Private Label by Kelly Yang

A perfect title for the private things that Serene and Lian hide from their peers and their family in this moving, coming of age romance. Serene is the daughter of single mom and major fashion designer, Lily Lee. Her real name is Liu but her mother’s Board of Trustees thought they’d better reach their WASP demographic with an American last name.

These same shareholders are the ones that are trying to get her mother to sell the company when she is diagnosed with pancreatic cancer, the most difficult and fatal one to be diagnosed with. Serene never liked how her mom seems beholden to the shareholders as if the made the company and not her mother’s genius and talent, but now she has the added pressure of being her mom’s chosen heir to protect the company while caring for her mother as she undergoes chemo.

Lian has recently moved to California from Beijiing in pursuit of the perfect SAT scores according to his mom. But his real dream is to do stand-up, not that his parents would ever understand. Between his parents puttig on pressure, constant microaggressions and no one even knowing his name (everyonen calls him Liam), his new friendship with Serene is the only thing keeping him sane.

Both of them have secrets and they try their best ot manuever into the adult world they are suddenly thrust into. But secrets are not always a good thing, Lian believes he’s doing the best he can by pursuing his own dream while pretending to study in order not to disappoint his parents. Serene’s attempts to help her mother are in conflict with the emotional upheveal where she’s the caretaker to her Mother and the real fear she’s going to be alone in the world. Especially since her mother won’t tell Serene about her father.

It’s good they have each other because they offer each other space, alternative perspective and challenge each other when they’re afriad. While some parts may be predictable like Serene’s jerkish boyfriend and her choice to send him nudes. Same with Lian’s decision to blow off his SATs and constant lying to his parents. The nuance and honesty afforded to the characters making it a evocative read.

Ask My Mood Ring How I Feel by Diana Lopez

Chia’s life is concerned with boys, friends and alternating between avoiding and babysitting her little siblings. No big deal until her parents’ drop the news that her mom has breast cancer.

Soon Chia is consumed with completing her promesa to get 500 sponsers for the Race for a Cure rally because maybe the milagro will come true and her mom will get better. But she can’t devote all her time to getting sponsers. First of all, people aren’t that generous to a teen soliciting donations. Then there’s school and friends that just don’t seem important in the face of this crisis, and they don’t understand how she feels.

Funny how I got two stories about mothers with cancers in a row but I digress. Lopez focuses less on the cancer itself but it’s affect on one family. The circumstance lead to Chia realize that they’re not infalliable super-heroes but adults that need help. Her father goes overboard in trying to give her mom rest, making the house feel like a tomb of rules.

Meanwhile, Chia has to take care of her siblings and is already a bottled-up feelings sort of girl. She takes on responsibility and doesn’t ask for help leading to numerous blow-ups with her friends. Which is understandable I think. She’s 13, she doesn’t know how to handle these complicated feelings and mistakes other people helping as pitying. Plus she has oldest child syndrome so that doesn’t help matters.

Chia’s sister was an interesting case as Carmen is in sixth grade but she’s only ten. She’s skipped a grade which drives Chia’s nuts as she’s compared to her genius sister. She’s not too empathetic to how Carmen doesn’t fit in with her classmates, projecting her own feelings of inferiority and arrogance onto her sister. Although it’s not specifically said but Carmen’s liternalness in social cues, inability to understand that not everyone finds factoids interesting and her obsessive counting, it all seems to point to the autistic spectrum. Chia already got diagnosed with divergent learning so it’s possible. But it’s not explored.

The friendship aspect felt a bit flat as Chia’s friends constantly talk about how boy crazy they are and are oblivious to Chia’s anxieties even after they learn about the cancer but they’re kids so I guess I have to give them a pass. No one’s perfect at that age and they came through in the end even if they were irritating for most of the novel.

Still it’s a good book in exploring those complicated emotions about cancer in a realistic way that kids in that situation can relate to and empathesize.

The True Confessions of Charlotte Doyle by Avi

For some reason this book was recommended a lot when I was in lower school and I always wanted to read it but I just never did for some reason. As this was my nostalgia year, I figured now was the best time.

And it was nice. Maybe I would have enjoyed it more when I was younger but as I’ve already read Meyer’s Bloody Jacky series, I found myself comparing Miss Doyle’s account to it more often than not.

Well unlike Jacky, Charlotte is a good girl of good breeding so when she gets entangled in a mutiny, she initially sides with Captain Jaggery has her intense sense of classism makes her favorable to those with her status. But she soon learns that just because one has status, it doesn’t mean one is good and the two-month voyage changes her more than she had ever thought.

She becomes part of the crew as penance, she cuts her hair and learns rigging, topmast and all those other sailory ways. She becomes more of herself and finds freedom that guarentees she’d never fit into her old self ever.

Of course, it is unfair to compare this to Bloody Jacky as this is less than 220 pages and so there cannot be much adventure. For what it has, Avi’s sense of histsorical immersion is top notch and he keeps the suspense going that I was unsure Charlotte would get out alive at times.

Overall, a nice adventure that gives a good glimpse into the sailor’s life in the 1700s and one girl’s evolution to finding true honor and justice.

Books I read this month

Fairy Chronicles #1-60 + Fairy Handbook by JH Sweet, Tales from a Not So Bratty Sister by Rachel Renee Russell, The Squad by Christina Soontornvat, The Last of the Really Great Whangdoodle by Julie Andrews, Dragon by Julie Andrews and Emma Walton Hamilton, Heroes of WW2 by Jarret Keene, The Stories Behind the Stories by Danielle Higley, Funny Business edited by Leonard Marcus, Windy Night with Wild Horses by Mary Pope Osborne, Huda F. Cares by Huda F., Crazy Brave by Joy Harjo, Dear Girls by Ali Wong, Pretty Tough series by Nicole Leigh Shepard, Three Girls Club trilogy by Megan McDonald, Rad Women A to Z by Kate Schulz, Original Sisters by Anita Kunz, Smith High quintet by Marni Bates, Cold Day in the Sun by Sara Biren, 100 Real Life Tales of Black Girl Magic edited by Lily Workneh, 100 Inspiring Young Changemakers edited by Jess Harriton, Women in Science, Women in Sports, and Women in Arts by Rachel Ignofsky, Private Labels by Kelly Yang, Ask My Mood Ring How I Feel by Diana Lopez, True Confessions of Charlotte Doyle by Avi, Lord I Lost by Scarlett Peckham, Awkward, Brave, Enemies and Crush by Svetlana Charkov, Jewel Kingdom #1-4 by Jahnna Malcom, Bad Girls by Jane Yolan and Heidi E.Y Stemple, Native Women Changing the World by Patricia McCullough, Thrillseekers by Ann McCallum Staats, The Great Alone by Kristin Hannah, Crocodile on the Sanbank by Elizabeth Peters, The Duchess Finds a Husband by Harper St. George, America’s First Daughter by Stephanie Dray and Laura Kamoie

Archie the Married Life #21-30

Veronica #9, 12-14, 50, 136, 150, 152, 167, 178, 185, 195

Lilo and Stitch #5-6 

Hercules #4-6 

Thundercats vol 2: Roar

Thundercats: Cheetara mini-series

My Adventures with Superman mini-series