Tag Archives: classism

Review: The Secret Year by Jennifer Hubbard

Book Review and Content, Contemporary, Romance, Young Adult/Teen 12-18, , , , , , ,
The Secret Year by Jennifer Hubbard

The Secret Year
Jennifer Hubbard
Viking Books for Young Readers
Published January 7, 2025 (Orig. 2010)

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About The Secret Year

For fans of Laura Nowlin’s If Only I Had Told Her, a deeply romantic novel that explores the raw emotions of love, pain and grief.

Colt and Julia were secretly together for a year . . . and nobody knew. Not that anyone would suspect–Colt and Julia were from two different crowds: Julia in her country club world on Black Mountain and Colt down in the flats. They’d meet in secret by the river–their chemistry electric, exhilarating, intoxicating.

Until everything came to a screaming halt.

Julia is pronounced dead from a car accident, and suddenly Colt’s memories come flooding back. One about the fight they’d had on their last night together . . .

When Julia’s diary falls into Colt’s hands, it gives him the chance to learn all her hidden thoughts, private details she refused to share with him. It might even answer his questions about what happened on the night she died.

Julia’s words have the power to mend Colt’s broken heart, or they can reveal a web of secrets that threaten to shatter his entire world.

My Review

I have so many questions.

It looks like this was first published in 2010 and has recently been re-released. I’m not sure when the story is supposed to take place. I think only the Black Mountain (wealthy neighborhood) kids have cell phones, so I assume maybe this was supposed to happen during the late 1990s when cell phones first became widely available. There’s no mention of texting, just calling. There are a couple of mentions of email, which could still track with the late 1990s timing. I don’t think the narrative specifies.

The story’s tone has a little bit of a Holden Caulfield vibe. Colt isn’t trying to be particularly likable. Neither is Julia, honestly. And that was fine. I mostly appreciated their frankness. After someone comes out as gay, Colt does a couple of things that are not great. I get that his reaction is realistic, but I wish the narrative had at least weighed in on his thoughts as negative.

Julia’s letters to Colt interrupt the scenes periodically, and sometimes, I got confused at the bouncing back and forth between her letters and Colt’s perspective. I also felt like the back cover copy implies that the story has a lot more suspense than it does. Colt does remember details about a fight he had with Julia. He does read letters she wrote to him. But I didn’t feel a sense of suspense about any of that. This isn’t a story about uncovering secret reasons for her death. This is the story of a boy who’s experiencing complicated grief because his relationship with a girl was a secret, and he can’t grieve publicly.

I found the story of his grief compelling, but it wasn’t really what I expected the book to be about.

For me, the uncertainty of the timeline (which could have contextualized some of the characters’ behavior) and the confusion over the genre of the story made this one a weird read. I read the book pretty quickly, so I’d say the writing is compelling.

Readers who like books by Matthew Quick might enjoy this one.

Content Notes

Recommended for Ages 16 up.

Representation
One character comes out as gay in the story.

Profanity/Crude Language Content
Some f-bombs and other profanity used moderately.

Romance/Sexual Content
Kissing between boy and girl. References to sex and making out. In a couple of scenes, characters remove their tops. One scene briefly references a girl pacing around a room naked. The story doesn’t focus on the romance. Mostly, it leads up to the start of a sexual encounter and then jumps ahead to afterward.

Spiritual Content
None.

Violent Content
Colt learns that Julia died in a car accident. He briefly references thinking about her injuries. A group of boys attack another boy, seriously injuring him. Brief references to Colt’s mom smacking him or his brother.

One character comes out as gay, and his family reacts with homophobic comments and rejects him.

Drug Content
Julia mentions drinking alcohol. She calls her boyfriend an alcoholic and mentions that he abuses prescription drugs.

Note: This post contains affiliate links, which do not cost you anything to use but help support this blog. I received a free copy of this book in exchange for my honest review. All opinions are my own.

Banned Book Review: The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison

Book Review and Content, Coming of Age, Historical, , , , , , ,

The Bluest Eye
Toni Morrison
Vintage
Published June 24, 2007 (Orig. 1970)

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About The Bluest Eye

Nobel Prize winner Toni Morrison powerfully examines our obsession with beauty and conformity—and asks questions about race, class, and gender with her characteristic subtly and grace.
 
