Review: On Point by Annabeth Albert

 

On Point by Annabeth Albert

Published June 5, 2017 by Carina Press

Synopsis:
Never fall for your best friend…

Pushing thirty, with his reenlistment looming, decorated navy sniper Maddox Horvat is taking a long look at what he really wants in life. And what he wants is Ben Tovey. It isn't smart, falling for his best friend and fellow SEAL, but ten years with Ben has forged a bond so intimate Maddox can't ignore it. He needs Ben by his side forever—heart and soul.

Ben admits he likes what he's seen—his friend's full lower lip and the perfect muscles of his ass have proved distracting more than once. But Ben's still reeling from a relationship gone to hell, and he's not about to screw up his friendship with Maddox, too.

Until their next mission throws Ben and Maddox closer together than ever before, with only each other to depend on.

Now, in the lonely, desperate hours awaiting rescue, the real challenge—confronting themselves, their future and their desires—begins. Man to man, friend to friend, lover to lover.

Review:
It's Pride Month! So, in honor of this month, and conveniently out today is On Point. Annabeth Albert is one of my favorite authors who writes LGBTQ stories because:

• I read to escape, but it also has to be relatable. Thus, I prefer contemporary to historical and fantasy novels, and I like my characters ordinary, that is, no crazy rich people with model-perfect bodies, thank you. 
• Albert's characters are normal, real people; they have jobs that they actually have to work at, are sometimes challenging, and realistically portrayed. Sometimes they have work-life balance struggles, they're smart, and sometimes (charmingly) geeky. They're flawed but on the whole deal with their issues like adults.
• Conflict is organic to situational circumstances, not manufactured melodrama. The characters, through growth and communication, come to solutions together.
• There's no one person saving the other; character growth is internal, though the motivation to grow comes from love and affection.
• The writing is good, too.

This is my favorite of the "Out of Uniform" series so far, featuring my favorite trope, friends-to-lovers. You have sweet, gentle Maddox and his ball-of-energy Ben. They're opposites, and have been best friends since their Navy SEAL training. Yet, despite their personality differences, both have incredible respect for each other.

The book starts off with the natural drama of a mission gone wrong, and there's nothing like a near-death situation for Ben to acknowledge his feelings for his best friends and for Maddox to realize what he wants out of life for himself. The best friends accept each other as they are, and there's never a sense that they want the other to change their essential selves. Rather, each worries that they're not enough for each other. Ultimately, it's a very romantic and sweet story about two people whose shared history means deep feelings for each other having to overcome their insecurities to get their happily-ever-after.

I received an advance reading copy from the author in exchange for an honest review.

Rating: 4 stars

Review: Riot School by Robert Rayner

Riot School by Robert Rayner

Published August 22, 2016 by Lorimer

Synopsis:
In the middle of the night, five teens break into a small town high school that has been closed by the regional school board. They are there to protest the decision to move them to a big city school and make their little town that much smaller. Led by Bilan, whose experience with the Arab Spring fired a passion to peacefully fight against injustice, the Gang of Five occupy their old school. The local police chief and the town quietly cheer them on. When the school board calls in a big security firm to break up their occupation using any means necessary, including force, the five have to decide how far they will go to show their outrage at having no control over decisions that affect their lives.

This is a novel which picks up on themes drawn from the world around us, and shows how these can play out in the lives of contemporary young people.

Review:
This book had a lot of potential with an interesting and diverse cast of characters. You have Bilan, the articulate and persuasive leader of this group of teens, her boyfriend Arn - angry at his father's incarceration, Grant - son of one of the town's council members, Barlow - the petty teen thief who also seems to be the school's most compassionate person, and Lettie - the homeless teen. With these different characters, there could've been some interesting character arcs but I was left feeling a lot of threads were left unfinished.

I wasn't sure of the purpose of narrative - if the author wanted to encourage students to speak up and have a voice, he wasn't very successful at it. I was left feeling like young people don't really have a voice, and the actions of unsympathetic adults lead to drug abuse and anarchists. And, I find hard to believe that these students, as articulate as they were, wouldn't have been more media savvy in increasing attention for their cause. All in all, this was a frustrating read.

I received a review copy through NetGalley.

