CBR18 Book 14: "A Girl Like Her (Deluxe Edition) by Talia Hibbert

Page count: 320 pages

Rating: 4 stars

Thank you to NetGalley and Sourcebook Casablanca for this ARC. My opinions are my own. 

Evan Miller has recently moved to Ravenswood, and while he appreciates his job as a metalworker and many of his co-workers, he's less of a fan of the boss's son trying to ingratiate himself with him. Especially once said nepo-baby keeps throwing condescending hints about Evan's next-door neighbour, Ruth.

Ruth Kabbah is shunned by most people in Ravenswood because of events in her past. She barely ever leaves her house, except once weekly, to have lunch with her mother and sister. She's autistic, has very little patience for anyone else's nonsense, and is obsessed with comics. When her new neighbour, a tall, hot, bearded guy, knocks on her door, presenting her with a Shepard's Pie to boot, she is deeply suspicious. On the other hand, she's not going to turn down free food. Her stove was removed after an accidental fire, and she really only lives on cup noodles and fast food. So delicious, home-cooked meals outside of her mother's dinners are a rarity.

Despite Ruth's initial hostility, Evan finds her fascinating and keeps showing up on her doorstep with food. Ruth decides she can lend him comics in return, and is rather surprised that Evan is not only reading them, but is quite happy spending hours discussing them with her. As their friendship grows, so too does the attraction between them, but Ruth's only previous relationship was a very toxic one, so she's wary about getting involved with anyone else. She's both grateful and frustrated that Evan keeps being a gentleman who respects her boundaries and backs off the minute she has hesitations. 

Can Evan convince Ruth that she's not, in fact, a "jezebel" who should be afraid to leave her house? Can he prove to her that she is worth loving, just the way she is?

A Girl Like Her was originally self-published by Talia Hibbert in 2018. Now they have been picked up by a big publisher, and she's had a chance to revise and improve them, and they will hopefully reach a wider market than previously. I have liked, or loved, every novel of Hibbert's that I've read before, but I haven't had a chance to check out the earlier novels that she published before The Brown Sisters series. It's been quite a few years since I read it now, but I thought there were quite a few similarities between this and Get a Life, Chloe Brown. Both feature self-employed plus-size black women who barely ever leave their houses, and handsome, tattooed craftsmen who fall in love with them. Both have neurodivergent heroines (I think all of Hibbert's novels may feature at least one protagonist on the autism spectrum) and heroes who patiently wait for them to be ready to be loved. Despite the similarities, it didn't feel like Hibbert was plagiarising herself, just writing variations on a theme.

Based on the author's note at the back of the book, one of the novellas in the series is being expanded into a full novel, and she's working on improving the second book in the series (about Ruth's sister). I am most likely going to wait until the new editions are out. 

Judging a book by its cover: The new cover of this Deluxe edition feels like the publishers are trying to "rebrand" Hibbert's books to a wider market. The previous editions either had pictures of a couple embracing or just went with a buff, tattooed shirtless dude, leaving the woman out of the equation entirely. All of these previous cover designs were pretty typical of romance, and with this more demure cover, I think they're hoping to catch more of the "women's lit" market. 

Crossposted on Cannonball Read

CBR17 Book 60: "Can't Escape Love" by Alyssa Cole

Page count: 192 pages

Rating: 3.5 stars

CBR17 Pie Challenge: Inclusion

CBR17 Bingo: Borrow (read through Libby, since I don't actually own the book)

Regina "Reggie" Hobbs is working hard to make her nerdy website, Girls with Glasses, a success, and prove to her over-protective parents that she's perfectly capable of taking care of herself, even if she's in a wheelchair. She loves the work, she loves her very capable team, but lately, she's been struggling with insomnia, and the only thing that seems to soothe her to sleep is the voice of a puzzle podcaster, Gustave Nguyen, she used to follow, but he no longer podcasts, and the archive of his episodes has been deleted. So Reggie goes to the unusual step of contacting him, asking if he could make some recordings for her, to help her sleep.

