Set in the 1700s, this historical fiction is set in the extremely remote St. Kilda on the island of Hirta in an isolated and rugged region of northwest Scotland.  The story takes place when a boat trip full of boy and a few men go hunting for a particularly coveted type of bird as part of an annual tradition.  They get stranded on what seems to be a small rock formation in the sea.  The dozen or so men and boys are hungry, cold, and homesick--left with virtually no resources whatsoever. 

As if the isolation, cold, and hunger weren't enough to endure, the fake preacher does serious harm as he tries to control the boys with fear mongering and shame, which is especially heartbreaking as the younger boys, who are maybe 9 or 10, are tormented by the separation from their homes and starting to lose hope of rescue.  His approach to imposing confession and attributing sin to the children is horrifying, especially when he insists on everyone shunning one of the children for seven days by not talking to him at all.  He also tells the youngest child that when they run out of birds to eat, they will start eating the youngest kids first.  The brutality of the story just keeps coming in waves, without the kind of breaks for meaning or connection that I would have wanted to see.

The story is reminiscent of Lord of The Flies in that it is a group of boys stranded on an island, but this is a significantly better book than that one. This is dark in a different way, as the adults do nothing to mitigate the stress for the children.

There is also a weird side story about one of the children whose mother has been secretly raising her as a boy because she was afraid to tell the child's father that she wasn't a boy when she was born. This fact becomes evidence while they are marooned and the whole way it is handled is just odd.  I have to think it isn't possible to know how that would have been handled in the 1770's, but the way the book portrays it just felt off.

Apparently loosely based on a true story, the ending is especially depressing.  I am pretty surprised it is classified as a children's book, too.

Do not recommend.

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This book is supposedly shelved as a YA book, but I found it to be much more sophisticated than that with layers to the story that could hold multiples truths at the same time. It is a harsh depiction of white feminism that is also able to appreciate the complexity of the criticism. To be able to honor the work without shying away from its imperfections, shortcomings, and both subtle and overt racism is not easy, yet here is done exquisitely.  

The book reads like a memoir and follows the growth of a starstruck college student from The Bronx as she moves in with a feminist Queer icon in Portland for a summer. On one level, it is a coming of age story, but it is just so much more than that.

Any white woman trying to be a supportive mentor to women and girls of color should make time to read this wonderfully nuanced and beautifully written book about the complexity of these relationships and how the insidiousness of racism and privilege are pervasive, even when white people are trying to do better.  I loved the layered relationships, the hard work reflected in the characters who were trying to hold people accountable and the ones trying to be held accountable, even when their failures were cringeworthy.

Set in Portland in 2003, the author's description of the quirkiness and cringy-ness of the city and its inhabitants conveyed the love-hate relationship that so many people have with the sometimes performative, sometimes genuine progressive and woo-woo culture there. From the public reading at Powell Books, to the hangouts in Pioneer Courthouse Square, to navigating the neighborhoods on foot and by public transit, it is fun to read a book about a city you know well.

Highly recommend.
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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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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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​This is a ridiculously cute college romance.  For all the stereotypical forbidden lovers plotline, this jock frat boy meets ambitious, determined budding sports journalist whose brother is on the jock's rival team is actually remarkably fun--and a model of consent based romance, which I just love to see becoming more popular.  

Light. Sweet. Predictable for the most part.  It is a great choice for escape reading. It is slightly more steamy than a regular read, but has more of that YA feel to it.

Recommend.

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Part of the growing number of holiday romances popping up in the last few years centering around winter holidays other than Christmas, this one was super cute.  Unlike many of the other ones I have read in this genre, this one did not feel like it was trying too hard at all. It was comfortable and I do love a gentle romance with a bookish girl and a smart guy trying to navigate their awkward meet cute and figure out a problem together.  A young editor's assistant is sent in to help an author with writer's block, but ends up meeting the author's grandson and being flung into a joint venture together just in time for the Chanukah baking and cooking season and in the midst of family loss that adds a sweet tang into the mix.  I quite enjoyed it as one of my favorite light holiday romances this year.

​Recommend.

This is a sweet sweet sweet young adult fiction about two trans-masculine kids exploring friendship and love together and apart.  Written for a slightly more mature audience than Cemetery Boys, this is one of the few trans-masc narratives that I have felt expressed the joy of transitioning and questioning ones gender identity, as well as the difficulties of navigating that experience in the context of complex familiar and cultural systems that are not always supportive.  This adds a layer of complexity by exploring the relationship between the two friends as their relationship moves between friendship and romantic interest, with one family supportive and one not.  There are themes of child sex abuse, but not related to the trans characters and none of that sub-plot is at all graphic, but the juxtaposition of how the Catholic family rallies around the child abused within the church while continuing to be unsupportive of their trans child is an interesting example of how families can step up for one child, while letting down another one, such that children growing up with different issues can have wildly different support networks.

​Recommend. 

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Super cute and charming, this story is at its core about growing up and living in isolation because you thought there was something wrong with you and you couldn't connect with other people lest they find out just how different and problematic you are and then finding a group of people like you that love you and want you to be your family. It is just heartwarming in all the right ways. I really don't want to say much more about it because it is just so lovely, it needs to be read to be appreciated.

There are lots of characters of color and Queer characters, but it never feels like these are added as side-kicks or for some type of credit towards having diversity in the book. These are well-written characters whose demographics are woven into their stories and into this story as a whole. It couldn’t be told without those pieces. The twist ending is fun, the magic is quirky, and the lovey feelings feel genuine and messy. There isn't a romance and yet the book oozes love in all the best ways.
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Strong recommendation.

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I was pretty convinced that this book was just going to be silly.  The art and title are, well, silly.  Classic example of not judging a book by its cover.  This isn't that at all.  This is a really subtle story about love, friendship, found family, and making life what you want of it.  I found everything about it charming and just a real delight.  The relationship dynamics and dialogue were really well developed, but I particularly love a good fantasy book that pulls you into a world without spending pages describing that world to you.  In this story, the world just is and I just loved that.  

Legends and Lattes: Highly Recommend.

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Having absolutely fallen unexpectedly in love with the first book, I was thrilled to find there was a second one I could jump right into, but alas the second book was a huge disappointment. All the subtlety of Lattes was gone. The world was over-described and the relationships felt forced.  The nuance of the main character that was so unusually charming was gone in place of a predictable and trite backstory to explain who she was in Latte.  Super disappointing.  Just skip this one.

​Do not recommend.  

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