Category Archives: Contemporary

Review: We Didn’t Ask for This by Adi Alsaid

Book Review and Content, Contemporary, Young Adult/Teen 12-18, , , , , , ,
We Didn't Ask for This by Adi Alsaid

We Didn’t Ask for This
Adi Alsaid
Inkyard Press
Published April 7, 2020

Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Book Depository | Goodreads

About We Didn’t Ask for This

Every year, lock-in night changes lives. This year, it might just change the world.

Central International School’s annual lock-in is legendary — and for six students, this year’s lock-in is the answer to their dreams. The chance to finally win the contest. Kiss the guy. Make a friend. Become the star of a story that will be passed down from student to student for years to come.

But then a group of students, led by Marisa Cuevas, stage an eco-protest and chain themselves to the doors, vowing to keep everyone trapped inside until their list of demands is met. While some students rally to the cause, others are devastated as they watch their plans fall apart. And Marisa, once so certain of her goals, must now decide just how far she’ll go to attain them.

My Review

It’s kind of a crazy time to read a book about being locked in, right? I didn’t think about that right away, but being under stay-at-home orders as I read WE DIDN’T ASK FOR THIS was definitely interesting– not the same by any means, but interesting.

The style the book is written in is really different from most of the books I read. It’s got an omniscient view that kind of pans through the crowd a lot of the time and then will zoom into one character for a moment and give details about what they’re thinking or experiencing or show a snippet from their past.

Normally this isn’t a writing style that I prefer, but I think it really worked for this story because it creates this big crowd feel but also personalizes so many of the characters and shows so many different points of view and treats them all as equals.

I found it really easy to like lots of the characters, too. Amira and Marisa were my favorites, but I loved Celeste and Kenji and Peejay, too. It took me a little while to get the feel for the community in which the story takes place– it’s an international school, but I kept basically picturing a very diverse American school, which isn’t the same thing at all! But once I recognized that distinction and changed how I was picturing things, I felt like I got it more. Hopefully that makes sense?

On the whole, I really enjoyed reading WE DIDN’T ASK FOR THIS. It’s the first book by Adi Alsaid that I’ve read, but I’ve wanted to read his books for a while now. I really want to check out the others.

If you liked the big cast with interconnected relationships in THIS IS WHERE IT ENDS by Marieke Nijkamp, I think you’ll also like WE DIDN’T ASK FOR THIS.

You’ll find content notes below, and also a Q&A with author Adi Alsaid. Be sure to check it out!

Content Notes

Recommended for Ages 12 up.

Representation
WE DIDN’T ASK FOR THIS has a very diverse cast of characters, including LGBTQ+, Latinx, black, and Muslim characters.

Profanity/Crude Language Content
Extreme profanity used very infrequently. (Only a few instances in the whole book.)

Romance/Sexual Content
Lots of references to attraction or infatuation. One brief mention of a couple who take their clothes off in front of each other. References to kissing and making out.

Spiritual Content
Some references to Muslim faith and traditions.

Violent Content
Students get angry at one point and start throwing things at Marisa, injuring her.

Drug Content
Instances of teens drinking alcohol.

Note: This post contains affiliate links, which do not cost you anything to use, but which help support the costs of running this blog. I received a free copy of WE DIDN’T ASK FOR THIS in exchange for my honest review.

Q&A with Author Adi Alsaid

Q: What inspired you to write this book?

A: I’ve been wanting to write a book that felt like my favorite book, Bel Canto, for a while now. So the very initial inspiration was a group of characters all stuck in the same place for an extended period of time. Then, to make it feel more YA, I thought of The Breakfast Club, but instead of cliques, just bring people with different passions together. Then, because of my increasing awareness over the last few years about environmental issues, combined with the fact that I was traveling and seeing those issues play out around the world, I brought in the fight for climate change.

Q: What’s your favorite thing about Marisa Cuevas?

A: Her willingness to fight for what she believes in.

Q: I love the juxtaposition of a lock-in against a political protest. What was the most challenging part of threading those two very different pieces together?

A: Honestly, it was the logistics of actually keeping the students locked in. The political protest wouldn’t work without it, nor would the plot. So I had to find a whole lot of justifications that felt reasonable within the story. Other than that, one of my goals was to show, embodied in different characters, all the ways people react to political protests, and to make them feel like actual people, not just symbols.

