III. Inclusion of recipes -they showed Daphne feelings as a character and were good recipes in themselves.
The Bad
I. Underwhelmed by execution & messages – we could have gotten more.
II. Dominic = Bad guy – The beginning of the story left me with the impression that it was going to be equal in critiquing the individuals in the marriage. At a certain point it felt like the story intended/was structured to make Dominic the bad guy while making Daphne the good person. There was a depth lost by creating this dynamic because where is the introspection/interrogation in that.
III. Does the female empowerment feel heavy handed?
Thoughts
I. Communication goes a long way instead of dealing with their issues with each other they deal with it with others.
II. Dominic is…
…not the only one at fault with the problems of the marriage.
….an idiot.
III. Would it actually be more interesting seeing a man have introspection, learn from his mistakes, and grow as person?
Would it been more interesting to see the relationship take a different direction?
(cover and synopsis are from goodreads)
I won this from Random House Book Club via goodreads
Fan-favorite detective Drew Leclair returns to crack the case of a sneaky locker thief in this heartfelt sequel to the critically acclaimed middle grade mystery series that’s been called “the perfect story for readers ready to progress from Nancy Drew.” (SLJ, starred review).
After breaking school rules the last time she solved a mystery, Drew Leclair has a new mission: get good grades, stay under the radar, and do not get suspended.
But when Drew finds out that there’s a thief breaking into the P.E. lockers and leaving behind cryptic ransom notes, it’s hard to resist cracking a new case. Especially when one of the victims is her best friend Shrey’s crush, and he’s practically begging her to get involved.
Can Drew catch the thief red-handed while staying out of trouble? And what does it mean when everyone around Drew is obsessing over crushes and the upcoming Wonderland dance, and Drew would rather work on her latest crime board?
The Good
I. Mystery
More focus on mystery than first in the series
More intriguing mystery than first in the series
II. Conflicts
A. Conflict with mom is really good. The mom is given more nuance and grace. B. They acknowledge the different point of views of Drew, her mom, and her dad.
C. Represents the messiness of divorcing parents & many aspects of growing up (such as sexuality) for a middle grade audience.
D. Progressive middle school – race, gender, sexuality, and etc
E. Reflects middle graders feelings well (in my opinion as someone who is not a middle grader)
III. Improvement from book 1 to 2. I read books one and two back-to-back, so I was able to see the progression of the stories closely.
IV. They did not wrap up everything neatly in a bow.
A good job was done leaving story open for if the series continues while leaving it at place that if it does not continue it is fine.
The Bad
The diversity representation can feel checkboxy but at same time it is interesting to have so much representation in terms of race, gender, sexuality in a middle grade story.
Thoughts
I. Right now I feel people are trying to explore how to create diverse worlds.
II. Drew mom would make a good character to explore in a adult novel.
III. With my likes and dislikes I wonder how those in middle grade age range will feel about this story?
IV. Societal idea that maturity = dating. If you are not dating you are emotionally delayed/ stunted…not it.
(cover and synopsis from goodreads)
I won this on goodreads from HarperChildrens/HarperCollins
This is not how soccer-star Zack Martin thought his summer would go. When the captain’s prank means trouble for the whole squad, Zack’s left with no choice but to take one for the team and cover for him.
Now he’s trading parties and beach days for community service at a seaside conservation center—fair enough. But thanks to his new reputation, the cute intern, Chip, won’t even give him a shot. Still, Zack finds himself falling for Chip between dolphin encounters and shark costume disasters, which means he suddenly has way more on the line than he ever expected.
Zack may be good at winning on the field, but can he keep up the lie without losing himself?
The Good
A. Low stakes/lightness of story- I have felt that many romances lean more on the realistic contemporary side and come off heavy so having an actually soft/light romance is rare (and positive).
B. Romcom moments- it had a few situations of high jinks and hilarity.
The Meh
Was I sold on the romance?
The Bad
A. Low stakes – it felt like we were floating from moment to moment at times.
B. There were many conflicts robbed of their big blow up (maybe the big blow up is considered toxic, I don’t know).
C. Disconnect from characters because they would appear then not appear for chapters, so it seemed like we really did not get the chance to know these characters.
