Rachel Reads & Reviews

Sharing books for everyone

  • Author Highlight: Gail Carson Levine

    Now I already wrote about the books of hers that I adore in my Favorite Fairytale Books and Favorite Fairy Books which gives you a clue as to which she genre she excels in.

    In fact her most famous novel is the Cinderella retelling, Ella Enchanted (its movie also helped shoot Anne Hathway to movie fame). Though I never read the book, which I really should since its so beloved, the premise follows the fairy godmother’s gift of sweet obdience bestowed on Ella causes a lot of grief in her life so Ella leaves her home of wicked steps and journeys to reverse the spell.

    From there her catalogue of fairytale retellings only grew with The Princess Tales series and created an inspired expansion of the world of the Never fairies in Neverland with her Disney fairies trilogy. That one was a particular treat since J.M. Barrie’s Peter Pan was her favorite growing up. You can see this as you read as she faithfully retains the Barrie charm and dark undertones in the books.

    While she continues to put her own spin on classic fairytales like Snow White and Red Riding Hood, she also went forth to create her own original medieval inspired one with The Two Princesses of Bamarre and Ever that takes a turn to more mythological-historical fiction set in Mesopotamia when a young girl falls for someone who is in a different caste and has a different faith from herself.

    What has made Gail Carson Levine’s works so endearing is that though there is a layer of magic over everything she plumbs the depths of humanness. The doubts, fears and insecurities are tempered by growth, hope and belief in love. Not just romantic but friendships, family and self-love too. You must also admire her strong female heroines. They’re clever, they’re compassionate and they always save the day even if they’re scared. It’s truly three dimensional without being in your face about it because again, Gail writes humans. The males and females are treated equally and that’s part of what makes her romances and friendships so endearing as they go on their journeys across kingdoms battling off ogres and dragons as they do so.

    And not only is she still churning out new books today, (The latest being A Ceiling Made of Eggshells, a historical novel set during the Spanish exile and Inquistion of non-Catholics) but her website has her writing blog as well as tips and workshops for anyone else who wants to follow in her footsteps.

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  • New Historical Women?

    As if you can’t tell already, I read a lot of historical fiction and historical nonfiction about the forgotten women of the past who are just now getting the spotlight.

    I just read The Last Grand Duchess by Bryn Turnbell. It was fine, nothing particularly relavatory or new if you already know the Romanovs. But it got me thinking.

    I found that there seems to be reoccuring focus on a certain one or two famous ladies. Usually unraveling their hidden stories behind the men like the six wives of Henry VII, Mileva Maric (Einstein’s wife), any WWII spy, etc. Now, don’t get me wrong, these women should be recognized as they’ve been long overdue a time to shine. But I think we’ve gotten to the point where they are well-known now. Okay, except maybe Mileva Maric but who doesn’t know about CJ Walker or Henry’s Six wives, the West Wing Computers of the 1950s, Nellie Bly, Ching Shih or the last Russian governesses. I have seen Ching Shih in almost every Forgotten Historical Women books I’ve read since 2012, I think people know her now.

    So I was wondering, what new forgotten women should be given the spotlight now? Why not a historical novel about the fighting Mother Jones during the Gilded Age? Or a revolutionary novel about Rani Lakshmibai and her fight against colonism. Or William Brown, who disguised herself as a man to become first black woman in the British Navy in the 1800s.

    Comment below for what forgotten women you want to have more spotlight till she becomes mainstream!

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  • Book Updates?

    Covert Affairs is a fun spy book that is a bit like a more modern Totally Spies as three young adult girls go around the world rescuing heiresses, foiling cults and going gun to gun with the Brazilian mob. I found it very enjoyable and great light reading. And apparently this is an update because it was written in the 90s as Spy Girls.

    Oh yeah, the neon, the crazy background, very 90s-esque and a bit of the 60s Batman show. But if the cover hadn’t dated them, apparently the inside would have. I haven’t read them, but other reviews mentioned the references to N’Sync and other 90s slang I wouldn’t have known. In the more modern volume, Covert Affairs, they switched it to Harry Styles and 1D so that’s why I never realized it was written earlier.

    My thought was, should this be done with more books? If the story is solid, would changing a few references and republishing it again give it a new generation of fans. Or are there some things that are just too dated to try out?

    Comment below with your thoughts!