Gustave "Gus" Nguyen is autistic and often has trouble with social interactions, especially with women. He remembers Reggie from chats they used to have on his live streams, but doesn't want to give a virtual stranger voice recordings that he would no longer have any control over. He sympathises with her plight, however, and offers to call her if she has trouble sleeping, to talk to her until she falls asleep. Thus begins their friendship, and soon it becomes clear that while Gus can help Reggie with her insomnia, Reggie can help Gus succeed in completing an escape room he's working on. He's been contracted to design an escape room based on a very popular romance anime for Anime Con, and he knows absolutely nothing about the anime, nor does he see what is so fascinating to others about it. 

Reggie, on the other hand, is a superfan and offers to help him understand the show and the characters in return for his nighttime phone calls. Once they discover that they both live fairly close to each other in Queens, they can meet up in person, and it doesn't take long for their friendship to develop into something more. 

Both Reggie and Gus have some personal issues to resolve before they can fully commit to a relationship, but since both feel more comfortable with each other than apart, and help complement each other's skills beautifully, there is never any doubt that they will find a HEA, without too much conflict.

While I've read all the full novels in the Reluctant Royals series, I have yet to complete all the novellas, and with this fitting into a number of my reading challenges this summer, it felt like a good quick read to choose. There are several mentions of Reggie's twin sister Portia in this, the heroine of A Duke by Default, a book that still makes me annoyed every time I think of it. Naledi, the heroine of A Princess in Theory also has a cameo. Even though it's part of an ongoing series, this novella would mostly work fine on its own. There are some issues with Reggie's parents and her sister that are not entirely resolved (that happens in Portia's book). But it's not anything that would ruin anyone's reading experience if this was the first book of Cole's they picked up.

The inclusion of neurodiverse characters has become quite common in romance now, but back in 2019, when this book came out, I think it was more unusual. Considering this also has a heroine who is mostly wheelchair-bound (she can stand for short periods of time, but lost the use of her legs after viral meningitis when she was younger), this book crosses off a lot of squares on a diversity bingo board. It therefore felt like a good choice for the "Inclusion" pie slice of the CBR Pie Challenge. It also works as "borrowed" as I got it through my library app Libby, and don't actually own the book. 

Judging a book by its cover: Cole usually has really good covers for her books, with cover models that actually look close to how they're described in the story. It's not often you see people in wheelchairs on romance covers. 

Crossposted by Cannonball Read

CBR14 Book 46: "Ship Wrecked" by Olivia Dade

Page count: 413 pages

Rating: 4 stars

Maria and Peter share one unforgettable night of passion together, which leads to some awkwardness after Maria leaves without so much as a note the next morning. They then discover that they're about to become co-stars on the incredibly popular fantasy show Gods of the Gates. As their characters' storylines involved being ship-wrecked on a small island by themselves, Maria and Peter, along with a small film crew are basically supposed to stay on location for years, and after they work through the awkwardness of Maria leaving (Peter has baggage that made him react especially badly to being ghosted), they decide that while their chemistry is sizzling, it would be a terrible idea to act on their attraction while it might impact not just their own working environment, but that of their crew. So no further exploration of their pants feelings until they've finished their last scenes.

Of course, both Maria and Peter's characters end up being wildly popular, and while their friendship grows, so does their attraction. Meanwhile, their mutual pining and natural chemistry mean that fans of the show ship them just as much off-screen as on, and they get used to fending off questions about their relationship during their various press tours. Only when the show is in its final season, and their characters have finally filmed their end scenes, can Maria and Peter finally reunite as lovers. Of course, with their contracts ended, both Peter and Maria need to decide what their futures hold. 

Maria is incredibly close to her big, loving family and is seriously considering moving back to Sweden to not be so far away from them anymore. Peter, on the other hand, is pretty much totally estranged from his father but fears losing the financial and professional security the role on God of the Gates has afforded him. While they love each other, they have such wildly different priorities and wants for the future that their relationship may be doomed. 

