Books and Sensibility

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Penguin

On The Come Up by Angie Thomas

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Rating: 4.5 out of 5.

 447 pages | Contemporary | Balzer & Bray | Release Date: 2/5/2019

I don’t know what this says about me but when a book or author has a lot of hype I tend not to read it until it quiets down. Angie Thomas was an author like that. I’d been following her ever since she announced her deal on Twitter and I’m happy to see the success she’s gained. I’ve still yet to read The Hate U Give because I’m not in a place to read Black trauma stories but when I was taking a bus trip I saw this on Overdrive and picked it up.

Now, this book exists in the same place as The Hate U Give and does spoil some of the outcomes of that book so be warned if you haven’t read it.

In On The Come Up 16-year-old Brianna “Bri” Jackson is an aspiring rapper from the hood who lives in the shadow of her deceased father’s rap fame. She’s ready to have her come up but injustice, poverty, and complicated family dynamics stand in her way.

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Pride By Ibi Zoboi

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Rating: unrated | 320 pages | Balzer + Bray| Contemporary | 9/18/18 

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Audiobook Review: The Young Elites by Marie Lu

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  • Release Date: October 9, 2014
  • Genre: Historical Fantasy 
  • Narrators: Carla Corvo, Lannon Killea
  • Length: 10 hours 9 minutes
  • Publisher: Putnam (Penguin)

I don’t fangirl for many authors, but if there is one author I will consider flailing over it’s Marie Lu. Her Legend series is one we’ve been talking about on this blog since day one.  The series has great story building, action and interesting female characters. Needless to say when I heard about The Young Elites I was excited to get back into Lu’s head….

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Like No Other by Una LaMarche

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  • Release Date: July 24th 2014
  • Pages: 368
  • Genre: Contemporary 
  • Publisher: Razorbill (Penguin)

Like No Other has an easy pitch; take the star crossed lovers trope and apply it to a  Hasidic Jewish girl  and West Indian boy in 21st century Brooklyn with a meet cute in a broken elevator during a storm.

 I really like  what this book is doing in terms of the current state of YA publishing. It’s like yeah diversity in YA,  yeah diverse cover art and oh look The New York Times is reviewing a diverse book by a female author.  But despite my cheering for its successes I kind of take issue with LaMarche’s portrayal of the male protagonist Jaxon

I didn’t necessarily hate his character. Jaxon is a nerdy first-generation West Indian who represents the average teen boy and I actually like many of his introductory paragraphs.

It’s funny; I forget sometimes how I might look to other people. I could be reading The Great Gatsby on the 3 train, or walking down the street listening to a podcast on my phone, or coming out of the orthodontist’s office with Invisalign braces feeling like the biggest nerd on the planet, but some people don’t notice anything but an almost six-foot-tall black man.

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Now and Forever by Susane Colasanti

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  •  Release Date: May 20, 2014
  •  Pages: 273
  •  Genre: Contemporary YA
  •  Publisher: Viking Juvenile (Penguin)

So, I’m starting to realize I may have a new book kryptoniteand it’s the what I like to call “I’m with the band” stories.  These are the books were either a friend, parent, or the love interest is a rock star. I haven’t read many of them, but if I see one it instantly goes on to my TBR pile. I’m not sure why I’m so interested in this.  Maybe its because my guilty pleasure movie is the Disney Channel Original Movie Starstruck or that Sarah Dessen’s This Lullaby was my favorite book as a teen. Either way, pair this knowledge with the fact that I’ve been meaning to read Susane Colasanti for years and Now and Forever was the perfect choice….

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Cruel Beauty By Rosamund Hodge

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“You’re just as foolish as the others. You think you are clever, strong, special. You think you’re going to win.”

Hodge, Rosamund (2014-01-28). Cruel Beauty

  • Release Date: January 28th 2014
  • Genre: Fantasy/Fairytale
  • Pages : 342
  • Publisher: Balzer & Bray

Cruel Beauty is a fantasy retelling of Beauty and The Best, where beauty is an angry and selfish (read: cruel) young woman named Nyx. Out of desperation Nyx’s father made a bargain that would result in Nyx being married off to the Gentle Lord, a powerful demon who has ruled over Nyx’s people for 900 years. Nyx mission isn’t just to marry the Gentle Lord, but she has been trained to take him down, but could there more inside this beast than darkness ?

 

Cruel Beauty is sold as a Beauty and the Beast retelling
but the story feels more like the tale of Bluebeard. A man whose young innocent wife discovers the benevolent Bluebeard keeps the bodies of his previous wives who disobeyed him. There is this sense of isolation and dread in the original tale that we see a bit of in Cruel Beauty. Nyx is also one of many of wives who have joined the Gentle Lord and, like in the original tale, he allows Nyx to roam the rooms of his magical house—expect for the locked ones. The Gentle Lord also keeps the dead bodies of his previous wives in one of said rooms, so I was really getting Bluebeard vibes

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