In Morrison’s bestselling first novel, Pecola Breedlove—an 11-year-old Black girl in an America whose love for its blond, blue-eyed children can devastate all others—prays for her eyes to turn blue: so that she will be beautiful, so that people will look at her, so that her world will be different. This is the story of the nightmare at the heart of her yearning, and the tragedy of its fulfillment.

My Review

Parts of this book were a hard read for me. The writing is moving, fierce, and compassionate. The story explores not only Pecola’s wish to have the blue eyes she believes will make her beautiful but also the lives of the people around her. It follows two sisters, Frieda and Claudia, whose family takes Pecola in when social services remove her from her home. They forge a connection with her that opens and closes the story and offers some reflection on the events that take place.

We also watch what happened to each of Pecola’s parents before they met and after they were married. At one point, Pecola asks for help from a spiritual man who positions himself as having God’s power, and the story illuminates some of his background and past as well. By doing this, Morrison shows not only what happens to Pecola (often from the perspective of a perpetrator) but also why it happens.

It’s a hard read. I loved reading the author’s note at the end of the book in which Toni Morrison reflects on her intentions in telling the story and her evaluation of whether she achieved them. That added some context to the story that I think I needed to hear.

On the whole, I am glad I read this book. The writing is so powerful. I want to read more of Toni Morrison’s work, but already I feel like I see she’s made valuable contributions to literature and our ongoing conversations about race, class, and gender roles.

Discomfort in Literature

One of the things I’ve thought a lot about while reading The Bluest Eye and some of the other books I’ve read lately is the discomfort I experience while reading certain parts of the book. I remember in school really wrestling with stories that left me feeling uncomfortable for various reasons. I wish someone had been able to explain to me the purpose of that discomfort and that discomfort serves an important purpose.

Sometimes, discomfort is a warning sign of danger. It means we need to escape a situation quickly. At other times, though, discomfort is recognition of injustice or wrongdoing. Literature gives us a safe space to experience that discomfort without being in actual physical danger.

This doesn’t mean that reading about trauma can’t be triggering. Sometimes it can. There are certain things I can’t read.

But I’m learning that discomfort isn’t always an indicator that I’m experiencing danger or trauma. Sometimes discomfort means I’m experiencing the injustice or the sense of wrongness in someone else’s story. Sometimes sitting with that discomfort helps us develop empathy or understanding of someone else’s experience.

One of the Most Frequently Challenged Books of 2023

The Bluest Eye was one of the top ten most challenged books of 2023. It has some graphic content, though it’s limited to a few scenes. I definitely think this is a hard book to read, though its messages and perspective are deeply important.

Content Notes for The Bluest Eye

Content warning for graphic sexual assault of a child.

Recommended for Ages 16 up.

Representation
Major characters are Black.

Profanity/Crude Language Content
A few F-bombs and profanity used infrequently. The N-word appears a few times.

Romance/Sexual Content
References to sex and incest. (A girl is pregnant with her father’s baby.) References to nudity. One character befriends and visits three women who are sex workers. More than one scene shows two people having sex. In one, the description is detached and uncomfortable. Others show more pleasure.

In one scene, two white men stumble onto a Black couple having sex. They force the couple to continue while they watch.

One scene shows a man assaulting a child from the man’s perspective. Another passage relates a man’s preference and reasons for preying on girls. He describes some of the things he does.

Spiritual Content
References to prayer and reading the Bible.

Violent Content
References to domestic violence. A man and woman have a violent marriage in which they attack one another. During these episodes, their child wishes she was dead.

Drug Content
A man goes to bed drunk, as is his habit.

Note: This post contains affiliate links, which do not cost you anything to use but help support this blog. All opinions are my own.

MMGM Review: Unsinkable Cayenne by Jessica Vitalis

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

Unsinkable Cayenne
Jessica Vitalis
Greenwillow Books
Published October 29, 2024

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About Unsinkable Cayenne

When her unconventional parents finally agree to settle down in one place, twelve-year-old Cayenne’s dreams come true—but the reality of fitting in is much harder than she imagined. Acclaimed author Jessica Vitalis crafts an unforgettable historical novel-in-verse about belonging, family, and social class for fans of Lisa Fipps’s Starfish and Jasmine Warga’s Other Words for Home.

Cayenne and her family drift from place to place, living in their van. It hasn’t been a bad life—Cayenne and her mother birdwatch in every new location, they have a cozy setup in the van, and they sing and dance and bond over campfires most nights. But they’ve never belonged anywhere.