This is the first time I've ever read a romance novel with a Swedish protagonist. Maria keeps peppering Swedish expressions throughout and using some pretty obscure idioms, and because Olivia Dade is married to a Swede, they mostly work. However, one of the things that kept taking me out of the book whenever it was used, was Maria's chosen term of endearment for Peter, sötnos. The term literally translates as "sweet nose" and I have never in my 43-year-old life heard anyone refer to their lover consistently as that. The book claims that it is used like "sweetheart", but it's more like "sweetie" or "cutie", and the only time I've heard the term used is with small children and maybe pets. See, if Dade had chosen älskling as Maria's endearment of choice, I wouldn't be getting persnickety. That pretty much means "love" or "beloved" and I can basically mentally search and replace all uses of sötnos for älskling and the book would be better for it. Obviously, this is not going to be a nitpick that a lot of readers of this romance object to. I otherwise pretty much loved and was greatly amused by all the other Swedish-isms, including Maria's good-natured roasting of Peter, and her near-supernatural ability to always have a jar of pickled herring around to threaten to beat him over the head with. However, this is a romance, and I would like the actual relationship bits to feel real to me.

This book, with the exception of the pretty scorching one-night-stand Maria and Peter share at the beginning, is very slow burn with a lot of pining for much of the story. Only in the final third or so do Maria and Peter finally act on their six years of pent-up attraction and lust. Then there's obviously the section where their differing priorities tear the apart for a while (I'm more and more coming around to romances without a big third-act separation) before they reunite to live happily ever after. 

Both protagonists happily describe themselves as fat, and there's a running subplot about how Maria's confidence and healthy body image makes her refuse the unreasonable demands of the show's producers to lose weight or in other ways conform to society's so-called beauty standards. Peter is unwilling to risk the wrath of the producers, he needs the part too much and keeps being amazed by Maria's claims that if the job becomes too demanding, she'll just quit and return to Sweden. She acts because she enjoys the job, not because she has to or feels like she has anything to prove to anyone. 

While this book does work as a standalone, it is the final book in Dade's Spoiler Alert series, and there are references to and cameos by the previous couples in the series, as well as the various actors who also star in Gods of the Gates with Peter and Maria. It's more fun to read the bits that involve the actors interacting if you have the established backstory from the previous books. 

Inappropriate lover nickname aside, I really enjoyed this book and thought it was a great ending to the series. It was very strange, but also rather fun, to have Maria's Swedish expressions sprinkled throughout the story. In her acknowledgments, Dade confesses to struggling to complete the novel. I'm glad she had enough time and support to finish it. 

Judging a book by its cover: I don't think I've seen a single Leni Kauffman cover that isn't amazing. She just manages to choose the perfect image to illustrate a book, every time. 

Crossposted on Cannonball Read. 

#CBR12 Book 97: "Fangirl, the Manga: Vol 1" by Sam Maggs and Rainbow Rowell

Page count: 216 pages

Rating: 4 stars

Cath Avery thought she'd be sharing a room with her twin sister Wren when they went to college (isn't that the benefit of having a twin?), but her sister has cut her hair into a cute pixie cut and is looking forward to reinventing herself at college. She's already friends with her roommate and can't wait to move away from home and their anxious father.

Cath, on the other hand, is deeply outside of her comfort zone. Online, she's an undisputed queen, an incredibly prolific and popular fanfic writer. Her Simon Snow fanfics are read by thousands of people all over the world. Now she needs to get used to all sorts of new things, like how to talk to her intimidating, beautiful roommate or said roommate's charming and gregarious boyfriend. She's taking an advanced writer's class, even though she's just a freshman, and her professor is asking a lot of her. She needs to find the courage to actually go have a meal in the cafeteria. She should probably also find out why Wren is so determined to distance herself from her.

It can come as no secret to anyone who has read my reviews over the years that I'm an unashamed Rainbow Rowell fan. She's one of my favourite authors currently writing, and of all the books she's written, Fangirl is probably the one that speaks the most directly to me and mirrors much of my own early time at university. I have read the book four times and own it in audio, e-book and paperback. That book gave me Cath and Levi and Reagan, not to mention the first appearances of Simon and Baz (although I love Rowell's own versions, I'm not quite as fond of Gemma T. Leslie OR Cath's versions). 

