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Category: 3 Stars

Review: Swing Time, Zadie Smith

Two biracial girls grow up in the same bit of northwest London, attending dance classes together. Tracey has real talent, and our unnamed narrator does not, and Swing Time is about the unexpected paths their lives take as they grow into adulthood. Content warning, there is very little dance school in this book. The narrator pretty quickly stops taking dance, so if you were going into Swing Time singing a little song to yourself like “dance school dance school dance school dance school,” you might end up disappointed. That’s not what I was doing or anything. It’s just something I…

28 Comments

Review: When the Moon Was Ours, Anna-Marie McLemore

When the Moon Was Ours is as good an argument as you’ll possibly ever see for the value of #ownvoices in publishing. I say that because I can’t stand magic realism and I’m not that excited about straight-up romance in YA, and When the Moon Was Ours — a magic realism romance — nevertheless still made me feel so happy and grateful for its existence. It’s the story of a Latina girl called Miel and a Pakistani-American trans boy called Sam and their struggles to come to terms with their identities and their feelings about each other and the mystical…

7 Comments

Review: Death, an Oral History, by Casey Jarman

Note: I received Death: An Oral History from the publisher for review consideration. All opinions are my own. So my favorite thing about Death: An Oral History is the story of its genesis. Casey Jarman noticed that he hadn’t yet lost anyone he couldn’t afford to lose, and it started to cause him anxiety about death. He therefore decided to spend the next few years of his life talking, reading, and thinking extensively about death, with the ultimate goal of producing a collection of interviews with people familiar with death. This is very very relatable to me. I have learned…

23 Comments

Review: Death by Video Game, Simon Parkin

Who here is a gamer? Show of hands, please! I went into Death by Video Game with a very low level of gaming knowledge, and people with a low level of gaming knowledge is who I recommend this book for. I suspect that readers with knowledge of the gaming world would say “fie” to this book. THIS IS NOT A CRITICISM. I found Death by Video Game during a random, but pleasant, browse through my library’s catalog, and it is exactly what I wanted it to be: A series of journalistic sociology essays about the worlds and possibilities of video…

11 Comments

Review: The Wangs vs. the World, Jade Chang

One of the side effects of this election is that I’ve become very clingy and emotional. I burst into tears over design specs at work yesterday, and it’s not because design specs are inherently moving. It’s a reminder from my dumb, finicky heart, I guess, that love is what we have when the world is dark. So The Wangs vs. the World fit nicely with my current mood — a book about how a family holds tightly to each other at a time when they have lost everything. Charles Wang came to the United States to make his fortune, and…

11 Comments

Review: How I Became a North Korean, Krys Lee

As I’ve possibly mentioned once or twice (or thrice maybe?) on this blog, I find the country of North Korea morbidly fascinating. Even in an election season where the impossible-to-believe comes true on what seems like a daily basis (not in a good way), North Korea remains an unknowably impossible sort of country to have in the modern world. So I obviously was always going to read How I Became a North Korean. This debut novel by Krys Lee, who has worked with defectors from North Korea herself, follows three characters on a long and strange journey to find a reality that they can accept. Yongju…

9 Comments

Review: The Secrets of Wishtide, Kate Saunders

Note: I received a copy of The Secrets of Wishtide from the publisher for review consideration. I do not read many mysteries. I think the reason is that so many mysteries come in serieses, and as a completist I find this very daunting. (Yes yes I am in love with the Amelia Peabody books, of which there are infinity, but I started reading them when I was like fourteen so it barely counts.) Also, a lot of mysteries feature divorced dude private eyes wandering around thinking bitter thoughts about their exes. Or really gruesome autopsy details. And I don’t like those…

27 Comments

Review: Are We Smart Enough to Know How Smart Animals Are, Frans de Waal

Phew, that was a long title. My fingers are tired from typing it all out. Are we smart enough to make concise titles? Often but not always! Snarking aside, Are We Smart Enough to Know How Smart Animals Are (affiliate link: Book Depository) is a wonderfully accessible overview of studies of animal cognition. de Waal’s basic argument is that as humans get better at designing tests that take into account animal physiognomy, habits, and social structure, animals perform better on those tests. The most common limitation on tests of animal cognition is not animal, but human, intelligence. An example: When…

35 Comments

Saving Montgomery Sole, Mariko Tamaki

Y’all, I love Mariko Tamaki. If I were in charge of the universe, I’d request that Mariko Tamaki subsequently do like romance authors and write one book for each of the notable minor characters in Saving Montgomery Sole.1 Saving Montgomery Sole is about a girl with two moms who struggles to fit in to her glossy, carb-hating California high school; and then a Jerry Falwell-type preacher comes to town, and Montgomery is certain that her family will be a target for his hostility. Mariko Tamaki hated high school and has said in interviews that she always struggled to fit in. In…

7 Comments

Pit Bull, Bronwyn Dickey

Are y’all ready for me to EXPLODE YOUR MIND GRAPES? Because the reason I read Bronwyn Dickey’s Pit Bull was this one interview that led me to some internet research that EXPLODED MY MIND GRAPES. Bronwyn Dickey said in this interview that we really don’t know anything about pit bull dog bites. And I was like, Um, okay, Bronwyn Dickey, I agree with you that pit bulls are misunderstood, but we know some stuff about pit bull dog bites, and because not knowing things drives me crazy, I went down an Internet rabbit hole researching dog bite statistics. Team. Team. Listen. We know…

32 Comments