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When Elephants Fly Was Good, But I Could Have Gotten More

By Brookelorren on Leave a Comment

I recently received a copy of When Elephants Fly, by Nancy Richardson Fischer.  I forgot that I had entered a sweepstakes to win it, and I was pretty excited to see it in my mailbox.  It is a wonderful story about a girl, Lily, whose mother had schizophrenia and tried to kill her.  She just turned 18 and thinks that if she just keeps a stress-free life between now and the time she’s 30, then she’ll be able to prevent getting it herself.

Unfortunately, life doesn’t quite work out that way.  Living a life without stress means that you also miss out on a lot of good things in life.  She’s reluctant to apply for any college other than her local community college (her therapist convinces her to apply for a good college anyway, and she decides to apply to the best college out there, USC).  She had been reluctant to apply for the internship at the local newspaper as well, but as our story begins, she had already been accepted and is working there.

At the internship, Lily gets to write little pieces for her local newspaper on local interest events, like the new baby calf being born at the zoo.  Unfortunately, after the baby calf is born, its mother rejects the calf and tries to kill it, which brings up her own memory of when her mother tried to kill her.  This triggers a series of events that changes Lily’s life forever, as she tries to save the baby elephant.  It brings more excitement into her life for sure, but also causes the risk of mental illness to increase.

I thought this book was pretty good.  I really enjoyed Lily’s friendship with her best friend, Sawyer, which unfortunately becomes strained during this book.  Sawyer is going through his own problems with detached parents, and Lily doesn’t see that for a while because of her own problems.  I would have liked to have seen more of their friendship though.

Lily meets a guy in this book that she develops a relationship with, but I don’t particularly feel it all that much.  Maybe if they would have spent more time together, I would have shipped them more, but as written, they were just okay together.  This part of the book could have gotten a little more attention.

The ending of the book leaves a lot unresolved.  Does Lily get into USC?  Does she develop schizophrenia?  What happens to her friend?  What happens to her and her new boyfriend?  What happens to the baby elephant?

Overall, I thought When Elephants Fly was good.  The subject matter is really important; there are so many people these days dealing with mental issues, so this book will be helpful for a lot of people.  The story was good, the characters were interesting, and the friendship in this book was represented well.  It goes on sale on September 4th, but you can pre-order it now.

Strange the Dreamer is Like a Beautiful Dream

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Strange the Dreamer CoverJust recently I finished reading Strange the Dreamer, by Laini Taylor.  Her writing has been described as beautiful prose.  If you’re unfamiliar with her writing, you’ll just have to read her works to see it.  I didn’t want to put down this book, and I’m looking forward to reading the second half of this duology, Muse of Nightmares, later on this year.

Lazlo Strange is an orphan.  He was originally raised in a monastery, but he is drawn to stories.  When he gets the opportunity to deliver books to the library, he decides not to leave.  He becomes an apprentice librarian, reading books in his spare time.  With his head in a book and his mind in a fairy tale all the time, he becomes known as Strange the Dreamer.  Above all other stories, he is fascinated by the story of a city called Weep.  Or at least, that’s what everybody calls it now.  Lazlo knows that it had another name… once.  He felt it disappearing from his mind.

Lazlo would have continued this life indefinitely, living out his life as a lowly librarian, until fate intervened.  He decides to take a chance and do something bold, which is a move that will change his life forever.

In the city of Weep, there is a girl called Sarai.  She lives with a few other people, isolated from the rest of the world.  Until the day that she finds herself in Lazlo’s dreams.  This is the beginning of an unlikely romance.

Lazlo and Sarai are from two different worlds that don’t understand each other.  Will their relationship ever evolve from anything outside of dreams?  You’ll have to read the story to find out.

The characters in this story are outstanding.  Lazlo is not particularly handsome on the outside, but he’s an interesting character that more than one avid reader will probably be able to identify with.  In contrast to Lazlo’s rough exterior and beautiful insides, the people that are beautiful on the outside aren’t always the most beautiful people on the inside.  Our other main protagonist, Sarai, is also a wonderfully complex character, who has changed over time as she gains understanding about the people around her.

Like the prose of this story, the world of this story is also beautiful.  Ms. Taylor’s writing is wonderfully descriptive, which makes the deserts and cities and library come alive.  Even though this world contains creatures and magic not present in our own world, it’s not hard to imagine.

Strange the Dreamer seems to have underlying themes to it.  Revenge and hate is not the answer.  Good people sometimes do bad things.  Often, both sides of a conflict have good reasons to have grievances against the other, but if we let hatred simmer forever, it hurts everyone.  If those aren’t messages that we need more than ever, I don’t know what are.

