These are the books I read in March 2021 with a rating reflecting my opinion on them. I am leaving books not available in English out for your convenience. At the bottom, I will be sharing some recommendations that fall under the category fiction, non-fiction, or non-fiction political. These recommendations are books I have not read myself, so proceed with caution as I cannot speak to their actual quality.
Read
The Incredible Nellie Bly by Luciana Cimino & Sergio Algozzino
I am very interested in Nellie Bly, so when I saw this graphic novel focused on her I was immediately drawn in. The narrative framing of a fictional student in 1921 interviewing Nellie was interesting, but came across seemed stiff and unrealistic, taking away from Nellie’s story rather than adding to it. Nellie Bly, most famous for her journey around the world in 72 days and being a bold investigative journalist, is a figure who definitely deserves books and movies to inspire and educate the public. While a graphic novel like this one has the potential to reach a wide spectrum of people, the unspectacular art style, awkward storytelling and poor digital copy quality prevented me from really loving it, although it does offer a fun introduction to those unfamiliar with Nellie Bly.
Please Come Off-Book by Kevin Kantor
This is a vivid, powerful, and very queer collection of poetry and I loved every second of it. The language used is stunning, the social critique biting, and the theater woven into everything absolutely lovely. I bookmarked more than a dozen poems that I especially loved, and look forward to buying a physical copy to shove into all my friends and family’s faces! Not only is it accessible even for those just starting out to explore poetry, but it’s short and concise work makes it the perfect collection to read on the go.
Save It for Later by Nate Powell
This is an illustrated essay collection focused on the author’s experience of the current political and societal events especially through the eyes of his children. I loved the art in this, very expressive and bold! As with any collection there were essays that connected more with me than others, but I appreciated how unafraid the author is in tackling some big issues with his kids throughout. For those who seek a topical yet accessible thought-provoking book, this graphic novel definitely delivers! Out April 6th 2021!
Wonders of the Invisible World by Christopher Barzak
This book has a very dream-like atmosphere, set mostly in a small town in Ohio, and interwoven with magic and history. The main character, Aidan, has to solve not only the reason behind his missing childhood memories, provoked by an old friend, but also untangle the long hidden mysteries of his family. At times it went a bit slow, but the soft and calm, yet vaguely threatening feeling throughout largely made up for it. While the central romance wasn’t the most fleshed out, I loved how casual is was. A book a bit like a fairy-tale!
I Wish You All The Best by Mason Deaver
This is a true mix of joy and pain, a story centered around a nonbinary queer main character and their journey after being kicked out by their parents, trying to cope with the trauma, new family dynamics, new school, and new friends. I really loved how thoughtful this book approached gender identity, sexuality, the connection between the two, anxiety, panic attacks, and mental health struggles in general. I loved Ben as a character as well evolving relationship between them and their sister Hannah and brother-in-law Thomas. A lot of what is portrayed felt very realistic to me. This is a unique and bold story that I am more than glad to see out in the world.
Radio Silence by Alice Oseman
Oh my gosh, I loved loved loved this book! It’s thoughtful, atmospheric, emotional, and filled with diverse queer characters! I can barely formulate how I feel about it, but I’ll try. Frances is a great narrator and her inner conflicts were very gripping. Her as well as many of the other characters are proof that things are not as they seem from the outside. The emotional abuse depicted was some of the most impactful I have ever read and I loved the complicated and multifaceted relationships throughout. In many ways this book is all I love about Alice Oseman’s writing. Going in without much idea of the plot is definitely the best way to enjoy this book. Just a delight!
How to Love the World: Poems of Gratitude and Hope edited by James Crews
This is a thoughtful collection of poetry that I quite enjoyed diving into. There is a lot of variety which necessarily translates into some poems more suiting my tastes than others. What didn’t really work for me was the framework and the thematic composition. A lot of these poems were a bit too sad to fit the hope and gratitude theme of this collection. Additionally there are poems about every season with only loose distinctions which doesn’t lend itself to reading straight through this book. Still, there are some incredible poems in here, including one by recent inaugural poet Amanda Gorman which I adored. If you seek to take a few minutes away from the world and indulge in some poetry, this may be the collection for you!
An Absolutely Remarkable Thing by Hank Green
Aa, I really loved this book! It’s got all the things I love: a great narrative voice, diverse characters, an engaging plot, humor, and inclusion of other media. The sci-fi elements were very cool and interesting to follow, and the human ones were super fascinating as well. The thoughtful exploration of fame and internet culture in particular were incredible, no wonder coming from this author. Not only as someone who likes Hank Green’s online content but as a book lover, this novel was a great joy and I can’t wait to read the sequel!
