Books I Read and Other Assorted Oddities

 Since it came out, Wonder has been highly recommended, and it's been on my to-read list for years. I finally listened to the audiobook, and I really enjoyed it. Wonder by R. J. Palacio follows the story of August Pullman, a boy with an incredibly rare genetic mutation that caused his face to form incorrectly with some other additional health issues. Though Auggie wasn't supposed to survive for long after his birth, he pulled through and lives an almost normal life. However, the deformity to his face causes a lot of people to stare and make fun. Auggie starts school at Beecher Prep Middle School as a fifth-grader, and though he has never attended a regular school before (he was always homeschooled), he does extremely well academically. The story follows Auggie's crazy first school year. I loved Wonder . My students also greatly enjoy this book. It's a fast, simple read with a really enjoyable plotline. I loved the characters of the novel, and how it switches among point

This is my second time through The Great Gatsby . This time, I was reading to annotate it so that I'm ready to teach it. I really enjoy this book! The Great Gatsby  by F. Scott Fitzgerald is an American classic set in 1922 at the height of the Roaring 20s. Nick Carraway is new in New York City. He moves into a dumpy house next to this gorgeous mansion owned by one Jay Gatsby. Across the bay, in the upper-class East Egg lives the Buchanans, a distant cousin of Nick Carraway. Tom and Daisy Buchanan are "old money," while Gatsby is "new money," with no one actually really knowing where he got all of his cash. Gatsby and Daisy dated for a time before he went to Europe to fight in WWI. While he was gone, Daisy married Tom, and Gatsby is trying to win her back. He throws elaborate parties at his mansion in an attempt to impress her. Will he win her back and get the happily-ever-after he wishes, erasing the past few years? I love The Great Gatsby . Maybe that's the

Charlie Holmberg came to a young writer's conference that I attended with a group of students. She did a presentation on magic systems that I highly enjoyed. I've been eager to read this book for quite some time. Ceony Twill wanted to be a smelter, but instead, they asked her to be a folder. As she neared the completion of her magical education, the direction of her life was changed forever. Her new mentor, Emery Thane, teaches her the basics of paper folding before the deranged Excisioner, Lira, shows up and literally steals his heart. Can Ceony save him? I had a really hard time rating this book. Part of me found this book absolutely delightful. I loved the magic system. Holmberg is very careful in the way she uses magic - one of the rules she follows that many authors skip is that the magic used has to be within the bounds of what the reader already knows. This makes it more believable, and readers can logically follow the jumps the character takes to solve problems. This is

As much as I loved The Way of Kings , I have to say, I loved Words of Radiance even better. Words of Radiance  by Brandon Sanderson picks up almost immediately after The Way of Kings ends. Shallan is shipwrecked and Jasnah killed. Kaladin struggles to protect the Kholins against the coming storm. And the storm is coming; Dalanar has predicted it, somehow. It's the Everstorm; the last and greatest storm that will be the end of the peoples in Roshar. Can they stop it in time? Can they find the ancient city Uruteau that was the home of the Knights Radiant? What of Shallan's newly acknowledged powers? And Kaladin's? Can Dalanar outwit Sadeas at long last? This book is just as beautifully written as The Way of Kings . The rotation among characters is still flawless and beautiful. Brandon Sanderson's outlining abilities and character arcs are amazing in this series. My frustration with this series is still the small storylines found in the Interludes. I'm sure they'll

This book came up in my free monthly Audible Original. I've been on a British Royal kick (don't judge, but yes, I watch The Crown on Netflix... I may have seen it several times). I don't know a lot about British or European history, and so this sounded like an interesting read. The Life and Times of Prince Albert by Patrick Allitt is not a comprehensive biography of Prince Albert, the husband of Queen Victoria. Instead, it focuses on several places where he had influence. Albert made something of his role as the queen's consort, a position that had little importance before he pushed for change and reform. This book was less of a book and more of a lecture series. Allitt himself does call it that, and since it's from the Great Courses, that's what readers should expect from the start. I personally enjoy history, so I did enjoy the content. It was engaging and interesting. I liked that Allitt was not afraid to show Albert's struggles as well as his successes a