As Cayenne enters seventh grade, her parents decide to settle down in a small Montana town. Cayenne hopes that this means she will finally fit in and make some friends. But it turns out that staying in one place isn’t easy.

As her social studies class studies the Titanic tragedy (the wreckage has just been discovered and her teacher is obsessed), Cayenne sees more and more parallels between the social strata of the infamous ship and her own life. Will she ever squeeze her way into the popular girls’ clique, even though they live in fancy houses on the hill, and she lives in a tiny, rundown home with chickens in the front yard? Is it possible that the rich boy she likes actually likes her back? Can she find a way to make room for herself in this town? Does she really want to? Maybe being “normal” isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.

Unsinkable Cayenne is a character-driven novel-in-verse about family, friendship, first crushes, and fitting in. Set in the mid-1980s, this literary novel is for readers of Megan E. Freeman’s Alone and Erin Entrada Kelly’s We Dream of Space.

My Review

This is the first book by Jessica Vitalis that I’ve ever read, though Coyote Queen is already on my reading list! I saw nothing but high praise for that one and added it to my reading list immediately. If I wasn’t planning to read it before, I would definitely be planning to now.

I love novels in verse because it gives an author a chance to tell a story in which each word really counts. Delivering rich characters and vivid settings in just a few words takes really precise writing, and I can’t help but appreciate when it’s done well– as in this book.

Cayenne lives an unapologetically unconventional lifestyle. While she longs for the stability of a more permanent home and school experience, she understands how much her parents value the life they’ve crafted. She relates her experiences sans outside judgment. This is simply how her life is.

At school, her history teacher introduces a unit of study on the Titanic, which allows Cayenne and her classmates to think about the impact of classism through a really specific situation in which someone’s class dramatically impacted their likelihood of survival. Cayenne relates to the prejudice and classism described in the disaster as she tries to navigate relationships with kids whose families have fancier houses and clothes than hers.

It’s a thoughtful story filled with metaphors about birds and emotive descriptions of middle school moments that will still resonate today. I could see readers of Starfish or other thought-provoking novels in verse really enjoying this one.

Content Notes

Recommended for Ages 8 to 12.

Representation
Cayenne’s dad has depression.

Profanity/Crude Language Content
None.

Romance/Sexual Content
References to nudity.

Spiritual Content
List.

Violent Content
Cayenne learns about the Titanic disaster.

Drug Content
Cayenne’s dad smokes pot.

Note: This post contains affiliate links, which do not cost you anything to use but help support this blog. I received a free copy of this book in exchange for my honest review. All opinions are my own.

Marvelous Middle-Grade Monday

I’m sharing this post as a part of a weekly round-up of middle-grade posts called Marvelous Middle-Grade Monday. Check out other blogs with posts about middle-grade books today on Marvelous Middle-Grade Mondays at Always in the Middle with Greg Pattridge.

Review: The Poisons We Drink by Bethany Baptiste

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

The Poisons We Drink
Bethany Baptiste
Sourcebooks Fire
Published March 5, 2024

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About The Poisons We Drink

In a country divided between humans and witchers, Venus Stoneheart hustles as a brewer making illegal love potions to support her family.

Love potions is a dangerous business. Brewing has painful, debilitating side effects, and getting caught means death or a prison sentence. But what Venus is most afraid of is the dark, sentient magic within her.

Then an enemy’s iron bullet kills her mother, Venus’s life implodes. Keeping her reckless little sister Janus safe is now her responsibility. When the powerful Grand Witcher, the ruthless head of her coven, offers Venus the chance to punish her mother’s killer, she has to pay a steep price for revenge. The cost? Brew poisonous potions to enslave D.C.’s most influential politicians.

As Venus crawls deeper into the corrupt underbelly of her city, the line between magic and power blurs, and it’s hard to tell who to trust…Herself included.

My Review

I loved so many things about this book. First, of course, I loved the relationship between Janus and Venus, who are sisters. They’re very different from one another and argue a lot, but at the end of the day, each one knows her sister has her back.

I also loved the magic system. It’s complex, but really interesting. Venus is a “brewer,” meaning she makes potions. But in order to do this, she must commit to only one kind of potion brewing. She has committed to brewing potions in love magic, so things that impact relationships.

She gets embroiled in a political scheme when legislators propose a bill that would mean witchers (magic users) would be required to register with the government, which, considering the way witchers are already treated by the government, would be a terrible thing. I liked the way the political issue drove the story forward. It made for high stakes and some intense reckoning over morals and what someone might be willing to do to protect the people they love or avenge a loved one’s murder.

