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Review and Author Q&A: Music From Another World by Robin Talley

Music from Another World by Robin Talley

Music From Another World
Robin Talley
Inkyard Press
Published March 31, 2020

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About Music From Another World

It’s summer 1977 and closeted lesbian Tammy Larson can’t be herself anywhere. Not at her strict Christian high school, not at her conservative Orange County church and certainly not at home, where her ultrareligious aunt relentlessly organizes antigay political campaigns. Tammy’s only outlet is writing secret letters in her diary to gay civil rights activist Harvey Milk…until she’s matched with a real-life pen pal who changes everything.

Sharon Hawkins bonds with Tammy over punk music and carefully shared secrets, and soon their letters become the one place she can be honest. The rest of her life in San Francisco is full of lies. The kind she tells for others–like helping her gay brother hide the truth from their mom–and the kind she tells herself. But as antigay fervor in America reaches a frightening new pitch, Sharon and Tammy must rely on their long-distance friendship to discover their deeply personal truths, what they’ll stand for…and who they’ll rise against.

A master of award-winning queer historical fiction, New York Times bestselling author Robin Talley once again brings to life with heart and vivid detail an emotionally captivating story about the lives of two teen girls living in an age when just being yourself was an incredible act of bravery.



My Review

So by now you probably know I LOVE books about music, and I have a particular soft spot for punk. I also found myself drawn to the historical aspect of MUSIC FROM ANOTHER WORLD, too, as I’m not familiar with very much of what happened in the 1970s.

The story is told entirely in diary entries and letters that Tammy and Sharon write to each other. In the diary entries, they often report things they aren’t ready to tell each other, or things that happen to both of them together. I liked the format and felt like it made things really personal. I felt like I could watch their friendship grow and its affect on their diary entries and feelings of isolation.

Both Tammy and Sharon belong to conservative Christian schools and communities and wrestle with feeling like they don’t belong. Tammy believes if she ever tells the truth about who she is (that she’s gay), she’ll be cast out of her family and community. Sharon worries for the same about her brother, who’s also gay.

This story hit me pretty hard. I grew up in a conservative Christian community (and still live in the town where I grew up), and I’ve wondered before about what it would be like to come out to that group of people. I think there would have been talk of conversion therapy, not by my parents, but by some of their friends and church members. My parents wouldn’t have stopped speaking to me or kicked me out. That’s just not how they operate. But it would have cost me most (if not all) of the contact I had with my faith community, and that would have been really painful and difficult.

I grew up with a girl who came out to her parents and lost her relationships with them. They haven’t spoken to her in years. They didn’t even try to contact her after the Pulse shooting to see if she was okay, and I can’t even imagine how hurtful that is.

Anyway, I guess reading this book, not only did I connect with Tammy and Sharon and everything they went through, I guess I pictured the faces of my friends, and it made me think about what it was like– even decades later than this book takes place– to grow up in a conservative church and be gay.

I really enjoyed the book, both for the emotional journeys that it brought me on and for the really fun punk scene (Midge Spelling is my favorite!).

I think fans of THE SCAR BOYS by Len Vlahos or I WANNA BE YOUR JOEY RAMONE by Stephanie Kuehnert would really enjoy the music scene in this book and its effect on the characters.

Check out the Q&A with Robin Talley after the content notes!

Content Notes

Recommended for Ages 14 up.

Representation
Multiple characters are gay.

Profanity/Crude Language Content
Extreme profanity used fairly frequently.

Romance/Sexual Content
Kissing between boy and girl, references to making out. Reference to oral sex. Kissing between same sex couples.

Spiritual Content
Both Tammy and Sharon are part of conservative Christian churches which believe that being gay is a sin. They come across as dogmatic, angry, and manipulative. One church leader gets caught in an affair and embezzling money from a charity.

Violent Content
Some references to fights during punk shows.

Drug Content
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 MUSIC FROM ANOTHER WORLD in exchange for my honest review.

Q&A with Author Robin Talley

Q: What is your favorite thing about Tammy or Sharon?

