Skip to main content

The Book Bit: July 2021 Ed.


You guys, summer is nearly over! Can you believe it?! The school supplies are out on the shelves, registration is up, and summer is officially winding down. It leaves me a little sad every year, but I can honestly say I'm ready to leave the heat behind. I've been really distracted by the Olympics the last few days but managed to finish up my books before months end! Let's get started. 


"With the Fire on High"- Elizabeth Acevedo


Emoni may only be seventeen, but she's known nothing but tough decisions for years. Besides being a teen mom, Emoni helps pay the bills, manage her grades, and deal with just being different than everyone else. But if there's one thing that Emoni knows with all her heart, it's food. And when the opportunity to join a cooking class at school that is planning on going to Spain, Emoni struggles with saying yes. Does she have enough time for that? Can she afford a trip like that? What's the point if she won't be able to pursue cooking after highschool? Follow Emoni as she navigates the tangled web of highschool, her complicated social life, home life, and the struggle of pursuing her dreams. 

This book really surprised me. I don't usually read this genre, but I think there were a lot of really great points in this book. We have a teen mom that is black and Puerto Rican who struggles with her identity at times. She struggles with her dreams, her home life, and all the complicated issues of growing up too soon. I really enjoyed this one. 


"The Space Between Worlds"- Macaiah Johnson


Cara is a traverser. A world walker. One of the best, simply because her other selves in the multiverse are all dead. Cara escaped her hard life outside the wall because she's rare. And in a few more years, she'll have permanent citizenship and live by her own rules. But when she gets pulled to a new world where her doppelganger isn't dead, Cara nearly dies in the journey. And she must depend on people from another version of her world to protect her. When Cara begins to uncover confidential information, she realizes she may be in over her head. 

This book is amazing. The representation is astounding and I absolutely love the world building and the complexity of the characters. There's sci-fi fantasy vibes in this book, but also a romance line as well. A little warning, this book is a bit gory, there's a lot of death and also domestic abuse. Please check out this book, you won't regret it. 


"The Devil and the Dark Water"- Stuart Turton


A detective in shackles, a bodyguard, a governor general and his small army, a smart and abused wife, a mistress, a holy man and his assistant, a questionable cargo, and an unruly crew set off from Batavia to Amsterdam. After some confusing moments on the dock the boat is marked by Old Tom, otherwise known as the devil. When unfortunate events begin, it's up to this mixed bunch to unravel the mystery of Old Tom and get their group to safety. 

I absolutely loved Turton's "The Seven and a Half Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle" and this book was equally thrilling. Turton has a very unique writing style that I absolutely love. This books unfolds slowly but is so eloquently deceitful! Turton did a good job keeping me guessing until the very last page. This book is like a mix of "The Pirates of the Caribbean" and Sherlock Holmes. I highly recommend this book, but be careful; it's a big read!


"The Round House"- Louise Erdrich


Summer of 1988 on an Ojbiwe reservation, 13 year old Joe's summer went from fun and trouble to pure devastation. His mother was attacked. Badly. As the tangle of law becomes involved, it only seems to make things worse. As the summer continues to spiral, Joe stumbles on problem after problem trying to find peace for his family. And he begins to wonder if they'll ever be able to move past it. 

This book was incredibly sad, but equally wonderful. There's a deep dive of information here about what law looks like on reserved Indigenous lands and how completely awful it is. And though the laws in this book are set in 1988, unfortunately some reservations and tribes have not been able to amend or improve them. This book gives a very close up view of what reservation life is like and the continued struggles of indigenous peoples. Erdrich is a well renowned indigenous author and I'll definitely be adding more of her books to my tbr. 


What a fantastic lineup this month! I was so very pleased and surprised. What did you read this month? Do you have any recommendations for me? Did you meet your summer reading goals? I hope you've had a safe and memorable summer. Happy reading, book nerds!

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

The Book Bit: April 2016 ed.

  April.  Wow, wow, April.  It came and went so quickly and my schedule looked like a mad man came in and scribbled all over it.  We were busy .  So busy in fact that I only got to read two books this past month!  Two!  Oh, the travesty!   But, in all fairness, did you see the size of the Kostova book?!  It's huge!  It should count for two reads due to the sheer size of it.   April's choices were rather odd, but humorously in the same genre: romance!  Oh, how I love me a good romance.  "Snow Melts in Spring" was actually written by a relative (well... sort of a relative.  By marriage.  Or something.) and given to me by my great Aunt.  The Kostova book was a gift from another book worm friend of mine which she found at the greatest little discount bookshop in the area.  Seriously, they let you have a running tab; goodbye grocery money!   Needless to say, it was odd they fell in the same genr...

The Book Bit: Septemeber 2017 Ed.

  My goodness, you guys.  What a month this has been.  I am so very grateful for my life this month.  Both my kids are healthy and our lives are semi back to normal after my youngest has had an intense steroid treatment to treat an epilepsy disorder she was diagnosed with in August.  Basically we have been spending an extreme amount of time in hospital and doctors waiting rooms and many, many sleepless nights.  But, she is looking better everyday and we've all been getting more sleep.  Let me just apologize that there are only two books this month, but we have been busy and I needed sleep!  These two books were from my personal collection this time.  We finally got my ladder bookshelf installed and I hauled out all my books (I have more in storage) and started arranging them.  Once I couldn't fit any more I started really looking at the titles and I realized I hadn't even read half of them.  How could I display books I haven't even ...

Why I Like Being an "OK Mom"

So, let's get a little real today about the mom talk. Who among us is a perfect mom? *looks for raised hands* That's what I thought. I know, for sure, that I am (on a good day) and OK mom. Right in the middle. Some days I succeed at the mom thing, but it's a rarity if I'm honest. And it's taken me a long time to be fine with just being average. There's a lot of pressure out there to be that super successful, amazing, put-together mom with well behaved, angelic children. -The Lies Let's start with how we got this idea in our heads to be perfect mother's. In all fairness, it probably stemmed from all of those ads in the fifties where Mom ran the hoover in one hand and read a book in the other. Or had well-behaved children waiting at the door for Dad, while Mom handed him a drink, took his briefcase, and his coat and had the roast timed to come out of the oven at his arrival. That's probably where it all began, and then our lovely feminist foremothe...