytime soon.

Visit Lauren Oliver’s website here.

Follow her on Twitter here.