A: I love the close connection between Sharon and her brother, Peter. That was another element of the story that came to me very early and was crucial in how I envisioned the characters’ lives. They’re siblings and best friends who know exactly how to get on each other’s nerves when they want to, but when it comes down to it, they’ll do absolutely anything for each other.

Q: Are there any parts of Tammy and Sharon’s lives that reflect your own?

A: Their lives are pretty different from mine — for one thing, I wasn’t born yet when their story takes place, and I’ve always lived on the East Coast. I did grow up in a more right-wing community than I live in now, though, and I was part of a pretty conservative church community there. Though my church wasn’t politically active, thank goodness.

Q: How did you come up with the letters to Harvey?

A: From the beginning, my very first kernel of the idea that led to this book was the image of Tammy in her church basement, writing a secret letter to Harvey Milk while around her, everyone she knew was celebrating the victory of Christian singer and TV commercial star Anita Bryant’s campaign to overturn a gay rights law in Miami. I imagined Tammy surrounded by people, but still completely isolated, and reaching out to the only person she’d ever heard of who she thought might be able to understand how she felt. At that time, Harvey was getting a lot of media attention nationwide as one of the most outspoken gay rights activists (he also served as a convenient bogeyman for anti-gay right-wing activists).

Q: What inspired you to write in the Harvey Milk era?

A: The history of activism for LGBTQ equality has always been a big interest of mine. Before Music From Another World I’d written two books that both focused on queer characters living in the 1950s, when being a member of that community meant, almost by default, being closeted. I wanted to explore a later era when, for the first time, some LGBTQ people began to see coming out as a real option — but an option with consequences that could be catastrophic. The late 1970s was also when the anti-gay community first started to emerge as a major political player, so that was interesting to explore as well.

Q: What was the most difficult part of the story to write, and why did you feel it was important to include that part?

A: I had a lot of trouble writing some of the things that happen to Tammy near the story’s midpoint (trying to be vague here to avoid spoilers). I hate to ever write about the characters that I care about experiencing anything negative, but the reality of the situation required it. The stakes Tammy faced were simply too high.

Q: How do you balance the intensity of the time period and subject with the love story?

A: That’s just the thing — we’re all living our lives against the backdrop of history, one way or another. We’re living through an incredibly turbulent time in the world right now, just like Sharon and Tammy were in the late 1970s, but people are still going to school, fighting with their parents, getting their first jobs, etc. And, yes, falling in love. For all of us, just like for these characters, we have to figure out how the minutiae of day to day life (and sometimes the drama of it) fits in with the bigger picture, and not lose sight of the contributions we make to the larger world, too.

Q: What is one thing you hope readers take away from MUSIC FROM ANOTHER WORLD?

A: I hope they’ll go on to read more on their own about the events that followed the end of this story. There were a ton of both highs and lows in the movement for LGBTQ rights, and although this story focuses largely on 1978’s Proposition 6 in California, also known as the Briggs Initiative, that was just one campaign out of a much larger movement, and it was the larger movement that laid the foundation for events that we’re still seeing play out today.

Review: The Eye of Ra by Ben Gartner

The Eye of Ra
Ben Gartner
Crescent Vista Press
Published February 1, 2020

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About The Eye of Ra

Exploring a mysterious cave in the mountains behind their house, John and his sister Sarah are shocked to discover they’ve time traveled to ancient Egypt!

Now they must work together to find a way back home from an ancient civilization of golden desert sand and a towering new pyramid, without parents to save them. The adventures abound—cobras, scorpions, a tomb robber, and more! The two kids have to trust each other, make friends who can help, and survive the challenges thrown at them . . . or be stuck in ancient Egypt forever.

For readers graduating from the Magic Treehouse series and ready for intense action, dive into this middle grade novel rich with meticulous historical detail.

My Review

I feel like books about time travel to ancient civilizations are really nostalgic for me because I used to really love a movie like that when I was little, so I was excited to read THE EYE OF RA for that reason.

It’s a cute story– brother and sister with really different personalities find themselves tossed into life in ancient Egypt and trying to figure out how to get home. I liked that Sarah is the adventurous one and John is the more structured, introverted one. I feel like lots of stories would have had those personalities reversed, so I thought it was kind of fun to see it this way.