Memoirs of an Imaginary Friend by Skylar Kergil
The concept of this novel is what drew me in, a narrator who is an imaginary friend? Such a cool idea! Sadly the execution was disappointing. Budo, the main character, was really plain and the mechanics of the world inconsistent and poorly explained. The side characters were pretty unremarkable as well. I really didn’t love the main villain and her motivations, as they were unoriginal. Something felt a bit off on some ends, even as I found the plot pretty compelling to follow. Max, Budo’s child, seems to be coded as autistic, although he is never officially referred to as such. It felt a bit weird to have the book mention a diagnosis and the parents lamenting that their son ‘wasn’t normal’, but never show much actually being done to assist Max in the world or to be understanding of him. It felt a bit too much like Max was used as a plot device for having an imaginary friend at that age. I don’t know what to really think of this novel, but I definitely feel that the cool plot idea was underutilized.
Leah on the Offbeat by Becky Albertalli
A sweet, funny coming-of-age sapphic love story? Yes please! I really enjoyed the snarky yet wholesome vibe this whole book had, chock full with pop culture and theater references, and all the good tropes. As a sequel you see all the great characters from the first book and it’s amazing to see everyone settle into themselves. A lot of the issues discussed and portrayed were really well done, and I appreciated the big and small representation throughout. A few times the tropes were a bit too overdone and some things were not explored as much as I wanted to, but overall a fun and engaging read!
Percy Jackson and the Battle of the Labyrinth by Rick Riordan
Another gripping adventure in this universe! I love the evolving character relationships and the continuing intrigue, the excellent foreshadowing and questions being asked. I especially love the intermingling between the ‘normal’ world and the mythical world, which is especially tight in this part. It did drag on a bit, especially in the early sections in the labyrinth, but still a great read!
Paul Robeson: No One Can Silence Me by Martin Duberman
Having never heard about Paul Robeson, I was intrigued by this book’s vivid cover and promising title. What I received was a fascinating and accessible biography about one of the most prominent black actors, singers, and activists of the early 20th century, a complex, persecuted, and resilient man. The writing style of this book is very lively and easy to grasp, if at times a little too explanatory on concepts that should be familiar even to a young adult audience. While Robeson and various other characters who appear are not always sympathetic or relatable, great pains were taken to present a complete and overall fitting overview of the circumstances surrounding not only Robeson’s life in particular, but the general political and societal climate of the times. This is a great books for readers who seek to gain a broader understanding of the civil rights movement and general fight for black equality in the early to mid 20th century as well as offering a new personal perspective.
What’s Up, Beanie?: Acutely Relatable Comics by Alina Tysoe
This is a very cute collection of comics. Ranging from funny to relatable to just plain adorable, this book is sure to bring joy into the hearts of readers. The structure is a neat addition, but fans of the creator should know that quite a few old comics are included. As a fan myself I really enjoyed reading this book and am thrilled that it is being published. Out August 3rd 2021!
Sorrowland by Rivers Solomon
Vern is a young woman who escapes a mysterious commune, giving birth to twins, and trying to find out the truth of her upbringing as well as her strange physical changes. This is a really innovative story blending a cult with anti-colonialism and almost supernatural elements. While the concept was very interesting and I appreciated the extremely diverse cast, the graphic violence and sex as well as the distance I felt from most characters made it difficult to truly enjoy this novel. Part of it is certainly due to my own sensibilities, but the lack of emotional insight, the somewhat confusingly described supernatural/superhuman elements, and the slightly unsatisfactory ending expanded beyond that. Readers should be aware that this book includes explicit sex scenes, violence, and several suicides. Definitely an experimental and bold work, just not particularly for me. This book will be published May 4th 2021!
Rule of Threes by Marcy Campbell
Maggie has just started middle school and things are already a little weird when she not only finds out she has a half brother but that he’ll live with her family for a while. This kicks off a period of great change in her life, but over time she leans to embrace the changes as well as truly forming a bond with her new brother. This was a really accessible read and I loved the characters relationships, especially Maggie and her new brother Tony. The issues and feelings discussed in this book were very relatable for me and perfect for the age the characters are supposed to be. The heavy focus on design was really cool and unique, offering a fun element to the book. While this is a rather simplistic story, it does feel appropriate for a middle grade book. A thoughtful and engaging read especially for kids 10-13, out May 11th 2021!