Rating: 2 stars

Review: Twenty Boy Summer by Sarah Ockler

 

Twenty Boy Summer by Sarah Ockler

Published June 1, 2009 by Little, Brown Books for Young Readers

Synopsis:
"Don't worry, Anna. I'll tell her, okay? Just let me think about the best way to do it."
"Okay."
"Promise me? Promise you won't say anything?"
"Don't worry." I laughed. "It's our secret, right?"

According to her best friend Frankie, twenty days in Zanzibar Bay is the perfect opportunity to have a summer fling, and if they meet one boy ever day, there's a pretty good chance Anna will find her first summer romance. Anna lightheartedly agrees to the game, but there's something she hasn't told Frankie---she's already had that kind of romance, and it was with Frankie's older brother, Matt, just before his tragic death one year ago.

Beautifully written and emotionally honest, this is a debut novel that explores what it truly means to love someone and what it means to grieve, and ultimately, how to make the most of every single moment this world has to offer.

Review:
The title of this novel is unfortunate because when I first saw it on the (electronic) shelves of my library, it seemed to be a light bit of summer fluff. In actuality, this is a beautifully written rumination on death, grief, and love - romantic, friendship, and familial, as well as a coming of age story, and an ode to the ocean and summers spent by them.

Anna, the narrator, had long loved her male best friend, Matt, big brother to her female best friend, Frankie. On her birthday, the summer before the start of tenth grade, Matt kisses her, and thus begins a whirlwind secret relationship. Matt asks her to keep the relationship quiet, until he can figure out a way to tell Frankie/ Ockler captures the wonder and excitement of a new relationship:

"Does he like me, or was he just messing around? Will it happen again? How do we tell Frankie? Why did he say it’s our secret?"

Unfortunately, Matt dies in a car accident before he can tell Frankie. and Anna struggles with grieving his death and her competing commitments to her two best friends. The following summer, Anna joins Frankie and her parents at their annual beach holiday. It's the family's first trip without Matt, and there are poignant observations of how a family adjusts to a new reality. Simultaneously, boy-crazy Frankie thinks the trip is an excellent opportunity for Anna to lose her "albatross," aka virginity, and Anna's thoughts perfectly capture a teen wrestling with whether or not to reach this milestone:

"The whole idea of losing one’s virginity is kind of ridiculous. To lose something implies carelessness. A mistake that you can fix simply by recovering the lost object, like your cell phone or your glasses. Virginity is more like shedding something than losing it."

The writing is excellent, the dialogue snappy, the observations sharp. The heavy topic is lightened with by Anna's delightful voice, with her dry repartee with boy-crazy Frankie:

“Anna, no one will notice us if we’re wandering around in old-lady clothes. They’ll think we’re pregnant or something.”
“Rather than wanting to get us pregnant?”
“Exactly.”

Additionally, the educator in me appreciates the subtle vocabulary lessons:

“Don’t worry. He already said you can go. You just need to do some — oh, what’s that thing called — envisionation, I think.”
“Envisionation?” I ask.
“You know, where you think about the thing you want and just picture yourself getting it?” “Visualization, Frankie, and it’s not gonna work.”

I really enjoyed this book - this is one where I cried in some moments (and I'm generally not a crier) and laughed out loud in others. Oh and Sam? He makes the perfect summer (book) boyfriend.

Rating: 4 Stars

Review: Long Way Home by Katie McGarry

Long Way Home by Katie McGarry

Published January 31, 2017 by Harlequin Teen

Synopsis:
Seventeen-year-old Violet has always been expected to sit back and let the boys do all the saving.

It’s the code her father, a member of the Reign of Terror motorcycle club, raised her to live by. Yet when her dad is killed carrying out Terror business, Violet knows it’s up to her to do the saving. To protect herself, and her vulnerable younger brother, she needs to cut all ties with the club—including Chevy, the boy she’s known and loved her whole life.

But when a rival club comes after Violet, exposing old secrets and making new threats, she’s forced to question what she thought she knew about her father, the Reign of Terror, and what she thinks she wants. Which means re-evaluating everything: love, family, friends . . . and forgiveness.

Caught in the crosshairs between loyalty and freedom, Violet must decide whether old friends can be trusted—and if she’s strong enough to be the one person to save them all.