Disclaimer: I know very little about ancient Egypt and the construction of the pyramids, so I can’t really speak to the historical accuracy there. I did find it a little odd that the characters from ancient Egypt still spoke in a modern way and the relationship between the husband and wife as well as between the parents and children was very modern. That part of it felt a little more like a Fred Flintstone version of ancient life, if that makes sense?

I thought it was cool that John and Sarah meet someone in ancient Egypt who face one of the same difficulties they face (moving far away) and that it made them consider elements of the move that they hadn’t considered before.

The ending seemed a little abrupt to me. I would have liked the kids to have been more actively involved in solving the mystery. At the start, they’re very much taking ownership of locating the thief and solving the crime, and I liked that– I wanted that energy to continue through the end of the book.

Overall, I thought it was a fun read that would be enjoyable for middle elementary school readers, like maybe third to fifth grade.

Content Notes

Recommended for Ages 8 to 10.

Representation
Sarah and John are white and the other kids are Egyptian.

Profanity/Crude Language Content
None.

Romance/Sexual Content
Reference to a kiss between Sarah and a boy.

Spiritual Content
References to Egyptian mythology – the god Ra and others.

Violent Content
Some situations of peril.

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 EYE OF RA in exchange for my honest review.

Review: The Slug Queen Chronicles by S. O. Thomas

The Slug Queen Chronicles
S. O. Thomas
Published April 2, 2020

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About The Slug Queen Chronicles

She never believed in fairies… until one set its sights on her little brother. Now, she must risk everything to get him back.

On her twelfth birthday, Cricket Kane uncovers a chilling secret–tooth fairies have stopped collecting single teeth and have resorted to kidnapping children instead. When her brother is taken, the fairy leaves a changeling and a toxic black dust in his place. The dust soon infects the rest of her family, but to her surprise, she’s immune!

With the guidance of a mysterious cat, Cricket follows the fairy to a magical land where legendary creatures are real. When Santa himself takes her under his wing, Cricket learns she’s the only one who can harness the power of the dust to rescue her brother and the other missing children. But doing so might cost her life.

Can she summon the courage and strength to save her family and herself?

Find out now in this middle-grade fantasy for fans of Nevermoor and The Land of Stories!



My Review

One of the things I like about THE SLUG QUEEN CHRONICLES is that it features a blended family. Cricket’s dad has remarried and he and Cricket’s stepmom have just had a baby. Cricket talks a little bit about that adjustment, but more from the practical side and not much in terms of deep emotional processing. I liked seeing that representation in literature.

I also really like Cricket’s character. She’s loyal, determined, and smart. I found it easy to root for her on her quest to save her brother.

The story is pretty action-oriented. Things happen quickly, new complications rising in every episode or chapter. The cast of characters is a bit large, but they’re introduced more slowly, which helps make it easier to keep track of them all.

I think readers who enjoy dark fantasy, like SHADOW MAGIC by Joshua Khan will enjoy this book.

Content Notes

Recommended for Ages 8 to 12.

Representation
Cricket is black.

Profanity/Crude Language Content
None.

Romance/Sexual Content
None.

Spiritual Content
The story contains magical creatures and fairy bargains– such as trading something you want for something you need. Not all humans can sense magic or see fairies. Cricket is special in these abilities.

Violent Content
Some situations of peril. Cricket has to eat or drink gross-looking or -smelling things. Some of the creatures are scary. An old woman gets hit on the head and collapses.

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 SLUG QUEEN CHRONICLES in exchange for my honest review.

Review: Shatter City by Scott Westerfeld

Shatter City (Imposters #2)
Scott Westerfeld
Scholastic
Published September 17, 2019

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About Shatter City

When the world sees Frey, they think they see her twin sister Rafi. Frey was raised to be Rafi’s double, and now she’s taken on the role . . . without anyone else knowing.

Her goal? To destroy the forces that created her.

But with the world watching and a rebellion rising, Frey is forced into a detour. Suddenly she is stranded on her own in Paz, a city where many of the citizens attempt to regulate their emotions through an interface on their arms. Paz is an easy place to get lost . . . and also an easy place to lose yourself.