Thoughts
I. Punishment & what people deserve then for them to not be guilty
II. Is the story too light for me? Am I too much of a realistic contemporary drama mess reader?
II. Just comments
A. I was sick of everyone thinking the worst of Zack.
B. Where are all the adults? Where is the coach he appeared for five minutes then yelled about them (the players) stopping him from vacation (dude you been on vacation for majority of this book).
C. Do you think Zack was selfish? Do you think he needed to apologize as much as he did?
From debut author Jamison Shea comes a slow-burn horror that lifts a veil on the institutions that profit on exclusion and the toll of giving everything to a world that will never love you back.
Laure Mesny is a perfectionist with an ax to grind. Despite being constantly overlooked in the elite and cutthroat world of the Parisian ballet, she will do anything to prove that a Black girl can take center stage. To level the playing field, Laure ventures deep into the depths of the Catacombs and strikes a deal with a pulsating river of blood.
The primordial power Laure gains promises influence and adoration, everything she’s dreamed of and worked toward. With retribution on her mind, she surpasses her bitter and privileged peers, leaving broken bodies behind her on her climb to stardom.
But even as undeniable as she is, Laure is not the only monster around. And her vicious desires make her a perfect target for slaughter. As she descends into madness and the mystifying underworld beneath her, she is faced with the ultimate choice: continue to break herself for scraps of validation or succumb to the darkness that wants her exactly as she is—monstrous heart and all. That is, if the god-killer doesn’t catch her first.
The Good
Appreciate Black authors exploring different types of horror & fantasy with a variety in settings.
Bringing up issues to ya audience that it brings up – (look at thoughts section)
The Meh
Mismarketing- Almost all of the reviews I saw mentioned that they think the story is misrepresented in the marketing and I agree.
The Bad
I. Beyond the mismarketing did this succeed at what it was? Did I like it for what it was? I could be wrong about its goal, but it did not go hard like it could have.
It did not go that far into the messed-up system of ballet (as much as it talked about it) or racism or many of the interesting themes. There was something there about ballet being their god & the applause is like worshiping I was waiting to hit the surface.
II. Poorly paced – to point I thought it held back just to make a sequel.
III. Repetitive – we were in a wheel of the same actions happening over and over.
(1) Laure finds out about something – sets up for something to move plot forward.
(2) Next chapter or scene we move past it like nothing really happened. No, I do not mean it happens offscreen it’s like they skip addressing reasonable conflict in the story.
IV. Time skips – so you don’t get to sit in moments, and it skips past interesting things.
V. Ballet felt like window dressing after a while because we were told so much about ballet this or that without us really doing much with it.
VI. Doesn’t sit with people so I felt no connection to them -friends, foes, etc.
VII. No, I do not want to spend pages on pages on this boy instead of…
~ exploring the fantasy of the story
~this entity you made a deal with
~ballet world beyond set piece
~who is killing people
~your family
~etc
Thoughts
I. Mismarketing
What subgenre(s) would you say this story falls under?
Fantasy, paranormal romance (unsure about this), slight bit of horror
II. Racism, validation
A. Spaces not build for Black people
~Ballet is feminine/soft/regal
~feminine = white
~Black women are considered the furthest from feminity /softness/regalness.
At the fundamental level ballet is not built (as many spaces) for Black people so of course there is opposition.
C. Using an outside force to circumnavigate the force of racism.
What is cheating or meritocracy when fundamentally things are built for you not to succeed/flourish? If you need help from the beast, were you good enough in first place? What is good enough when your race is on the judging table (you can’t out excel racism)?
~How desperation for equality/equity/notice/be on same playing field can be exploited.
~Validation & racism vs enjoyment of an activity such as ballet
III. Mini-rant
On the deity/entity: Acheron cannot get worship or seen as amazing entity/god when they got whooped and people killed multiple times. I am supposed to be impressed by them like lol.
Do they (characters) seriously not wonder what the entity they are sacrificing themselves to want? Like no one is going to look into it?
(cover and synopsis are from bookishfirst)
received from Macmillan Children’s Publishing Group via bookishfirst
For fans of Spotlight and Catch and Kill comes a nonfiction thriller about corruption and betrayal radiating across Los Angeles from one of the region’s most powerful institutions, a riveting tale from a Pulitzer-prize winning journalist who investigated the shocking events and helped bring justice in the face of formidable odds.
