February 2018 Reads and Reviews

The middle schooler I tutor was reading this, so I found a copy and read ahead to finish it.  I don't think we ended up finishing it together, but I was really glad that I got a chance to read it anyway.  There are some true gems in middle school reads, I'm discovering.

If you've read Star Girl, this has a very similar feel to it.  I happened to love Star Girl so this book was right up my alley.  The big difference is that instead of taking the perspective of an outside character observing the life of an eccentric and unique girl, we take the perspective of the eccentric and unique character.  I wish that we could have heard from StarGirl herself... but I digress.  For now.

At first Zinkoff made me cringe.  You liked him because he was an uncomfortable character, but not in an inappropriate way.  But the older he gets and the more than he grows into his own identity, the more endearing he becomes and you stop feeling so bad for him.

I loved the ending.  It really defined who Zinkoff is as a person.  In an odd way, especially because he endangered his life on accident, the situation is rather beautiful and touching.

I give 'Loser':

 It took me a few tries to get started on this book but once again, audiobooks to the rescue!

I thought it was inspiring and brave that Cheryl embarked on this journey (I hate using that word, so I'm going to try to avoid using it again, but in this case, it works).  She was at an incredibly low point in her life, maybe one of the lowest points you can go, and she decided to do a hard reset on her life by going on this trek.  That takes a lot of preparation (physically and mentally) and a lot of guts, to be frank.  Especially when you're hiking over a thousand miles of rough and drastically varied terrain.  I can't even begin to comprehend how you prepare for such a thing.  To know what to bring and pare everything down to only the barest essentials.

I think that when you decide to go on an adventure like this, you're automatically signing up to come back as a totally different person.  To slowly reinvent and rethink who you are as an individual.  And that's just something you have to accept.  I mean, when you go on a journey like this, you experience things you wouldn't normally experience in everyday life and you meet people you may never have come across if you hadn't decided to make this change.  And all of these experiences and all of these people have something that they can teach you if only you let them.  If there's anything I've learned from reading/listening to this book, it's that.

I give 'Wild':

I read this book when I first taught it to eighth graders at Breakthrough Twin Cities several years ago.  But for some reason, I didn't write a formal review of the book.  So now that I'm teaching this book to my 9th graders and will be teaching it for the foreseeable future, I'll likely be rereading this book each year.  And I'm glad, I've really grown to love this book.

Every time I read this book, I uncover something new about it.  It's like to discovering buried treasure every time.  I read the book once and I understood what was going on.  I read it again and I began to get it.  Every time I read it now, I'll get a little bit closer to "owning" it.

What's been catching my attention now has been two things: Curley's Wife and George and Lennie's relationship.  Curley's Wife I just can't bring myself to hate even though everyone in the story pushes you and urges you to do just that.  But she hasn't done anything wrong.  She is in a loveless and an abusive relationship and she just wants to make a connection with someone.  A friendly one.  She just wants to live.  But we can't even give her that.  Curley's Wife is such a fascinating character to me and I look forward to paying her more of that attention that she deserves.

George and Lennie's relationship is also interesting to think about.  On the surface, it's a relationship where one person is giving (George) and the other is doing all the taking (Lennie).  But while I was rereading the book with my students, I started paying more attention to what Lennie gives George.  It looks different than when George is giving, but Lennie is a giver too.  I'll need to read this book again to examine this a bit more closely, but I'm drawn to the friendship these two share.

I love this book and I can't wait to read it again.

I give 'Of Mice and Men':

Thank you for reading my February reviews!

--Jude

January 2018 Reads and Reviews

This was my first read of 2018!  This is one that has been staring at me from the library shelf.  But lately, but "thing" has been audiobooks through the library.  When I saw that it was available through my digital library, I checked it out right away.

I think this book is meant for younger readers, but I honestly didn't care.  It just didn't make a difference.  I find books surrounding the topic of grief fascinating just because grief can look like so many different things.  It's kind of a strange thing to find fascinating, but if I'm being honest, ever since my Uncle Mark passed away several years ago, I've had this silent search for reads related to mourning, since my mourning period in that instance did not feel normal in the least.  And the relationship between Jamie and his sister is supposed to be much closer and yet there is this dissonance after her death that I just find so interesting.

I really appreciated Jamie's navigation through a family's grief of a family member.  Their group grief was another interesting thing because, for the longest time, they acted as though Jamie's sister was still alive.  For me, that was different and uncomfortable enough experience that I definitely sided with Jamie whenever there was a fight about speaking about Rose like she wasn't there.  It didn't feel like a healthy coping mechanism, but I recognize that people respond to a death, particularly a death that was close to them, in numerous ways.  So I guess this was a reminder to me that grieving takes time and it's not going to look the same from death to death.  And generally speaking, that's okay.

I give 'My Sister Lives On The Mantelpiece':

If I'm honest, this book didn't really do it for me.  I was listening to this book on audiobook (my home county library has a really great digital collection, so I'm fortunate that I don't even have to go to the library to check out audiobooks!).  I liked the letter form and I appreciated that the mother showed she was there, but even while I was listening, I kept coming in and out of interest.  One might argue that that would be a good time to pause the audiobook and come back to it when I'm ready to pay attention.  If you think that, that would have been smart, but that's not what I did.  As a result, I was having a hard time figuring out why this mother would slap her daughter, which is part of the basic premise of the story.

