The Starless Sea by Erin Morgenstern (audiobook)

genre: fantasy

A bee.  A key.  A sword.  A book-loving graduate student who refuses to resist a mystery.  A special place below the earth where stories are kept and where their keepers keep watch.  A story within a story within a story that takes readers to the edge of the known world into one where the tales we tell become the reality we can live.

Woah.

The first thing to note is that Erin Morgenstern is a masterful writer. The plot here is so complex that, if I am honest, I wasn't always 100% sure of where I was, but what I DID know was that I liked it.  I liked every intentional word, I liked when I was able to make connections and see the ideas that were woven in from one end to the other.  I loved the images and the lyricism of the narrative even if I couldn't always understand how I got from one place to the next.  I'm not sure if I had read it in a hard copy if I might've had an easier time to keep things straight, having a full cast of voices certainly helped but I knew sometimes that even seeing different fonts might've helped even more.

The Starless Sea is a love letter to stories, to the people who read them and the people that tell them.  I wish I hadn't needed so much hand holding to keep all the pieces straight in my mind but I cannot deny that this book casts a powerful spell.

Girl Through Glass by Sari Wilson

genre: historical/contemporary fiction

Even at the age of eleven, New Yorker Mira doesn't see a future for herself without ballet in it.  Growing up in the late 1970s, her dream is to land a spot at the School of American Ballet and even while her family life is crumbling around her, ballet is a constant. 

In the present time, Kate is an academic in the dance field and her personal life is in an upheaval.  When her own past comes crashing in Kate has to decide what about her own self she wants to figure out and cling to and what she needs to let go of.  This journey is a painful and tangled one.

How these two are connected is threaded through with a psychological mystery and deep look inside what it is about us, especially young women, that can cause us to make the choices we do in a world that tells us that both how we LOOK and what we can can DO are more important than the tenderest parts of who we ARE.

The dark underbelly of the ballet world is an interesting and intriguing place for me to explore and I found this a readable story that also made me rather uncomfortable at times.  An older man who grooms a young ballet dancer to be his muse.  Choices made by many people that are not just unfortunate but completely inappropriate with consequences that have lasting repercussions.  There were twists in the plot I did not see coming and the ending was very satisfying to me.  The writing about dancing, especially, is just lovely and while it's not a pretty story, I want to go read some more about ballet now.

A Christmas Carol (young readers adaptation) from the story by Charles Dickens

genre: classic abridged for children

It’s a beloved, familiar story: Ebenezer Scrooge, Miser; is visited on Christmas Eve by three spirits in the hopes that he’ll be convinced to change his ways. This short adaptation does give a good overview to the tale and with short chapters and lots of illustrations, it gives young readers a chance to get the idea of the story.  However, as I read it to my 7 year olds I felt like I had to explain the MEAT of it, those deep ideas about caring for others more than yourself and the regret of being selfish, since that didn’t really come across very clearly and I think that’s the best part :) I liked it for a real aloud - and the little occasional text bubbles were fun for my boys to read to me.

The Snow Child by Eowyn Ivey

genre: historical fiction/fantasy

Jack and Mabel's individual pains led them from a comfortable east coast life to the wilds of Alaska, where in 1920, scratching out a meager living from an unforgiving land seems to be the best they could hope for.  Until in one spontaneous moment they build themselves a child out of out snow and the next morning, the stable and straightforward world that they knew shifts into one where white-haired children live alone in forest and where maybe the land that has taken so much from them could be giving something a little magical back.

Like fairy tales, this story has beautiful parts and parts that are dark and ugly and cut at the core of you.  Mabel's infertility and her heart-wrenching loneliness and longing really resonated with me in a visceral way.  The snow child herself is perfectly constructed, her character just as flighty and yet passionate as you'd want her to be.  I BELIEVED her to be a child of snow personified and the magical realism in this book has such a light touch, even people who don't usually enjoy the genre could find this to be a story with a strong enough plot and interesting enough setting to offset the magic.  I really loved the power of the land itself here, it's ability to create life as well as cut it short, the way it's whims were such an important part of daily life for both good and bad. 

This was the perfect Christmasy-winter read for me.  I really, really enjoyed it for both the heavy that made me feel deeply and for the joyous moments that shone like a bright light on an Alaskan winter night.

City of Girls by Elizabeth Gilbert

genre: historical fiction

Vivian's pampered and shipped-off-to-school childhood meant that while she wasn't anyone's darling, certainly not her parents', she still managed to grow up avoiding all responsibility for her choices.   When she arrives in New York City just as World War II is beginning, the world seems to be truly her oyster.  Living with her aunt in her vaudeville theater, Vivian is exposed to a world of glamour and excess that slurps her in until she no longer even tries to really care about anyone but herself.  Living life like that does has its consequences, though, and Vivan will soon have to grow up enough to weather them.

This story is written as a letter from an older Vivian to a person we as readers aren't able to place until near the end, a plot device that I really liked.  While Vivian's bawdy and not-romance-novel- graphic-but-sometimes-close exploits might be way too much for some readers, I found Vivian's journey an incredibly readable an entertaining one.  I liked that there really were things in her life that resulted from her behavior that she just could only come to peace with - not fix.  I liked coming along for the ride as she grew up and processed her choices. I liked her homefront wartime experiences.   I really loved the last fourth of the book as she comes into her own and decides what kind of life she wants.  I'm glad I didn't stop reading when her immature and selfishness was annoying - I really did feel incredibly satisfied at the end.

