Wreck Your Heart: A Review of All My Rage by Sabaa Tahir

All My Rage by Sabaa Tahir

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I have seen many reviews and even jokes on social media about how some of the best books can wreck a reader emotionally and yet they will still love it. Personally, while some books had certainly played with my emotions, I have never really felt emotionally wrecked by a book that I ended up loving… until this book that is. Ms. Tahir has written an absolutely amazing work of fiction that reflects on grief, generational trauma, anger, and the dreams that we all hope to fulfill, but aren’t always able to.

All My Rage centers around three Pakistani-Americans.  The first is Noor (which rhymes with lure), a young woman who is obsessed with indie rock music of the 1990s and 2000s and is hoping to escape the small fictional town of Juniper, located in California’s Mojave Desert, and go to college.  Salahudin, also known as Sal, is a young man who likes literature & poetry and has a talent for writing, but a recent tragedy in his life hangs over everything he does in this book.  While Noor and Sal have been friends since grade school, by the time the book starts they have had a recent falling out that strains their relationship.  The third character is Misbah, the mother of Sal and an auntie of Noor’s, who owns and manages the Clouds Rest Inn motel that she and her family lives at in Juniper.  Her life story is told in flashbacks throughout and her story weighs heavily on the main story of Noor and Sal.  

It’s hard to describe how good this book is without spoiling it.  Needless to say that both Noor and Sal are harboring secrets from each other.  And though they draw closer to each other as the story moves forward, their secrets collide with each other in a spectacular fashion.  Noor and Sal care deeply for each other, but their inability to share their secrets with each other will have disastrous consequences.

This book played with my emotions in a way few other books ever have.  There was one part about halfway through the book where I was actually clenching my jaw in anger over an unjust situation.  There’s also a side character whose casual and blatant racism towards Noor and Sal made me seethe with, well, rage.  And the pain and loss that Noor, Sal, and Misbah go through in their lives genuinely moved me.  Ms. Tahir’s skill at crafting an emotionally wrenching book is undeniable and is a key selling point for this book.

I wish I could go into more detail, but to do so would spoil many of the key plot points and character developments of the book.  Suffice it to say, this is one of the best books of 2022 and you owe it to yourself to read this.  I cannot recommend this book highly enough.

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Genuine Positivity: A Review of Fat Chance, Charlie Vega

Fat Chance, Charlie Vega by Crystal Maldonado

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

In most romance novels, in YA romance novels, the fat friend trope is used to build up the slimmer main character’s story. Very rarely do they get the same time and attention as their slimmer counterparts. But in this great YA romance, Crystal Maldonado creates a wonderful, if a little slow, novel with a great fat-positive messages and relationships that feel genuine.

Fat Chance, Charlie Vega follows the title character who harbors deep insecurities about her weight and body image.  It doesn’t help that her best friend is slim and athletic and that her mother constantly undercuts her by leaving weight-loss shakes for her and appears to judge her weight rather harshly.  When a catastrophic misunderstanding drives home these insecurities, Charlie despairs of ever finding love until a boy from work wins her heart.  But her best friend, Amelia, harbors a secret that could devastate everything that Charlie has been building up.

This book has a great fat-positive message.  By putting Charlie’s internal struggles front and center, Ms. Maldonando does a great deal to reveal how our culture’s messaging about beauty and slim figures, both overt and covert, can have devastating effects on a person’s self-confidence.  After reading this book, I know that I will try to be more mindful about what I say and think in this area and that is why this book is worth reading, even if you are not a big fan of YA romances.

Another great aspect of this book are the relationships Charlie has with her mother, her best friend Amelia, and her co-worker Brian.  Each one feels unique and genuine and plays a key role in the story.  Sometimes relationships in YA novels can feel superficial or only a means to an end for the plot.  But Ms. Maldonado takes time to develop all of these relationships in the novel so that the conflict at the heart of this novels feels just as devastating to us, the reader, as it does to Charlie.  Not every relationship issue is tied up in a neat bow by the end of this novel, but that feels both real and okay at the same time.  Relationships are long-term commitments and were every relationship issue to be resolved neatly by the end of this book, it would not feel as real.  If there is a sequel to this novel, it will be great to see how these relationships continue to develop.