Q: What do you most hope that readers take away from the story?

A: Getting others to care about what you care about is hard, but you’re allowed to try, and it’s possible to succeed.

Q: Is there a character that you found challenging to write? Why?

A: All my characters come easily to me. The challenge is working to get them right in revisions. Jordi Marcos, a sort of villain in the story, was one that was hard to get right, in order to make his actions feel justified. I also have a queer Muslim character in Amira, and I had to work—and had the fortune of being guided by a great sensitivity reader—to not make her representation be harmful.

Q: How does a typical writing day look like for you?

A: Assuming this means not in the time of COVID-19. I wake up and go straight to a coffee shop, where I work/avoid looking at my phone for about 3 hours or so. Then I usually have lunch, take a break by watching a movie, running errands, or something in that vein. Then another work session in the afternoon or late evening at another coffee shop or perhaps a bar, followed by cooking dinner. During deadline times there’s also usually a late night session at home.

Q: What are your current reading?

A: I’m about to finish The Ministry of Utmost Happiness by Arundhati Roy, listening to The Art of Logic in an Illogical World by Eugenia Chang, and my next read will probably be Incendiary by Zoraida Cordova.

Q: Is there something secret you can share with us about anything in the book or your experience writing it?

A: I don’t know about secret, but I’ll say that I had the unique experience of traveling the world while writing it. So, many of its words were written in the communal areas of hostels, on airplanes, trains, on an island in Fiji, and in many, many coffee shops.

Review: The Queen Bee and Me by Gillian McDunn

Blogger's Favorites, Book Review and Content, Contemporary, Middle Grade 8-12, , , ,

The Queen Bee and Me
Gillian McDunn
Bloomsbury USA Children’s
Published March 3, 2020

Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Book Depository | Goodreads

About The Queen Bee and Me

Meg has been friends with confident, self-assured Beatrix since kindergarten. She’s always found comfort in Beatrix’s shadow—even their families call them Beatrix-and-Meg. But middle school has brought some changes in Beatrix, especially when Meg tries to step outside her role as sidekick. Upsetting Beatrix means risking The Freeze—or worse.

Meg gets into a special science elective and wants to take the class, no matter what Beatrix thinks. But when quirky new girl Hazel becomes Meg’s science partner, Beatrix sets her sights on Hazel. At first, Meg is taken aback at how mean Beatrix can be—and how difficult it is to stand up to her friend. But as Meg gets to know Hazel while working on their backyard beehive project, she starts to wonder: What’s it really like to be the Queen Bee? And more importantly: Is being Beatrix’s friend worth turning down the possibility of finding her own voice?

My Review

You know how some books have really great layering, where there are things happening between the adults that sort of bleed over into what’s happening with the kids, but the kids don’t always 100% get what’s happening between the adults?

I thought THE QUEEN BEE AND ME showed that kind of layering really well. Meg recognizes some of the pressure and manipulation in the way Beatrix treats her as being the way Beatrix’s mom speaks to others and wonders if Beatrix realizes she’s even copying that way.

Another thing that I really liked was that the message in the story wasn’t, “Beatrix is a bad friend, Meg just needs a new, better friend.” Instead, she has an opportunity to have a new friend, but that doesn’t fix all of what’s become so toxic in her relationship with Beatrix. Meg needs to learn to change how she behaves, not just change who she hangs out with. And I felt like that was a critically important, deeply insightful lesson.

As a mom with kids where there’s a huge age gap, I really appreciated this positive portrayal of a family with a big age gap between kids. I also thought Meg’s relationship with her mom felt very realistic and complex– definitely captured some of the kinds of struggles that can happen between parents and middle school kids.

If you can’t tell, I simply loved this book. I wish I could go back in time and give myself this book in late elementary school. THE QUEEN BEE AND ME is perfect for fans of books by Kate Messner or THE LIST by Patricia Forde.

Content Notes

Recommended for Ages 8 to 12.

Representation
Major characters are white. Meg deals with anxiety and specifically a fear of bees that can result in her fainting.

Profanity/Crude Language Content
None.

Romance/Sexual Content
None.

Spiritual Content
None.

Violent Content
None. There are a few instances of verbal manipulation and verbal bullying.

Drug Content
None.

Note: This post contains affiliate links, which do not cost you anything to use, but which help support the costs of running this blog. I received a free copy of THE QUEEN BEE AND ME in exchange for my honest review.

