I really enjoyed Beyond the Cerulian Sea and so I was disappointed that I did not love this book.  I really don't like being spoon fed morality in my novels and this one left nothing up to interpretation.  The metaphors and symbology were just too obvious and the pionts felt like they were being rammed down my throat at some points.  I obviously think that having trans representation in fiction is important and powerful, but my underlying take away from this book was that only magical beings (read Queer) can take care of magical kids and magical beings can only depend and trust magical beings. I can understand where this mentality comes from, but I just think that there is a lot more nuance than what this books allows for.  I found it pretty depressing, rather than inspiring, and a letdown.  The first book took quite a while to grow on me, but once it did, I was all in.  This one had the benefit of my coming in really excited for it and just progressively getting more and more let down as it went on.

Do not recommend.

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This is a quirky micro-history-science book about beavers that I did not anticipate I was going to like, but ended up being sneakily interesting and entertaining.  Who knew that a well-written book about a strangely unique creature could be just the right amount of not-political and not-depressing to make my list of recommendations?
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A friend of mine recently asked me for a list of books I read as a teenager that I would recommend.  She had a list, of which I had only read two and neither of those would make my list.  But, I thought I would put my list here, so here it is.

Books from my teenaged years that I love to revisit:
1. I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings (Maya Angelou)
2. Oranges Are Not The Only Fruit (Janette Winterston)
3. The Joy Luck Club (Amy Tan)
4. The Color Purple (Alice Walker)
5. I Never Promised You A Rose Garden (Hannah Green)
6. A Brief History of Time (Stephen Hawkings)
7. Delores Claiborne (Stephen King)
8. The World According To Garp (John Irving)
9. The Bean Trees (Barbara Kingsolver)
10. Anne of Green Gables (L. M. Montgomery)

This was an incredibly painful book to read about the author's struggle with is son's addiction. 
How many rock bottoms can one family survive?  The writing is elegant and the author's love for his child permeates every word as he begins his decent into addiction, struggling with recovery and relapse. The book is a heartache from beginning to end, told from the perspective of a parent desperate to help, but powerless over their child's choices, but also over his own drive to provide comfort and protection for an addict caught in the narcissism and criminality of active addiction. Prepare to have your heart broken, over and over, and make sure you have the pace to reflect on everyone you ever loved who has known addiction. 

I also want to point out that this book also alludes to the unpopular and often ignored topic of how bad parenting plans impact the children who have to live them out--a very real reminder for separated parents and the professionals so write those plans for them.

Recommend.
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I somehow missed that there was not just one, but two new Hunger Games books and a new movie since I last visited this series.  What a treat it is to read a series where the books hold up on their own and don't invite a cliffhanger so you have to get the next book to feel a sense of closure.  Both of these books, which are prequels to the original trilogy, were really well down and worth reading.  I love that we aren't spoon fed the analogies to modern politics, but the complexity of the relevance is nevertheless there.  

Highly recommend both of these.

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