So there really was no question that I needed to own and read the manga version, as well, cleverly adapted by Sam Maggs and illustrated throughout by the talented Gabi Nam. There was little doubt that I was going to like this a lot - unless massive amounts were altered, which of course is not the case. It's strange reading a story I know so well in a graphic format, but I think Nam has captured the characters really well. The similarities and huge differences between Cath and her twin Wren are especially well done. You can see that they are identical, yet they have such very individual looks. Reagan, Levi, and the various versions of Simon and Baz are also a lot of fun to see on the page.

My biggest gripe with this is that it was too short! The second part doesn't even have a release date yet and I'm not sure whether it's been confirmed how many volumes there will be (I suspect four because it's a pretty big book, but hoping for three - manga is expensive!). So now I'm going to have to be impatiently waiting for the next volumes of this, while I'm also pining away for the final Simon Snow book (out in July!)

Judging a book by its cover: I really love Gabi Nam's art throughout the manga, and this image of Cath just captures her so well. I also really like the warm, yellow colour of the background, not to mention the autumn leaves swirling around Cath. 

Crossposted on Cannonball Read. 

#CBR10 Book 104: "Chicks Dig Time Lords: A Celebration of Doctor Who by the Women Who Love It". Edited by Lynne M. Thomas and Tara O'Shea

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Page count: 186 pages
Rating: 4 stars

#CBR10Bingo: Two Heads Are Better Than One

So my final review of #CBR10Bingo requires some assistance, and I will be joined by my husband Mark ("Hello!"), who also gave me the book we're co-reviewing. I figured I should start with some background. I hadn't watched any of the now hugely popular children's television program Doctor Who until I went to University in Scotland in the late 1990s, early 2000s. Of course, this was because at that point, the show wasn't actually on the air, and anyone who wanted to watch it, or get other friends interested in it, probably had to own the show on VHS.

Some of my Scottish friends did their best to introduce me to a bunch of sci-fi. Before going to St. Andrews, I'd really only watched Babylon 5. (They managed a lot better with Doctor Who than with Star Trek. Even being showed a bunch of episodes of both The Next Generation and Deep Space Nine, I wasn't really all that interested). If memory serves, I was shown Spearhead from Space with Jon Pertwee, the Third Doctor and The Curse of Fenric with Sylvester McCoy, the Seventh Doctor (there were probably more, but those are the two I can clearly remember).  Nevertheless, I hadn't really watched all that much of it before it was relaunched in 2005, even though it was one of my then-boyfriend, now-husband's favourite shows. As well as being a huge fan of the modern show, in the 18 years my husband and I have been together, I've now also watched a lot of the classic series (but by no means all, probably not even half). I also really enjoy the Verity! podcast - Lynne M. Thomas, one of the contributors to that show, co-edited Chicks Dig Time Lords, and the anthology also features essays from several of the other "Verities". I should probably let my husband contribute a bit, though, shouldn't I?

(cracks fingers)
(Right. This is on now, right? Is this on? Can you hear me at the back? Yes? Good)
OK. So, my Good Lady Wife asked me how long I have been a fan of the Popular British Children's Television Programme Doctor Who. The answer is...quite a while. Yessirreee. Several of your Earth whiles, plus a few more. Since the mid-1980s, to be specific, then a bit more in the 1990s. I can politely but firmly assure you that being a Doctor Who fan during the '90s, when the show wasn't even on the air, was not a surefire way of winning friends. But I stuck with it, thanks largely to a comprehensive lack of anything better to do, and my patience was rewarded in 2005 when the show finally returned to the airwaves. Only this time around, I had a proper, human female, girlfriend to watch it with. The novelty still hasn't entirely worn off.

Is that why you gave me this book for Christmas last year? You wanted me to share in the geeky experiences of long time fans of the show, many of whom are either people whose voices I've heard on podcasts, or authors whose books I've read and enjoyed?

Well, "share in the geeky experiences" is definitely a nicer way of putting it than my usual choice of "bathe together in the stinky nerd-mud of mutual shame", so thanks for that. But...well, sort of yes, and sort of no. After nearly two of your Earth Decades together, we've bonded over our mutual nerdery in many ways, and our respective fondness for The Popular British Children's Television Programme Doctor Who is only one of them. But it's still a biggie, as witnessed by your earlier reviews of Doctor Who In An Exciting Adventure With The Daleks, Adventures With The Wife In Space, and The Dying Days (which I just went back and verified was my first Cannonball for CBR2!) . And given how much we both enjoy the Verity! podcast, and its still-more-noteworthy-than-it-really-should-be emphasis on a female perspective on this show we both love, I thought this might appeal to you.