Review: Porch Swing Girl by Taylor Bennett

Book Review and Content, Contemporary, Young Adult/Teen 12-18, , , , , , ,

Porch Swing Girl
Taylor Bennett
Mountain Brook Ink
Published May 1, 2018

Amazon | Book Depository | Goodreads

About Porch Swing Girl

What if friendship cost you everything?

Stranded in Hawaii after the death of her mother, sixteen-year-old Olive Galloway is desperate to escape. She has to get back to Boston before her dad loses all common sense and sells the family house. But plane tickets cost money—something Olive gravely lacks.

With the help of Brander, the fussy youth group worship leader, and Jazz, a mysterious girl with a passion for all things Hawaiian, Olive lands a summer job at the Shave Ice Shack and launches a scheme to buy a plane ticket home before the end of the summer.

But when Jazz reveals a painful secret, Olive’s plans are challenged. Jazz needs money. A lot of it. Olive and Brander are determined to help their friend but, when their fundraising efforts are thwarted, Olive is caught in the middle. To help Jazz means giving up her ticket home. And time is running out.

My Review

I really liked that PORCH SWING GIRL follows a girl dealing with grief and shows her progressing through some of those emotions and finding her way through. She struggles, for sure. At times she’s blind to other people’s feelings. But she’s really trying to figure things out. I definitely identified with her in that way.

The spiritual themes are really strong here. It’s definitely a story about a faith journey, so if that isn’t what you’re looking for, this may not be the right book for you.

For the most part, I thought her faith journey rang true and felt real. There was a moment when she has a misunderstanding with a friend and he makes a comment that was kind of… I’d call it “Christianese”. Sort of stilted and steeped in spiritual metaphor basically telling her he couldn’t date her because she’s not committed to her faith at that point.

I got what he was saying, but it did make me realize how hurtful and dismissive that type of comment can be. (Which may have been part of the author’s point.)

The themes about grief and the way everyone grieves differently, and the fact that we don’t know someone’s life just by looking at them really stuck with me in reading PORCH SWING GIRL. I loved her grandma and of course Jazz so much, too.

PORCH SWING GIRL is a really sweet book that would appeal to fans of Christian fiction and authors Diana Sharples and Stephanie Morrill.

Content Notes

Recommended for Ages 10 up.

Representation
Olive’s mom is Hawaiian.

Profanity/Crude Language Content
List.

Romance/Sexual Content
Brief kissing on face.

Spiritual Content
Most of the characters in the story are Christians and open about their faith. In the wake of her mom’s death, Olive is struggling with what she believes. Characters pray openly and attend church meetings. A boy tells Olive he can’t date her because she’s not a committed Christian. (His explanation is a little weird, but that’s his meaning.)

Violent Content
None.

Drug Content
None.

Note: This post contains affiliate links, which do not cost you anything to use, but which help support the costs of running this blog. I received a free copy of PORCH SWING GIRL in exchange for my honest review.

Review: Now a Major Motion Picture by Cory McCarthy

Blogger's Favorites, Book Review and Content, Contemporary, Romance, Young Adult/Teen 12-18, , , , , , , , , ,

Now a Major Motion Picture
Cory McCarthy
Sourcebooks Fire
Published April 3, 2018

Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Book Depository | Goodreads

About Now a Major Motion Picture

Fandom and first love collide for Iris on the film set for her grandmother’s famous high-fantasy trilogy.

Unlike the rest of the world, Iris doesn’t care about the famous high-fantasy Elementia books written by M. E. Thorne. So it’s just a little annoying that M. E. Thorne is her grandmother—and that Iris has to deal with the trilogy’s crazy fans.

When Iris gets dropped in Ireland for the movie adaptation, she sees her opportunity: if she can shut down production, the Elementia craze won’t grow any bigger, and she can finally have a normal life. Not even the rascally-cute actor Eamon O’Brien can get in her way.

But the crew’s passion is contagious, and as Iris begins to find herself in the very world she has avoided her whole life, she realizes that this movie might just be amazing…

My Review

Cory McCarthy is one of those authors who makes me want to read everything they write. So far I’ve read both YOU WERE HERE and NOW A MAJOR MOTION PICTURE, and I can’t wait to read more.