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  • Beautiful Little Fools Review

    With The Great Gatsby now in public domain, Jillain Cantor duly stepped in to provide the ladies of Gatsby their own story. Set in the years leading up to, during and after Gatsby’s death, the novel follows Daisy, Jordan and Catherine and shows the pasts they hide, the secrets they keep and the disillusioned view they hold of a world that sees them as beautiful little fools.

    Some spoilers under the cut.

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  • Book Highlight: KPop Confidential

    K-Pop Confidential by Stephan Lee is a great book for any K-Pop fan or newbie. I am one of those newbies, I haven’t really listened to it before because of the language difference but the passion and artistic achievement described in this book made me want to!

    Now we start with ou protagonist, Candace, your average Korean-American girl who has a hidden K-pop obsession. I was a bit confused as to why it was hidden. I guess it’s the instinctive not wanting to join the popular crowd who are obsessed with K-pop or maybe she didn’t want to be stereotypical. Anyway, she still is interested enough to audition for the worldwide search for the next big Kpop sensation. Her video goes viral and she gets chosen to join the rest of the competitors at the talent studio in Seoul. Her parents are intially hesitant because they are aware of the intense scruity and unattainable expectations which goes to tell you what this book will mainly be about.

    And it goes all in. The double standards between female and male idols with females having much more intense scruity with their looks, their weight, their talent and of course, their love life. I hadn’t known that those celebrities were essentially forbidden from dating because then they’d be “unavailable to the fans” and they belong to them. Which is just. . wow. Okay, intense. There’s also the double standards of how they are expected to act as a star. You can’t be so competitive and demand to be the center all the time or you’re considered a brat but if you don’t strive to it, they accuse you of being lazy. You just can’t seem to win here.

    It also places Candace as the underdog, not only as one of the few Korean-Americans but way behind in skill/talent compared to others who are born and bred under the studio system.Literally, some started at four years old so they come with superior dance skills, PR know how and the determination to win the spot to become K-pop’s newest girl group. Honestly, with how educated the other girls were, I was surprised that Candace hadn’t gotten kicked out sooner when she couldn’t perform the dance and committed several cultural faux pas but you know, YA suspension of disbelief.

    But I very much enjoyed the supporting characters like Binna who was the dance leader who filled the team mom role (literally each girl in K-Pop groups have to fufill a certain role) and had dedicated ten years of her life to this so I was really rooting for her to win. There was Helena the mean girl who had her hidden depths as these books are wont to do but I can’t spoil.

    There’s also a bit of a love triangle with Candace discreetly bonding with a male trainee, YoungBae, who encourages her through the rougher parts of the constant abuse, rejection and standards that the trainers enforce on them. He and Candace made good friends, and I always believe friendships make one of the best romances. Then there is the current K-pop idol and one of the judges, OneJ whom Candence (and the rest of the world) has a crush on which. . .well let’s say there’s drama.

    So while there’s some parts that struck me as unrealistic, it’s fast paced and has that reality tv drama that makes it addictive to read and find out more even if I don’t know the genre that well. Plus it ends on a cliffhanger that threatens to change the world of K-pop forever and compell you to read the next book, K-Pop Revolution.

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  • Author Highlight: Courtney Sheinmel

    I have already talked about one of her books that I have reread several times, Sincerely, but last year I decided to go on a binge of several of her middle grade books. None of them are connected, but each deal with the complexities of families and the young protagonists dealing with big changes in their lives.

    In the case of Positively,

    Emerson’s mother has recently died after a long battle with HIV, which Emerson inherited with her birth. As Emerson not only is dealing with her grief, but is moving in with her dad and step-mother. All this causes her to draw into herself as she feels that her dad is so exicted about his potential new family because he’ll have healthy children and she is very concerned about her own future as she grows with HIV. Concerned for her, her dad sends her to Camp Positive for kids who are HIV+. Sheinmel has experience with this as she details in her Introduction that she has helped work in a similar camp and foundation and so is able to show the diversity of experiences, the feelings of fear, anger and doubt as well as the reactions of society and families who have kicked some of these kids out of their homes in fear of contagion or the burden of finances for their medicine. It’s about life, death, grief and all that is in between when it comes to this specific group of people who must deal with HIV. It’s not victim-porn, but thoughtful and as the title indicates leaves off with a positive note.

