Book Review: Dread Nation by Justina Ireland

 

    Sometimes the reason you choose a book is because of the cover. This is one of those instances for me. When I came across this book, I first noticed the old-fashioned nature of the dress. Then the sickle in her hand and her "don't mess with me" glance over her shoulder. Being a lover of historical fiction, I thought this might be a story of the slave experience. Boy was I wrong - sort of.

    Dread Nation is set in an imaginary America in the years after the Civil War. But in this story, the North and South unite against a new threat - zombies. Okay - stop right there! Zombies? Not my thing. At all. I almost took a hard pass on this book but since I am trying to be open to new genres, I decided to give it a try.

    In this imaginary America, these "undead" rise up from cemeteries and attack the living. They are encroaching the previously safe cities of the East. Jane is a student at a combat school for Negro girls where she learns how to fight the undead and has proven herself to be extremely skilled in combat. Upon completion of her training she will be assigned as an attendant to a high society white woman to protect her from the zombies. However, when the sister of Jane's friend and other families go missing, Jane becomes involved in finding these people which leads her to a fight against not just zombies but some very powerful people. 

    While this is not the story of the actual slave experience, this perspective is very much present. Each chapter begins with excerpts of letters between Jane and her mother - the wife of a plantation master. Through these letters, Jane's background and early years are revealed to the reader. The hierarchy of society in this story falls in line with our country's true history and oppression of Blacks and Native Americans of the Civil War era. Jane is not a slave but she is trained to be a type of servant, against her true desire. Blacks and Native Americans are re-educated in the art of combat against zombies which demonstrates that their lives are considered expendable by the powers that be. 

    Like The Walking Dead? I highly recommend this book. Not a fan of zombies? This book is for you too and I encourage you to give it a chance. The story is full of action and tension, imaginative yet rooted in truth and has a kick-butt main character. This book is available in our library. The Nashua Public Library has this book and it's sequel in all forms - print, ebook and audiobook. 

Book Review: Above All Else / Dana Alison Levy

Tate and Rose have been best friends FOREVER. They have enjoyed climbing and challenging themselves to difficult climbs for nearly as long. And now they are on a trip of a lifetime, a trip to summit Mount Everest in Nepal.

But things don't go as planned, the characters learn about themselves, their worlds get broadened, and they kiss A LOT. 

Why am I blogging about this book? (You all know that romance isn't my gig!) This book made me think about priorities. Dana Alison Levy really jumped into the research about summiting Mount Everest and there is a lot of information here that I had never thought about. For example, many of the people in Nepal are poor. On the other hand, it costs more than $60,000 to summit Mount Everest. Such a contrast. Sherpas moving up and down the mountain and often owning little while catering to men and women who can pay that amount of money to suffer for days to see how they will fair when faced with such acute adversity and huge challenge. And that was just the beginning of the thinking.

If you love the outdoors. If you love to challenge yourself. If you love to read about kissing (skim it if you don't) read this book.

You will find it in print in our library.

 

Book Review: Stolen Girl by Marsha Forchuk Skrypuch

First let me mention that I dislike this cover - it just doesn't seem to represent the book. So ignore it.

When I read Elie Wiesel's book - Night - I was taken back by a Holocaust story that I hadn't heard before. I had read about the Nazi concentration camps and the extermination of Jews, Romani, homosexuals and others. All of that hurts my soul. In Night, I read about the death marches. And was again shocked at the depths that people can stoop to.

Stolen Girl is another book that surprised me. Just when you think that you have heard all of the horrible things that people have done...  but I don't want to say more - no spoilers.

Just let me say - the protagonist in this story, Nadia, has fragments, dreams, and flashbacks about her life during  World War II. This is the story that pieces those together in a way that shares another atrocity coming out of Nazi Germany. 

Read this book. We need to understand history so we don't repeat it. 
 

Book Review: Internment by Samira Ahmed

This book starts with a book burning. 

Layla is living in a time when America is out of control: a new president, a Muslim ban, exclusion laws, rampant Islamophobia, and a curfew, and finally relocation camps. 

This story, set in a near future America, features a repeat of the injustices played out after Pearl Harbor was bombed and many Japanese Americans were placed in relocation camps, but this story revolves around Muslims. After Layla sneaks out to meet her boyfriend and is out past curfew - she races home only to hear loud knocks on her door in the middle of that night by the Exclusion Authority. Though not a consequence of her actions, her family is targeted for relocation and given 10 minutes to pack a single bag each to take into their new lives. Phones are confiscated - there is no way to tell her boyfriend what is happening, she has no pictures of them together, no way to hear his voice. And so it begins...

So if you found yourself in Layla's position - what would you do? Keep quiet and try to survive? Or rattle all the chains, put yourself and your family in danger, and try to change things EVEN THOUGH YOU KNOW THE DANGERS?

This book moves at a fast clip and will keep you thinking all the way through. It is available in print in our library or through SORA. 

"Unless we know our history, we're doomed to repeat it? Isn't that the lesson? But we always forget. Forgetting is the American grain."

 

Book Review: Early Departures / Justin A. Reynolds

First of all let me just state that my ancient ereader is the best. No back light, a tiny keyboard, and it is a beast. Yay for that.