One drawback of this book is how slow the plot moves.  Typically YA novels move at a pretty quick pace, but this book does not.  Indeed, the climatic reveal at the heart of this book doesn’t come about until about 100 pages before the end of this book.  Fortunately, the ending does not feel rushed, but it does take awhile for Ms. Maldonado to get us to the climax itself.

Overall, this is a great YA romance with wonderful fat-positive messaging that may make people think twice about what they say to friends and family who do not neatly fit society’s image of beauty.  That only makes this book worth reading, even if you are not a fan of YA, romance, or YA romance.

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Do Not Throw Away Your Shot: A Review of Furia

Furia by Yamile Saied Méndez

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Life is not always easy on a person’s dreams, especially on a young woman’s dreams in a country where gender equality is not highly valued. In this excellent YA novel, Ms. Méndez perfectly balances drama and romance to tell the tale of a young woman in Argentina pursuing her impossible dream: to become a professional fútbol player.

Camila is a Palestinian-Argentine teen who has been forbidden from playing fútbol (soccer for American audiences) by her mother and abusive father.  But unbeknownst to them, Camila is the star fútbol player on her teen girl’s team known as Furia who has a real shot at going pro.  But things start to get complicated as her older brother’s pro fútbol career continues to thrive and Diego, a local boy who has made a reputation as El Títan in the Italian fútbol league and who has had a crush on Camila since they were kids, comes back home.  As all of these things collide, Camila has to make a choice between her love and her dream.

The first couple of chapters made me a bit concerned.  With all of these multiple narrative threads, it was difficult to figure out where exactly this book was going in the beginning.  I also feared that this book would tip over too much into typical YA romance territory with lots of melodrama.  Fortunately, like her main character, Ms. Méndez knows the story that she wants to tell and begins to thread these multiple plots together brilliantly.  This is not a sappy YA romance, nor does the ending feel like it magically happened.  There are real consequences to Camila’s choices and some of them nearly put her dreams out of reach.

Because there are multiple plot points throughout this novel, some don’t get as much play as I feel they should have.  In particular, Ms. Méndez is able to weave a bit of Argentine politics into this novel.  Argentina’s battle over women’s rights in general and abortion in particular is prevalent in the background of this book and even has a bit of a moment to shine towards the end.  But Ms. Méndez doesn’t go more than skin deep in examining these issues in this novel.  Admittedly, weaving in these kind of gender politics might have dragged the main narrative down, but I personally would not have minded if she had explored it more deeply, in the same way that Angie Thomas explored race issues in The Hate U Give.

Overall, this is a great tale of female empowerment and choosing which dreams to follow.  While it takes a few chapters for things to coalesce, when it does this novel is great.  Whether you are in to YA novels or not, I highly recommend this book to you.

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Teen Melodrama...Now with Werewolves!: A Review of New Moon

New Moon by Stephenie Meyer
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

As I continue to find myself reading the Twilight series with my wife for a family book club, one of the tougher challenges has been for me to drop my jaded views of these novels and approach them with a bit more of an open mind. This has not been an easy task for me, but I will say that Ms. Meyer’s plot, world building, and characterizations significantly improved from the first book. That makes this sequel a little more interesting than the first one.

Starting off not long after the events of the first novel, Edward makes a rash decision to leave Bella and cut her off almost completely.  As Bella tries to imagine a world without Edward, her best friend Jacob helps her out and may even start to fill the void in her life.  But he starts undergoing a transformation of his own that will test their friendship as well as the relationship Bella has with Edward and his vampire family.  

Before tackling what is good about this book, let’s talk about what is not.  For starters, the break up between Edward and Bella consumes much of the novel.  Indeed, this is the main driver of the plot of the entire novel, Bella’s failed attempts to try to move on from Edward.  Her dark reflections on the end of the relationship and her new daredevil attitude is very melodramatic.  The fact that it is so consuming for much of the novel, especially the first half, is particularly annoying.  And Edward’s reasoning for the break, which he explains at the end of the novel, is so asinine as to be ridiculous.

Now, what is good about this novel?  For starters, Ms. Meyer’s character building has gotten much better, particularly with Jacob.  Jacob was a relatively small side character in the first novel, but he develops in such ways that he has instantly become the most interesting character in the series so far, and I’m not just talking about his transformation into a werewolf.  The relationship between Bella and Jacob propels the action of much of the novel in the middle act and feels completely justified.  