    In My So-Called Family–

    Leah is also moving into the house of her step-father and transfering to a new school to boot. Not that she resents her step-dad, he makes her mom happy so she’s happy plus her half-brother is adorable even if he annoys her at times. But sometimes she misses the closeness she and her mom shared of it just being the two of them against the world and now she has more rules to contend with as her dad adds his own rules for her to follow. Overall, normal family problems except Leah is a bit different. She doesn’t know her biological Dad. Her mother doesn’t know either. He was a sperm doner and in a moment of frustration at this new family order, Leah goes to the computer to try to find out who he is. She doesn’t, the spern donation files don’t detail personal information like that, but it does state she has half-siblings. From there, Leah goes undercover and behind some backs to find out more about her half-siblings and what constitutes a family.

    Finally, All the Things you Are

    This is a bit of change from all the blended families. Carly lives a pretty conventional life of two biological parents, going to school, etc. In fact, it’s a privileged life as she goes to a fancy private girls school thanks to her mother’s job as costume designer for a premiere soap opera. Carly seems to have it all, until it all falls apart. Her mother’s boss is arrested for embezzlement and her mother had been helping. The family is fractured with Carly and her father unable to understand the lies and greed that seemingly drove Carly’s mother to do this. Not only are the family bonds fractured and the “cool mom” pedestal completely broken, but Carly’s life is affected outside of home. Her so-called friends turn on her and everyone thinks the worst of her family, it feels like everyone is punishing her for what her Mom did. It’s a messy situation and Sheinmel does an excellent job showing the conflicting feelings Carly has over the situation and makes the fallout of the mother-daughter relationship the core of the book, exploring it in such a moving way.

    Overall, I just highly recommend any one of these. Sheinmel’s strength lies with her emotional honesty and willingness to go there in exploring the nuance even when it is unhappy and can be hard. The endings aren’t always happy but they are I would say, realistic contentment. Not everything is solved but you feel satisfied by the journey and feel hope for the future. I believe that hope makes the most human because I believe we lean on the side of optimism and hope and Sheinmel uses her work to shed light on all sides of humanity and family.

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  • Book Highlight: El Deafo

    This graphic novel by Cece Bell is a loose autobiographical account of Cece’s childhood. After an intense bout of menengitis, she lost her hearing in bith ears thus sparking a long journey into the hearing-able/deaf world and the difficulties of growing pains alongside being considered “different” and disabled.

    Since this autobiographical, Bell obviously has a sense of what she is talking about. She can precisely explain and draw such visual tools as hearing aids and phonic ears, and how they aid the person in hearing. And being a grpahic novel, she gives the beginning signs of ASL (American sign language) she learned when her mom took her to sign language class.

    It is also filled with real pathos. Every child I think has a time when they feel different and misunderstood. She felt more so with her hearing loss, and how it affects how people treated her. Friends were either super “helpful” treating her like invalid instead of a capable person, teachers who didn’t understand that speaking louder doesn’t mean speaking clearly and the frustration of what feels like living in a silent bubble where you can’t hear anyone. All she wants is to be “nomal” like everyone else.

    But there is something to be said about embracing your differences as you can tell by the cover, that Cece does begin to see her hearing aids as a superpower when- – well you’ll have to find out yourself, but the imaginative superhero spots are adorable and delightful. That plus the visuals of everyone as bunnies is sure to keep young readers engaged.

    I personally enjoyed and related to this book a lot as I too have hearing loss and had to deal with those bulky hearing contraptions and feelings of loneliness (seriously I thought the game of Telephone was specifically made to torture and make fun of me. I was very insecure that I couldn’t hear things that well). So even though this one story and cannot represent the hearing impaired/deaf community as a whole, I found a lot that would be relatable myself and thus educational to anyone who wants to know a bit more about it.

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  • On the Come Up Reread

    I read this about three years ago I think, but I didn’t remember much of it as compared to its predecessor The Hate U Give. But to be fair, On the Come Up is a solid book, it’s just I had to read THUG about five times for three different classes so it just stuck in my head.

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  • One Woman’s Junk Review

    The first book in JB Lynn’s Psychic Consigment Mysteries allows the author to write what she does best, humor, mystery, psychic powers, and sisterhood.

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  • Under the Jolly Roger Review

    The third book in the Bloody Jack series by L.A. Meyer wastes no time in bringing readers back to the fold of Jacky’s wild adventures. We start with the classic, “Call me, Ismael” because lo and behold, Jacky is on the Pequod with Captain Ahab and Ismael!

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