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Dec Books
Storm: Dawn of a Goddess by Tiffany D. Jackson
Storm is my favorite Marvel superheroine. In fact she may have been the first Marvel superhero I was exposed to. I mean she’s just so striking with the white hair, the glowing eyes, the weather powers. She’s so awesome, the goddess moniker is well earned.
But when you’re a six year old in a new country, having white hair being so visibly different is awful. She was taunted by her peers in NY and it’s no different in Egypt even though her mother assured her that being special is good. It means there are great things in her destiny.
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Book of the Month: Hitwoman #3-4
We did it! We did it! We finished our final book club selection, making it twenty books in one year. Yay us! Well technically, it’s twenty one as #3 of the Hitwoman series, The Hitwoman gets Lucky is a novella of 80 pages so it made sense to continue on to #4 which is a full length book.
Since The Hitwoman gets Lucky is a novella, you can tell this is more filler. The plot is light-Patrick enlists Maggie’s help to steal a harddrive in Atlantic City- and serves to set up two major chekhov’s gun. One, is it provides Armani the opportunity to gift Maggie a shark tooth, and two, it brings Patrick and Maggie to a major kiss that is promptly rejected.
Still, it’s a fun novella with the usual humor that comes from God piggybacking in Maggie’s bra, prompting lots of confused looks when tourists hear her boobs squeaking, the true identity of the harddrive owner, Lucky O’Hara, and Armani’s Barry Manilow obsession is in full fruit. I also enjoyed how it gives Maggie a chance to show off her quick-thinking during the “worst fake stick-up in history.” She may not have all her marbles, but she’s no idiot.
Now this is where things get really exciting! After building it up in the first two books we finally see corrupt Paul Kowalski’s true colors when he breaks Mr. Lee out of jail and goes after Maggie to get the mysterious family jewels.
It was enjoyable to see the disparate plot threads of Mr. Lee, Paul, and Marlene come together in a truly twisty mystery. The last two twists were a real surprise as it’s obvious where Paul and Mr. Lee stand on the robbery gone wrong but everyone else is a big question mark.
Like Patrick, after the rejected kiss, Maggie is trying to move on but she also can’t let go of the knowledge that Patrick is attracted her despite his best instincts. It’s great to see things move forward in their complicated relationship, but the the brief moment of passion between them in Maggie’s old bedroom felt out of character. Not them hooking up, but the descriptors felt more fitting for a purple-prose historical romance than the quick-paced narration that defines the series.
Outside of Patrick, Maggie begins to realize that maybe she had her Dad partially wrong in regards to his parental affection for his daughters, and that maybe Templeton is not so much of a rat as she thought when he saves her from Paul with a croquette mallet. (An aside, I know the assault scene was played for drama and it showed how dangerous Paul is but the inclusion of the croquet mallet automatically made it hilarious to me)
The humor is top-notch as usual with the federal agents having no idea how to deal with the three witches, and Maggie gaining another stray animal to feed, a one-eyed, southern belle of a cat dubbed Piss.
The ending leaves readers off with another cliffhanger and I’m eager to see who done it, and how Maggie’s returned sister, Marlene, fits into the whole deal. My friend thinks she’s going to be a lone wolf after being out on the streets for the past decade. I think that Marlene will stay away a bit but eventually be brought back into the fold. We shall see in The Hitwoman and the Neurotic Witness which I’ll get to sometime next year.
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Dahlia Adler Interview
Dahlia Adler is the author, editor, anathologist among other hats for The Radleigh University trilogy, Cool for the Summer, His Hideous Heart anathology, Going Bicoastal and other YA books specializing in queer, Jewish representation. She graciously took the time before Hannakuh to answer my questions about representation, behind the scenes process to anathologies and what’s coming next. Enjoy!
1. To start off with a light note, what are your favorite tropes to write?
I don’t end up writing my favorite, to be honest. Like, I’d love to write a really good enemies-to-lovers, but I feel like it just comes off as flirty banter no matter what.
Meanwhile, I don’t think of myself as loving second-chance romance, but I’ve written it twice. For me, my favorite is really about pairing, and that’s straitlaced guy/chaos girl. Love love love.
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Asgardians: Thor Review
As Thor attempts to traverse a river, he is forced to prove to a grouchy, mysterious old man that he is truly the one and only, mighty Thor!
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Ranking The Gilded Age Heiresses
The last romance series of the year brings the former colonies to its English roots with the Crenshaw family touring England for a vaction. Unbeknowst to the girls, the true intention behind the trip is for their social climbing parents to marry them off to entitled gentlemen.
Well, August and Violet aren’t going down without a fight. They’ve seen the cold, brutal marriage betewen their best friend and her stuffy, 50 year old husband and they will do anything to avoid that fate. They have work and other dreams to accomplish first.
