I’m sorry to say that Meet Cute was my biggest reading disappointment of 2018 so far. It had everything I thought I wanted: how-we-met short stories from some of the best YA authors out there — including Julie freaking Murphy — and a recommendation from Rainbow Rowell. I assumed it would be a delight. And some of it was. I had never heard of Ibi Zoboi, but her story “Hourglass” was my favorite of the bunch. She told a story about Cherish, a tall African-American […]
“You can have anything, once you admit you deserve it.”
I am on a new medication that apparently causes insomnia. Unfortunately, I discovered this at 1:30 on Saturday morning, while at a friend’s house. I woke up, on a strange couch, and could not fall back asleep for anything. Since I wasn’t home, I couldn’t just turn on the TV or grab a book or whatever. So I went on Overdrive, downloaded this book, and read the whole thing. “For as long as I could remember, I had been apologizing for existing, for trying to […]
One voice with the burden of representing many in the mainstream YA landscape
I’m going to keep this simple: as much as it was the case with The Absolutely True Diary of a Part Time Indian I don’t have it in me to *critique* If I Was Your Girl on the same level as I would a more … normative … book. It’s is very simple, mostly very pleasant, with Amanda, a milquetoast, blank-slate protagonist who wants nothing more than to be liked, to fit in, to have friends, to be confident, to be safe, and to be […]