Ms. Meyer’s narrative plotting has also significantly improved.  In the first novel, the climax came on suddenly and ended just as quickly.  There wasn’t a lot of room in the first novel to develop just how much danger Bella was in.  In this novel, there is a much greater build-up to the climax and it doesn’t come out of the blue either.  There is also this tension throughout the novel with Bella’s spiraling behavior, Jacob’s transformation, and Edward’s near-suicidal decisions in the climax that was lacking in the first novel.  There is a greater sense of the danger Bella, and even Edward, is in in this novel.  The only exception to this is the B-plot with Victoria.  While she is becomes a greater threat in this novel than in the previous one, she never actually makes an appearance and her plot is resolved (though not really) off-screen, just like James was killed off-screen in the previous novel.  It’s a loose end that could’ve been wrapped up in a better way before heading into the third act.

Lastly, the world-building has gotten much better.  Whereas the first novel was spent almost entirely on developing Edward and Bella’s relationship and introducing Edward’s family, Ms. Meyer expands the novel to introduce the Quielet werewolves and the Volturi royal family.  The Volturi’s introduction is particularly chilling and Bella, perhaps for the first time, truly begins to realize just how dangerous vampires can be.

Overall, this sequel is an improvement interims of characterizations, plot, and world-building.  However, the teen melodrama at the beginning ultimately drags down what could have been something much better.  While I wouldn’t say I am a fan, I will say that these books seem to be improving.  Hopefully the third novel will improve things even more.

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Finding Love: A Review of Felix Ever After by Kacen Callender

Felix Ever After by Kacen Callender

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Since novels like Twilight and The Fault in Our Stars, YA romances have been done for awhile now. Combining your typical romance tropes and all the teenage angst over one’s identity and place in the world that can fit into a single book, it might be difficult for some readers to take these books seriously. But if that is your thinking about YA romances right now, may I introduce this wonderful novel to you. Not only does this novel have one of the most diverse cast of characters I’ve ever read and features a black transgender male queer main protagonist, this book has wonderful thematic layers and perfect pacing and timing.

Set at a private art school in New York City, this book follows Felix Love, a transgender male who has never actually been in love.  As Felix tries to figure out what to do for his art portfolio that he will be submitting to Brown and starts asking more questions about his trans identity, an anonymous student hacks into his Instagram account, downloads a number of pictures of Felix prior to his transition, and plasters them in a gallery at his school using his dead name (his name before he transitioned), a horrifying display of transphobia in an otherwise inclusive and safe environment.  Suspecting one student in particular, Declan, of being the culprit, Felix anonymously slides into his Instagram DMs, but soon finds himself in a love triangle with Declan and another student.  This all sets Felix on a journey to discover love & self-love and to fully understand his own gender identity.

There are two things that absolutely set this book above and beyond other YA romances.  The most important is the thematic layers throughout the book.  Every YA romance book features some amount of teenage angst and questioning ones identity and place in the world.  However, because this books angst and identity questioning centers around Felix’s own gender identity and feelings of self-worth, it adds to the dramatic tensions at the heart of this book.  Felix has to deal with a lot of heavy things in his life, not the least of which is transphobia and being deadnamed at school, so the typical angst is replaced with genuine personal stakes.  While LGBTQ+ teens may identify the most with what Felix is going through, straight cisgender readers will also find value in recognizing Felix’s trials too.

The next best thing about this book is the pacing and timing.  Whether you are talking about YA or adult romance, pacing and timing are critical.  If the story moves along too slowly or too quickly or if key plot points happen at the wrong moment, it can ruin the readers experience of the entire novel.  This book has pitch perfect pacing and timing.  It does have stereotypical love triangle and “two people who hate each other coming together” tropes, but they are handled so well that I cannot imagine any of the events of this book happening at any other point in the story.  I don’t want to say more and, thus, give up too much of the story, but hopefully this will entice romance novel readers in general to pick up this book.

On top of everything else, this book is epoch-making in terms of its diversity.  It’s the worst kept secret in publishing that the industry is notoriously slanted towards white, straight, cisgendered readers, especially in YA.  But this books cast of characters is incredibly diverse in its racial, gender, and LGBTQ+ representation.  If the success of this book means that the publishing world will finally open itself up to more authors and characters of color and LGBTQ+ representation in authors and characters and that we will get more amazing tales such as this, I am all for it.

