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Patriot Hearts Review
After going on that Hamilton binge, I needed to read more about our Revolutionary Founders. Or as Abigail Adams said, “Remember the Ladies.”
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May Books
Our Year of Maybe by Rachel Lynn Solomon
Sophie and Nick have been best friends since they were toddlers, next door neighbors playing in the mud and blending the artistic talents as dancer and piano-player respectively to create “Terrible Twosome” performances. They know each other better than anyone, love each other and respect each other like no one else. And senior year, Sophie helps to save Nick’s life by giving her kidney, giving the chronically ill Nick a new sort of future. No more homeschool, no more dialysis. There’s a few limitations but basically, he’s free.
Sophie’s sure that this will change things forever. Not only will Nick be free but maybe he will finally feel the irrevocable connection she knows they have. She has loved him for nearly three years and she’s sure he will see how deeply she cares for him. After all, he would have done the same, Sophie is sure. He just wasn’t given the chance like she was to prove her love.
Buuuuut. . . with new freedom, Nick has new chances. He’s joining a band, he gets to go to regular school and doesn’t share any classes with Sophie. In fact, it starts to feel they are splitting apart and their friendship turns into a codependent pining that they need to settle before it irrevocably breaks them.
Solomon’s debut novel was deft in handling chronic illness and complicated relationships and this novel is no different as the reader can see how unhealthy and limiting the friendship is for both. Sophie has denied herself opportunities and socializing because she believes the only time that matters is the time spent with Nick, he makes her feel like her best self. She nearly becomes a martyr for her love because she always concedes to his wants because he’s sick, he’s good, he’s Nick and she loves him. Yet she resents it too, he always gets what he wants. All she wants is his love.
But does that mean he owes her? No, it doesn’t. That would be wrong. Which is why Nick is so hesitant to hear or accept Sophie’s love because he is so grateful that she gave him her kidney, but he doesn’t want to confude gratitude and lifelong friendship for love. He doesn’t want it to end badly and she regrets the decision (though considering the situation, we know there’s gonna be regret). Besides, he has right to experience life and not be chained to Sophie’s side now that he has a chance to explore his own interests outside of the home and not confined by his health. He gets to experience first love and not be known as the sick kid which is nice.
But he also has to confront that he has been pretty sheltered, even spoiled as a sick kid and that maybe he has taken more out of this friendship than he has given and maybe held Sophie as a guarentee in his life without reflection of her wants.
Just a really moving story about friendship, and love and the co-dependency of both that is rarely explored in YA.
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Waterfire Saga: Sea Spell Review
The grand final book in the Waterfire Saga has the merls facing up to their biggest challenges yet-Overthrowing Vallerio and his accomplices and destroying Abbedon and Orfeo.
It’s a thrilling book with some surprise conclusions that I hadn’t seen coming and filled with action that kept me at the edge of my seat. But there are some missteps. Let’s start with what worked.
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Waterfire Saga: Dark Tide Review
Donnelly gets right into the action with a heist! I love heists. Sera has grown in her confidence and badassery, formulating and succeeding in divesting the throne’s treasurey. Just in time too because they’ll need that gold to convince the goblin tribe to join their covert Blackfin army when they fight Sera’s traitorous uncle.
But while readers get a nice glimpse of Sera’s newfound leadership and confidence, the book’s focus is on her fellow merls-Becca, Ling and Astrid as they conquer their inner demons to find their talisems before Vallerio and his allies.
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Waterfire Saga: Rogue Wave Review
Since the fall of Cerula and finding out she is part of a greater prophacy, Serfina is left to pick up the pieces of her life and figure out where her talisman is before Abbadon is released. Meanwhile, her best friend, Neela had returned to her kingdom of Mitali to warn her family of the upcoming dangers and gain allies. But her warnings aren’t heeded, in fact they thhink she’s crazy. Now both girls are alone, trying to find a way to save the world and be heard.
You know, when it comes to a quartet, it’s a difficult balance between moving the plot forward but not too fast as you have the grand finale to build to. Oftentimes, that makes the second book feel like filler, setting things up so a lot happens but it also feels like nothing happens.
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Waterfire Saga: Deep Blue Review
In the darkest deep, there be monsters and despite centuries of protection and magical spells, the circumstances have converged to allow Abbadon break free, and the ancestors of the original Six Who Ruled to rise.
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Book of the Month: Little Women
Little Women is close to a global phenomena. From Japan to Ecuador to the U.S. where the author originates, people around the world know about the March sisters and their highs and lows as they grow up in the 1860s.
Except my friend who somehow lived under a rock. She never seen any of the movies, never read the book, she didn’t even know the names of the sisters much less the major plotlines. I didn’t think that was possible since it is so well-known in pop culture. Like Jane Austen. Or at least Pride and Prejudice. You just know it.
Which brings to one of the points we discussed that it is interesting that both books occur in the 19th century but are vastly different culturally with Austen being more constrained with emphasis on class differences (and much more romance obviously) while Alcott focuses on the character’s inner journeys like Jo’s career as a writer.