Now for the book.

• This was a fast read - the book just grabs you and holds you
• It will make you think about honesty and death
• There is humor rolled into this book (though it didn't really make me LOL)
• The character development is good - all the way through

Early in this story you learn that there are moments that divide your life into before and after. Like March 13, 2020 - when this pandemic sent us home from school. None of us are the same as we were before that date. Some change is good, some bad - but we have all been impacted. Think of before. Think of after. For Jamal that moment was 11:43 - when Jamal's parents were killed in a car accident. After that moment - nothing is the same as before and now Jamal is just sliding through life without taking anything seriously - not his schooling, not his girlfriend, not his best friend. 

And then... there is a party, and a drowning, and again nothing is the same. 

 

Book Review: How to be a Good Creature by Sy Montgomery

You have heard of comfort food, right? Or Saturday clothes? Or sliding into your favorite slippers. Well - Animal books are my comfort reads and one of my favorite writers of animal stories is Sy Montgomery.

This book contains 13 animal stories - from dogs to pigs to spiders and even Matschie's tree kangaroo  (look it up - they are just so cute). Each of these stories shares a connection between people and animals. And all of those stories together are balm for my soul.

I hope you find some sort of comfort book - a type of book that you return to again and again in order to make everything feel right in your world. 

"Just being with any animal is edifying, for each has a knowing that surpasses human understanding. A spider can taste the world with her feet. Birds can see colors we can't begin to describe. A cricket can sing with his legs and listen with his knees. A dog can hear sounds above the level of human hearing, and can tell if you're upset even before you are aware of it yourself." (Sy Montgomery in the introduction)

All of those facts seem like little miracles to me. They fill me with awe. And they make my world a richer place to live. And yes, all of that is comforting.

Book Review: Peter and the Starcatchers by Dave Barry and Ridley Pearson

I have been reading Peter and the Starcatchers with a group of students. They LOVE it. I fervently DISLIKE it. What the heck?

Peter and the Starcatchers is both a retelling of Peter Pan (now I want to reread the original Peter Pan by J. M. Barrie) and an action adventure book. As a matter of fact, there is a LOT of action in this book. Good guys, and bad guys, and those in between - pirates and savages, and porpoises that speak a porpoise language. There are mermaids with huge mouths and devouring teeth and a huge monster that eats people.  This plot twists and turns but there is often escape happening or running away or running toward. 

This is an action thriller between covers. 

The truth is - this just isn't my kind of book. Am I glad I read it? I think so. What I learned is that I need more from a book that action. I need something added, something to take with me. And for me - this book just didn't offer that.

BUT - you might enjoy it. If you like short chapters with lots of action, if you like retellings of stories, if you like characters that can surprise you and LOL moments - this might just be your book. 
 

Book Review: Words We Don't Say / K. J. Reilly

Joel just doesn't fit into school very well - he is more interested in cars than math (at least the way they teach it at school.) He goes to school, he does what he has to, he gets by. This is his story in his unfiltered internal dialog (along with his filtered external voice) and a bunch of unsent text messages. (Can you really save these to draft?)

Anyway, Joel must participate in community service as a graduation requirement and volunteers at the soup kitchen each Wednesday night. Luckily Eli also volunteers then and he has an incredible crush on her. At the soup kitchen he meets a bunch of characters, some who are willing to share their insights and others who remain silent. Many are veterans and many have mental illness.

Why would I recommend this book? The characters are flawed but  well formed and interesting. There is a very big difference between Joel's internal voice (lots of swearing) and his external voice (which is pretty polite.) There is some insight into mental illness and trauma. And a real value placed on intelligence that isn't of the Advanced Placement variety.  Finally, I found myself LOLing at multiple points in the story even though many of the topics in this book are heavy ones. 

If bad language bothers you - stop - don't read. If you don't enjoy visiting someone else's mind - stop. But if you like to jump into someone else's experience and see all of the richness that makes us human - jump right into this book with both your eyes and your mind wide open. 

 

Book Review: My Whole Truth / Mischa Thrace

Can't get your hands on a book? I have been playing with the various platforms that we have subscribed to which offer ebooks. This title comes from Junior Library Guild (JLG). The books on JLG are only offered for a period of time - up to ninety days. As I finish this story - there are about 60 days left for people to access it.

So what is this story about? Seelie loves horses and has spent a splendid day out riding. From the back of a horse, she notices a boy from school watching her - Shane. He is a few years older and has spent his school years bullying her. She flips him the bird and rides into the woods. He is a good ole boy - an athlete, he has friends. When she gets back to the barn, Shane attacks her and she must defend herself - she kills him in the process.  As the story begins, she is calling 911 in order to get help. She has been cut and stabbed. She is bleeding profusely. She needs help - not only medical help but the support of her friends.

This story is about all that, it is also about arrest, the court system and the fear of prison. It is about her friends - in all of their imperfection. 

This book isn't the perfect read. Some of the characters are a bit two dimensional and and some of the situations feel a little forced. But all in all, it is pretty entertaining. It kept me reading.

Today is Tuesday, March 2 - you have a couple of months to read this. You can find Junior Library Guild on our website under the Read tab.