I have to apologize, because I just noticed today that there are comments from as far back as 2022 that I never was notified of, so that's why I've never responded. I'm not sure why I stopped getting notifications. This being a far less used blog than my VVD one, I tend to think no one is commenting, so I don't end up in the comments section often.
So I'm very sorry if you left something and I didn't reply! It was not intentional.
Wow, I haven't posted since January! To be fair, this has been a weird year so far.
I just finished this and had to write about it right away.
Set in 1985, We Built This City is a coming-of-age novel featuring 12-year-old Stephanie, who goes by Stevie. Stevie is part of a performing troupe made up of 13-18-year-olds. Her older brother is part of the troupe and her best friend's mom runs it, which is how she got to go on tour a little early.
Stevie is a shy girl who only has the one best friend. His name is Wes and there are never any romantic feelings going on between them, which is always a nice touch. Genuine boy-girl besties. Wes has a crush on Tuesday, another member of the troupe who's one year older. Stevie has a crush on Joey, who I think is also one year older.
Stevie's plan is to write a letter to Casey Kasem every day of the tour and mail it, trying to get hers read as the Long-Distance Dedication so she can reveal her crush on Joey. Wes has agreed to also tell Tuesday by the end of the trip how he's felt about her for ages.
The troupe is unique in that they're basically a lip-synching dance group. They never actually sing and their skill levels vary, which is why Wes's mom created the troupe in the first place. She wanted there to be a place for everyone. Possibly the most unrealistic thing is that the troupe is never presented as some sort of thing other kids think is dorky. There are like high school junior boys on this tour and they're not concerned about how that looks to their classmates who aren't in the troupe. I wasn't quite that old in 1985, only 7, so these sorts of troupes were probably more accepted then, but it still feels a little fantasy worldish. They perform songs from movies and it actually sounds pretty cool, but you know how people can be about teasing.
There are 26 kids and a few adults on this month-long cross-country tour. I've always loved books where there's lots of travel, so this was right up my alley, as well as being set in my childhood decade.
As the tour progresses, Stevie learns how to come out of her shell. She befriends some of the girls she was convinced would never be her friends. Christy, her idol, is older and she has deaf parents, so she does sign language sometimes. Amy, who's Chinese and adopted, loves wearing black and is obsessed with horror stuff. (I predictably love Amy.) Tuesday, Wes's crush, has red hair that's half-shaved. She's a badass and my favorite of the secondary cast. I wonder if the author was a fan of That 80s Show, because I loved Tuesday from that as well.
As she spends so much time somewhat in his presence, Stevie's feelings for Joey evolve. I'm going to stop here, so I don't do the spoiler thing. You've got to read it to find out if Stevie's dedication ever gets played, if she gets what she wants, if Wes ever tells Tuesday how he feels, etc. But this book is way more than young romance. It's just plain awesome. I highly recommend it if you're a fan of YA stuff and especially if you're around my age.
I enjoyed this one. Cora goes through a lot to survive during the Tri-State Tornado event of 1925. The author did a great job of capturing how terrifying this must have been.
My main criticism is that the characters felt a little too modern in voice. I didn't feel like this was set in 1925. And I'm mad about the main casualty of the tornado. That didn't have to happen and I hate when authors resort to it, as I consider it weak writing.
It's theme deja vu. One of the books in the last release dealt with Bloody Sunday, which happened in Selma, Alabama in 1965 during right to vote protests.
This is set a couple years earlier in Burmingham, but it's the same right to vote topic. Not that this isn't important, but maybe space them out a bit more? The difference here is that the children are the ones doing the protesting and getting arrested, whereas in Selma, it was all ages. The majority of this book is set in the jail, which is different from the first one.
It's a good book. I just don't think the two voting ones needed to be so close.
Essie's book is set on Bloody Sunday, which was March 7, 1965 in Selma, Alabama.
Even though she's young, Essie is a big time protestor, who's already been jailed for the offense multiple times. This time she finds herself in the middle of the most violent protest she's ever witnessed, with the non-violent protestors being beaten, teargassed and hosed down. It's not easy to read all the damage done to Essie, but it's important. It's always been ridiculous in this country what people have had to do just to gain the most basic right to vote.
Gah, I started writing this post back in August. All the other books and graphic novels were read then, but I just couldn't bring myself to do the Katrina book. Now that the two newest books are out, I made myself pick it up and finally get through it.
Being a hurricane survivor, this one was very hard to read, but what we dealt with was nothing like what happened with Katrina. The treatment of the disaster was nothing short of despicable, and while our situation wasn't as bad, the government is still basically useless when it comes to helping people who survived natural disasters.
Claudia's family is her mother, her younger brother and sister who are twins, and her grandfather. My biggest issue with this book is the author's flimsy reason for keeping the family there. The grandfather recently had surgery, yet he's not bedridden and he does fine living in the attic post-hurricane. There is literally no reason the family couldn't have evacuated. The surgery is never even specified. Pretty weak writing. The younger sister Zoe is an obnoxious brat.
I'll likely never reread this one.
I have to admit, I was a little disappointed in the graphic novel format. They're very thin and for the price, I would have expected a least a little bit longer. The book version seems to tell a lot more story. Still, it's neat to see a historical fiction graphic novel.
Ting's story is set during the flood of the Yangtze back in 1931. I had no idea this had ever happened, so I always love to learn something new. No matter how short the story is, I still learned.