Not that there isn’t romance to discuss like the infamous Jo/Laurie/Amy. Perhaps it is because she didn’t grow up with it but her feelings about JoxLaurie vs LauriexAmy aren’t that intense. I dislike the pairing because it is basically a spite pairing by Alcott and Jo and Laurie jsut have chemistry. Even if they are too similar and argue, it’s like those arguements aren’t fierce debates but they challenge each other. My friend gets why Laurie and Amy get together but she too admits it’s not OTP like Jo and Laurie would have been.
Let’s see, there’s not much else to retread but she cried when Beth died, I did not. I found Marmee to be a bit hypocritical in letting Amy get away with stuff. Like yes, there’s the infamous burning Jo’s only manuscript but also when she’s older and she basically decides that she’s going to marry rich. After pages of preaching about being good Christians, does Marmee say anything about this sinfulness? Nope, doesn’t say a word. Like if that was any of the other sisters, there’d be talks about Christian duties to let the Lord provide what he can. There was nothing!
Also Marmee’s lesson about laziness by not reminding the girls of their chores and essentially lets Beth’s bird die. Not cool. I thought it was part of the Christian duty to look after God’s creatures, not let them needlessly starve to prove a point. Yeesh.
So yeah, Marmee doesn’t come out well in these modern eyes.
Anyway, my friend has finally join the rest of the known world in reading Little Women and the next book on our list is the manga, Spy x Family.
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Ian Flynn Interview
Ian Flynn is the writer of many beloved comic boo properties but may be best known for Sonic the Hedgehog. He graciously took the time to answer my questions about Sonic, his writing journey and new works coming out. Enjoy!
1. Who were/are your biggest comic influences?
A few that immediately spring to mind are Jeff Smith, Peter David, Fabian Nicieza and Joe Madureira. I’m certain there’s many, many more I’m forgetting.
2. What drew you to the comic medium?
I think it’s the unique way it approaches storytelling. Straight prose is fine, but comics present their narrative with the art as much as it does with the text. How each element in each panel is designed invites you to linger and contemplate it. You can breeze through it or be meticulous.
3. You got your start by literally knocking on editor’s doors, what was your first job when they hired you for the company and how did you go up from there?
I began with data gathering and consolidation on a freelance basis. I chronicled characters and events, compiling by narrative relevance and by published date. I collaborated with a professional friend of mine to pitch plans for the book as well. In a few short months I was offered the role of lead writer.
4. How would you describe your writing style and evolution?
I have a hard time categorizing myself like that. I don’t think I can objectively step back and label myself by a style or say how things have changed. I am what I am, and that’s all I know.
5. You provide a variety of services like ad copy, localization, creative consultation etc. Do you find that it exercises different parts of your writer skills or do they overlap?
Definitely. Each one has an entirely different goal and builds from a different foundation. For instance, ad copy requires an understanding of the product and delivering that to as wide an audience as possible in a succinct and engaging way. Localization requires the same kind of understanding, but trying to convey its intent within a language and culture that might not perfectly sync, and often within the constraints of time or character limits.
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This Book Won’t Burn Review
All Noor Khan wanted to do was to get through the last three months of her senior year undetected. After all, her mother moving them to small-town Braybarry after their father abandoned them doesn’t mean she has to make friends. She can blend in, graduate and go back to Chicago to regain her normal life. Or whatever sense of normalcy she can after her father’s betrayal.
But it’s never easy to fly under the radar when you’re in a 90% white town, and when Noor finds out that her one safe haven, the library is dealing with bigoted censorship requests from the so-called Dads and Moms for Liberty, Noor ends up the face of anti-censorship and woke liberalism, and there’s plenty of people who want her and her outsider ways to get out of their pure, wholesome town.
But books and words matter, that’s why they’re feared in the first place and Noor knows she cannot be silence about books that are meant for everyone.
I think this quote sums it up.
“Books help us see ourselves but they’re supposed to challenge us, too, show us worlds and experiences that are different from our own Books help us open doors. We’re here asking you not to slam those doors in our faces. Let us read,” (Ahmed 356).
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My Dear Hamilton Review
As anyone who got on the Hamilton fever train a decade knows that without Eliza Schuyler, her husband’s sory would never have been known. Literally, because she spent the last decades of her life com[iling his millions of correspondence and batting away the obstacles of his enemies who wanted him to be forgotten and his former friends who blamed him for the dissolution of the Federalist party. Ontop of founding and running the first two orphanages in New York, a free-black education center, an Onedia-Hamilton school for Natives, raising funds for Washington’s statue, soliciting funds for charity, overseeing the the rise and fall of sixteen presidents, twelve whom she personally knew, went on a trip to Illinois/Wisconsin territory in her eighties, and yeah, she packed a lot in the fifty years after her husband’s death.
So it’s about time someone told her story.
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Rachel Reads & Reviews 