Sabrina by Nick Drnaso

genre: fiction graphic novel

When Teddy's girlfriend goes missing, his childhood friend Calvin welcomes Teddy into his home.  Teddy is not okay and while Calvin's job doesn't require much interaction with other people, he tries hard to give Teddy what he needs.  When information about Sabrina surfaces, though, soon both Teddy and Calvin are drawn into conspiracies and fake-news and there is no peace to be found in a world that's become so cerebral and screen-centric that actual human people really seem unable to offer any comfort at all.

Blah.  I did NOT enjoy this.  I chose it because it was on the Longlist for the Booker Prize but dang, it bored me.  The art is so drab and the people so homogeneous that I actually had a really hard time remembering who was who.  I'm sure there is a deeper meaning in there, something about universality or something, I just never felt invested enough in anyone to try and figure it out and it made it hard for me to feel connected to the characters. Some of the print was really small and hard to read and whole pages full of panels did really nothing to more the plot along.  I never felt any sense of resolution and all the conspiracy theory stuff just messes with your mind and then goes away.  The one plot thread that was interesting to me was the real grief of a loved one being lost and then, in our age of social media, not being allowed to just sit in your grief and instead you have the whole world shoving their opinions at you.  When there is tragedy it seems like there is no avoiding being run through the wringer of every critic that's on the internet.   It was interesting to see how that can affect those left behind.  I don't think it was it's bleakness that made me not  like it - I've read very bleak books that resonated and engaged me, this one just didn't.

Thunderhead by Neal Shusterman

genre: young adult dystopian

**Thunderhead is the second book in the Arc of a Scythe series, you for sure need to read book one, Scythe, first.  Like, go get it now.**

While Citra is now a junior scythe working with Scythe Marie Curie, Rowan has gone off-grid, committing his own kind of vigilante justice as retribution for the atrocities he sees some "new order" scythes committing.  But there is a bigger plot they are both unknowingly a part of and when Citra, now Scythe Anastasia's life is threatened, she has to find out if the Thunderhead will make itself known and pick sides or will the unsavories of the world and reckless, power-hungry scythes turn the world into something completely unrecognizable?

I did NOT want to put this down.  It hooked me from the beginning and had me calling my sister to freak out about what happens in this dystopian world.  So many different threads weaving through the plot, so much blatant evil fighting against a weaker and yet determined good, so many things for my brain to process and try to piece together.  I love the more intimate presence of the Thunderhead in this book, the way it makes you think about the very concept of God.  I loved that it kept me guessing 100% until the last word of this very large novel and that the moment I closed it I found I still wanted more.  I'm so glad there is one more book.

Posted by John David Anderson (audiobook)

genre: middle grade contemporary fiction

Middle school can be a battleground - in more ways that one.  For Frost, Deedee, Wolf, and Bench the halls of their middle school are where the bullies roam, ready to mock them for any number of reason.  Among themselves, though, among their tribe - these four boys have found a safe bunker.  So when cell phones are banned at their school, they know they'll still have each other's backs - until they AREN'T sure anymore.  Because when a new student arrives, the post-it notes that are used as substitutes for texting start becoming their own kind of weapons and it's hard to know WHERE you stand in your world anymore.

I enjoyed this so much more than I'd anticipated I would, what with an 8th grade boy narrator and the drama of middle school. But it's not just "drama" - it's bullying and it's divorce and it's finding your people, one of the most universal themes of all.  It's also so much about the power of words to wound or to heal.  It's about learning how to be brave not just when confronting your enemies but also your friends.  It's about appreciating all different kinds of people - even if we are quick to judge harshly on first impression.   Yes, there is some boyish crudeness (not of a sexual nature) but overall I really enjoyed this story of friendship and finding your place.

Scythe by Neal Shusterman

genre: young adult dystopian

The human race has defeated death.  Now that all diseases have been cured and all accidental deaths can be reversed, population has to be controlled SOMEhow. Herein lies the significance of the scythe: these select individuals have taken it upon themselves to deal death upon the world.  There are rules, of course, both for how the public can interact with the scythes and how the scythes can do their "job" and from what Citra and Rowan know about the job, they want nothing to do with it.  Until, that is, they DO start to have something to do with it.  And these two teens will soon find that the business of death is far more complicated that one could imagine.

This book blew me away.  I was engaged from the beginning by this probable world, by the pitfalls of immortality, by all the ethical questions that are played with.  Parts of it shocked me, disturbed me and shook me.  This is a book with violent action, with deep ideas and with heart.  It's telling that the minute I finished it I was out the door to the library to get the next book.

The Grave's a Fine and Private Place by Alan Bradley (audiobook)

genre: historical mystery

Flavia has gone on holiday with Dogger and her sisters and whilst punting on the river, she happens upon, you guessed it, a dead body.  This one, a man dressed to the nines whose disappearance may well be connected somehow to the murder of three church women a few years previously.  Women who were POISONED no less, Flavia's favorite.  What better way to spend your holiday than investigating a murder??

I will listen to every Flavia ever written.  This episode is just a pleasant and delightful as all the others.  She gets into scrapes, lies her head off, makes amazing deductions, does a fine bit of chemistry and generally  solves all the things.  I love it.  I love her relationship with Dogger and the more we learn about him, the more I just like him as a character as well.  Alan Bradley hasn't disappointed me yet.