April Review

Aesthetically, this month has been much more colorful than the last. It also felt a whole lot happier, although I don't think the color of the books is correlated to that. Maybe I'm on to something.

Anyway, I once again waited until the very last minute to put this together, mostly to see if I'd finish the book I'm still only halfway through, and also because my time has been consumed by work, work, and more work. Regardless, I somehow found the time to pound through these five books and form somewhat coherent opinions about them. So let's get started.

The Edge of Forever by Melissa E. Hurst

The book took me forever to get into. It's a little cluttered with futuristic stuff and Unnecessary Teenage Drama, although I guess in the case of the YA genre, a lot of teenage drama is necessary. Things moved quickly in the plot and a lot of it was rather predictable, but it was still fun to see how the story reached it's end.

The ending left more questions than answers, so I wondered if there would be a sequel. I researched it like three weeks after I finished the book, and there is a sequel, but I don't feel I was invested enough in the story to continue reading the series, made obvious by the fact that it took me three weeks to Google and I found it on accident.

The characters were "real" enough, but still kind of seemed like generic boy-girl caricatures. The skinny girl complains about her friend going on a diet and hates the new cheerleaders she knows, which was kind of an annoying flash back to what grown ups think high school is, because they want to appeal to the vapid people who believe other people are vapid. The red herring was a little too intense and obvious, and it used the cool guy wants uncool girl trope to a bit of an extreme. All in all, I was more interested in the plot than the characters, which is Never a good sign.

The story is essentially a time traveling murder mystery, which is a sick concept, despite the rather sub par execution. Alora feels kind of like a Basic Girl Character with a Tragic Past, and reading from her point of view was a bit frustrating, because the other narrator, Bridger, was both more knowledgeable and more interesting. Bridger is essentially illegally sent from the future to try and prevent Alora from being murdered, but the story felt less like a mystery to be solved and more like a teen drama with the occasional inclusion of some future tech.

As a book about time travel, I wish it had gone more into the futuristic society and world building. The time swaps were cool, and getting to bounce between two times to solve a mystery was a very original concept, especially because of all the future tech and world building involved. But the mystery felt shallow, the threats only threatening as an afterthought, and I was left feeling like I'd been dragged along for a story I was glad had finally ended. I probably should have known going in, because time travel story lines are never anything that I enjoy, but I tried, so.

The Upside of Unrequited by Becky Albertalli

I consumed this book in like, three days, and probably would have faster were it not for the constraints of capitalism and the need for a sick person to sleep unholy amounts. That being said, I liked it less than I did Albertalli's other book, Simon Vs The Homosapiens Agenda, but I did enjoy the cute story. It vibed like a John Green book but with more of a Simon beat, which I mean, given Albertalli wrote it, it makes sense.

It's a cutesy love story framed by anxiety and an array of firsts, which as a person with anxiety and very few firsts, was amazing to read. Molly is awkward and cute and Very Real, and while the story isn't much in the way of Drama and Pomp, that doesn't make it any less enjoyable. It's set up as a "potential love triangle" book, but the selling point for me was the family. Molly's twin sister, Cassie, and their two moms are such a fun group, I'd watch a sitcom about them any day. Characters really drive a story, and with this one I hardly noticed the story passing me by I was so entertained by the Peskin-Suso clan.

Albertalli always has a wonderful grasp of witty, clever diction and fantastic internal and external dialogue. Her characters are relatable, and I do really wish I'd had her stuff to read in high school, because it's got great messages about recognizing the importance of accepting yourself and the changes that life inevitably brings. I would've handled high school a whole lot better if I'd had that.

Regardless, if you're looking for an easy, honest read, this book checks all the boxes: diversity of the race and sexuality variety, honest teenage angst and care, and a family you really can't live without.

More Happy Than Not by Adam Silvera

Having now finished two Adam Silvera books, I can accurately say that there is a distinct "just-finished-an-Adam-Silvera-book" chest ache that accompanies them. He hasn't given me a happy ending yet, which I would be mad about if his stories weren't so good. I'm left feeling a little bereft, a little empty, but also fulfilled and hopeful. A Silvera book is a learning experience as much as it's a trip through teenage boyhood. And More Happy Than Not taught me something that has always resided in the back of my mind, waiting for someone who isn't a hopeless optimist to validate it: things do get better, and life doesn't end just because something has gone wrong. Forgetting your past at the risk of forgetting yourself isn't worth it. I wouldn't give up all the bag parts of me because I know they help make me a whole. And while my bad parts are certainly nowhere near the bad parts that make up pieces of Aaron, I can understand part of where he's coming from.

Set in a somewhat futuristic New York, the book tells the story of a procedure created to make it possible for people to forget certain memories, events, or even people. And after Aaron begins to learn things about himself through his growing friendship with Thomas, he starts to think that the only way he can be normal again is to go through with the procedure.