If you’re looking for a beautiful story in an imaginative world that you won’t want to put down, consider getting this book.

George Whitefield: Evangelist for God and Empire Paints a Realistic Portrait

By Brookelorren on 2 Comments

I recently was given a copy of George Whitefield: Evangelist for God and Empire, written by Peter Y. Choi.  Like a lot of people who know a lot about the history of the American colonies or of religious history, I knew who George Whitefield (pronounce WIT-field) was.  Whitefield is often portrayed as a preacher who played a huge part in the Great Awakening.  He’s often painted as a saint.  This book seems to paint a more balanced portrait of the preacher.

George Whitefield:  Evangelist for God and Empire tells of the life of Whitefield, not just as a preacher, but as someone who also was a flawed individual, like all of us.  Yes, he preached to the masses during the Great Awakening, but he also owned slaves, had questionable practices with regards to his orphanage, tried to found a college, and involved himself in politics during the War of 1812.

Even though I knew some things about Whitefield before reading this book, there was a lot more to this book that I didn’t know.  Although a lot of things in this book (looking from a 21st century perspective) were not good, like pushing for slavery in Georgia, it was good to learn about these other aspects of his life as well.

The book was a fairly scholarly book, so it wasn’t one that I could read straight through.  It wasn’t a book that I couldn’t put down, and I did read a few other books while I was working on this one, but the information in this book was interesting.  The book is worth reading if you want to learn more about this preacher.

I realize that there have been several non-YA book reviews over the last week and a half, and unfortunately, that’s just how it worked out… I really couldn’t move the dates of my reviews because I wanted the ARCs to get out in a timely manner, and I also wanted to keep my upcoming Throne of Glass and Red Queen reviews together.  On Thursday, we will resume our normal YA reviews with Strange the Dreamer.

Friction Won’t Rub Your Business the Wrong Way

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I was at the library the other day and I picked up Friction: Passion Brands in the Age of Disruption.  I remember Glenn Beck talking about it a year ago.  At the time, it seemed like a book for larger companies with physical products, but it looked like a quick read, so I picked it up.  If you are a small business owner, I recommend you pick it up.  It’s not just for big businesses.  It’s for bloggers too.

I’ve been writing on the internet since college (and earning money from my writing for almost as long), but I still don’t earn enough to equal my pay at Walmart.  It doesn’t help that some of the places that I used to write for no longer exist, so that money is gone.  At least personal blogs don’t go away unless you want them too.  Anyway, I always feel that I can be more successful at what I’m doing.  Friction actually has pretty good advice for small businesses like bloggers.

One of the main premises of the book is this: people don’t like commercials.  Do you ever pay attention to banner ads?  Do your eyes glaze over like mine when you scroll past sponsored Tweets and Facebook posts?  I thought so.  Getting the word out about your product today is a lot different than it was 10, 15 years ago.

People like getting value for their time.  They don’t want to watch commercials.  They want personalized content.  They don’t like popup ads.  Removing the “friction” from a user’s experience will cause people to want to come back.  This is good advice, whether you are running a physical business where you want to make it easier for people to shop at your store, or if you’re running a blog and you’re hoping that people will want to come back.

The book is really easy to read.  I read it in a few hours.  The type is big and there are a lot of pictures.  Even though it’s not a densely packed book, it will get you to think, what can I do to reduce friction with my customers/readers/etc.?  That question that you will walk away with is probably the most important part of the book.

Whatever your business goals are, Friction is a helpful book to read.

My Mother, Barack Obama, and the USA

By Brookelorren on 4 Comments

My Mother Barack Obama coverAbout a month ago, I received an advanced review copy of Kevin Powell’s My Mother, Barack Obama, Donald Trump, and the Last Stand of the Angry White Man.  It’s a long title for a book that’s only 281 pages long.  I think I won it in a contest.

For a book like this, it’s probably important to know a little bit about my political thoughts, because it might shape my perception of this book.  I’m a conservative libertarian.  While I think that Donald Trump’s policies have been a mixed bag, as a person, I think that he is an adulterous, racist, sexist, compulsively-lying braggart; I don’t like him as a person at all, and didn’t vote for him (I voted for Darrell Castle).

I didn’t know how I would feel about this book when I entered the contest to win it; however, I believe in listening to the opinions of others.  How are you going to learn if you live in a bubble and only read books by people that agree with you?  Nevertheless, I did find this to be an enjoyable book, even though I don’t agree with him on several issues.