Review:
One of the many pleasures of reading is the opportunity to discover new worlds; that certainly is the case with Katie McGarry's books which has introduced me to life set in rural and small-town Kentucky, certainly different from my childhood spent in metropolitan Los Angeles and adulthood spent in urban Boston and Taipei. I've also learned about how it is to be raised in the foster system (Pushing the Limits), growing up with an drug-addicted parent (Dare You To), street racing and drag racing (Crash Into You), homelessness (Take Me On), and life as a drug dealer (Chasing Impossible). In all of her books, McGarry's protagonists struggle against being defined by their circumstances.

Katie McGarry's Thunder Road series centers around a motorcycle club, and Long Way Home is the third and last book of the series. Though each of the books in the series features strong female characters, both primary and secondary, I have struggled with understanding the Reign of Terror motorcycle club's attitude towards women and the role they play within the club. It's a fraternal organization in a patriarchal society, and while the men portrayed certainly love their female partners, women are literally not allowed a seat at decision-making table. In previous installments in the series, female characters worked around this structure to influence situations they weren't happy with.

Violet is perhaps McGarry's strongest female character yet, one is able to most clearly articulate what she believes is wrong about the structure and advocate for agency in her life. The daughter of a member of the club's leadership team, she blames the club for her father's death. As an insider who has now purposefully placed herself on the outside, this unique vantage point gives her a more insightful perspective of the club. Much of the arc of the novel is the conflict between Violet, her love Chevy, and the club's leader Eli as they struggle to balance the desire to protect out of love, with realizing that protection can be disempowering. At one point, Violet reflects, "I hate his way of caring, though. Hate how he controls. But how can you fully hate someone who does all the stupid things because that’s the way he loves?"

At the same time, Violet is not afraid to call out double-standards: "“Is that what I am? A traitor? When you protect your family, it’s called being an upstanding member of the club, but when I do it, I’m a traitor?”

Because Violet's not afraid to speak the truth and push against what she sees as inherent unfairness, Chevy and Eli also come away with a greater understanding of how to love in a empowering and respectful way. For these reasons, this is my favorite book of the series.

Rating: 4 Stars

Review: Transphobia: Deal with it and be a gender transcender by j wallace skelton

Transphobia: Deal with it and be a gender transcender by j wallace skelton

Published January 15, 2017 by Lorimer Publishing

Synopsis:
Who do you think you are? Part of identity is how people experience their gender. Transphobia is intolerance of any part of the range of gender identity. This accessible, illustrated book offers information, quizzes, comics and true-to-life scenarios to help kids better understand gender identity and determine what they can do to identify and counter transphobia in their schools, homes and communities. Considered from the viewpoint of gender challengers, gender enforcers and witnesses, transphobic behavior is identified, examined and put into a context that kids can use to understand and accept themselves and others for whatever gender they are—even if that's no gender at all!

Review:
This is an excellent introduction to gender identity and expression, aimed at middle school grades and above, with comics, examples, quizzes, and lists of do's and don'ts that challenge readers to question assumptions about gender and sex, stereotypes, and the use of pronouns or chosen names. A short and accessible book, the illustrations take care to show diversity in gender, ethnicity, and abilities and the back of the book has links to further resources, such as helplines, other books, and organizations - though the information is Canadian-oriented, given that the publisher is Canadian. Transphobia: Deal with it is a timely guide that should be in every library, and also makes a great starting point in the classroom for discussions on gender (the publisher has a free teaching guide online).

I was given a electronic ARC from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review, thus the formatting of the comics and sidebar information was off, making following along with the accompanying text difficult. At present only a print edition is available for purchase.

Rating: 3 Stars

Review: The Earth, My Butt, and Other Big Round Things by Carolyn Mackler

The Earth, My Butt, and Other Big Round Things by Carolyn Mackler

Published May 10, 2011 by Candlewick

Synopsis:
Fifteen-year-old Virginia Shreves has a larger-than-average body and a plus-size inferiority complex, especially when she compares herself to her slim, brilliant, picture-perfect family. But that’s before a shocking phone call — and a horrifying allegation — about her rugby-star brother changes everything. With irreverent humor and surprising gravity, Carolyn Mackler creates an endearingly blunt heroine who speaks to every teen who struggles with family expectations, and proves that the most impressive achievement is to be true to yourself.