On a cool, overcast afternoon in April 2016, a salacious tip arrived at the L.A. Times that reporter Paul Pringle thought should have taken, at most, a few weeks to check out: a drug overdose at a fancy hotel involving one of the University of Southern California’s shiniest stars―Dr. Carmen Puliafito, the head of the prestigious medical school. Pringle, who’d long done battle with USC and its almost impenetrable culture of silence, knew reporting the story wouldn’t be a walk in the park. USC is one of the biggest employers in L.A., and it casts a long shadow.
But what he couldn’t have foreseen was that this tip would lead to the unveiling of not one major scandal at USC but two, wrapped in a web of crimes and cover-ups. The rot rooted out by Pringle and his colleagues at The Times would creep closer to home than they could have imagined―spilling into their own newsroom.
Packed with details never before disclosed, Pringle goes behind the scenes to reveal how he and his fellow reporters triumphed over the city’s debased institutions, in a narrative that reads like L.A. noir. This is L.A. at its darkest and investigative journalism at its brightest.
The Good
+History of the newspaper
+Seeing the corruption involved in this story – makes me wonder how many more stories are being held back.
+Lead up and all people involved.
+Makes me appreciate journalists and want to read more news stories.
I got to see the inner workings of reporting.
+It is a very readable style of writing.
Thoughts
A. The need to always cover the entity/institution/corporation at all costs.
B. So many cases are open and shut but corruption makes them needlessly complicated.
C. How does capitalism/everything is a business conflict with justice especially at a newspaper?
D. Read this alongside Forgive Me Not and they both made me think about the drug pipeline with teens
E. While reading this I wondered – Will lovers of true crime dock points because this book is about the road to publishing the story just as much as it is the crime?
All it took was one night and one bad decision for fifteen-year-old Violetta Chen-Samuels’ life to go off the rails. After driving drunk and causing the accident that kills her little sister, Violetta is incarcerated. As a juvenile offender, her fate is in the hands of those she’s wronged—her family. With their forgiveness, she could go home. But without it? Well…
Denied their forgiveness, Violetta is now left with two options, neither good—remain in juvenile detention for an uncertain sentence or participate in the Trials, potentially regaining her freedom and what she wants most of all, her family’s love. But the Trials are no easy feat and in the quest to prove her remorse, Violetta is forced to confront not only her family’s pain, but her own—and the question of whether their forgiveness is more important than forgiving herself.
The Good
+Has a lot of discussions that usually do not happen: incarceration, forgiveness, family, grief, addiction, and more.
+Showing the flaws with the system that we have now while also showing the flaws with The Trials (which seems like something someone has/will propose).
+Everyone from family, adults, teens, those incarcerated and etc is given humanity.
+Readers got this specific conversation about judicial system and incarceration that we usually are not able to have.
+Violetta is the one that is incarcerated because we rarely get to see Black girls or girls in general in the juvenile justice system in young adult lit.
+Vincent point of view chapters added to the story.
-it definitely added the viewpoint of family members of those incarcerated
– perspective on addiction
The Bad
The ending did not wrap everything up as well as it could have.
Thoughts
I. Forgive Me Not title inspiration.
A. Play on words Forgive Me Not = Forget Me Not
B. Is it inspired by the single Forget Me Nots by Patrice Rushen?
II. What happens when Black people make mistakes or do wrong? So much is about wrongful convictions.
III. Punishment
A. Obsession with punishment & jail as only form of punishment.
-Need for eye for an eye punishment & vindictive quality to incarceration and punishment.
-Should forgiveness necessarily be about punishment?
-Is punishment more for victims or perpetrators?
-Can punishment work for victim, person who did crime, and as a preventive measure for others?
-There is such an attachment to shame/shaming in terms of prevention and aftermath of crime.
-Does everything have to be jail or prison or need to involve the state?
-How do you make amends for murder?
IV. Black Young Adult Dystopia & Contemporary Trend
A. Is there a trend of Black people writing contemporary dystopia-esque stories to talk about systems that harm Black and brown people? This is my second book, Promise Boys being the first, that I got a dystopia vibe from.
B. Also, I felt that like Promise Boys adults would benefit from reading this book.
V. Teen Anguish
A. Is anyone hearing the teen anguish coming from many of these stories?
B. Romanticizing teen drug use & teens drug addiction pipeline. Introducing teens to drugs and alcohol is causing them not to learn how to cope with things.
VI. Miscellaneous
Violetta point of view allowed the story to focus on judicial system while I think Vincents would have been more about privilege and racism.
themollyweather 