I did appreciate the telling of what it was like to live during the civil rights movement in a more conservative home and how it's important to stand up for what you know is right and just.  That much came through to me.  But... yeah, listening to this book just fell completely flat for me.  And now that I'm writing this review months after I actually listened to this book (again, this may be enough downfall for me), I think it's telling that there's not really much that I held on too long after reading this.

Ultimately, I think this is fine if you're looking for a short read but look for something else if you're looking for a more profound read that will stick with you for a while.

I give 'Letter to my Daughter':

 1/2

This book was much more up my alley.  I'm one of those people who likes to read about disorders.  Admittedly, I thought this book was about an eating disorder which is what drew me in (I know, that sounds so terrible... I genuinely do find them interesting even though they're traumatic and heartbreaking).  But this book was different and it got my attention.

Instead, this is a book about a girl named Ever who is overweight and goes through a process where her stomach is made smaller which will help her lose weight.  I think part of the reason why I latched on is that I knew someone who went through this procedure and so I understood, on a very basic level, how this was supposed to work and what the results could be after a while.  I think the author also went through this procedure and so she's writing from a place of knowledge and experience, which I was nervous about.  I think if anyone else had written about Ever's weight loss surgery, it would have come off as preachy or... I guess as giving this impression that you have to be a smaller size at all costs, even if that means going under the knife.

Skinny, the voice in Ever's head was also what caught my attention.  I think it did a nice job (for lack of a better word) of illustrating what goes through the heads of those who don't feel comfortable in their bodies, no matter what their actual size is, whether they have a diagnosed eating disorder or not.

I don't think I will buy this book to sit on my shelf, but I would consider making it available to my students in my classroom.  That being said, I'm glad that I read this book.

I give 'Skinny':

This is another read that has been sitting on my shelf shouting "Read me!  Read me!"  And I've been getting the same message from tons of other people who have read this too.

I didn't realize upon cracking the spine on this one that this is a book of narrative poetry.  That piqued my interest immediately.  I liked narrative poetry before, but this year my love of this style of story-telling has really taken off (I'm writing this long after January).  I liked hearing about the difference between living with her grandparents and her mother in two drastically different places, but it was also interesting to have a direct insight into how racism and a racist society affects people.  One of the parts that really stood out to me as I was just getting into this book was one of the times Jacqueline and her family were returning to South Carolina and they could feel the tension of crossing over the border into a place that they thought of as home but also knew they weren't accepted there.  And no one needed to say or do anything at that exact moment, but it was still something that they felt because her family knew what was coming.  I've never had to experience that.  I can go where I please, generally speaking, and I don't have to fear how other people will treat me or perceive me.  That's something I take for granted.

This was an eye-opening read.  I give 'Brown Girl Dreaming':

This is a read I've heard a ton about for years and once I realized that my public library had an audiobook available online, I decided to take a listen.  Audiobooks have been a life-saver this year and in previous years.

Thinking about this story in broader terms, there was a lot going for this book.  I don't know if I've read about someone living in an abusive living situation or someone who is on the outside looking in.  I felt drawn in out of curiosity and because I wanted to understand Eleanor.  I think she's a great character and I wanted to know more about her.  I also grew to like Park, although it took a little bit of time for me.

I didn't appreciate the racist "jokes" that this book contained, even if was meant to be banter between teenage boys.  I can't think of a situation where it's ever okay to joke like that and mess with people's identities in that way.  I'm disappointed that the author decided to include them when they could have easily been avoided altogether.  Honestly, this tainted my reading experience very early on and I wasn't sure that I was going to finish this book because I couldn't get over this piece.

By the end of the book, I did like this story.  It was a little predictable by the end, but I didn't mind too much because I could feel the loose ends in the story being tied up and I appreciated that.  I think once I finished listening to the audiobook I took the physical book that was sitting on my shelf and brought it to my classroom.  I teach 9th grade and this is more their speed rather than mine (even though I love reading YA and will likely not stop anytime soon).

I give 'Eleanor & Park':

I wish I had found this book several years ago.  Lately, I've been feeling like everything I've been reading (maybe not so much in books, but articles, etc.) has been difficult to wrap my head around and to get behind and support 100% the way I feel like I need to.  So this was a freeing read in a lot of ways.

Roxane Gay is a hilarious writer, but also incredibly insightful and thoughtful in her work.  I appreciated her sharing her intersectionality and bringing that into each of her essays.  She is relatable

I'll keep this review short because it's a book of essays and the topics are so varied as are my thoughts and feelings on each one.  Plus I think this book is worth reading a few times.  This is a book I will definitely keep on my shelf for year to come!

I give 'Bad Feminist':

Thanks for reading!  I'll be working on catching up on months of reviews, but they'll all be in this style, so your inbox won't be bombarded if you are subscribed via email.  Thanks for sticking with me!

--Jude