Every now and then, for years, TW has asked me if there are any more Seraphina books.. I dutifully look, even though there just never are any… and suddenly, there was! It’s not really a Seraphina book, but it’s a book about one of Seraphina’s sister. Turns out, Tess of the Road is the 2018 Cybils YA Speculative Fiction winner.
We listened to it on audio, as we did the Seraphina books, and liked it a lot, maybe more than I liked the Seraphina books. I hope there’s a sequel.
We’re what, five hours into the #readathon and I just finished my first book. A List of Cages – heartbreaking and frustrating and horrible and wonderful all at the same time.
I had powdered sugar donuts for breakfast, a brownie for a pre-lunch snack, and then a couple of Publix tenders for lunch. I’m starting my next book and opened a bottle of Green Machine and have some Bordeaux cookies calling my name. (TW finished a book and then started a nap, lol.)
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Almost halfway through the month and the first book I’ve finished is Paperback Crush? It’s going to be another one of those years, isn’t it? Whatevs.
I thoroughly enjoyed Paperback Crush (but found the ending a little abrupt. (Couldn’t we have had an epilogue or something?) It wasn’t so much about the books people my age read when we were tweens/teens, it’s closer to the age of my kids, but because I read pretty much everything my kids read and I love nothing better than a good (or trashy) middle grade or YA book, it was fun to look back. It also made me want to read books I (and my kids) never read. They were never hardcore into Sweet Valley or BSC, though they read a few. The Christopher Pike Midnight Club (I wonder if that’s still on our shelves or did it get Kondoed?)… I want to read that. I don’t want to read (or re-read) any Lulene McDaniel books ever again, though.
Shortly after we moved to Chicagoland, we discovered a small independent bookstore in the next town over and found ourselves visiting it every year, on Christmas Eve, to purchase books for all of the kids. Yay, Book Bin! When we moved back to Florida, we inadvertently stumbled upon an bookstore in Fleming Island and that’s become our yearly shopping spot – but we don’t necessarily shop on Christmas Eve. This year we went on Black Friday.
While we were browsing, TW stumbled over a couple of baskets of ARCs of books and found a couple that she was interested in. I was skeptical because you’re really not supposed to sell those AND there were no price tags on the books… turns out, you get to choose one free for every $50 you purchase. I won’t tell you how many we got free (4) but an ARC of Lumberjanes Unicorn Power was one of them.
Friendship to the max! Lots of fun music references (Blondie’s Bring On Me on accordion? Sleater Kinney? Yes, please.) Unicorns that are pretty but smell really yuk. There’s also a non-binary or trans person with they/them pronouns. Totally fun!
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I read The Wonder of Us almost a month ago… I have no idea where it came from. I thought it was a Cybil but upon reflection, it wasn’t interesting enough to be a Cybil. It’s also not a YA romance, it’s a YA friendship book. With that title, you’d probably be surprised by that. It’s a play on one of the girl’s love of the great wonders of the world. That was really the most interesting thing about the book.
Ho hum. Not great. Not horrible. Just ho hum.
I have absolutely no idea how When, (on audio!), landed in my library bag. It doesn’t seem to be a Cybil from any recent year that I was just now getting to. It’s not queer YA. I just, I have no idea. Anyway. It was different. Maddie has a “talent/gift/curse/?” that I haven’t seen in a book before. (Or in real life, thank goodness.)
I liked most of the characters. I didn’t love the ending, though. How her talent/gift/curse/? evolved into something different there at the end when she talked to Aiden at the end (when it never had before?) … that made no sense. We could have done without that. Blah.
I’m pretty sure Saving Montgomery Sole arrived because I saw a list of LGBTQ books during Pride month and I reserved a bunch.
This one is written by the author of Skim and if you’ve read Skim, I think the writing here will feel familiar. At least it felt familiar to me. The problem was that I didn’t particularly like Montgomery, though I understood her and why she was struggling. If empathy is all I can really summon for the main character, the book is not really going to be one of my favorites. (I liked all of the other characters more! Every single one of them. OK not the stupid minister.)
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Huh. I thought The Children of Blood and Bone was a Cybil. I wonder why it isn’t a Cybil. It’s very Cybil-like. Oh, published in 2018, that’s why it’s not a Cybil. Next year! 😉
The very beginning of the book reminded me of something else. I don’t know what, but something… but then the three kids went off to save magic and I was no longer strongly reminded of another story. Except, later in the book when the Prince begins to figure out his magic and there’s that whole magical dreaming thing with Zélie – that reminded me of another story. I can’t quite put my finger on the title/series but there’s something about this one that just feels familiar and that distracted me from this story more than I would have liked.
I’m definitely looking forward to reading the next book in the series. Will Amari really be queen? I am guessing there will be obstacles there.
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OK I think Alice Paul and the Fight for Women’s Rights is the last non-fiction Cybil I’ll read this year. Probably. I’m kind of glad I finished on such a high note.
This was a pretty comprehensive history of Alice Paul’s life and work. It was a quick read but not a simple read. Well done, I highly recommend it to kids (or adults) who don’t know much about Alice Paul.
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Hah, another 2016 Cybils book. I think this is (maybe) the last book from that list that I’ve had on hold at the library. Maybe. I can’t remember. There might be another. Whatever.
The Keeper of the Mist was pretty good. I was a little frustrated with Keri, particularly in the beginning. She spent far too long thinking other people could do things better than she. Imposter syndrome, too much imposter syndrome. This is why our girls grow up to be women who feel this way. Sure Keri mostly fixed it all in the end but after you’ve spent 100 pages telling girls that the heroine doesn’t think she can do shit, it’s not so much comforting as it is conditioning. Stop it with the imposter syndrome story line for girls.
Anyway, yea. The book was pretty good. I thought it was a series but so far, it seems as though it is not. Too bad, I’d have liked to learn more about what happened to the Bookkeeper.
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