June Wrap-Up!

This month was kind of busy, but I managed to read more in June than I had in all of the previous months of 2016 put together! I'm kind of proud of that. This was also a pretty diverse month, with my usual LGBT+/Intersectionality blog theme, some children's lit, historical fiction, fantasy, and a teen romance (along with others!).

So, without further ado, here are the books!


  

In this cluster, we have my usual genre: queer people and/or intersectionality. This month was kind of hit or miss, split 50/50.

More Happy Than Not by Adam Silvera was a trip. I did a full review with all of my thoughts, but in short, this was an Important Book. There were so many issues addressed, but I didn't like the simplistic plot, lack of detail, or stunningly realistic horny teenagers. 3/5

Lizard Radio by Pat Schmatz was a book most accurately described as weird as hell. Kivali is a gender nonconforming teen who goes to a mandatory government run agricultural camp that makes teenagers into good, conformist citizens. She has links to lizards in her past- she was left on the doorstep of her foster mom wrapped in a t-shirt with a lizard on it, and can connect to what she calls the "lizard radio" while in a trance state. The book tells her journey in the camp and her struggles to remain herself even while the program is attempts to reduce everything about her to an "either-or". There was a lot that wasn't explained, but has a great message. It read as a bit of a love letter to gender nonconforming teenagers, and I can definitely appreciate that. 4/5 and made me tear up a lil.

Away We Go by Emil Ostrovski was kind of a disappointment. Noah Falls goes to a school for quarantined terminally ill teenagers, and sorts out his sexuality issues along the way. It was a cool concept. The execution was not for me. It was so pretentious. So, so pretentious. I don't even want to talk about how pretentious it was, while also being awful. There was some writing that I thought was kind of shoddy. Also, the timeline was weird and skippy and hard to follow. Overall a 2/5

Gabi, A Girl in Pieces by Isabel Quintero features a Mexican-American teen named Gabi navigating her senior year of high school. She's dealing with the whole package: body image issues, poverty, college applications, a meth-addict father, a born-again aunt, controlling mom, and a whole host of other issues. Luckily, she has poetry and girl power on her side. There were some things about this that I wasn't a fan of, but the ending will leave you so very proud. Please read it and talk to me about the beautiful ending. 4/5 and made me laugh/made me swell with pride.

 

This month, I also started on a bit of a children's lit kick with A Series of Unfortunate Events by Lemony Snicket. I never read these when I was younger, and I'm kind of sad because younger me would have loved this series. I'm still a little skeptical about the fact that the series is based purely off of "bad things happen to a group of kids who don't deserve it" and the straight-up child abuse in the first book was painful to read, but Snicket's wit is absolutely unparalleled. 3.5 and made me giggle.

 

Balanced by Lemony Snicket's humor was my "serious shit" pile, containing these two books.

Salt to the Sea by Ruta Sepetys turned out to be a breath of fresh air and an absolutely stunning WWII novel. The sensory detail is impeccable, and Sepetys writes an incredible cast of characters who you will love, despise, and/or never stop worrying about. This turned out to be an incredibly beautiful and touching novel, and made me cry multiple times. As many WWII novels do, it had a bittersweet ending, but a quite appropriate one. 4/5 and made me cry.

Girls Like Us by Gail Giles was another disappointment. It had a great concept- two girls age out of their school's special education program and end up in the same apartment, becoming unlikely friends. Nope. Nope nope nope. Don't read this one. Actually, read this one if you want so you can rant with me. So much went wrong here. The dialect the girls spoke in was almost exactly the same for both characters and also incredibly insulting! There's more, but I'm keeping this brief. Full review to come? 1/5

 

Because I can't just leave you with that, I also read some slightly lighter fare ranging from popular young adult to Marvel to stereotypical adolescent girl reading. Here we go!

Winter by Marissa Meyer was a shining example of how to end a series with a bang. It was so long- intimidatingly so- and very worth the long haul. None of my fears came true, with plot twists that I genuinely hadn't thought about around every corner culminating in a truly satisfying ending. 5/5 for being everything I hoped for and more.

Captain Marvel Vol. 2: Stay Fly by Kelly Sue DeConnick was so darn cute. The Guardians of the Galaxy tie-in made my day. Also, it's going to take me weeks to get over all of the cat stuff. Like, look at that cover. Is that cover not life goals? 5/5 and made me laugh.

