2020 William C. Morris Young Adult Debut Award Winner!
Wasn't originally gonna read this one, despite it being available at my local public library, but when I noticed the blurb said it was set in Austin - I decided to read it. Norris, a black French Canadian only son of divorced Haitian parents, is forced to move to Austin* when his mother accepts a teaching position at the University of Texas. The guidance counselor gives him a small notebook to use as a diary, but instead it becomes "his own personal field guide, a spot for his observations on everything and everyone that had crossed his path since arriving in Texas" (page 94), or "'his most intimate thoughts about the vapid, stupid, or ridiculous people that come his way,'" according to his supposed girlfriend (page 300). Some of his views of Texas high school life and students are hilarious, but Norris has a bit of a chip on his shoulder. He tends to stereotype, and learns he's wrong the hard way.
*It's not clear if they're in Austin or Pflugerville, a suburb just to the north. There is an Anderson High School on the north side of Austin (my parents lived near there 2013-2017), but the Pflugerville it's supposed to be near (page 6) is about twelve miles away.
Like Norris, author Ben Philippe was born in Haiti and raised in Montreal. He has an MFA in fiction and screenwriting from the Michener Center for Writers in Austin, Texas. In an interview, he said, ""A lot of the details from the book are lifted from my life. Norris Kaplan ... moves to Texas and hates it; I moved to Texas and hated it. Although Norris moved to Texas for high school and I lived there for graduate school, the broad strokes of Norris are very much lifted from my life. I wrote him as a superpowered version of me: Norris says and does whatever he thinks. I never did, as I was too worried about everyone was thinking about me at school. But he loves poking the bear."
Philippe is a funny writer, though. I especially loved this piece from January 2016, when he compared the Republican presidential candidates at that point to characters in Game of Thrones (also at that point). Considering what happened with Daenerys Targaryen later, he was spot on identifying Trump as her.
Smooth by Matt Burns - YA, early reviewer, ARC, realistic fiction - I could empathize with the protagonist of this story, 15-year-old narrator Kevin, despite now being a woman old enough to be Kevin's grandmother, as I too had bad acne as a teenager (albeit in an era when Accutane was not available). This book had me laughing throughout, and feeling Kevin's pain as he struggled (but learned) in his relationships with his male friends and new female friends Alex and Emma. (And hey, y'all, 15-year-old guys DO masturbate, so I don't see how complaining about that being in the book is any different than a book with a female main character who deals with her period.) The book's title and cover just crack me up. I'll be leaving this one out for my now-grown son (who ALSO had bad acne as a teen). Definitely recommend this one for teen boys, and anyone who was or can relate to one.
Daughter of the Reich by Louise Fein - early reviewer, ARC, historical fiction - Hetty is the daughter of a rising star in the Nazi SS in this novel set in pre-WWII Leipzig, Germany (1933-1939, when Hetty is age 12 to 18). She does what she's supposed to, admiring Hitler and joining the BDM (the girls' version of the Hitler Youth). But she learns from her friends Walter (an older Aryan-looking Jewish boy who saved her from drowning when she was seven) and Erna (whose father is part of the resistance) that all is not as rosy as it seems. Her life becomes even more complicated as she falls in love with Walter.
There are many reasons to like this book. According to her blog, author Louise Fein was inspired by her father, a German-Jewish refugee in England, although the book is not about him. She said she "hoped to show parallels between the early 1930’s Germany in which he lived, and the western world since .... with nationalistic tendencies on the rise and increasing intolerance between people with different views and beliefs." She decided the book could best be told from the point of view of a Nazi, "...someone young, who was fed a twisted ideology, taught hatred from day one. Someone who knew no other way. What could possibly change their outlook, when it went so against everything their family and the society around them believed?"
I love the premise of this book. However, I think part of its problem is that it has a young protagonist, but the book is marketed to adults. I think it would have been better if Hetty had been a little older when the book began, and particularly when she fell in love with Walter.
Look Both Ways by Jason Reynolds - realistic fiction, short stories, common setting, Coretta Scott King (Author) Honor Book - Ten short stories about the after-school activities of ten groups of kids walking to ten different city blocks all served by the same middle school. Some of the stories made me cry.
Long Gone by Alafair Burke - local book club, mystery, e-book. I'm not a big fan of mysteries, but I liked this one. It has an Intricate plot and it's not predictable. It was a little hard to follow, though, especially at first.
My Year of Meat - Ruth Ozeki - realistic fiction - This mass market paperback (probably picked up at a Friends of the Library book sale) was on my TBR shelf, and I decided to read it after completing another long-time TBR book by Ozeki, A Tale for the Time Being. I liked My Year of Meats (it's just Meat, not the plural, on the British edition I bought) better.
The book was published in 1998, but takes place over the entire year of 1991. Jane Takagi-Little is the daughter of an American serviceman and Japanese mother, raised in Minnesota, but spent some time working in Japan. She is hired as the production assistant for a Japanese television show called "My American Wife," sponsored by a meat marketing company called BEEF-X, to promote the use of meat in Japan. Her job is to find likely candidates throughout America, willing to be profiled and to demonstrate their preparation of a meat dish. Jane, however, really wants to make documentaries, and starts finding candidates that don't fit the stereotype.
Akiko Ueno (pronounced wayne-oh) is the wife of BEEF-X representative Jochi Ueno, who wants to be called John (get it?). He makes her watch the shows and make the meat recipes and rate both, but he really hopes eating the meat will help her get pregnant.
Jane's work exposes some frightening and disgusting practices in the meat industry, as well as a personal health concern. Akiko's marriage is abusive. Eventually their paths cross in this unique book. Parts of it were quite funny, but it tackles some very serious issues quite well.
A couple good reviews that say things better than I can: https://www.librarything.com/review/133531799 and https://www.librarything.com/review/9204671
Her Last Flight - Beatriz Williams - early reviewer, ARC, historical fiction - As in her book Summer Wives, Beatriz Williams weaves together stories involving some of the same characters in different time periods (1928, 1936-37, and 1947).
Irene Foster Lindquist is a single female aviator loosely modeled on Amelia Earhart. In 1928, she meets married pilot Sam Mallory while surfing in California, and he teaches her to fly. Soon they are on a historic flight to Sydney, but there's trouble on the way.
Eight years later, Irene has become a famous aviatrix married to her promoter, about to start a round-the-world flight, while Sam is single again and flying humanitarian missions in the Spanish Civil War. They both disappear.
Later, in 1947, photojournalist Eugenia "Janey" Everett is planning to write a biography of Sam after finding his bones in a wrecked airplane in Spain, and tracks down Irene in Hanelei, Hawaii.
The story is told in alternating chapters - excerpts from a biography called "Aviatrix" by Janey, detailing Irene's and Sam's stories from the late 1920s and 1930s, and Janey's experiences and interactions with Irene and others in 1947. The reader learns a lot about Janey in these chapters.
There are a few twists at the end that I did not anticipate. Great historical fiction; highly recommended.
© Amanda Pape - 2020