Brene Brown is one of my favorite TED speakers of all time. I have listened to her TED talks numerous times and used them in my classroom each year. I love her message: that we can't have success, innovation, change, and creativity without first having vulnerability. I love that she is seeking to demystify vulnerability and teach what shame is and how it destroys our ability to accept ourselves and others. I am not normally into the self-help kind of books, but of the books I've read this year, this is one of my favorites! Daring Greatly  by Brene Brown discusses the concepts of shame and vulnerability and how we need vulnerability, but not shame. She gives strategies for combating shame and becoming "shame resilient." She gives strategies to use as parents, teachers, friends, and spouses. For one thing, I love Dr. Brown's Texan accent (she narrates the audiobook herself! 💗). Her voice and personality are all throughout this book. She is not afraid to use persona

This is another book that we chose to read as a book club. I have to admit, I was really excited to read it, even though I'd never heard of it or Nadia Murad before. The Last Girl  by Nadia Murad is the tale of her fight against ISIS in Iraq. Nadia grew up in a small village in northern Iraq. Their village was generally unaffected by the American invasion in the 2000s except that American soldiers did come to their village. Nadia and her village are part of a minority religion called Yazidi. When ISIS gained power following events in Syria, they invaded Nadia's village. They killed the men of her village and took the women captive, claiming them as slaves that they were free to abuse. The Last Girl  is Nadia's tale of captivity and abuse at the hands of her captors and her escape to freedom. I loved this book. This story is raw and honest. Murad doesn't leave out the excruciating details of what she went through. In the U.S., we largely ignored ISIS and what was happeni

I had the privilege of attending the launch party for this novel last November. While I had a blast, I hadn't yet read Skyward , so my excitement for this book was... limited. The hype and the release party have so much more meaning now that I've finished both books. Starsight  by Brandon Sanderson picks up not long after the conclusion of Skyward . Spensa and her friends are still fighting the Krell, whose attacks have seemed to be getting more aggressive. The DDF has also started trying to reclaim Detritus' outer defenses, hoping to be able to protect themselves. An old recording is found from the humans that built the Detritus shell. They are attempting to harness cytonic power, and summon a terrible being from somewhere in space. Cytonics like Spensa are now rare, and yet she manages to call out to one from another planet, who then crash lands on Detritus. Spensa must now take the alien's place at Starsight, the base that's sending the Krell to attack Detritus.

Tess Henry was an addict. But she was also a loving mother, and she also desperately wanted to get clean. Somehow, she ended up dead in Las Vegas, her body dumped in a dumpster just after Christmas. Tess didn't die of an overdose. Her killer hasn't been found. Finding Tess  by Beth Macy follows the story of one of the many people she interviewed for her book Dopesick . Macy follows through Tess's many attempts to get clean, to stop using heroin and prescription pain-killers (oxycontin). It also examines how hospitals, support groups, rehab facilities, and law enforcement all failed her. This book was eye-opening. Some have tried to call the opioid crisis a pandemic, but it always seems to fall on deaf ears. No one seems to want to listen or solve the problem. Meanwhile, many of the victims are not what we stereotypically think of as druggies. They're white, upper class, straight-A students, and athletes. This image doesn't fit the stereotype. It broke my heart to se

I was scrolling through the month's selection of Audible Originals and this was one that came up. From the summary, it sounded interesting, though I thought it would have more of a fantastical spin.  Disclaimer for this post: Romance is not  my usual genre, and it's not one that I usually like either. That's probably why I rated this so low. At any rate, The Mountain and the Sea  is about a widowed artist, Esther who lives in Jamaica. She has a house on a small island off the coast, as well as an art studio. She tends to head there during hurricanes and other tropical storms. On her way to the island, she comes across a naked man lying on the side of the road. He has no memory of who he is, what happened to him, or even where he is, and how he got there. Esther takes him to her island home to wait out the coming storm. In the time after the storm passes, they fall in love, the first love Esther really feels she's ever had. Will this love story last? Will Monty remember

Skyward  by Brandon Sanderson follows a rebellious girl called Spensa. She has spent her entire life looking up to her father; a man who the military government of their underground settlement has labeled a traitor. Her homeworld, where their ship crash-landed before Spensa was born, has been under attack by strange aliens for her entire life. In order to clear her father's name and bring glory to her family, Spensa gets into Flight School. But even with the honor of being in school, she's not allowed to stay on the base with the other cadets. She stumbles upon a cave where a strange ship has been parked in the cavern for years with stealth technology and a sassy AI. Can Spensa repair the ship? Will she ever be allowed to graduate flight school? Can she clear her father's name? I loved Skyward . I don't know why it took me so long to pick this one up, but I'm grateful I got around to it. Brandon Sanderson is a master of character rotations (writing in the third pers