But what if the men they’re pushing away may be the happiness they’re chasing all along?
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Star Power
As part of my nostalgia year, I decided to finally look at a series that keeps popping up on Goodreads suggestions when I filter Hollywood, celebrity etc. It was for lower schoolers in the vein of Hannah Montana and such. After all these years of reading the summaries I had to find out what they were about.
Unfortunately, Cathy Hapka’s Star Power series was published so long ago (in the ye olde 2000s), I scoured cheap ebay copies. Even then two of the books are out of print and unavailable to buy.
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Book of the Month: Gone with the Wind
Ah yes, the book that has lived for almost a hundred years and it makes one feel like they’ve lived through a hundred years. Yes, I’m talking about Margaret Mitchell’s decade-spanning work, Gone with the Wind, covering before, during and after the Civil War from the POV of one stubborn hellion, Scarlet O’Hara.
There’s not much to say about the work that hasn’t been said before but it’s a very engaging book. The characters may not always be likable, Scarlet in particular after she steals Sue Ellen’s man, but they’re gritty and real during a hellish time.
Scarlet in particular. I already mentioned the whole man stealing thing but you got to admire her strength like shooting the Yankee and building up her business. As my friend said, she’s like the grown-up of the house and is able to hold Tara together but very emotionally immature when it comes to relationships.
Ashley is so not worth her love. She’s just chasing the image of a man that she thinks she wants simply because she’s unavailable. Also probably out of jealousy that Melanie is a naturally feminine, angel archtype that she can’t achieve. You just want to shake her to get with Rhett already. They remind me of two wolverines because whenever they’re in the same space you don’t know if they’re fighting each other or fighting with intense sexual passion.
But despite Scarlet’s jealousy, you must also admire Melanie’s strength in trying to lift the family sword to defend the home right after giving birth. Although I didn’t get attached enough to her to cry at her death like my friend did at apparently 2:30 in the morning.
Rhett is also cool in his own right by choosing to serve. Even though he knows the South won’t win, and the cause is worthless, he has to do it out of patriotic fervor and so that he can get rid of his near’do well reputation for his future daughter.
Sidenote, I know Bonnie died but just imagined if she lived long enough to date. No way would Scarlet believe anyone’s worthy of Bonnie but then Bonnie would have probably inherited Rhett and Scarlet’s stubbornness, whew boy that family might have killed each other.
Anyway, back to the actual story, one cannot deny that it does glamorize the South and gloss over the less pleasant aspects like the fact that everyone is part of the KKK and slavery is seen as perfectly normal with no insight to the lives of Mammy or Prissy etc. but then it would be less realistic if they considered them equals. It would be less historical. Also wouldn’t it make it whitewashing it if we portrayed the slave-owners as caring about their slaves as more than permenant servants?
If you want to add to this semi-philosphical discussion, comment below.
Overall, it was a riveting book that grips you and doesn’t let go despite the old-timey language because it speaks to the human spirit and its resiliency in times of war.
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Ranking Hundred Oaks
After vicariously reading the Pretty Tough series, I was in the mood for more girls in sports narratives. Again, of which there are surprisingly few series dedicated to the premise. The only other one I remembered was this. I wanted to read it when it was first coming out but I never got round to it.
Well the time has come. Despite the catchy sports phrases, it’s more romance and coming of age than sports but it’s still a great series. It’s all set in the titular Hundred Oaks, Tennessee. A small town where everyone vaguely knows each other so there are plenty of cameos of previous protagonists popping up in later books.
A really cool thing about the series is that time barrels on. It was first published in 2010 and continues on to 2017, so cute kid sisters become protagonists in later books, computers and Facebook become mainstream, acceptance of homosexuality and female sexuality become more commonplace, people become more secular. I wonder if it was a reflection of the author, or simply the switch from early 2000s to 2010s but it’s cool to see like a novel time capsule.
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America’s First Daughter Review
After thoroughly enjoying Dray and Kamoie’s book on the Hamiltos, I had to go read their first book together about Jefferson’s eldest daughter, Martha “Patsy’ Jefferson and how she shaped the founding father we know today.
It is always said that behind every great man, there was a great woman and this is especially prominant in the 1700s as it seems the wives and daughters often survived their famous male relatives. What, with the dueling and the wars it makes sense. They were often the executors of the personal belongings and in an effort to cement their legacies, edited and collected the reams of documents, letters, etc. They also burned more scandelous papers, all to shape the men we know today.
That’s exactly what happened here after Jefferson died where Patsy and her daughters spent a decade organizing and editing his work to publish even though it is published under her son’s name.
Patsy, of all people, had the greatest right to do so as she was her father’s guardian and as one will read, present during many of his historic and infamous turning points.
It is that love for her father that defines Patsy.
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Nov Books
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.
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Rachel Reads & Reviews 