As the city comes under a catastrophic attack, Frey must leave the shadows and enter the chaos of warfare – because there is no other way for her to find her missing sister and have her revenge against her murderous father.

My Review

It’s been a long time since I’ve read anything by Scott Westerfeld, and SHATTER CITY made me realize how silly that is. I LOVE his books! It’s so easy to connect with the characters and the internal struggle that Frey faced in wanting to be herself but continually finding herself stuck impersonating her sister.

I also really enjoyed the references to the Uglies series, which I also loved reading. It felt like sharing inside knowledge with Frey. (You can read this series without ever reading UGLIES. The references aren’t critical to the story.)

One interesting element in the story happens when Frey visits a city called Paz. While she’s mistaken for her sister, she undergoes surgery to have “feels” installed. These are buttons on her inner forearm that trigger different emotions when she presses them.

At first, Frey thinks they’re weird and stupid and that she’d never use them. But as she experiences difficult and traumatic situations, her thoughts about the Feels experience a shift. When she finds herself again surrounded by people without the Feels, she experiences another shift. I found that process interesting. It reminded me of the way we tend to judge people– perhaps especially people with mental health issues who take medication– who make choices we can’t imagine making for ourselves. But then when we find ourselves in the same situation, we make the very choice that seemed to unimaginable before.

I don’t think the Feels are supposed to represent medication or be a metaphor for that, though the topic of Feels as a remedy for depression does come up in the story. It just made me think of the way we sometimes judge others who live a different way than we do.

I really liked this book, and definitely recommend it. I think fans of THE HUNGER GAMES and MATCHED by Ally Condie will love it.

Content Notes

Recommended for Ages 12 up.

Representation
One minor character is nonbinary. Another minor character is gay.

Profanity/Crude Language Content
None.

Romance/Sexual Content
Brief kissing between boy and girl.

Spiritual Content
None.

Violent Content
Situations of peril and some battle violence.

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 SHATTER CITY in exchange for my honest review.

Review: Raising Sir Gallant by Mary Bustamante

Raising Sir Gallant
Mary Bustamante
Bristol & Thornbury
Published December 12, 2019

Amazon | Goodreads

About Raising Sir Gallant : Lessons that Transformed a Young Farm Boy Into a Knight

As a farmer’s son, young Gallant knows very little of a knight’s life, but he knows that it’s incredibly unlikely he’ll ever have a chance to become one. Then a surprise visit from a knight and old friend of his father’s reignites Gallant’s secret dream to become a knight.

After reconnecting with his father, Sir Francis offers to tutor Gallant, to train him to one serve as a knight himself. As his training begins, Gallant rushes into it eagerly, anxious to learn swordplay and see glorious things.

But training to be a knight is much harder than he thought, and Sir Francis expects much of him. In order to achieve his dream, Gallant will have to learn to put aside his own expectations and dreams of glory and learn what it truly means to serve as a knight.

My Review

This book was the perfect gentle read for where I am right now. It definitely has a day-in-the-life feel to it, but it also features a hero with a clear goal who needs to navigate some obstacles along the way.

I enjoyed the period details and the thoughtful way that life during medieval time was described. It kept the story at a gentle pace but didn’t leave me feeling bogged down with history.

Honestly, I thought the whole approach to the story was very thoughtful. There are vocabulary words in bold text with definitions at the end of each chapter as well as discussion questions. I think this book would make a great part of home school or private school curriculum. (It’s got a lot of faith-based content, so I don’t think it would be something that could be used in a public school setting.)

Fans of stories about how to become a knight or daily life during the medieval times will really enjoy those parts of the story. There’s also a strong emphasis on faith and virtue, so readers looking for overtly Christian characters and values will enjoy those components as well.

Content Notes

Recommended for Ages 8 to 12.

Representation
All characters are white and British.

Profanity/Crude Language Content
One brief mention of hell as a place.

Romance/Sexual Content
None.

Spiritual Content
Characters are practicing Christians and pray openly. Gallant is encouraged to pray daily. Some characters quote from the Bible.

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 RAISING SIR GALLANT in exchange for my honest review.

