Reading – Page 11 – takes two to book review

Review: Borne by Jeff VandeerMeer

July 2, 2019 Anna and AlexisLeave a comment

Anna: New favorite book alert! Dystopian is one of my favorite genres, and I’m trying to read more sci-fi. Borne had the perfect amount of both! Verdict: 5 stars

In an apocalyptic city, a corporation called the The Company that has poisoned and polluted the world. Strange creatures roam the remaining landscape: Mutant humans, Company proxies, and most noticeably, the Company’s biotech experiment gone wrong, a giant flying bear called Mord that terrorizes the City and its survivors.

Rachel and Wick live in a dilapidated apartment building, spending hours every day fortifying their home to stay alive. One day while she’s out scavenging, Rachel finds a sea-anemone like creature that she takes home. She names it Borne.

Sounds crazy, right? It is. Borne is adorable, but at the start of the book his nature and purpose is unknown. Wick is suspicious that Borne may be more deadly than he appears. Rachel begins to care for Borne like a mother would a child, except he grows in size and intelligence faster than any human. Rachel and Borne’s relationship is sincere, heartbreaking, and unable to define. This book had me thinking a lot about what it means to be good. There’s also an overall question of if we can control or nature or not, or if we’re predestined to be what we’re made to be.

Borne is the most creative and quirky book I’ve read in a long time! It was so original and I loved the three central characters, especially Borne. What I found most impressive is its ability to be light and laugh-out loud funny despite its dark setting.

Click below to learn more about Borne!

June Reads

June 30, 2019July 1, 2019 Anna and AlexisLeave a comment

Anna: It’s officially key lime pie season! Here are just a couple books I read in June– I don’t have a whole stack to show this month because a lot of my copies were due back to the library, but here’s my full wrap up:

4 stars:

Girl in Translation by Jean Kwok

Men We Reaped by Jesmyn Ward

My Sister, the Serial by Oyinkan Braithwaite

Columbine by Dave Cullen

The Hopefuls by Jennifer Close

3 stars:

Sunburn by Laura Lippman

No Exit by Taylor Adams

What did you read this month? I’ve had a great weekend so far lounging and reading by the pool, which I plan on doing more of this afternoon!

Anna’s Currently Reading: A Snowy Thriller in June

June 25, 2019June 25, 2019 Anna and AlexisLeave a comment

Anna: I know summer just officially started, but I’m channeling some winter vibes with my current read! This book was getting much hype earlier in the year on Bookstagram, and I just got my library hold in. I’m not usually a huge fan of thrillers, but so far this is so fast paced and addicting that I already know I’m going to fly through it. I easily read around 100 pages when I cracked it open last night.

If you’re looking for a pace-y book that’ll keep you on the edge of your seat, check this one out!

Review: My Sister the Serial killer by Oyinkan Braithwaite

June 20, 2019 Anna and AlexisLeave a comment

Anna: My Sister the Serial Killer is as addictive as everyone promised it would be. Both the book and chapters are incredibly brief, but Braithwaite still manages to pack a huge punch. I had fun with this picture, because the contrast between sweet appearances and deadly intentions is an important player in this book.

The book examines the lengths that sisters and family would go to protect each other. Set in modern day Nigeria, it opens as Korede gets a call from her sister, Ayoola, who says she’s accidentally killed her boyfriend and asks Korede to help her clean up. We learn that this happened before, not only once, but two times. The book goes on to examine the relationship between mental health and social media, the long-term effects of physical and mental abuse, and women’s roles in a patriarchal society. I also loved the twist at the end!

Check out the book for yourself! I highly recommend it:

VERDICT: 4 stars

Review: Allegedly by Tiffany D. Jackson

June 16, 2019June 17, 2019 Anna and AlexisLeave a comment

This is a beautifully written, important book that deserves more attention. When Mary was eight, she killed the baby that she and her mom were babysitting…allegedly. After she’s released from jail as a teenager, Mary lives in a group home where she is harassed endlessly by the other girls. Meanwhile, she can’t remember what happened that night that baby Alyssa died- the night that landed her in jail for years.

This book is about a lot of things. It’s about a mother’s responsibility to her child, it’s about the corrupt prison system and the state, it’s about the mistreatment of blacks in the justice system. I loved Mary as a character who wants to take the SAT and go to college, who loves her mother and finds the strength in her to trust those trying to help her despite everything that’s happened to her.

Sometimes I find it hard to connect with YA because it can be superficial. This is not the case at all with Allegedly. Mary is a character in a position where she can’t even attend high school or afford an SAT prep book. It’s a perspective I’m not used to reading in YA. This is a heartbreaking and eye-opening read that I recommend to everybody.

VERDICT: 5 stars

Review: Swamplandia by Karen Russell

June 8, 2019 Anna and AlexisLeave a comment

This book was on my TBR for a while, and it was one of the many that I picked up in the $1 section of The Strand when I lived in New York. Unfortunately, Swamplandia and I didn’t get along.

While I was intrigued by the Swamplandia theme park as a character, I felt like the whole thing was a big metaphor for mental health that I didn’t understand. There are some parts I did like, like the quirky and flawed Bigtree family and its members, who are all very different from each other. Kiwi’s perspective was my favorite, and by far the most interesting.

