The Starless Sea by Erin Morgenstern, 498 pages

Beautiful epic story that anyone who loves books would enjoy. The world the author created was so fantastic I've not wanted to live in a book since HP and Hogwarts. The first I've read from this author, but definitely want to read her first book as well. She writes with this sense of wonder that I have never experienced before. It was like reading magic.

Birthday/ Meredith Russo/ 288 pages

       Morgan and Eric have been best friends since birth and have become very close over the years. In this novel we see them once a year on their birthday and learn how they have grown. We see the changes they make for themselves in order to become who they truly are while they also learn how much they need each other. 

          This story was so sweet. I feel like it is a must read and be prepared for tears. You grow so attached to these characters and Meredith Russo did such an amazing job at creating such a realistic novel. I absolutely loved this one.

     

     

The Readers of Broken Wheel Recommend/Katarina Bivald/384 pgs

Imagine a young girl living in Sweden having a pen pal friend in the United States that has invited her for an extended visit.  The two pen pals, Sara and Amy, share an avid love of books.  Through their letters, Sara feels like she knows everyone in Amy’s small Iowa town and she decides to take Amy up on her offer to visit.

When Sara arrives in Iowa for her visit with her pen pal friend, Amy, she finds Amy’s friends attending her funeral.  Encouraged by the townsfolk to stay, Sara soon realizes how much the town loved and needed Amy.  Sara decides that she can do something to help fill the void left by Amy’s death.  Sara opened a book store and the hearts of the people of Broken Wheel.

The Rest of Us Just Live Here / Patrick Ness / 319 pages

You know who they are, those indie kids-- the ones who end up being The Chosen One when the supernatural happens, the ones who have the unique powers, the ones who pretty much save the world from the Ultimate Evil?

Well this is not their story.

This story focuses on (somewhat) ordinary kids who just want to graduate high school before it gets blown up.  Again.  Mikey wants to ask Henna out before her family goes to Africa and has a severe case of OCD.  Mel has to graduate a year late while coping with anorexia.  Jared keeps a lot of secrets from his friends, revealing to them only 1) he's gay, and 2) he's part-god (the God of Cats to be exact; cats love this guy).  Each chapter also begins with a short side story on the indie kids' battle against the Immortals, particularly focusing on a girl named Satchel, though there are other characters like Finn, Dylan, Finn, Kerouac, Finn, Wisconsin, Finn, Finn, and even a prince.  Oh, and not to mention Finn.

This book was recommended to me by a friend, and I must say: this was a witty, yet sad, yet heartwarming book all at the same time.  Every character faces a different conflict, both internal and external, while having to deal with the flaws he or she has, making them more realistic.  As the books tagline says, "Sometimes you have to find the extraordinary in the ordinary."

The Color Purple / Alice Walker / 288 pages

One of the categories for the 2019 Read Harder Challenge is to read an epistolary novel. Epistolary novels are my favorite and I have already read tons, but I had no idea that The Color Purple, which I had never read, was a novel made up of letters. I had seen the movie a couple of times but had never read the book.

This is one of those books that I felt very torn about. I had a tough time with the book for the first half, but it got better and ended up grabbing my attention later. The story is told in a series of letters, first Celie's letters to God, then letters from her sister, Nettie, to her, then letters from her to Nettie. I think when those letters from her sister begin, about halfway through the book, that's when it finally got interesting and I ended up enjoying the latter half of the book far more than I did the first half.

Celie is a young black woman living around 1915 Georgia with her dad and mother. She is raped by her father and gives birth twice to children that her father takes away; she knows not where. Celie is not educated or good looking, unlike her younger sister Nettie, who is both of those things. Celie is given to an unnamed Mr. _____ to marry. He beats her and is obviously having an affair with Shug, a worldly beautiful singer. Meanwhile, Celie's sister runs away from home and a lifetime passes before they reconnect.

I'm glad I got to read this during Black History Month, as it is a good reminder of what life was like for African Americans in Jim Crow South. I recommend the book, but with the caveat that it's a tough read at first. Get through it and it gets better.

Giant Days, Vol. 1 / John Allison / 128 pages

Giant Days is about a trio of girls: Susan, Esther, and Daisy. They're all freshman in a British university and have come from completely different walks of life and experiences. But their experiences are about to get even more strange and confusing. There is some very odd stuff mixed in with the regular expectations of a college experience, and I really enjoyed this collection of single issues from BOOM!Box. Usually I read books with a college setting and think, “Okay, that was fun but not really similar to my experience.” Volume One was so much like my first two years of college! If Esther was more punk than goth and had a Russian name; my Daisy was taller than everyone and not so naive but just as shy; and I was a less angry and less ambitious (English Lit degree, not medical) Susan. Just the reprieve I needed from a busy life right now.

Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe / Benjamin Alire Sáenz / 359 pgs

This is one of those books that I would have never read if not for the ReadHarder challenge. Not as angsty as The Perks of Being a Wallflower, but it was close, and for me, I don't consider that a good thing. I find I have very little patience with whiny teenagers and this book was no exception. I suppose this book was trying to get me to feel things, but I've read at least fifty books that hit me in the feels without trying nearly as hard.

The story is of Aristotle (Ari is his nickname). He's a 15 year old Mexican-American kid growing up in El Paso in 1987 and 1988. He is a loner, has no friends, until he meets Dante, who teaches Ari how to swim. Their friendship is the crux of the book. They save each other's lives, deal with hidden family secrets, and their burgeoning romantic interests. If you are into sap of a considerably non-Maple variety, I recommend it. Otherwise, stay far away. This gets 2 out of 5 stars because it was at least better written than The Perks of Being a Wallflower.

The Blood Between Us / Zac Brewer / 274 pgs

I have to admit that I wouldn't have picked up this book if not for the fact that it fulfilled some reading challenge categories I needed to check out. On a whole, it has some things going for it. It's an interesting mystery. The narrator, Adrien, starts out as a 13 year old boy whose adopted scientist parents were just killed when their home lab blows up. His sister, Grace, who was the natural born daughter of his adopted parents, has never been kind to her adopted brother. Grace has always resented Adrian, and isn't shy about letting him know. Both are taken in by their godparents, Victor and Julian, but Adrien doesn't want to go back to the east coast boarding school that he has attended with Grace. He wants to go to a boarding school in California. Four years later, at the start of their senior year, Adrien is asked by a dying Victor to come back, and he enrolls back into his old school. His sister is still a jerk, and she's managed to make nearly everyone hate Adrian, which makes him feel like a pariah. Oddly, he is receiving text messages indicating that Grace had something to do with their parents' death. Is it true? Is Grace capable of being that horrible?

At the same time, I was not as sympathetic to Adrien as I think the author would hope. He was extremely arrogant and narcissistic, and sometimes I thought he and Grace deserved each other as siblings. Also, the resolution to the mystery surrounding the book came out of nowhere and didn't quite fit. On a whole, I give it three stars out of five, but I'm feeling generous today.

Middlesex / Jeffrey Eugenides / 529 pgs

"I was born twice: first, as a baby girl, on a remarkably smogless Detroit day of January 1960; and then again, as a teenage boy, in an emergency room near Petoskey, Michigan, in August of l974. . . My birth certificate lists my name as Calliope Helen Stephanides. My most recent driver's license...records my first name simply as Cal."
I just finished 2003's Pulitzer Prize winning fiction book "Middlesex" for the transgender category for BookRiot's #ReadHarder challenge and I really enjoyed it. The book is long, and I listened to the audiobook, so that was 21 hours for the book. Nevertheless, I didn't feel too daunted and the story of Cal, and Cal's grandparents and parents, was really interesting. Jeffrey Eugenides builds a story that feels like it had to be an actual true story, by using real events in the Greco-Turkish War, the beginnings of the Nation of Islam, and the rise and fall of Detroit. 

However, that is only the first half of the book. The second half focuses solely on Callie/Cal and the journey Callie takes to learn of her origins and sex. Since the book was published in 2001, some words like "hermaphrodite" have fallen out of fashion in favor of "intersex." Also, the book is about someone who is intersex, raised as a girl, but finds that their chromosomes are definitely that of a male. According to the moderators at #ReadHarder, this book still fit in the transgender category since it is about someone who changed their gender identity and had gender dysphoria. Bear that in mind if a patron is looking for books on transgender individuals. Otherwise, I highly recommend it!

The Rest of Us Just Live Here/Ness/317 pages

What if you don't care about zombies, soul-eating ghosts and the latest vampires that are taking over the world? What if you are like Mikey and just want to go to prom, graduate and finally get the courage to ask Henna out before someone blows up the school? Each chapter opens with small synopsis about what the "indie kids" are doing, the ones saving the world, talking to animals, opening portals. Then the chapter continues to the normal everyday lives, loves, anxieties and mental health of  "the rest of us". Neat concept, but pretty boring. The characters in this book had so much potential, I wish the author could have made them a little more unforgettable.