This book is a collection of essays written by Kevin Powell over a period of several years.  It covers a variety of topics, including racism, sexism, music, and sports.  Evidently, Mr. Powell is a former cast member of The Real World, as well as a staff member of Vibe magazine.  I didn’t know that when I started the book, but I guess some people may recognize him from those sources.

I found this book an interesting view into another person’s thoughts.  I’ve never been the victim of sexual harassment before, but his mother has, and he speaks about her experiences, and about the experiences that he had, growing up and thinking that sexual harassment and domination was a normal thing.  His thoughts on racism from the perspective of a black man growing up in the ghetto was also interesting (my husband is also black and grew up in a poor neighborhood with a single mother as well, but his experiences were quite different).  His essays on music brought back memories.

I rated this book more highly on Goodreads than I did Harbor Me, which I reviewed last week.  They both cover similar topics, but I think that My Mother, Barack Obama, Donald Trump, and the Last Stand of the Angry White Man did a better job covering the subjects than Harbor Me did.  Of course, this is a collection of essays, while Woodson’s Book is a fictional Middle Grade book, but I think that this book just seemed to work better.

Powell’s unique perspective did cause me to see things from a different perspective.  Although I don’t agree with him on everything, I can understand how he feels about the political situation that the United States finds itself in today.  I felt for his mother, who was abandoned by her baby’s daddy years ago, and never really found love in her life.  As I read about his mom and how he one day discovered how old she had gotten, I had to call my mom (I talked to my parents for over an hour this evening).

More than anything, I could imagine the cycle of despair that his family had grown up in, and I imagine how things like that continue to this day.  There are families where the kids grow up without a parent, and they are told that they are worth less for one reason or another.  I see how people might take someone’s ignorant or malicious comments personally.  I don’t know how we end this cycle, because children growing up under these difficult circumstances can sometimes grow up to become angry adults whose children have the same kind of childhood, but I do know that we can do our best to treat everybody with respect, and do our part to try not to contribute to the hate in the world.

At any rate, Powell’s book was good.  If you’re looking for a book that could potentially challenge your opinions, you might want to take a look at it.

This book is scheduled to be released on September 4th, but you can pre-order it now.

Ever the Hunted is Ever Wonderful

By Brookelorren on 4 Comments

Ever the Hunted CoverEver the Hunted was a wonderful book.  I discovered it as I was looking through upcoming titles.  Once a King looked really interesting, but since it was the third in the series, I figured that I better start at book 1.  I was in luck, because Ever the Hunted was available at the library (I’m on the waiting list at the moment for Ever the Brave).

The book grabbed me from the beginning pages.  Our heroine, Britta, is in a tough situation.  Her papa died, and the king is ready to come and take her lands, because she can’t inherit it.  She hasn’t seen her ex-boyfriend Cohen in over a year, but that doesn’t matter anyway, because she could never marry him anyway: he has a noble heritage and can’t marry an outcast like her anyway.

After she gets caught poaching, she is asked to go find the murderer: her ex-boyfriend Cohen.

Dun dun dun!!!

If you want to find out what happens, you’ll have to read the book.  As the story progresses, we find out that things aren’t exactly as they initially appear to be.  Britta finds out that she is not exactly the person she thought she was.  She finds out that there is more that she can do than just finding out who killed her papa — she needs to try to save the kingdom itself.  Even if it costs her her life.

I loved this book from the very beginning.  The characters’ struggles grabbed me from the start, and they were well-written.  There were many supporting characters, many which seemed to have their own personalities and desires.

The world was interesting.  There are two main countries in this story, both of which seem to have their own unique personalities.  The two countries are at the verge of war, and you can feel the tension as a result.

This book is suitable for teens of all ages.

I’m looking forward to getting to the front of the waiting list at the library for Ever the Brave.  I can’t wait to read more of this trilogy!

The Kiss Quotient Adds Up!

By Brookelorren on 10 Comments

I recently saw a review for The Kiss Quotient and saw a review that made it look good.  The main character is an econometrician who has Asperger’s.  You had me at math, LOL!  It certainly looked like a unique kind of love story.  I had recently read a string of dark fics where the guy and the girl aren’t together at the end of the story, so I wanted something different.  We can’t read Holocaust stories and stories with war all the time!

Our protagonists are Stella, the econometrician with Asperger’s, and Michael, who works part time as an escort to help solve his money problems.  Stella has really bad luck with relationships.  She really doesn’t care for them, but her parents are bugging her about grandchildren.  Stella decides to hire Michael to teach her about relationships and sex.

