Dystopian – Peaceful Reader

Huge gap

I’ve been diligent over the past months to post once a week and I’ve failed on this through this first half of January. What began as, I assumed, a simple cold quickly became so much more and as December ended and the week to return to school approached I decided to get tested for Covid-19. I didn’t have the major symptoms of loss of smell or taste but I did have a cold that defied all my natural home remedies and proven in the past methods of alleviating a cold. It was a lot of deep symptoms and the worst was that we were homebound over the holidays and could not pinpoint how we picked up this terrible virus. Not only did I feel terrible physically but I was angry because we’ve been so careful all throughout this pandemic.

The only highlight was that we’d made it through the Christmas holiday feeling good. It doesn’t matter that I spent New Year’s Eve on the sofa in my pajamas with a box of tissues near me instead of a glass of champagne. I did have an extra week off from school because of how I felt plus my positive Covid test. I went back to school last week and made it through the week with fairly flying colors. I did crash once I made it home but that’s okay. I wish I could say I feel great but that’s not the case; I’m still sneezing, coughing and tired. My husband shared the same symptoms with me and he still feels exhausted. Somehow our Groovy Girl did not get sick and really did a fantastic job of taking care of us. She is going to make an amazing healthcare professional when she finishes school. I felt really blessed that she was still home for her winter break. We all know (most) husbands are not great caregivers and mine was busy being sick himself. It was good to have someone else here who has a gentle hand and a thoughtful heart. She’ll be gone after next week and I hope by that time I feel 100%.

While I’ve been sick I’ve read a few books of course and streamed a little. After watching all of Bridgerton while I was curled up in bed I set a goal to get caught up on The Handmaid’s Tale. I’d lost the thread after a few violent and too close for comfort episodes so I shelved it for quite awhile but recent events got me fired up and I am now finished with season 2 and ready for season 3. With a lot more laughter I finished up Schitt’s Creek and will go back at some point and rewatch all of this series. Laughing out loud is a perfect way to recuperate or stay sane through a pandemic! We also enjoyed the adaptation of our favorite author Chris Bohjalian’s The Flight Attendant on HBO.

Right now I’m reading Deathless Divide, the second in Justina Ireland’s Dread Nation series and Caste by Isabel Wilkerson. I would love to see Dread Nation and Children of Blood and Bone turned into movies.

I’m anxiously awaiting Inauguration Day because I’m very excited for Dems to be in the WH but most importantly for Kamala Harris to be sworn in as our very first female VP. I’m anxious for our country, for the protests but I have to hope for the best. Welcome to 2021.

June book reviews for YOU (happy reading)

I’ve only read three books this month. They were really good books though. Technically I finished four but the Bill Browder book, The Red Notice, was a crossover from May. I’ll still tell you about it though.

1. The Red Notice; a true story of high finance, murder and one man’s fight for justice by Bill Browder (2015): Born into a communist-leaning family Browder grows up seeing what it is like to rebel against the norm but to rebel even further Browder chose a career path profession just to annoy his dad; he picks commerce. The first half of the book Browder tells his family story and how he rose to be the first major investor of Western money into Russia and the second half of the book deals with the downfall of this great plan and the imprisonment and eventual death of his friend and lawyer, Sergei Magnitsky. I enjoyed this memoir, even though I thought Browder wasn’t the greatest story teller. Reading this book gave me a clear mindset on why Putin felt the need to tangle himself into U.S. elections and will continue to torment and push buttons just because he’s found a way.

2. Eragon by Christopher Paolini (2003): Tristan read this years ago and devoured the series. I’ve always wanted to read it but who knows why? I didn’t pick it up until this summer after 2 teachers raved about it to me after a teacher meeting. They were shocked that I hadn’t read it; That was the push I needed so I brought it home that very last week of school. I loved it. I dig fantasy and this book was no exception. Eragon, Brom, Saphira, Murtagh and Arya were all interesting characters and I look forward to reading the next two in the series. Even though Paolini was young when he wrote this I think it stands the test of time.

3. The Girl who drank from the moon by Kelly Barnhill (2016): I loved this fairy tale {and that gorgeous cover art} in which Xan and Luna save themselves and change the world together. Centuries ago a world was created by evil people and the unwitting townsfolk believed the stories that were told to them about an evil witch who needs a sacrificial baby each year so as not to destroy the town. Xan is this witch but she rescues the babies and takes them to new families because she thinks they’ve been abandoned. And so it goes for many years until one family fights back and one mother doesn’t give up hope. A good reminder, from a fairy tale world, to not believe all that you are told! Read more great things about this book at NYT, EW, and the Washington Post.