Review: Girls with Razor Hearts by Suzanne Young

Girls with Razor Hearts (Girls with Sharp Sticks #2)
Suzanne Young
Simon Pulse
Published March 17, 2020

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About Girls with Razor Hearts

It’s time to fight back in this second novel in a thrilling, subversive near future series from New York Times bestselling author Suzanne Young about a girls-only private high school that is far more than it appears to be.

Make me a girl with a razor heart…

It’s been weeks since Mena and the other girls of Innovations Academy escaped their elite boarding school. Although traumatized by the violence and experimentations that occurred there, Mena quickly discovers that the outside world can be just as unwelcoming and cruel. With no one else to turn to, the girls only have each other—and the revenge-fueled desire to shut down the corporation that imprisoned them.

The girls enroll in Stoneridge Prep, a private school with suspect connections to Innovations, to identify the son of an investor and take down the corporation from the inside. But with pressure from Leandra, who revealed herself to be a double-agent, and Winston Weeks, an academy investor gone rogue, Mena wonders if she and her friends are simply trading one form of control for another. Not to mention the woman who is quite literally invading Mena’s thoughts—a woman with extreme ideas that both frighten and intrigue Mena.

And as the girls fight for freedom from their past—and freedom for the girls still at Innovations—they must also face new questions about their existence…and what it means to be girls with razor hearts.

My Review

This book kind of blew me away. I’m honestly having trouble even figuring out how to structure my review, because I feel like I just want to babble about how many things I liked. So here I go…

First, the relationships. Mena remains always 100% committed to the girls she escaped with and the girls she left behind. She respects their autonomy, but isn’t afraid to challenge them when she thinks they’re wrong. She struggles with being open, not wanting to burden them with her worries and fears, but they challenge her in that and expect her to be as open with them as she wants them to be with her.

And then there’s Jackson. Faithful, loyal, protective, but not overbearing. He’s a good guy. I think it took me a long time to like him in the first book, but I really liked him by the end of this one.

In my review of GIRLS WITH SHARP STICKS, the first book in the series, I talked about some concern I felt that the story might embrace revenge, particularly on the men who ran Mena’s school.

Throughout this story, Mena continues to be faced with situations that force her to choose between revenge and justice. Sometimes the choice is whether to trust the system of society and government versus taking justice or revenge into her own hands. I loved how deeply she considers each choice and how she explores the problem of evil in her experience. I found it deep and thought-provoking.

One of the most mind-blowing things to me, though, was watching the way girls were treated through Mena’s eyes, as someone new to the broader world.

The story has a dystopian/sci-fi/not-so-distant-future feel to it, so it’s not trying to say that our culture matches what the characters experience at the hands of men right now. But those experiences are pretty ugly. And many of them DO happen to girls.

I was alarmed, shocked, and angry at the things some of the boys at school said to Mena, and yet, when I stopped to think about it, so many of those things have happened to me. And I’m not sure I ever felt permission to be angry (not that I needed permission from anyone but myself) about those experiences. It just felt like no one would listen, no one would really do anything except tell me to get over it and expect boys to continue to act that way.

In the books, the girls find a book of poems that make them “wake up” and realize that things that are happening to them are wrong. That they’re stronger than their captors want them to believe. And that they have greater value than they can imagine.

For me, GIRLS WITH RAZOR HEARTS, has been that poem, waking me up. Giving me permission to be angry and to expect better. For all of us.

Fans of WRECKED by Maria Padian and WATCH US RISE by Renee Watson and Ellen Hagen definitely need to add this series to their shelves.

Content Notes

Recommended for Ages 14 up.

Representation
Mena is white. Her best friend Sydney is black. Two of the girls she escaped with are lesbians.

Profanity/Crude Language Content
Extreme profanity used infrequently.

Romance/Sexual Content – Trigger Warning
References to sex. In one scene, a boy assaults a girl, forcing her to pantomime a sexual act (both are fully clothed) in front of a cafeteria full of people. Some bullying and sexual bullying.

Spiritual Content
None.

Violent Content
See Sexual Content. The girls discover a man who has been murdered and later witness a woman being murdered by a sharp stake to her head.

Drug Content
One scene shows teens drinking alcohol. Mena pretends to drink.

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 GIRLS WITH RAZOR HEARTS in exchange for my honest review.