Michael is getting a little tired of his job, but he needs to keep doing it because he needs the money.  When Stella hires him, he’s expecting an old lady, but he’s happily surprised when he finds a lady that he’s quite attracted to.  He doesn’t think that she needs to hire an escort, and initially doesn’t want to work with her (she wants to hire him for more than one Friday, but he has a rule to not work with someone more than once), but he eventually agrees.

I liked the characters.  Even though I don’t have Asperger’s, I can see a lot of myself in Stella.  Like Stella, boys have never asked me out (there’s a reason why I met my husband on the internet).  I rehearse conversations in my head before I have them, and sometimes I almost have a panic attack when I have to call someone on the phone.  So I found myself identifying with her quite a bit.  She is also a person who has interests and dreams, and is not a stereotype.  Michael is a kind person, which is exactly what Stella needs as she gains confidence with relationships.  He has family and friends that make his life fuller.  As you read the story, you discover why he needs all of this money.

The Kiss Quotient is not a young adult book; it has some scenes that are not appropriate for non-adult teens.

If you’re looking for a light book, The Kiss Quotient might be for you.  It’s a cute little read that will keep you entertained.  I would consider reading Hoang’s next book, The Bride Test (which deals with Michael’s cousin Khai, who also has Asperger’s) next year.

Harbor Me is Preachy but Potentially Useful

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Harbor Me coverI recently read Harbor Me by Jacqueline Woodson.  It is a middle grade book that I received through Penguin’s First to Read program.  So far, I’ve had pretty good luck with this program, getting chosen for two books already.  Anyway, Harbor Me is a middle grade book where a bunch of kids talk about contemporary issues that kids face today.  While I thought that it was good, it came across as a little preachy.

The kids in Harbor Me are six kids of different races that go to a mostly-minority school in the Bronx.  The narrator is an eleven-year-old mixed race girl whose father is in prison (during the story you discover why).  These six kids are placed in a “special” classroom, and have a caring teacher that they like.  At the beginning of the story, their teacher starts putting them in the ARTT room every Friday for them to talk.  ARTT stands for “A Room to Talk”.

I did enjoy reading about their stories.  Esteban’s father was taken by immigration; Tiago is Puerto Rican and is upset when people tell him to not speak Spanish with his mother.  Another kid was told that he couldn’t play with toy guns any more because his parents were afraid that he’d be shot.  All of the kids have things they have to deal with.

This book addresses a lot of situations that kids might be going through these days.  A middle-grade reader might find this useful if they are going through difficult times as well.  This book is good in that it addresses these topics and might make kids feel a little less alone; it also may help kids feel compassion for other children that they may know that could be going through these things.  A little compassion is always a good thing.

The kids behaved like you would expect 11 year olds to behave.  Since there are six characters in this story and it’s fairly short, it really didn’t get the time to allow the reader to get to know them incredibly well.

That, I think, may be where this story falls a little short.  The book mainly focuses on the issues that these kids are having with the hot-button political issues of our day.  11 year olds might be also having trouble with peer pressure, girls, school work, etc., but these kids are all dealing with race issues and the like; in reality, kids are dealing with everything all at once.  This book feels a little preachy in that almost the entire story is politics-driven

Perhaps it is the setting that these kids are in, but I think that it paints these issues too stereotypically.  My kids are mixed-race.  When the boy came to school one day and talked about how his parents no longer allow him to play with Nerf or water guns because they’re afraid of their child getting accidentally shot by the police, I think of my own boy, who likes to go to the neighbor’s house down the street and have water-gun fights.  Never once in my life have I ever thought to tell him to not play those games because of his brown skin.  Maybe it’s different for us because we live in a nice neighborhood where people aren’t afraid to leave their garage doors open all day, and not the Bronx.  I felt that perhaps people might come away with the wrong impression though, thinking that all parents of brown children are afraid of their kids getting shot by the police if they play with guns.  That is simply not the case.

Overall, while I think that this is a book that definitely points out problematic issues of our day, I think that it focuses a little bit too much on that.  This book would have been better if it would have been a little longer and made these characters more real than just kids with stereotypical problems.

Harbor Me is scheduled to be released on August 28th, but you can pre-order it now.

1,000 Years, 1,000 People, and 18 Years Late

By Brookelorren on 6 Comments

1,000 Years, 1,000 People Cover1,000 Years, 1,000 People is a book that ranks the 1,000 most influential people of the last millennium.  I just finished reading the book this week; you might be thinking “aren’t we 18 years into the new millennium?”  Well, we are, but I finally got around to reading this book.

This isn’t a book that you really sit down and read all in one sitting, like a lot of the books that I’ve reviewed here.  Even though I bought this book years ago, it was misplaced until just recently.  I decided to start reading it earlier this year.  I typically would only read about ten entries a day.