Plus, you know, I wanted to read it myself. But not in a Homer-buying-Marge-a-bowling-ball sort of way. Honest. 

I'll give you the benefit of the doubt. The book is an anthology containing essays, articles and interviews, and being mostly a fan of the new show, and not super involved in all levels of the fandom (fan fiction, the comics, the fanzines, podcasts, conventions etc.), there were absolutely some bits that didn't really resonate with me, simply because I had very little frame of reference for them. I think the entries that worked the best for me were the ones that talked about sharing the show with family, like those of Carole E. Barrowman (John Barrowman/Jack Harkness' sister), Amy Fritsch (who talks about introducing the show to her daughter, named for actress Elisabeth Sladen, and taking her to conventions). My favourite essay in the whole collection is probably the one by Verity! contributor Lynne M. Thomas, who talks first about how she married a huge fan, and discovered just how warm and accepting the Doctor Who fandom is when they had their disabled daughter). That contribution genuinely had me in tears, I was so moved. Deborah Stanish, another Verity! wrote a good one, and I also enjoyed some from famous fantasy/sci-fi writers Seanan McGuire (who was apparently in love with Adric as a teenager, not to mention thinking the show was a documentary for a while, because it ran on PBS) and Mary Robinette Kowal.

There were quite a few entries I was mostly indifferent about, or that didn't interest me all that much because I've never, for instance, read fan fiction of any kind (so essays covering that were unlikely to thrill me). There are several interviews, which seemed a bit like filler to me, but my least favourite essays were probably the one by Jackie Jenkins about a Bridget Jones type character included in Doctor Who Magazine and Kathryn Sullivan's essay about fanzines (soo dull). What about you, husband o' mine?

Well, I'm grudgingly forced to publicly acknowledge our mutual compatibility - and we both know how much I hate doing that - by admitting that Lynne Thomas' essay was probably my favourite thing in the book too, for reasons relating largely to its obviously heartrending loveliness. I also shared your disinterest in the "Jackie Jenkins" piece (although when it comes to that one I may have to play the "NO GREATER NERD" card and point out that I was failing to be amused by JJ's "what if Bridget Jones But a Doctor Who Fan" gimmick long before you even met me). But yes, Lynne's piece was absolutely lovely - now that the two of us are BONDED FOREVER by our parental duties to a child who will, with any luck, grow into a formidable Doctor Who fan in his own right, it resonated with me in ways that may not have been quite so powerful a couple of years ago.

I also thoroughly enjoyed Verity! host Liz Myles' essay on the experience of being a Doctor Who fan both pre- and post- the 2005 revival, which resonated with me in ways that I suspect largely passed you by. Although Liz and I obviously differ on many specifics - why would anybody, however tentatively, even try to ship the 5th Doctor and Tegan, for example, when the manifestly superior pairing of Tegan/Nyssa is right there, leaping out of the screen and begging to be noticed? - I nonetheless recognise a great many of my own experiences in her story, in much the same frustrating-but-familiar way I experience whenever I'm shouting at the radio in furious agreement with her contributions to the Verity! podcast (Oh, Liz. How dare you be so obviously right, in such an ever-so-slightly wrong way/so obviously wrong, in such an ever-so-nearly-right way! It makes me SO MAD).

So in conclusion, while the husband may in fact have bought me the book as a Christmas present at least 50% because HE wanted to read it (and considering when he went out for the last presents last year, something like 10-15% desperation, just needing to find something appropriate for my last present), I was actually happy to receive it, interested in reading it and ended up very much enjoying most of it. Sadly, the essays only cover the modern series up to the announcement of Matt Smith as the newest Doctor, there's nothing about his era on the show, Peter Capaldi, or obviously the current Doctor, Jodie Whitaker (whom I love, even if the quality of the show in general right now is...questionable). If Mad Norwegian Press were to publish another anthology with similar essays for the Steven Moffat years, I would love to read it.

