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Friday, March 23, 2018

9 Books I Read For Class That I Didn’t Hate

Posted by Rashika • 4 Comments

I think the general assumption is that if you read a book for class, you probably aren’t going to enjoy it all that much and I think that there is some truth to that, especially depending on what kind of class it is but in my 15 years as a student, I think I’ve been lucky to actually enjoy quite a few of the books I had to read for class.

1. American Born Chinese by Gene Luen Yang

I’ve read this book multiple times for pleasure, but the first time I ever read it was actually for school! I didn’t know how much this book would come to mean to me over the years but I loved it then and I love it now.

2. The Journey by Francesca Sanna

In Children’s Lit classes, when we read picture books, they often happen to be the most critically acclaimed picture books but The Journey is fairly recent and tells the story of a family running to seek refuge after war breaks out.

3. The Turtles of Oman by Naomi Shihab Nye

I read this for a class I was TA’ing but somehow I was also the only one who truly loved it? Potentially because It was a class of mostly white kids, we’ll never know.

4. Citizen: An American Lyric by Claudia Rankine

I feel like everyone I know has had to read this book for class and I think reactions vary but Citizen actually ended up being one of my favorite books of 2017. It’s phenomenal and beautiful.

5. Pax by Sara Pennypacker

If you read Middle Grade, you will know that Pax was like //the// book when it came out. It was everywhere and the marketing behind it was next level. It got lots of love and clearly, the love was well deserved because it really is a well-written and moving. I am glad I read it for class or it would have completely missed my radar

6. Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen

I’ve read this book like 2 or 3 times and its always been for class and I never love it any less so thats how I feel. I know so many people have not had as much luck with high school reading so I am always gonna be grateful my teacher made us read Pride and Prejudice instead of like the other, more boring, books.

7. Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic by Allison Bechdel

Yes I live under a rock and until I had to read Fun Home for a class, I’d never heard of Alison Bechdel. Fun Home was amazing though and I even read the sequel all on my own. I am such an adult.

8. The Arrival by Shaun Tan

I also hadn’t heard of Shaun Tan before I had to read him for class and honestly, I am still mad at myself. The Arrival is a life-changing book and should be on everyone’s TBR, IMHO.

9. Tom’s Midnight Garden by Phillipa Pearce

This incredibly underrated classic needs more hype. Let’s work on that okay? The Secret Garden is good but like also kind of ableist and this book has a garden too!!!!!! Gardens are cool right? I wrote a paper about them.

What books have you read for class that you didn’t hate? Or even found a new favorite in?

Dear Great-Grandma

Posted by Rashika on 03/20/2018 • 3 Comments

Dear Great-Grandma,

I am not the best at writing letters that are also going to be on display but you know, I am trying. I recently read The Night Diary, which is currently the only book I am calling a favorite of this year and I’ve read 86 books so far. Reading it has made me incredibly pensive because the entire time I was reading it, I kept thinking that I was reading your and grandma’s story too. Sometimes its disheartening that something that impacted my family and 16 million other people so much isn’t really talked about. Everyone always talks about the liberation of India with pride or the end of a colonial rule but they always forget about the 14 million people who were displaced. The 14 million people…

Fresh Batch (March 18th – 24th)

Posted by Giselle on 03/17/2018 • 0 Comments

Fresh Batch, posted weekly, keeps you up to date on the hottest releases of the upcoming week.

Flavor of the week:

The Astonishing Color of After Emily X.R. Pan Publication date: March 20th 2018by Little, Brown Books for Young Readers

Goodreads Purchase

Leigh Chen Sanders is absolutely certain about one thing: When her mother died by suicide, she turned into a bird.

Leigh, who is half Asian and half white, travels to Taiwan to meet her maternal grandparents for the first time. There, she is determined to find her mother, the bird. In her search, she winds up chasing after ghosts, uncovering family secrets, and forging a new relationship with her grandparents. And as she grieves, she must try to reconcile the fact that…

Cute but Needs Work: How the Cowboy Was Won by Lori Wilde

Posted by Rashika on 03/16/2018 • 0 Comments

When one of my mutuals pointed out How the Cowboy Was Won was an Emma retelling, I was all aboard. I adore Jane Austen novels and I especially adore retellings of them. I don’t think I’ve seen many literary Emma retellings so it’s amusing that this year, there are two on my TBR!

So. Anyway. I have a complicated relationship with this book. There are parts of it I really liked but there were a bunch of things that rubbed me the wrong way and I haven’t seen many reviews talking about some of the things that bothered me which makes me more inclined to be critical. I want issues to be talked about. SO. ANYWAY. I am going to start with the good stuff first and break this review down…

The Book I Wish I Had When I Was in Middle School: Aru Shah and the End of Time by Roshani Chokshi

Posted by Rashika on 03/14/2018 • 7 Comments

I never read Rick Riordan’s books. The short story is that there was no real reason to why I didn’t pick the books up. The longer (and a little pointless) story is that when The Lightning Thief first came out, it had a completely different cover then what it has now. I was in the middle school and our librarian told us all about it. I grew older but it stayed in the corner of my mind, I was in eternal search of the book with the white cover and never realized until a year ago (seriously!!!) that that book was the same one written by Rick Riordan that was so beloved now. Anyway, long pointless story short, I am weird and specific about what I read.

So I missed Rick…

Fresh Batch (March 11th – 17th)

Posted by Giselle on 03/10/2018 • 1 Comment

Fresh Batch, posted weekly, keeps you up to date on the hottest releases of the upcoming week.

Flavor of the week:

Sometimes I Lie Alice Feeney Publication date: March 13th 2018by Flatiron Books

Goodreads Purchase

My name is Amber Reynolds. There are three things you should know about me: 1. I’m in a coma. 2. My husband doesn’t love me anymore. 3. Sometimes I lie.

Amber wakes up in a hospital. She can’t move. She can’t speak. She can’t open her eyes. She can hear everyone around her, but they have no idea. Amber doesn’t remember what happened, but she has a suspicion her husband had something to do with it. Alternating between her paralyzed present, the week before her accident, and…