Spoiler: This actually does end well, which is probably not very realistic.
Still fun to see the ancient world included.
I liked this one, though it went by too fast. Definitely my big complaint about these. They're too damn short.
I finished this a few days ago when I was recovering from the worst of my allergies, so now it's been longer and I don't remember all the details, but I should be able to wing this well enough.
If you like the G3 show, you'll enjoy this book. It stars Frankie, though other characters have pretty big roles. I actually found Laura and Clawdeen to be written a little annoyingly. They're better on the show. However, the author makes up for it by absolutely nailing Twyla and Manny, who played a pretty big part in this.
I am happy to note that the cover scene does not take place. Clawdee0n and Draculaura do not spontaneously play instruments. I really hate when shows have their characters who have been completely not musical before suddenly start a band and it's like everyone has been playing for years.
Frankie does play keytar, but they do in G3 canon already, so that's fine.
My biggest nitpick is that the author needs to familiarize with the characters. She completely botched hair color not once but multiple times. Spectra is described as having white hair. Uh, not even close. Clawdeen has purple and...pink? That's light brown! Why would you even write about characters without LOOKING at them?!! I think she said Laura had black hair, but later on mentioned pink, so I'll give leeway there, but seriously, if you've been hired to write about characters that aren't yours, take a few fucking minutes to learn about them. Seriously.
Back in March, I reviewed the Vampires Never Get Old anthology, and this mermaid version is the follow up.
I'm going to make this a fairly weak review, as I'm too lazy to get the book down from my shelf and do blurbs on each story.
I did enjoy every one of them though, so if you like mermaids and modern day diversity, give this one a try.
Oh, Norvia.
I really got sucked into this book and finished the whole thing in one day, constantly going back to it instead of picking up one of my other genres, which is unusual for me.
This is a semi-fiction historical story set in 1914 with flashbacks to a few years earlier. The characters are the author's ancestors, though I'm not sure how much of what happened is real and how much is fiction. I had no idea this was partially based on real people until the end of the book and then I was incensed because she doesn't tell you what happened to anyone! WTF. Rude. I wanna know.
So Norvia's mother's side of the family is all French and Native American mixed. Some were even Acadian. Norvia's dad is this Swedish dick who used to be rich and constantly does shit like gamble and take risky jobs on boats to make money, always trying to regain his former wealth but he never will. He's pretty racist, so I have no idea how he ever hooked up with Norvia's mom. He seemed to really love her once, but then his attitude towards his children of "Why do you need school? You're Indian. You'll never get a good job." makes zero sense. He and the mom end up divorcing for good reason.
Now this is 1914. Divorce was really looked down upon by all these asshole women in town who apparently think it's better to be unhappy and abused than to be divorced. So Norvia's mom not only carries the divorce stigma, but then she gets remarried and it spreads to everyone in the family.
Norvia is still dealing with the death of her beloved grandfather and her family moving from her home on Beaver Island to a city that I can't remember the damn name of but I'm too lazy to go get the book. So now her mother springs this marriage on the family. They've never met the guy and they haven't been seeing each other long at all, but they're getting married in a couple weeks. The kids are predictably not thrilled.
Everyone ends up moving into the guy's big house, where he lives with his 13-year-old son, who is too sickly to attend school but very intelligent. The guy also has two older daughters. One lives elsewhere and is never in the book. The other is awesome.
Mr. Ward and Vernon, Norvia's new stepfather and stepbrother, are actually excellent. Mr. Ward is right off the bat, though it takes Norvia a while to warm to him. Vernon takes longer, just like Norvia does, but he's a pretty cool character.
So Norvia's family doesn't have to worry about money anymore and she can have books! Mr. Ward gives her all these books to read, like Little Women, Anne of Green Gables, What Katy Did, etc. They play a fairly prominent role in the story, as Norvia is determined to be a heroine like her favorite characters.
The descriptions of this book make it seem like hiding her heritage and pretending to be white is the primary focus of the plot. It isn't. Norvia isn't happy she has to hide who she is, but it's the divorce she actually hopes to hide from the two boys in her life, because that is what's causing her to be a pariah at school. The real focus of the book is simply that Norvia has to navigate what comes with changes in life and figure out how to be her true self. Changes with family, friends, meeting boys, dealing with her estranged father, an unwelcome surprise from her oldest brother, her new stepsister is pregnant, etc.
Norvia feels like a classic character. Like Anne or one of the other girls she reads about. She isn't perfect. There were times when I was pretty annoyed by her. But she's loveable. Her characterization is excellent and I loved pretty much everyone else in the book, too.
What I didn't love is how the divorce played such a huge role in Norvia's life, yet her mother never once sits down with her and goes over all the issues that came about because of the divorce and remarriage. Her stepdad loses a position at church and it's just zoomed right over. Norvia's abandoned by her once best friend and that's never dealt with. All these problems arise but aren't often fully addressed and resolved.
I wasn't a fan of the flashback chapters. They were interesting but also tended to pop up in the middle of the action and I'd be annoyed by their presence because I wanted to know what was going to happen in the present time.
Norvia ends up being an excellent character and I loved her and her family. She managed to get a lot of character development, but really could have used some actual focus on the resolution or at least recognition of issues. It's a good book despite that, but it would have been an amazing book if the author had gone that one step further.