Both books feature characters who are recovering from trauma and trying to understand elements of their pasts. I found them so easy to connect with, and even though they wrestle with intense topics, the rest of the cast brings humor, wisdom, and banter, making the books a lot of fun to read in addition to being really moving.

NOW A MAJOR MOTION PICTURE has a little bit of a feminist vibe running through it, which I loved. The director of the movie is a young woman who’s very frank about the struggles women face in the arts industries. She encourages Iris with her own dreams, too. I loved her character. She felt so real and exactly like the kind of mentor I’d want to have and want to be.

Another theme that really resonated with me had to do with Iris’s family. She and her brother live with their dad, who refuses to talk about or read his mother’s books. As Iris wrestles with who her grandmother was to the community of fans, she begins to wonder about who she could have been as a grandmother, and why she wasn’t allowed to have that relationship.

I also loved the on-set scenes and descriptions of filming and all the behind-the-scenes stuff. I definitely think anyone who’s interested in the film industry would find this book fascinating. Fans of GEEKERELLA by Ashley Poston absolutely NEED to read this book.

Content Notes

Recommended for Ages 12 up.

Representation
One minor character is a lesbian.

Profanity/Crude Language Content
Extreme profanity used with moderate frequency.

Romance/Sexual Content
Kissing between boy and girl. At one point a boy and girl spend the night together. Iris discusses a girl’s crush on another girl with her.

Spiritual Content
None.

Violent Content
Iris and her brother survived a kidnapping attempt that happened before the story begins. There are some references to that event, and it’s obvious that both are (understandably) still shaken.

Drug Content
Some characters drink alcohol. (I think they’re of age.)

Review: Cracked Up to Be by Courtney Summers

Blogger's Favorites, Book Review and Content, Contemporary, Young Adult/Teen 12-18, , , , , , ,

Cracked Up to Be
Courtney Summers
Wednesday Books
Published (re-release) February 4, 2020

Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Book Depository | Goodreads

About Cracked Up to Be

When “Perfect” Parker Fadley starts drinking at school and failing her classes, all of St. Peter’s High goes on alert. How has the cheerleading captain, girlfriend of the most popular guy in school, consummate teacher’s pet, and future valedictorian fallen so far from grace?

Parker doesn’t want to talk about it. She’d just like to be left alone, to disappear, to be ignored. But her parents have placed her on suicide watch and her conselors are demanding the truth. Worse, there’s a nice guy falling in love with her and he’s making her feel things again when she’d really rather not be feeling anything at all.

Nobody would have guessed she’d turn out like this. But nobody knows the truth.

Something horrible has happened, and it just might be her fault.

My Review

I’m a fan of Courtney Summers’ writing and the often heartbreaking stories she boldly tells of girls who are angry and sad and recovering from trauma.

It’s interesting to me that there’s so much emphasis on the characters as unlikeable. I totally see why people classify them that way. And there’s one of her books where I really struggled with liking the main character, but it’s definitely not this one.

Parker’s clearly a mess and in the midst of a pretty sharp downward spiral. There’s a constant tug of war in her over punishing herself for her past mistakes and yet still wanting to be loved despite them, even though she doesn’t feel like she deserves it.

I’m often really moved by the community element in the stories I read, and the community around Parker in CRACKED UP TO BE definitely moved me. Her friends and teachers aren’t perfect by any stretch of the imagination. But they care about Parker, and in their sometimes weird, sometimes broken, sometimes imperfect ways, they continue to reach out to her and try to help her in her recovery. That really got to me. And in a way I thought it showed other sides of Parker than she wanted to show us in her version of her story.

I saw other readers comment that they were driven to know what had happened to Parker. It remains a mystery through most of the book, but it drove me forward. Her behavior convinced me that something terrible had happened, and I knew that either she would have to face it or be destroyed by it.

CRACKED UP TO BE is, at times, a difficult/dark read, but I spent every page rooting for Parker, hoping for her to find a breakthrough and be able to start healing. It’s a great book for fans of angsty stories like WE WERE LIARS by E. Lockhart and YOU’LL MISS ME WHEN I’M GONE by Rachel Lynn Solomon.

Content Notes

Recommended for Ages 16 up.

Representation
Most of the characters are white.

Profanity/Crude Language Content
Extreme profanity used pretty frequently. Some crude/sexual comments.