This book ranks the people who had the most lasting influence over the last millennium.  Since it’s hard to judge people’s lasting influence if they’re still alive, there are some people that were really influential in the 1900s that didn’t make the book (still, 136 people did).  There are people represented in this book from every century, although 417 people that lived in the 1800s made the list, so it’s still fairly skewed towards people that lived more recently.

Even though 1,000 Years, 1,000 People does represent worldwide influence, the book is still fairly heavily skewed towards the United States (267 of the people in the book lived there).  Then again, the US has been the most influential country in the world since about World War II.  This book was published in 1998, which was right after the Cold War had seemingly ended and was before 9/11.  It was a time when the United States seemed to have an unprecedented influence over the world.

Each entry has the person’s name, the years they lived, a short caption about them, and an approximately 150 word blurb about what they’ve done.  The only exception is Fernão Lopes, who was ranked 780.  Instead of a caption saying why he was important, there is a footnote notation after his name.  The footnote reads “1. father of the footnote”.  Each entry is fairly witty like this, as well as being informative.

With 1,000 people on the list, there’s bound to be some people that you don’t recognize.  The highest ranked people are bound to be people that you recognize: Johannes Gutenberg, Martin Luther, William Shakespeare, etc.  At the bottom of the list, there were a lot of people that I had never heard of, like Bernard Cornfield and Joseph Bramah.  Even at the bottom of the list, almost everybody did something that you’ll be familiar with, like inventing the stethoscope or disposable diapers.

All sorts of people are represented in this book.  There are artists, inventors, politicians, and even some sports heroes.  It seemed to be a nice balance.

1,000 Years, 1,000 People is a book that you can read and learn something interesting from.  If you’re interested in learning about a wide variety of historical figures, but don’t want to read a ton of biographies or peruse dry entries in Wikipedia, you might find this book worth reading.

Don’t Let Summer Days and Summer Nights Pass You By!

By Brookelorren on 6 Comments

Summer Days and Summer Nights CoverLast week’s Top Ten Tuesday topic was on short stories, and I was drawn by Summer Days and Summer Nights.  It was recommended by more than one reader.  Fortunately, they had a copy at the library that I just happened to be going to that evening.  So I picked up the book and decided to read all of the wonderful stories inside.

One of the things that I found interesting about this book is that it had books by authors that I was already familiar with, like Veronica Roth and Cassandra Clare.  The book also has several stories written by authors that I had heard about, but hadn’t had the chance to read before.

I was originally planning on reviewing Throne of Glass today, but since we’re in the middle of summer now and the season is flying by, I postponed that review until September.  Maybe by that time the library will have some of the other books in that series available for me to read.

Summer Days and Summer Nights has a wide variety of genres of stories to choose from, written by authors that tend to write in a variety of different styles.  Some you might like more than others.

In addition to different genres, there are different kinds of relationships represented here.  Some end up happy, some sad; some stories involve same-sex couples, others involve people of color.  Representation seems to be a big deal today in the bookish world; while you can’t represent everybody in twelve stories, it’s not a completely white, straight collection of stories.

Here are some of my favorites:

  • “Inertia” by Veronica Roth:  I don’t think there’s anything that she’s written that I didn’t like, including this short story (okay, I didn’t like chapter 50 of Allegiant, but I try to pretend that never happened).  I was crying at the top of page 202 (I read the 2016 hardback edition).  I actually had to stop reading for a minute to just cry.  It was just so lovely.  And sad.

     

    “It was a good story, right?” he said.  “Our story, I mean.”
    “The best.”

    I’m tearing up just reading and writing those lines.  Oh, and there were a few more pages after this one.  The ending was wonderful too.

  • “A Thousand Ways This Could Go Wrong” by Jennifer E. Smith:  This was a lovely story about a girl who had a crush on a boy with Asperger’s all year at school, and then finally runs into him during the summer and plays basketball with him.  Will things change when she finds out that he has Asperger’s?  You’ll just have to read this story.  It’s really sweet.

  • “The Map of Tiny Perfect Things” by Lev Grossman:  This is another sweet story.  In this story, our POV character is reliving the same day, August 4th, over and over again, like in Groundhog Day.  At the end of the story, we find out why he had been living the same day over and over and over again, and it’s just perfect.

Summer Days and Summer Nights was a wonderful collection of stories, written by a lot of authors that you are probably familiar with.  I hope you get the chance to check this one out before summer slips away.  I enjoyed these stories so much that I already hope to review its companion book, My True Love Gave to Me, on December 6th.