4. American War by Omar El Akkad (2017): I read a NYT article about great new dystopian books and this one was at the top of the list. Like fantasy, I’m a big fan of the altered worlds created in good dystopian novels. This one lacks the gruesome gore of The Hunger Games but certainly lays out how a fight over energy and ravaged ecosystems could separate the North from the South in a way that causes longterm war within our own border. Read other great reviews here on NPR, SF Chronicle, and the Washington Post. I’m not quite finished with this one yet and plan to finish today.

In Madison I did purchase several books and I have stack of books to read for school. What are you reading this summer?

29 days of book love…

Just like participating in Nano (National Novel Writing) writing every day during February has been challenging. I love books can easily come up with 10 books I love on the spot but my goal was to write about books I haven’t blogged about already (at least recently) and to do it EVERY day. My days are busy. School, Groovy Girl, busy husband,…and I make food from scratch just about every day.

I have an amazing author/twitter friend (@joellewrites) that I met after reading her book Restoring Harmony a few years ago. She lives in Canada now but did live here and left after Bush took office-you remember all those voices chiming in that they would move after he took office and started a war after 9/11. Well she actually did it. This fact got my attention and I applaud her for standing up for her beliefs.

Restoring Harmony is dystopian-still very hot after The Hunger Games trilogy brought the whole genre to the forefront. What I like about this story is that it’s more real but without so much bloodshed.

A dystopia (from the Greek δυσ- and τόπος, alternatively, cacotopia, kakotopia, or simply anti-utopia) is a community or society that is undesirable or frightening.

Molly’s family grows their own food and survives on an isolated farming island in Canada but when her mother receives word that her grandmother has suffered a stroke back in the states Molly is the one who needs to cross back into the U.S. to help her grandparents to safety. An economic collapse has crippled the U.S. and oil is almost gone, poverty, hunger and rampant crime have taken over. Molly leaves the only world she knows and uses her smarts to help her family to safety. The story is exciting and eye-opening-could this world be part of our own future? Read Joelle Anthony’s Restoring Harmony and see. This is perfect for late elementary-middle school students.

Interesting YA titles

I finished both of these in September and what ties them together is love and the power of acceptance; something most humans desire. One uses that power and the other makes it into a curable disease.

The List by Siobhan Vivian:

Filled with the craziness of high school it brought back memories of how BAD it can be. I thought it said a lot though for all that high school student’s experience-being popular is weird and being unpopular is just as weird. If only all high school students could learn to be themselves; a very difficult concept because most teens have yet to truly find themselves as it often takes years to figure it all out.

Mount Washington H.S. has this tradition of a published list plastered all over the walls right before homecoming. The list shares the prettiest and the ugliest female student in each class. At any level it is difficult to appear on either side of the list; yet both sides display negative behavior because they are on the list.

Siobhan Vivian relays the stories of all eight young women affected by the list and we learn just how being a member of this small group changes them. In order to ignore the list you’d have to be a very mighty girl! I was not a brave soul in high school and would have found it heart-breaking to be even mentioned. Even the young women chosen for the pretties side struggle with how to keep up with the image they think every one expects. My first thoughts were that the list must be written by a guy or a group of guys. The ending left me shaking my head and praying for a second women’s movement!

A quote:

She lifts her chin a few degrees. ‘I’ve decided not to take a shower for a whole week.’

‘For real?’

‘Yup,’ she says, making the p pop. ‘I’m not showering, I’m not brushing my teeth, putting on deodorant, anything. I’m wearing these same clothes, not just the shirt, but the jeans, the socks, the underwear, the bra. My last shower was on Sunday night, before I went over to your house.’ She folds her arms. ‘I won’t participate in any kind of hygiene until Saturday night.’ It feels good to say her plan out loud. Now there can be no backing out.

‘What’s on Saturday night?’

‘The homecoming dance.’ It sounds so utterly ridiculous, but she keeps a straight face. ‘I’m going as smelly and disgusting as I can possibly make myself, dressed in these clothes.’

Milo laughs and laughs, but when Sarah doesn’t join, he stops. “Wait. You’re not serious.’

‘I am.’

‘Why are you letting that stupid list get to you? You hate the girls at this school, obviously for good reason. And now you want to show up at their dumb dance? This isn’t like you at all.’ (101)

Even the young women chosen for the pretties side struggle with how to keep up with the image they think every one expects. The ending left me baffled and praying for a second women’s movement!