One by Sarah Crossan
Grace and Tippi are 16, have a complicated family life, and are starting to go to public high school after a lifetime of at-home tutoring because they are conjoined twins. What follows is a story filled with a lot of tragedy mixed with moments of heart and joy. The writing style was incredibly accessible and I really enjoyed it. Plot-wise this wasn’t the strongest, with some pacing issues and a lot of topics being brought up, not all of which get the time and care they deserve. This is definitely an interesting read that made me think, but the most it contributed is making me want to read more books written in verse.
White All Around by Wilfrid Lupano & Stéphane Fert
This is an absolutely stunning graphic novel centered around a boarding school in 1832 who starts educating black girls, only to be met with fierce resistance and violence. The real life history interwoven into this story was very interesting and the book is as well, if a bit dry at points. The true standout however is the incredibly beautiful art, really reflecting nature, animals, clothes, architecture, and people in the most vibrant fashion. A unique achievement!
V is for Virgin by Kelly Oram
The idea of this book, a main character who takes the branding as a virgin and takes a stand for sexual freedom of all kinds, was really interesting, but the execution fell incredibly flat for me. The characters were very hard to understand or relate to, most were unsympathetic and all over the place. Having fame, social media, and virginity as topics of this book was really interesting, but basically everything else in this book was grating and honestly annoying. I enjoyed Cinder & Ella by this author a lot more than V is for Virgin.
The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas
Starr is a 16-year-old black girl who goes to a largely white private school outside of her neighborhood. Her two lives irreversibly intersect when her friend Khalil is shot by a police officer and she is the only witness. A lot of heavy topics are discussed in this book, primarily police brutality and explicit and implicit racism. I appreciated that aspect of the book as well as the centering of black narratives and history. But I must say that I found a lot of sections very boring, from the food to the parties to some conversations. It just felt like it dragged on in places where it really didn’t need to dwell. Further I struggled to connect with a lot of characters in this book, finding the info-dumping and a lot of actions a little stilted. Having read the German translation further negatively impacted my experience since the mixed in English just felt really awkward a lot of the time. While mixing languages in conversations is very common, it’s just different in written texts. Still, an interesting and important read.
Percy Jackson and the Last Olympian by Rick Riordan
This is such an epic conclusion to this series! I loved the action and grand battles mixed with a lot of human moments. Seeing lose ends tied up that have been around for several books as well as the real weight of the war was really gratifying. Percy bathing in the river Styx as well as all the scenes explaining Luke’s past were so vivid and incredibly well done, I can’t wait to read the series again one day to see the hints in previous books and enjoy the story in a whole new way. Excited to read more books by Rick Riordan, already ordered two new ones!
Before We Were Blue by E.J. Schwartz
This is by no means an easy read. Told as a dual narrative by Shoshana and Rowan, two teenagers in a treatment center for girls with eating disorders, this emotional and gripping story focuses on what it means to live with an eating disorder in modern times. Shoshana is a star cheerleader who is a part of a reality show. A breakdown lead her to the facility, but her issues are much more wide-reaching than that. From a borderline abusive coach to social isolation to a dysfunctional family, it is impossible not to feel for her. A lot of the scenes made me angry and feel secondhand anxiety. Rowan on the other hand also has a dysfunctional family and experienced a lot of trauma. She is an abrasive and challenging personality, so much so that it made it difficult for me to empathize with her. Her and Shoshana’s relationship was a mix of genuine and honesty toxic. Their co-dependency went beyond anything healthy for about half of the book. I most appreciated the insight into the day-to-day life at the center, the side characters, and the complexity of the issues depicted. This book will be released September 14th 2021!
The Brief Wonderous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Díaz
This sprawling narrative centered around one Dominican-American Family is blunt, emotional, at times cruel, and undeniably compelling. Over almost four generations, some living in the Dominican Republic and some in the United States, the reader follows vibrant and painfully human characters who often make questionable decisions. Infused into all of this is a lot of DR history, which I found to be very illuminating. One cannot deny however that there are major downsides to this book. People who do not understand much Spanish miss out on a lot, and there is a truly intense amount of swearing. Also a gratuitous and absolutely unnecessary amount of slurs. Seriously uncomfortable. Not only is the book itself undermined by this fact, but the audio version as well. Definitely an adventure, if a nowhere near perfect one.
American Wife by Curtis Sittenfeld
Read for VC book club, this book promises a fictionalized story of a First Lady modeled after Laura Bush. What it delivered was a long-winded, often trite vaguely historical novel that only spends the last 130 pages with the husband being in any political office. Almost all characters are deeply unsympathetic and the struggles of wealthy people depicted are unrelatable at best and outright offensive at worst. Especially uncomfortable are the sex scenes throughout. Alice Blackwell is written in a way that feels like she was written by a man, in general she did not seem authentic or particularly interesting. A few story threads were compelling, but most of this book was unsatisfactory.