What Happened to Goodbye was my first ever Sarah Dessen, and I was skeptical but pleasantly surprised. It wasn't totally my cup of tea, but I thought it was worth reading. There were some great life lessons and teaching moments. I was really worried that this was going to be a stereotypical cringey romance, and it wasn't! Overall a good light read about friendship, family, personal identity, and when to move on (or not) with a cute boy on the side. 3.5/5

So, that's a wrap. 11 books! Here's to a great summer with even more books.

What have you been reading this summer? Do you have any favorite books so far?

Review: More Happy Than Not

Title: More Happy Than Not
Author: Adam Silvera

Series: None
Length: 293 Pages 
Published by: Soho Teen
Publication Date: February 7, 2012 
Diversity: LGBT+ protagonist, LGBT+ romantic interest, main characters are POC, heavy exploration of socioeconomic class divisions, deals heavily with mental illness, intersectional #ownvoices
Rating: ★★★✩✩

(This information is regarding the print version. I read this as an ebook through Axis 360, which is an eBook lending application that I highly recommend using if your library participates in it!)

       I'm going to preface this by saying that I've read some pretty fucked up books in my 17 years, and this one takes the cake. More Happy Than Not is a heavy book from multiple angles. It's about an impoverished teenager named Aaron Soto who inhabits a housing project in the Bronx, where his family has lived for years. He rents a tiny apartment with his mom and brother where they all try their best to get by, surrounded by the community they have been a part of for as long as Aaron can remember. He's been going through some pretty rough stuff after his father's suicide and his own attempt on his life, but he's finally moving forward. After Aaron makes a connection outside his project, it creates tension between him and his friends, and as their friendship develops, tension between Aaron and his endlessly supportive girlfriend. Eventually, his feelings about Thomas get so mixed up that he decides his only hope for a normal life is an experimental memory-alteration procedure. 

     There's not much further I can go without spoiling some things, but some pretty fucked up stuff happens later on. This book deals with quite a few serious subjects, including mental illness, grief, poverty, violence, and hate crimes. The commentary gets pretty sophisticated at some points, especially considering that Aaron's internal monologue is often focused on what he can and cannot afford- the socioeconomic commentary is almost nonstop.

      

     However, the writing style of More Happy Than Not was something I really disliked. There was absolutely no fluff, and I don't really remember it being anything but literal. Much of the book didn't feel real, and I didn't ever feel truly present in the setting. The writing consisted mainly of dialogue, Aaron's internal monologue, and sex mentions. Occasionally Aaron would get a little poetic over his love for others, but that was the maximum amount of fluff. I know I complain when novels have too much sensory detail, but this one just didn't have enough for me. It felt a little too simplistic, although that worked in its favor by making the novel easily understood. If you prefer a minimal-frills writing style, you'll probably love this aspect.

     Additionally, some of the plot seemed a little simplistic and a tad bit campy. Even with the plot twists, it went in a pretty simple sequence of events. It was pretty fixated on one certain event from the past, and everything stemmed from That Traumatic Event even when it didn't quite make sense to me that 2 + 2 = eternal manpain. Oh, and there's a lot of manpain. It was pretty well-justified trauma, but still quite a bit of mainpain.

     One thing that worked both for and against this novel was the realism of the teenage boys. Most of the major characters are stereotypical teenage boys and depicted as such. Much of the novel was centered around teenage boys, and the realism was impeccable, from what I know of stereotypical horny teenagers. That said, they talk about sex ALL THE TIME. I got SO TIRED of hearing the guys talk about banging throughout the entire first third of the book. After a while, I became kind of numb to all of the casual mentions of DICK. There's no actual smut, but if sex mentions make you uncomfortable this may not be the book for you.

    Overall, this was an Important Book. Just like The Miseducation of Cameron Post, I may not have liked More Happy Than Not, but am glad that it exists, even if it felt kind of campy to me. Don't let my issues with this book discourage you from reading it if it sounds like your cup of tea. I would recommend it if you're looking for a book with an LGBT+ protagonist that's uncommonly dark with extremely sophisticated commentary and a minimalist writing style. Additionally, this is an intersectional #ownvoices book- here's a link to Adam Silvera's page on Goodreads! More Happy Than Not is not a book for everyone, and it's not one of the most fluffy or happy books I've ever read, but feel free to give it a shot and tell me what you think!

Update: Graduation

Yes, I'm officially done with high school. And in the typical fashion that I run this blog, I'm letting you know almost 10 days later. Well, that's hopefully going to change. Now that I technically have no excuses, I'm going to actually post regularly. Feel free to call me out on this at any point. Thanks for bearing with me.