Whether you are LGBTQ+ yourself or consider yourself an ally, don’t let the labels of YA or romance fool you.  This is an incredible book with great representation, stellar thematic layering, and perfect pacing and timing.  I highly recommend this book to anyone looking for something new and spectacular 

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February 2021 24in48 Readathon Live Blog

 

A Photo of Jefferson and my tea taken from my Instagram.

February 6, 2021, 1:08 a.m.

I didn't intend to truly start this readathon until the morning, but because it officially started at 12:01 a.m. EST (9:01 a.m. PST), and because I got to my reading late earlier today, I unintentionally kicked my readathon off at the same time as everyone else.  I started off by reading the first two chapters of Giovanni's Room by James Baldwin out of my Library of America edition of his early novels (see below for some links) and then read 100 pages of Jefferson while enjoying some nice Sleepytime Extra tea.  It took a little longer for me to finish all this reading than I expected, though not as long as I feared.  If I keep this pace up, I do believe I can finish Jefferson, Giovanni's Room, and The Light of the Jedi this weekend.  But will I be able to finish Felix Ever After or Children of Virtue an Vengeance (let alone start it) this weekend?  Doubt is creeping into my head.  Hopefully I can, but I am going to get some rest now and truly dive into this in the morning.

February 5, 2021: The Day Before!

It's been a few months since I have done an honest to goodness readathon and if I am ever hopeful of whittling down my TBR, then readathons are my only hope.  Fortunately, the wonder folks at the 24in48 Readathon have been working hard at organizing a great readathon and I am so happy to be joining them.

What is a readathon you ask?  A readathon is where you try read for as long as you can in a certain time frame without stopping, sort of like running a marathon (read + marathon= readathon).  One online place that is famous for organizing this is Dewey's 24 Hour Readathon.  They famously choose 24 hour period to just read non-stop during that period (their next one is on April 24).  There is also a bunch of social media done on Facebook, Instagram, Twitterm, etc. that folks can participate in as they are reading.  

The 24in48 readathon is similar in that you try to read for 24 hours straight, but they break it up over two days.  That means you can tackle your 24 hours of reading in any combination you like.  Read all day Saturday or all day Sunday?  Go for it!  12 hours on Saturday and 12 hours on Sunday?  Absolutely!  8 on Saturday, 16 on Sunday?  That works too!  Any combination of 24 hours of reading you can think of works for this particular readathon.

One thing they are doing differently this year is that they have chosen two group reads for folks to participate in, one fiction and one non-fiction.  Their non-fiction read is Felix Ever After by Kacen Callender, a YA Romance starring a trans male as the protagonist.  The non-fiction read is White Negroes by Lauren Michele Jackson about cultural appropriation.  I personally plan on reading Felix Ever After myself, but no one is obligated to read these books if they want to read something else.

On top of Felix Ever After, I have a few books I either want to finish or make progress on.  First, I want to finish reading the Library of America collection Thomas Jefferson's writings that I have been working on since January 1.  This has been an interesting read, but at 1600 pages it is huge!  I had planned on finishing by the end of January, but life interceded.  I also plan on making progress on Library of America's collection of James Baldwin's early novels.  I just finished re-reading Go Tell It On the Mountain last night and I hope to have Giovanni's Room finished by the end of this readathon.

Next, I am going to finish reading Star Wars: The High Republic: The Light of the Jedi by Charles Soule.  My reading obsession originated with my love of Star Wars novels (the pre-Disney original Expanded Universe novels that is) back in high school and college, but I haven't really read many Star Wars novels since then.  However, this High Republic series sounds incredibly exciting.  I've been enjoying this book very much and I plan on finishing it this weekend.

Lastly, I plan on at least starting Children of Virtue and Vengeance by Tomi Adeyemi.  This is the second book in her Legacy of Orïsha series, the first one being Children of Blood and Bone.  I read that when it first came out and I loved it!  I'm looking forward to diving back into this amazing YA fantasy world.

Of course, this is just the plan.  I have no idea if I will be able to actually do any of this.  Fortunately, like pervious readathons, I plan on live blogging this one.  Just come back to this page throughout the day tomorrow, February 6, and Sunday, February 7.  I'll be regularly adding updates to this page about my progress.  And while you're at it, be sure to check out any one of these great books or authors I have mentioned.  And if you want to join the 24in48 Readathon, head over to their website and fill out their online form.  Happy reading everyone!