Structure and plot-wise, this book has a hell of a plot twist. I'm usually decent at figuring out where a book is headed before it gets there, but this book took a turn I would never have guessed. And then it took another turn. And none of them were particularly happy, but the end result was more happy than not. As usual, Silvera created realistic characters and built a world with some abstract science fiction element made totally believable, where these characters can run around and make mistakes and teach us how to live.

I will forever be grateful for the way Silvera pursues writing gay characters. The world needs more representation, and to have it given in a contemporary, science-fictiony, gritty setting gives more to the literary and LGBT community than Silvera will ever know. I mean, he probably does know, but it still means A Lot.

Chaos of Stars by Kierstan White

This book, for all that my little mythology loving heart was hyped to read it, was a little underwhelming, but ultimately a decent read. Chaos did a fantastic job of drawing me into Egyptian mythology, which is what I think redeemed the book completely in my eyes. I've always loved mythology, and like a lot of white kids, focused on Greek and roman (I'll have to blame the Iliad and Percy Jackson for that), so having a nice guide through this depictions was neat.

The story itself was a mix of plot and character focus, so it felt like neither were completely drawn out the way I expected. I was given enough of each to feel satisfied though. I did correctly guess and then expect the plot twists, although the character development sort of made up for the rather disappointing mystery.

Isadora is the human daughter of Egyptian gods Isis and Osiris, and believes that the only reason she and her other human siblings exist is to ensure the continued worship and future of the gods. In an attempt to escape the pressure from her parents and the looming potential threat of darkness, Isadora escapes to San Diego to stay with her brother. There, she learns the world is a lot bigger than she ever imagined.

The main character kind of felt like a call-out. She's terrified of the impermanence of love and for that reason refuses to let it in. She decides that she alone will be enough, and while a big part of me can see the logic in that, the part of me that's been to therapy knows that isn't healthy. Also, huge shout out to the character Tyler, who's appearance and mannerisms are essentially me, in all my tall, blonde, loud glory. I enjoyed the characters more than the story, which was kind of a jumble of rebellious teenager vs parents, falling in love, mystery, and mythology rolled into a decent YA novel. So, read at your own risk, I guess.

Autoboyography by Christina Lauren

This book made me want to fall in love. Which. I'm not really the falling in love type, but I am kind of a romantic.

Autoboyography was brilliant both in format and plot. The story is essentially about a bisexual half-Jewish boy who moves to Mormon county (Provo, Utah) and takes a novel writing class. There, he meets Sebastian, the son of the bishop, writer extraordinaire, and the two begin an exploration of what love and acceptance mean, to both them and the church.

The setup, you later find out, is the first four-fifths of the book are chapters in Tanner's book, that you're then reading in a meta manner as the story unfolds and Tanner falls deeper. The metaficitonality of the story did have me questioning the reliability of the narrator closer to the end, but the narrative is switched near the end, and that ensures no, the story is told honestly, and it's both a cool confirmation and peek into Sebastian's head.

My only qualms with the story were perhaps the depiction of the LSD faith? And even then they aren't so much qualms as an acknowledgment that my Mormon friends would probably not want to read this book. The authors were nothing but respectful and well researched, presenting everything as an honest look at where the Mormon church is with its acceptance and tolerance (or lack thereof) of homosexuality. It read as a fair evaluation, but I'm also not Mormon, so I can't truly find it in myself to see much as offensive, both because of the obvious amount of research that went into writing this book, and the fact that I'm an enormous LGBTQIA ally who will literally fight someone to protect that community's right to love. But that's a story for another time, and Autoboyography wrecked me in a good way, so we'll go back to that.

The story is heartbreaking and awkward and lovely and honest, with quirky characters and hilarious, painful dialogue. I was left with a tightness in my chest that's hard to explain, but the closest I could come up with after finishing the book at 3 am was hopeful. I'm a sucker for a happy ending, and that's where the book makes its way eventually, but as a romantic, the book carried me through to a belief that love is never impossible, it's only society that makes it so.

Christina Lauren, a tag team of authors who specialize in romance and making writing with your best friend look easy, have created something that takes a deeper look at claiming and understanding who you are in a world that structures who you should be. It's cheesy in places and gut wrenching in others, but that's falling in love, so I think they nailed it.

The month was kind of an adventure in trying something new with the familiar, whether it was reading authors I'd already tried or peeking at a topic I was only somewhat familiar with. And looking back, I enjoyed more than I didn't. So, rock on April, that's for the nice reads.

Keep writing, my friends!

Sam

Literary recommendation: Fangirl by Rainbow Rowell

Movie recommendation: Arrival (2016) dir. by Denis Villeneuve

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