The Tales of Beedle the Bard  are a short, but delightful collection of fairy tales from J. K. Rowling's Wizarding World. This version also includes characters from Rowling's original Harry Potter series such as Hermione Granger and Albus Dumbledore, who are meant to annotate and commentate on the tales. These tales are mentioned in Harry Potter , and Rowling has now written them out for all to read. I loved The Tales of Beedle the Bard . This is not a long book in the least but it is absolutely delightful to read if you love(d)  Harry Potter . I was also delighted that the audiobook (the version I picked up on Audible) was recorded with Jude Law and Evanna Lynch, who you may recognize from the films (Jude Law plays Albus Dumbledore in the Fantastic Beasts franchise). At any rate, I loved that this book didn't take "Muggle" fairy tales and reimagine them to fit into Harry Potter , but instead were completely original magical fairy tales. I loved as Albus Dumbledor

The Selection  by Kiera Cass is essentially dystopian style The Bachelor . What if the prince of a country had to choose his wife on live TV from a pool of eligible girls? America Singer is one of those girls. She is fairly low on the caste totem pole (a 6 to the royal 1) and is in love with a boy in her neighborhood. She entered the contest to appease his concerns that he was holding her back. She enters, tries to spoil him, and he breaks up with her. America is then chosen for the Selection and meets Prince Maxon who is nothing like she expected. Will America make it to the end of the Selection? Ultimately, this book was not the most enjoyable book I've ever read. It wasn't terrible, but I found it predictable, and I wasn't impressed with the ending. I liked the overall idea, even if it wasn't all that original, and I personally have no interest in reality shows like The Bachelor . I thought America's name was unoriginal, and I found her character a little obnoxio

I was frustrated with the ending of The Handmaid's Tale  and saw that there was a sequel, so I wondered if it would answer some of the questions that I had. The Testaments , book two in Margaret Attwood's series covers a time period after Offred (from The Handmaid's Tale ) left Gilead. It follows the story of two girls: one that lives in Gilead, and the other that lives in Canada. The girl that lives in Gilead was from a wealthy family. She ends up deciding to become an Aunt - the teachers of the girls in Gilead, and the defining body of women's roles and expectations of society. They make the rules for the girls and keep the records of who people really are. They also send missionaries to Canada. The other girl is from Canada. She lives with a couple who own a second-hand store. They are killed one day in an explosion that sparks the whole action of her story. She is eventually sent to Gilead to join the Aunts as well (with the Gilead missionaries), and the two stories

I've heard about this book, and it's been highly recommended and popular, so I thought I would give it a try. It's also been made into a T.V. series, and I was curious about what the hype was about. The Handmaid's Tale  by Margaret Attwood analyzes what would happen if society was ruled by religious zealots. Offred is a handmaid in Gilead: meaning that she is a birth mother for children she will never be able to keep. She has strict rules that she must follow, in a life that is completely different from the one she used to lead. Birthrates are declining, so as a handmaid, she is supposed to bear children for the commander she is assigned to, the source of her only value to society. She can only leave the house once a day to go to the market to buy groceries for the household. Offred struggles to reconcile the life she used to have with her husband and daughter, with the extreme oppression and fear in her new life. I have mixed feelings about this one. On one hand, the s

I've made a goal to read every book in my classroom library and write reviews for my students (partially why I resurrected this previously-dead blog). Alphabetically, Alcott was the first one in my library. This book took me F   O   R   E   V   E   R to read because I really struggled to get into it. Little Women  by Louisa May Alcott follows the four March sisters from early adolescence (for the older girls) through adulthood, until all of them are married. Set right around the American Civil War, these four girls grow up and gradually leave the nest. Their mother takes special care to teach them important lessons at each stage of their lives, carefully instructing them on how to be good wives, daughters, and women. Generally, this book was OK. Here are some things I enjoyed: I loved the girls' stories once they reached adulthood. I loved their distinct personalities and how they all ended up with the right person in the end. I loved the way Alcott was able to show us the grow

