My first CBR last year was eye-opening, to say the least. I paid more attention to my reading than I have since college, and I also paid fresh attention to my book choices after being confronted by the ugly truth of my blindspot for women authors. And though not every book was a winner, I did fall in love with a number of books and authors new to me, including Becky Chambers and her delightful The Long Way to a Small Angry Planet, one of […]
It’s So Boyish and Messy I Want to Eat It
Y’all, this book. As soon as I got about a quarter done, I immediately hopped on the CBR Book Chat facebook page and commanded you all to read it. I hope some of you listened (*stern look*) because this book is adorable and sweet and funny and hits you right in the feels. I’ve been following Federle on twitter for awhile (and you should also do that) and I’m aware he’s written some middle-grade books, but this was his first YA novel. Last week was […]
Lovely writing and fresh story, but somehow came up short for me
This is a moving book and certainly worth reading, but I had such high hopes after the first few chapters and ended up feeling a little disappointed that the amazingness didn’t quite carry through to the end. This is a coming of age story of a Nigerian girl, Ijeoma, set in Nigeria in the late 1960s. Ijeoma’s world is disrupted when her beloved father is killed in a civil war (the Biafran War) and her mother sends her away to live with a teacher’s family while […]
The Things We Do For Love
Did you know that Iran has the second-highest number of sexual reassignment surgeries done in the world? They do more per year than anywhere else, with the exception of Thailand. It can even be subsidized by the government. This really did kind of floor me. You think Iran, you think very old-world religious, especially when it comes to things like sexuality. It turns out, though, they consider a person being born into the wrong body a very serious medical condition that should be corrected as […]