The Seeing Stone by Tony DiTerlizzi & Holly Black
Another fun entry in the series. Love the focus on animals, even if there isn’t that much going on.
Nick & Norah’s Infinite Playlist by Rachel Cohn & David Levithan
A chance meeting between Nick, band member trying to get over his ex-girlfriend, and Norah, slightly adrift daughter of a music producer still mourning her on-off ex-boyfriend, develops into an unforgettable night. The focus on music and the short time period this book is set in are pretty fun and I appreciated the queer side characters. But beyond that this story is a bit basic and definitely hasn’t aged that well. Some fun lines and elements but I found a good bit of it trite and boring. Haven’t watched the movie, but definitely want to see it and compare the two!
Doctor Who: 11 Doctors, 11 Stories by various authors
This collection of Doctor Who stories is just plain fun! Each Doctor gets an adventure, some thoughtful, some funny, all interesting. While the short format (most stories are around 40-50 pages long) does mean that there isn’t much room for depth or a lot of character development, this collection definitely captures the magic of the tv show.
Recommendations
Fiction
The Unlikely Escape of Uriah Heep by Katie Henry
“There are so many ways the world could end. There could be a fire. A catastrophic flood. A super eruption that spews lakes of lava. Ellis Kimball has made note of all possible scenarios, and she is prepared for each one. What she doesn’t expect is meeting Hannah Marks in her therapist’s waiting room. Hannah calls their meeting fate. After all, Ellis is scared about the end of the world; Hannah knows when it’s going to happen.”
Severance by Ling Ma
“Candace Chen, a millennial drone self-sequestered in a Manhattan office tower, is devoted to routine. So she barely notices when a plague of biblical proportions sweeps New York. Then Shen Fever spreads. Families flee. Companies halt operations. The subways squeak to a halt. Soon entirely alone, still unfevered, she photographs the eerie, abandoned city as the anonymous blogger NY Ghost.
Candace won’t be able to make it on her own forever, though. Enter a group of survivors, led by the power-hungry IT tech Bob. They’re traveling to a place called the Facility, where, Bob promises, they will have everything they need to start society anew. But Candace is carrying a secret she knows Bob will exploit. Should she escape from her rescuers?”
Political
Broke in America: Seeing, Understanding, and Ending U.S. Poverty by Joanne Samuel Goldblum and Colleen Shaddox
“Water. Food. Housing. The most basic and crucial needs for survival, yet 40 percent of people in the United States don’t have the resources to get them. With key policy changes, we could eradicate poverty in this country within our lifetime—but we need to get started now.”
Dark Money: The Hidden History of the Billionaires Behind the Rise of the Radical Right by Jane Mayer
“Why is America living in an age of profound economic inequality? Why, despite the desperate need to address climate change, have even modest environmental efforts been defeated again and again? Why have protections for employees been decimated? Why do hedge-fund billionaires pay a far lower tax rate than middle-class workers?
The conventional answer is that a popular uprising against “big government” led to the ascendancy of a broad-based conservative movement. But as Jane Mayer shows in this powerful, meticulously reported history, a network of exceedingly wealthy people with extreme libertarian views bankrolled a systematic, step-by-step plan to fundamentally alter the American political system.”
Nonfiction
Susan, Linda, Nina & Cokie: The Extraordinary Story of the Founding Mothers of NPR by Lisa Napoli
“In the years after the Civil Rights Act of 1964, women in the workplace still found themselves relegated to secretarial positions or locked out of jobs entirely. This was especially true in the news business, a backwater of male chauvinism where a woman might be lucky to get a foothold on the “women’s pages.” But when a pioneering nonprofit called National Public Radio came along in the 1970s, and the door to serious journalism opened a crack, four remarkable women came along and blew it off the hinges.”
After: A Doctor Explores What Near-Death Experiences Reveal About Life and Beyond by Bruce Greyson
“The world’s leading expert on near-death experiences reveals his journey toward rethinking the nature of death, life, and the continuity of consciousness.
Cases of remarkable experiences on the threshold of death have been reported since ancient times, and are described today by 10% of people whose hearts stop. The medical world has generally ignored these “near-death experiences,” dismissing them as “tricks of the brain” or wishful thinking. But after his patients started describing events that he could not just sweep under the rug, Dr. Bruce Greyson began to investigate.
As a physician without a religious belief system, he approached near-death experiences from a scientific perspective. In After, he shares the transformative lessons he has learned over four decades of research.”
The Congressional Report 
OOH I was looking for new books to read this Spring Season. My readers will thank you!! https://dottiedottm.wordpress.com
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