After reading The Fountains of Silence , I thought I would tackle another Sepetys novel. Most of my colleagues had said that they liked Salt to the Sea  better than Fountains of Silence , so I thought I'd give it a try. Salt to the Sea  by Ruta Sepetys follows several characters fleeing territories conquered by Nazi Germany and trying to get back to Germany itself at the very end of WWII. These characters all end up together and heading toward a ship, the Wilhelm Gustloff, that will take them across the Baltic Sea. The Gustloff is sunk by Allied forces, dropping thousands of people into the frozen water. Who will survive? Who won't make it? I didn't enjoy this book as much as The Fountains of Silence , which I felt was a little unfortunate. After the high reviews that I'd read and the personal reviews of my friends, I was underwhelmed when I read it. Here are some things I did like about the book:  I did enjoy the history. I had never heard of this ship, even though it&

This book is relatively new and came highly recommended by all of the reviews I had read of it. I initially bought it for my sister-in-law, then our department book exchange for Christmas last year, but I hadn't read it myself. I decided that I would and purchased it on Audible. The Last Voyage of Poe Blythe  by Allie Condie is about a girl named Poe who is set for revenge against the people that killed her boyfriend while on their first voyage out of the settlement. Poe creates weapons against the savages that inhabit the forests outside of her city, meant to protect the mining ship as it treks up the river harvesting gold. The city is sending out its last ship, and Poe is chosen as captain. She must confront the dangerous reasons why she was sent on this mission, deal with a mutiny on board, and figure out where her loyalties truly lie. In all, I really enjoyed this book. Ally Condie did a great job keeping readers engaged with giving just enough information to keep you reading w

This is a book that I've wanted to read for years, but I've always been a little daunted by its size. If you haven't seen The Way of Kings  it's about 1,000 pages. I usually love Sanderson (he's probably my all-time favorite fantasy author), but I just didn't feel like I had the time to dedicate to reading this book. That changed when I started driving more than an hour a day and decided to take the plunge into Audible. I bought this book with one of my first credits even though I owned the paper copy. At 33 hours, I figured I could complete the book in about a month, especially since I upped the speed. In all, I did really enjoy it. The Way of Kings  follows three main characters: Shallan, Kaladin, and Dalinar. Shallan is a girl from a destitute noble house. She tracks down Jasnah Kholin, the princess, in an attempt to become her student and steal her magical device. Kaladin is a slave who was once a soldier. He is transported to the Shattered Plains, the sig

This post is a book that I've read a couple of times because I read it with my seniors. It's one of my favorites, but I'll get into that more later. Code Name Verity  by Elizabeth Wein is about a British spy, code-named Verity who crash-landed in Nazi-occupied France during World War II. She is arrested soon after her landing while attempting to carry out her mission. While in prison, the Gestapo show her pictures of the plane wreck, leading her to believe that her best friend, Maddie Brodatt, the pilot, is dead. Ultimately, Verity begins working with the Gestapo and giving them sets of wireless code which would allow the Gestapo to intercept Allied communications. They also ask her to write her confession: a document with as much information as she knows about Allied plans, bases, and planes. However, knowing that she's going to die no matter what she tells them, Verity takes her time with her tale, instead telling the story of how she met Maddie and how she ended up

I love historical fiction, so when my book club (of English teachers) picked this one, I was really excited to read it. The Fountains of Silence  by Ruta Sepetys is about a boy named Daniel Matheson who travels to Spain in the 1950s. The leader of Spain, Franco, is ruthless and has an iron hold on his people. Daniel's father is an oil tycoon who wants his son to take over the business, while his mother is from Spain. Daniel doesn't want to join his father's business. He wants to become a photographer. His goal while in Spain is to take pictures worthy enough of a contest that he's working on. While there, Daniel meets Ana, a maid at the Hilton Hotel he's staying at. Ana is assigned to Daniel's family and attends to their every need. Ana's family is poor and this is an incredible job opportunity for her. Ana's family needs this job. Ana and Daniel become friends and start to fall in love with each other, something Ana seems hesitant about and Daniel kno

My reading habits have definitely changed in the last few years! College kind of killed off my love of reading for a while, but now that I'm teaching high school English, I've started reading more, and more often for pleasure. I'm going through the books I've read so far this year and posting some reviews of books. First on my list is A Christmas Carol  by Charles Dickens. I read it for the first time with my students last December. This classic novel follows Ebeneezer Scrooge through one insane night filled with ghosts. Mr. Scrooge is a stalwart Christmas hater. The descriptions of him at the beginning of the novel describe him as cold and almost uncaring. His partner, Jacob Marley, died before the events of the novel, but they are also a key to understanding what's happening. Marley was possibly more cold than Scrooge. Scrooge goes home on Christmas Eve after sending his assistant home and reluctantly giving him the next day off. After climbing into bed that n