While I loved the magic system, there were a couple of moments– not a lot of them– where I got confused about how things worked. An action suddenly broke a bond. A character could suddenly do a kind of magic I thought she wasn’t supposed to be capable of or didn’t pay the price that I thought she said would be exacted if she took certain actions.

It’s possible that those were fixed before the book was released (I read a pre-release copy). Even with those few hiccups, I was super carried away reading the story of this wild, pink-haired witcher ready to mete out justice or vengeance, as the situation demanded, no matter the personal cost.

Content Notes

Recommended for Ages 16 up.

Representation
Venus and other characters are Black. Venus is queer. Another character is nonbinary.

Profanity/Crude Language Content
Extreme profanity used pretty frequently.

Romance/Sexual Content
Kissing between two people. One chapter opens with an explicit sex scene. A couple takes a bath together.

Spiritual Content
Some characters can perform magic, limited by the energy they have in their bodies, which they can replenish with special baths and teas or naturally replenishes over time. Powerful magic can sap so much energy from a person that it kills them. When someone breaks a magical oath or does something terrible using magic, a deviation or corrupt magical being can become part of them. This deviant will continue to try to break free or take control of its host.

Violent Content
Humans fear and hate magic users. They legislate ways to control them, from limiting the number of witchers who can be in a single area legally at a time to proposing a bill that would require each witcher to register with the government (because that always goes good places). Terrorists target witchers. Enforcers use violence to break up witcher gatherings.

In addition, some scenes show violence during magic use, such as bones shifting or breaking, and brief descriptions of body horror. A powerful blood ritual binds two people after they press their cut palms together. References to murders by gunshot, bomb, or other means. Venus attacks a few people who have tried to harm her or her family members. In one scene, a person uses a magical bond to control another and makes them stab themselves.

Drug Content
Venus can create potions that convince people to forgive one another, love someone, or make them highly susceptible to new ideas. There are also potions that can restore health or save someone from death.

Note: This post contains affiliate links, which do not cost you anything to use, but which help support this blog. I received a free copy of THE POISONS WE DRINK in exchange for my honest review. All opinions my own.

Review: All That Shines by Ellen Hagan

Contemporary, Poetry, Young Adult/Teen 12-18, , , , , , , ,

All That Shines
Ellen Hagan
Bloomsbury
Published September 5, 2023

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About All That Shines

A contemplative novel in verse that questions what it means to lose everything you once treasured and rediscover yourself, falling in love along the way.

Chloe Brooks has only ever known what it’s like to have everything. Her parents’ wealth and place in society meant she had all she wanted, and friends everywhere she turned. Until it all crashes Her father is arrested in the middle of the night, under investigation for fraud.

Bankrupt and facing foreclosure, Chloe must forgo her lavish summer plans as she and her mom are forced to move into one of the rundown apartments they still own, just outside Lexington, Kentucky. Without her riches, Chloe loses her friends, her comfort, her confidence, and her sense of self, unsure of who she is and if she is even worth anything if she nothing to offer.

To Chloe’s surprise, she bonds with her neighbors, Clint, Skye, James, and Natalia, and they introduce her to the side of Kentucky she’s long ignored. Her new friends are the only ones who see her for who she truly is, but will they stay by her side once they discover her family’s true identity, or will Chloe lose them, too?

In her signature captivating verse, Ellen Hagan encapsulates the hesitant joy of reshaping your identity and rediscovering yourself.

My Review

This is the third novel in verse by Ellen Hagan that I’ve read, and I always enjoy the way she captures emotion with her writing. Both RECKLESS, GLORIOUS GIRL and ALL THAT SHINES are set in Kentucky and touch on state pride and love. It’s so rich and deep that it doesn’t surprise me at all that the author is from there herself.

I loved the relationships in the book between Chloe and the other kids at the Limestone Apartments. I loved the way they pulled her into their family and the way they reacted to information about Chloe’s past. Chloe’s relationship with her mom also really touched me. It was so sweet watching them both figure out how to connect to themselves, each other, and their possible new community in this new life they were living.

The only thing that I struggled with was how quickly Chloe believed her dad was guilty and how his guilt seemed a foregone conclusion. I wasn’t sure if that was because she knew things and had put pieces together. She seemed to describe herself as feeling close to him but also a little afraid of him, so I expected her to wrestle more with whether he was truly at fault.