Review:
Young adults may find this book, originally published in 2003 and before the advent of smartphones, technologically quaint (teens write emails and speak to each other over the phone!). However, the voice of Virginia Shreves is still contemporary and spot-on, as she struggles to reconcile her body size, her best friend's move across the country, a potential romantic interest, and the recognition that other people may not be who they appear to be. The book also touches upon issues of eating disorders, self harm, and date rape, some more lightly than others. While the pacing is uneven (in the middle of the book, I wanted to shout, "I get it! Some people around her treat her really poorly!"), ultimately the novel ends on an uplifting note, and teens should find the narrative relatable and realistic.

Rating: 4 Stars

Review: Yes Please by Amy Poehler

 

Yes Please by Amy Poehler

Published October 28, 2014 by Dey Street Books

Synopsis:
Do you want to get to know the woman we first came to love on Comedy Central's Upright Citizens Brigade? Do you want to spend some time with the lady who made you howl with laughter on Saturday Night Live, and in movies like Baby Mama, Blades of Glory, and They Came Together? Do you find yourself daydreaming about hanging out with the actor behind the brilliant Leslie Knope on Parks and Recreation? Did you wish you were in the audience at the last two Golden Globes ceremonies, so you could bask in the hilarity of Amy's one-liners?

If your answer to these questions is "Yes Please!" then you are in luck. In her first book, one of our most beloved funny folk delivers a smart, pointed, and ultimately inspirational read. Full of the comedic skill that makes us all love Amy, Yes Please is a rich and varied collection of stories, lists, poetry (Plastic Surgery Haiku, to be specific), photographs, mantras and advice. With chapters like "Treat Your Career Like a Bad Boyfriend," "Plain Girl Versus the Demon" and "The Robots Will Kill Us All" Yes Please will make you think as much as it will make you laugh. Honest, personal, real, and righteous, Yes Please is full of words to live by.

Review:
I like Amy Poehler. I like that she is unapologetic about her ambition and work ethic, and I appreciate that she acknowledges that competition between women can be healthy and push us to achieve more, but she also isn't about pitting women against each other. I appreciate her honesty, her vulnerability, and her willingness to admit mistakes and speak hard truths. There is a lot to like about this book—the highlights in my Kindle ended up filling 9 pages.

Some favorite highlights:

"So here we go, you and me. Because what else are we going to do? Say no? Say no to an opportunity that may be slightly out of our comfort zone? Quiet our voice because we are worried it is not perfect? I believe great people do things before they are ready."

"It’s called Yes Please because it is the constant struggle and often the right answer. Can we figure out what we want, ask for it, and stop talking? Yes please. Is being vulnerable a power position? Yes please. Am I allowed to take up space? Yes please. Would you like to be left alone? Yes please."

"That is the motto women should constantly repeat over and over again. Good for her! Not for me."

"This essay is about apologies, and I have learned an important part of apologizing is not making excuses." 

"Anger and embarrassment are often neighbors. Sometimes we get defensive about what we feel guilty about." 

"Let’s end by pointing out all the positive ways you can scare yourself and feel alive. You can tell someone you love them first. You can try to speak only the truth for a whole week."

"Either way, we both agreed that ambivalence is key to success. I will say it again. Ambivalence is key. You have to care about your work but not about the result. You have to care about how good you are and how good you feel, but not about how good people think you are or how good people think you look."

"Maya Angelou said, “People will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.” I’m proud that Mike Schur and I rejected the idea that creativity needs to come from chaos. I like how we ran our writers’ room and our set. People had a great time when they came to work on our show and that mattered to us."

"Your ability to navigate and tolerate change and its painful uncomfortableness directly correlates to your happiness and general well-being."

"Let me take a minute to say that I love bossy women. Some people hate the word, and I understand how “bossy” can seem like a shitty way to describe a woman with a determined point of view, but for me, a bossy woman is someone to search out and celebrate. A bossy woman is someone who cares and commits and is a natural leader."

Clearly, there are many great observations in this book, and many of her words are especially inspiring at this point in time with current political and social issues. Unfortunately, I found it hard to get engaged in her book. This was a book that I easily read a chapter at a time, instead of devouring like I usually do. Perhaps this is because I've never watched Parks & Recreation, and am unfamiliar with the Upright Citizens Brigade. It's hard to get really engaged when much of the narrative is about media that I'm unfamiliar with. In contrast, I recall Bossypants by Tina Fey to be easier to read, and laugh-out-loud funny, while Yes Please was more of a "yes, that is what the world is like!"

Rating: 3 Stars