Delirium by Lauren Oliver (2011):

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This is a glorious look at a future world where love has been deemed a disease. Can you imagine? They make a good case for why love could be perceived as a sickness. Lena is an orphan living in her aunt’s household waiting for her treatment that will prevent her from getting the disease. Many good plans fail to work out though and Lena meets someone that makes her feel all the effects of love which confuses her. Does she feel this way because she is now sick or are the people protecting her lying to her? As love often does her life becomes complicated as she balances her quiet life at home with her new desire to break the rules and see Alex as much as she can.

I enjoyed the relationship between Lena and her best friend Hana. They are good to each other but have a few struggles and conflicts throughout the story but in the end they find they can count on each other.

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I was named after Mary Magdalene, who was nearly killed from love: “So infected with deliria and in violation of the pacts of society, she fell in love with men who would not have her or could not keep her.” (Book of Lamentations, Mary 13:1).

We learned all about it in Biblical Science. First there was John, then Matthew, then Jeremiah and Peter and Judas, and many other nameless men in-between.

Her last love, they say, was the greatest: a man named Joseph, a bachelor all of his life, who found her on the street, bruised and broken and half-crazy from deliria. There’s some debate about what kind of man Joseph was-whether he was righteous or not, whether he ever succumbed to the disease-but in any case, he took good care of her. He nursed her to health and tried to bring her peace. (87-88)

I enjoyed how Oliver twisted our own biblical stories to create and re-enforce this new history and makes a convincing argument against love.

Both books were borrowed from my local library.

I’m reading Maggie’s Stiefvater’s sequel to The Raven Boys, The Dream Thieves, and love it. I downloaded it to my kindle to encourage myself to finish a book on this device. I love using it as a mini-computer and as a game device but have yet to finish a book on it. Dream Thieves will be my first and I’m proud to say I’m half way through or in Kindle-speak 48%.

Museum of Thieves (great little chapter book)

I bought this one awhile ago at the Fall Scholastic Book Fair and catalogued (one of the talents I have as I have a Library Science degree) it into the library. I read a few pages and knew it was going to be good. Then I set it down and went about my business.

I picked it back up two years later. None of the kiddos were reading it so I had to investigate further and I loved it. I’m ready for the second one to come around, which upon investigation is out and so is the 3rd one! This is the bonus of reading books before you recommend them; this morning I had a student come in looking for something “mysterious”-I handed her this one and told her to give it a try.

Synopsis:

Welcome to the tyrannical city of Jewel, where impatience is a sin and boldness is crime. Goldie Roth has lived in Jewel all her life. Like every child in the city, she wears a silver guardchain and is forced to obey the dreaded Blessed Guardians. She has never done anything by herself and won’t be allowed out on the streets unchained until her Separation Day.

When Separation Day is cancelled, Goldie, who has always been both impatient and bold, runs away, risking not only her own life but also the lives of those she has left behind. In the chaos that follows, she is lured to the mysterious Museum of Dunt, where she meets the boy Toadspit and discovers terrible secrets. {back cover}

I have post-it notes littered throughout the book of quotes I just couldn’t resist:

But she (Olga Ciavolga) was smiling when she turned back to Goldie. “But there are some things, child, that you should steal, if you have enough love and courage in your heart. You must snatch freedom from the hands of the tyrant. You must spirit away innocent lives before they are destroyed. You must hide secret and sacred places.” {122-123}

There are different sorts of fear, she (Goldie) realized that now. There was the fear of having a musket held to your head, or having black oily water try to snatch you into its depths. There was nothing easy about that fear. It made your heart nearly tear itself out of your chest, and weakened the long bones in your legs so that you could barely stand. It made you want to vomit with fright.
But there was another sort of fear, the fear that you would never be allowed to be who you really were. The fear that you true self would have to stay squashed up, like a caged bird, for the rest of your life. That fear was worse than any soldier. {179}

and one more…

“The museum should never have become so full of wild and dangerous things,” said Sinew. “But the people of Jewel are like Guardian Hope, with her planks and hammers. They tried to nail life down. they wanted to be completely safe and happy at all times. The trouble is, the world just isn’t like that. You can’t have high mountains without deep valleys. You can’t have great happiness without great sadness. The world is never still. It moves from one thing to another, back and forth, back and forth, like a butterfly opening and closing it’s wings.” {197}

Goldie is a brave young girl who listens to her inner voice which takes her places she’d have never thought to venture otherwise. Her and Toadspit try to think through how to solve the problems they face. They are surrounded by interesting adults who guide them. What’s not to love??

Lian Tanner’s Website-with games for the museum!
Random House fun website for this series.

Happy Friday!