Romance/Sexual Content – Trigger Warning
Kissing between boy and girl. References to sex. Brief, disjointed description of a rape. It’s more a snapshot description of the scene and then the realization that it’s a rape.

Spiritual Content
Parker and her friends attend a private Catholic school. One scene takes place in the school’s chapel.

Violent Content – Trigger Warning
A couple very brief, violent moments. See romantic content. Also at one point a boy starts to attack a girl. References to two suicide attempts.

Drug Content
Several scenes show teens drinking alcohol. There’s some reference to taking pills as part of a suicide attempt.

Note: This post contains affiliate links, which do not cost you anything to use, but which help support the costs of running this blog. I received a free copy of CRACKED UP TO BE in exchange for my honest review.

Review: Chirp by Kate Messner

Blogger's Favorites, Book Review and Content, Contemporary, Middle Grade 8-12, , , , , , , ,

Chirp
Kate Messner
Bloomsbury USA Children’s
Published February 4, 2020

Amazon |Book Depository | Goodreads

About Chirp

From acclaimed author Kate Messner comes the powerful story of a young girl with the courage to make her voice heard, set against the backdrop of a summertime mystery.

When Mia moves to Vermont the summer after seventh grade, she’s recovering from the broken arm she got falling off a balance beam. And packed away in the moving boxes under her clothes and gymnastics trophies is a secret she’d rather forget.

Mia’s change in scenery brings day camp, new friends, and time with her beloved grandmother. But Gram is convinced someone is trying to destroy her cricket farm. Is it sabotage or is Gram’s thinking impaired from the stroke she suffered months ago? Mia and her friends set out to investigate, but can they uncover the truth in time to save Gram’s farm? And will that discovery empower Mia to confront the secret she’s been hiding–and find the courage she never knew she had?

In a compelling story rich with friendship, science, and summer fun, a girl finds her voice while navigating the joys and challenges of growing up.

My Review

I got kind of nervous as I started to read this book. The way it talked about Mia having a secret, I assumed it had something to do with an adult having inappropriate contact with her, and I wasn’t sure how explicit or intense that would be. Since I’m pretty sensitive to the topic, I felt a little tense until I got to that part of the story. It didn’t include anything nightmarishly explicit. I don’t say that to downplay what Mia experienced at all, simply that as a reader, it didn’t end up being something I couldn’t handle reading.

Mia’s grandmother made me smile so much. She’s strong and brave and pretty committed to her course. I liked the relationship she has with Mia, and the way each encouraged the other. Mia’s friendships with Clover and Anna were great, too. I loved how they bonded over their shared passion for their Launch Camp projects and then over other experiences.

Solidarity Between Women

At one point in the book, after Mia has heard from several of the women in her life about experiences where they were harrassed or treated inappropriately by men, she wonders if this is something that all women experience. I felt like it’s such a reasonable question, and such a hard part about growing up, right? Because too many women do have those stories. I know I do.

While it’s heartbreaking watching someone realize something troubling about the world, I loved the way it becomes part of Mia’s healing, too. She’s not alone. She’s not wrong for feeling the way she did, even though at the time, she felt completely alone and ashamed for feeling uncomfortable.

I also loved that, even though I thought the topic was really well-addressed, the story wasn’t only about these things. Mia is never defined by that experience. She’s always many things– a girl with lots of interests and talents and relationships.

Plus I have to talk about the cricket farm. I know I say this every time I read a book with a protagonist with an unusual interest or talent, but I love that the author brought such a different family business to the story– not only a cricket farm, but crickets for a food source! I thought that was really fun.

Readers who are looking for a balance of light and heavy topics will enjoy CHIRP a lot, especially fans of BE LIGHT LIKE A BIRD by Monika Schröder or FLORA & ULYSSES by Kate DiCamillo.

Content Notes

Recommended for Ages 10 to 14.

Representation
Mia’s friend Anna is Indian. A couple other minor characters are also Asian.

Profanity/Crude Language Content
None.

Romance/Sexual Content
Mia recalls situations in which a man made her uncomfortable and left her feeling icky.

Spiritual Content
A brief mention that Mia’s family has gone to church on Sunday.

Violent Content
A man verbally threatens a girl.

Drug Content
None.

Note: This post contains affiliate links, which do not cost you anything to use, but which help support the costs of running this blog. I received a free copy of CHIRP in exchange for my honest review.