November Review

Samantha Gross
Nov 30, 2019
7 min read

I ended up a little short on books to review this month, but I can very happily blame NaNoWriMo for that (especially since I managed to hit 50,000 words in only 23 days). That being said, the three books that I did manage to read this month were all incredibly enjoyable. And since I spent three weeks writing a lot of words, I'm going to try not to write too many more here.

Let's get started:

We Are Okay by Nina LaCour

Left alone on her school campus in New York for Christmas, Marin is trying to survive a visit from a best friend she hasn't spoken to in months. Abandoning her San Francisco home in the wake of her grandfather's death, Marin is outrunning her own history and loneliness, only to confront it when she's faced with the people she left behind. An exploration of grief and loneliness, this book lets Marin finally decide if she's ready to let go, or if she's not ready to come back to the life she left behind.

LaCour's language is, as always, beautiful, and conveys so much of the human capacity for emotion in little acts and quiet existence. She's pointed and intentional with her choices, packing a punch in only a few words, a scattered sentence, and observation. She builds a story around unexpected loss and then fills in the gaps with pottery shops and groundskeeper cabins, places where secrets can live for just a little while longer. This wasn't my favorite of her works, but it was an impressive thing to read.

Marin's grief is poignant. Grief for her mother, her grandfather, the life she had, and, more than anything else, grief for herself. I don't read an exceptional number of sad books, unlike my sister, who won't touch a book unless someone dies, but there's something powerful to be found in confronting our grief, facing our sadness, admitting our loneliness. Marin's loneliness unfurled slowly, allowing the reader and her friend Mabel a glimpse at the person she had become in her attempt to run away from what she knew.

Marin's background, her life in San Francisco with it's gray ocean and surfers handing her seashells, was a reality told in flashbacks, pieces revealed as the storm in New York and Mabel's visit unfolded. Mabel and Marin's untitled place of best friends and exes combined made for a difficult reconciliation, but a very important one. LaCour knows her way around a WLW love story, even when the love had faded and broken and become something else.

Marin's grandfather's betrayal cut deep, the recognition that her grandfather--and through him, her life and sense of self--was built around lies. Everything she thought she knew was stripped from her, what was there to do but run? Her flight across the country and the people that came after her, the family she didn't know she could let herself have, was a beautiful return to self, a calling card of familial love tucked inside a plastic Christmas tree and a mother's hug.

We Are Okay was a look at all the ways we aren't okay and a recognition that maybe one day we can be.

Call Down The Hawk by Maggie Stiefvater

When it comes to Maggie Stiefvater books, I've never had to wait for part of a series to be released before. They were just already there, waiting in the book store or online, ready to purchased and in my hands within days. Call Down The Hawk is the first book I've waited for. And now I'll be waiting for the following two.

Stiefvater is one of my favorite authors. Her style is just on the right side of dreamy and flowery, her humor is always on point, and I've permanently altered part of my skin with a tattoo based on her previous works. Said previous works that sit in the same world as this new book.

Reading during NaNoWriMo is difficult, because my word input and word output is suddenly drastically shifted, but when this book showed up on my doorstep, I knew without a doubt I had to read it immediately. And my goodness, was it worth it. Stiefvater is back in her world of dreamers and bringing us all with her, back into a swirling mystery and an almost feral desire to discover the secrets of this world that is not our own.

Where The Raven Cycle focused on Blue Sargent and her little group of Aglionby boys, Call Down The Hawk is a dreamer focused trilogy, meaning my favorite dreaming bastard Ronan Lynch gets to be at the forefront, along with a new cast of equally enticing and strange characters: Hennessy, who can only dream copies of herself and it's slowly killing her. Farooq-Lane, sister to a dreamer and reluctant killer of many others. Declan Lynch, Ronan's older brother, who's trying to keep his brothers alive without revealing the pieces of himself he's worked hard to keep hidden.

The book was long and twisting, easily carving a place for itself in the realm of dreamers and giving fans like me a chance to jump back into that world. And none of it was quite what I expected, but that's the purpose of a Stiefvater book. If I went in knowing what I was getting, the book would be very boring.

And this book was not boring. There were some similarities and overlap from the previous series; cars and guns and dreamed things. Gansey and Blue were mentioned on phone calls, and Adam Parrish made several appearances to continue his besotted romance of Ronan Lynch, but this series was very firmly it's own. There's background and character growth required from the first series, but all of it only added to the complexities brought to life in this series. It took some time to learn the new characters, get used to their slowly revealed secrets, their desires, their fears, but once I was in, I was in.

And now, unfortunately, I have to wait more than a year for the next one. Which is a new and altogether unpleasant experience. Still, the book is not a hardship to read at all and I highly recommend everything Stiefvater has written.

Heartsong by TJ Klune

Heartsong is the third book in a series, so my review will be incoherent, mostly for those of you who haven't read the series, but probably also for those of you who have.

It's been a while since I've read a book in the Greek Creek series, and I couldn't really tell you why it took me so long to end up with my copy of Heartsong, but by golly was it worth the wait. I came in expecting something heartbreaking and melodious and Klune did not disappoint.

This series is very family-centered, and this book in particular focused on Robbie as an outsider once more, trying to find his place and home. We love a found family, and it's always a good time with this family in particular. Especially since Klune is so funny, and this cast of characters has built up such a reliable hilarious dialogue and rapport. I cry when I read these books, but I also spend a lot of time laughing, and that's so important to me.

This series has a very distinct style to it, and maybe that's Klune's overall style (I have yet to read his other stuff, though not for lack of trying) or specific to this book series, but it sucks the reader right in and doesn't let you go. The series overall is very character-based, but that doesn't mean he's slacking off on the plot, it just means that the characters themselves are building and driving every bit of the story. I love character-based books a lot, and I also love werewolves and LGBT rep, so really this series has been hurting and healing me for a while.

Speaking of representation! Kelly Bennett, very much front and center in this book, got to flaunt his fantastic asexual self and it was Awesome. Yes! Everybody rolls with it, he's never pressured (in fact, Robbie takes care not to pressure him into doing anything he doesn't want to in their relationship) and is loved and supported by his pack and partner! YES! RESPECT! ASEUXAL VINDICATION!

Anyway. As previously stated, it's been a while since I'd read the two previous books, and while I considered rereading them, I knew I remembered enough to make it through the newest addition. But! I needn't have worried, because Klune made it real easy on me by giving the main point of view character a fault memory. Reading from a character pov whose memory is missing and consequently has to relearn/be explained things meant I could jump right in and be reminded of the important stuff along with Robbie. It added another kind of ache to the story too, Robbie's and Kelly's pain acute as they tried to hurdle the problems coming towards them and relearn one another. All the Bennett pack trouble just builds in this series, and Klune doesn't hold back. Now we're almost four books deep of trying to find happiness and having it continuously ripped from their grasp, and I'm so ready for that happy ending. I know the purpose of books is for characters to struggle and suffer so their happy ending feels more fulfilling for us, the reader, but oh my god I just want them to be happy now. There's one more book in the series, and I've got to wait another like, eight months for it, but I'm very excited to finally get a more permanent happy ending.

And god did this ending hurt. Klune knows how to throw a punch with his endings, reminding us that apparently all happiness is temporary. So bring on Brothersong, I'm definitely not ready for it but going to read it anyway.