I ended up assuming that that part of the story was summarized so that we could move on to the bigger, more central parts of the book: Chloe’s personal reformation.

All in all, I enjoyed this book. I think DON’T CALL ME A HURRICANE is probably still my favorite of the books I’ve read by Ellen Hagan, but I liked a lot of things about this book, too. Readers who enjoy novels in verse or stories about resilience and community should add this one to their reading lists.

Content Notes

Recommended for Ages 14 up.

Representation
Chloe is from a white, wealthy family. Minor characters are BIPOC and LGBTQ+.

Profanity/Crude Language Content
Strong profanity used very infrequently.

Romance/Sexual Content
Kissing between boy and girl.

Spiritual Content
None.

Violent Content
Mentions of suicidal thoughts.

Drug Content
Chloe and her friends get drunk on champagne at her dad’s business celebration.

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

Review: I Feed Her to the Beast and the Beast Is Me by Jamison Shea

Book Review and Content, Mystery/Suspense/Thriller, Paranormal, Young Adult/Teen 12-18, , , , , , , , , ,

I Feed Her to the Beast and the Beast is Me
Jamison Shea
Henry Holt & Co.
Published August 29, 2023

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About I Feed Her to the Beast and the Beast is Me

There will be blood.

ACE OF SPADES meets HOUSE OF HOLLOW in this villain origin story.

Laure Mesny is a perfectionist with an axe to grind. Despite being constantly overlooked in the elite and cutthroat world of the Parisian ballet, she will do anything to prove that a Black girl can take center stage. To level the playing field, Laure ventures deep into the depths of the Catacombs and strikes a deal with a pulsating river of blood.

The primordial power Laure gains promises influence and adoration, everything she’s dreamed of and worked toward. With retribution on her mind, she surpasses her bitter and privileged peers, leaving broken bodies behind her on her climb to stardom.

But even as undeniable as she is, Laure is not the only monster around. And her vicious desires make her a perfect target for slaughter. As she descends into madness and the mystifying underworld beneath her, she is faced with the ultimate choice: continue to break herself for scraps of validation or succumb to the darkness that wants her exactly as she is—monstrous heart and all. That is, if the god-killer doesn’t catch her first.

From debut author Jamison Shea comes I FEED HER TO THE BEAST AND THE BEAST IS ME, a slow-burn horror that lifts a veil on the institutions that profit on exclusion and the toll of giving everything to a world that will never love you back.

My Review

First, I have to say this author either has some up-close experience in the dance world or definitely did their research. The descriptions of what dancing en pointe does to your toes… YUP. Brought back so many memories. Wowza. Not the horrific element I expected to find here, but pretty real stuff nonetheless! Ha.

I found myself nodding along to a lot of the dance descriptions, like the ways the dancers do things, from breaking in a pair of shoes to techniques used on the dance floor. That’s a lot of stuff to get right, and the author really did that. It very much lines up with my own experience.

I thought Laure’s character was really compelling. I liked the moments she delivered commentary on the ballets the company chose to perform and how they were cast, as well as the expectations about how dancers were to look and act.

In some moments, I felt out of sync with the paranormal/supernatural parts of the plot. I felt like I was missing something. I’m not sure if I didn’t absorb a few critical details or what exactly happened there.

Still, so many parts of the book deeply fascinated me. I especially liked Keturah and Andor and the ways they impacted the story. I loved the complications Andor faced in his love life, too. It was so different and really emphasized the strangeness of the story.

On the whole, I am glad I read the book. I loved getting to be immersed in a ballet world– even one so toxic and tragic as this one.

Content Notes

Recommended for Ages 14 up.

Representation
The main character is Black and queer.

Profanity/Crude Language Content
Extreme profanity used somewhat infrequently.

Romance/Sexual Content
Kissing between boy and girl.

Spiritual Content
Laure and her friends encounter a river of blood and an ancient god who offers them temporary gifts for a price.

Violent Content
Graphic descriptions of dance injuries and injuries resulting from sabotage. Situations of peril. Laure discovers the bodies of two people who appear to have been murdered. One scene includes graphic descriptions of torture. Another includes a battle between two god-powered characters. In a couple of scenes, a character drinks blood from another person.

Drug Content
Laure, seventeen, drinks alcohol with an older dancer.

Note: This post contains affiliate links, which do not cost you anything to use, but which help support this blog. I received a free copy of I FEED HER TO THE BEAST AND THE BEAST IS ME in exchange for my honest review.