I also didn’t like the way Russel handled some aspects of this book…Native American appropriation, anyone? I found much of the plot confusing but also kind of pointless, particularly what happened to Ava in the woods. And can someone please tell me what the red seth represented? Womanhood?!

Ultimately, I felt this is something I feel I didn’t understand and didn’t care to figure out.

VERDICT: 3 out of 5 books

Anna’s Currently Reading

May 28, 2019June 12, 2019 Anna and AlexisLeave a comment

Here’s my current read, Men We Reaped by Jesmyn Ward, and my new couch! My apartment truly feels like a home now. You guys chose this book as my next memoir in the beginning of the month, and I cheated a bit. I loved Sing, Unburied, Sing and Salvage the Bones, so I’m excited to learn more about Jesmyn Ward’s life!

It was super tough going to back to work after that long weekend, wasn’t it? What book is helping you get through this week back?

Review: Gracefully Grayson by Ami Polonsky

May 21, 2019 Anna and AlexisLeave a comment

Book Review: Gracefully Grayson by Ami Polonsky

Gracefully Grayson is a great example of the magic of middle grade fiction. Grayson’s parents died in a traumatic car crash, and he now lives with his aunt and uncle and cousins. Grayson has always wanted to be a girl. He knows that acting this way means getting in trouble and getting bullied, so he just daydreams. That is, until he tries out for the part of Persephone, the lead part in the school play.

This book is heartbreaking because Grayson feels lost both in his gender identity and an outsider in his adopted family. Grayson is caught between many adults who believe they are acting with his best interests in heart. When Grayson’s teacher, Mr. Finn, casts Grayson as the lead female role in the play, his Aunt Sally thinks Mr. Finn overstepped his boundaries. In their own household, Uncle Evan disagrees with his wife’s actions, and hints that Grayson’s aunt and uncle might know more about Grayson than they let on. There are lots of opinions from the adults in Grayson’s life about who he should be, which made me think critically about a parent’s role in their children’s identity.

At the end of the book Grayson is still using female gender pronouns, but wears clothes meant for girls. I can’t speak from experience of course, but I think this is a believable account of a young transgender child’s journey. I say this because I also recently read George by Alex Grino and it had hardly any conflict. Everyone was instantly accepting of George and her transition, which is great, but didn’t feel realistic.

This book is everything beautiful about middle grade fiction and more. Grayson faces bullying, he’s outcast by a friend, and he’s ridiculed for his identity. The end of the book also doesn’t wrap everything up perfectly but points Grayson in a hopeful direction, which I think is important in middle grade fiction for a slightly older audience, like this one.

VERDICT: 4 books

Review: We are the Ants by Shaun David Hutchinson

May 20, 2019May 20, 2019 Anna and AlexisLeave a comment

“What if I don’t give a shit about the world?”

“I’d say that’s pretty fucking sad.”

“Why?”

“Because the world is so beautiful.”

We are the Ants is a difficult book to explain and to “place”. This is technically “science fiction”, and I say technically because it blends reality and fantasy. I love that it defies genres! The reader is left to wonder what is real and what is not. I’d warn potential readers not to the read the book jacket copy, because I want them to enjoy the mystery and surprise.

Trigger warnings for self harm, sexual assault, and suicide. This is a BIG part of the book so please don’t read this if that’s something too close to home.

I felt such a connection to the characters, particularly the narrator and protagonist, Henry, a teenage boy who is faced with a big decision: should he save the world or allow it to be destroyed? When we meet him, he’s overcome with grief over losing his boyfriend. I was so invested in his story as he comes to terms with his grief and mental instability and battles many forms of bullying and harassment. Henry’s grief and mental health manifests itself in a totally original way that I thought worked so well.

This is also just “angsty” enough to be believable but not shallow or stereotypical in any way, a problem I sometimes have “drama” in YA. We are the Ants depicts horrific reality of mental health. This book doesn’t shy away from critically examining the demands our society has on teenagers. The amazing part is that Hutchinson explores all these themes through the unique lens of alien abduction and the impending apocalypse.

We are the Ants is one of the best YA novels I’ve read in awhile! I highly recommend it!

VERDICT: 5 books!

Review: Convenience Story Woman by Sayaka Murata

May 14, 2019May 14, 2019 Anna and AlexisLeave a comment

Convenience Store Woman by Sayaka Murata, translated from Japanese by Ginny Tapley Takemori, is like nothing I’ve read before. This is a short, easy read that challenges everything you think about society, education, identity, and what it means to be happy and successful.

Keiko Furukura, now approaching middle age, has worked in a convenience store since she was eighteen. She loves her job, and finds value in the work she does every day. Everyone else tells Keiko that she’s wrong to feel this way, and that this makes her not normal. They tell her she can’t be truly happy unless she has a full time job, a husband, and kids. When a lazy ex-employee, Shiraha, moves in with her and people assume they’re dating, Keiko’s happy little world is turned upside down.

This book is crazy. Keiko is a unique character and she’s so happy and innocent that it’s heartbreaking. She has adapted to mimicking the speech patterns and behaviors of others based on what she’s been told is “normal”. I’ve heard other people speculate that Keiko is psychotic—I don’t think that’s the case, and I have no need to diagnose her. I think this book is really about society’s expectations surrounding identity and success.

I gave Convenience Store a three and a half book rating because I thought it was too short and ended too early. However, I think this unique story is something I’ll think about for a long time.

VERDICT: 3.5 books