Hey, does this mean I get the last word? Awesome. I want it to be "bogeys".

Also, while I obviously wholeheartedly deny any implication of desperation attached my purchase of this present, I'm very glad you enjoyed it as much as you apparently did. Given that this book ends on a note of what I would politely suggest may be termed "unwarranted optimism" regarding the potential feminism of the then-impending Steven Moffat era (while I think there are more credible feminist arguments to be made in defence of Moffat's writing than are sometimes acknowledged, I also think it's worth admitting that...well, there are also some good reasons why "defensiveness" might be considered the default stance on that front), I'd also be interested in reading the sister book Chicks Unravel Time, in which several of the same contributors (and a few others of considerable interest to you, not least Diana "those books about that sexy Highlander and his marginally-less-sexy time-travelling wife you love so much" Gabaldon) continue to get their collective Who geek on, alongside you at some point. But don't worry, I'll buy that one for myself. Or let you buy it for yourself. Whichever happens first.

Oh, and "bogeys". Always, and forever, "bogeys".

Judging a book by its cover: The cover is very cute, with a ton of geeky Doctor Who references, obviously. I really like the art style. The title is on the psychic paper, the girl is wearing the old fashioned 3D-glasses used by the Tenth Doctor, and obviously she's got one of the long knitted wool scarves made so famous by the Fourth Doctor. Finally, she has a TARDIS key on a string around her neck.

Crossposted on Cannonball Read.

#CBR10 Book 79: "Turtles All the Way Down" by John Green

Page count: 304 pages
Audio book length: 7hrs 12 mins

Aza Holmes doesn't have a lot of friends, and her best friend Daisy, a gregarious and outgoing fan fiction writer, sometimes finds her a bit exhausting. This is not surprising, as Aza struggles with anxiety and OCD. When local billionaire Russell Davis Picket goes missing and there is a reward offered for news of his whereabouts, Daisy remembers that Aza knows his son. Daisy orchestrates a scenario so that Aza can reconnect with Davis, who she hasn't seen for a few years.

Aza and Davis met at a camp for children who'd lost parents. Aza's father died, as did Davis' mother. With his father missing, Davis and his younger brother are pretty much orphans. There's a housekeeper who cooks for them, but they are left to their own devices in a huge and lonely house, and when Daisy and Aza suddenly show up, Davis is naturally suspicious about their motives.

The book is told from Aza's perspective, and I found it rather difficult to read on occasion, as Aza's mental illness keeps spiralling out of control more and more as the book progresses. She is terrified of disease, and uses tons of hand sanitizer. She has a tiny wound on her hand that she keeps reopening, while at the same time being super paranoid about infection. She doesn't take her meds like she's supposed to, and as the story progresses, she even begins to drink the hand sanitizer.

While Daisy comes across as an impatient and somewhat oblivious friend on occasion, but I had a lot of sympathy for her. As someone who knows a lot of people with degrees of debilitating mental illness - it can be very frustrating to be the one on the other side.

When promoting this book, John Green admitted that he too struggles with anxiety, which is why it's probably described so very vividly. I listened to the audio book, where the narrator gives Aza's inner thoughts a very commanding tone, making it all the more understandable that she has trouble resisting, even when she's being told to do frankly insane and unhealthy things. It's exhausting and scary to read about, it must be absolute hell on earth to live through. I kept internally yelling at Aza whenever she failed to take her meds. One thing I have realised, knowing many people who suffer from mental illness, is just how important it is to keep taking your meds regularly, and to speak to a doctor if the meds no longer work for you.

I think The Fault in Our Stars is still my favourite John Green book and it probably doesn't help that I was a bit distracted and not necessarily in a good head space when listening to this book. It's a good and important YA book, but Aza's illness just freaked me out too much.

Judging a book by its cover: There's a lot of spiral imagery throughout the novel, so I suppose an orange spiral drawing the eye was a perfectly good design to choose for the otherwise rather plain cover. I suppose John Green doesn't really need elaborate or especially ornate covers, his name is enough to sell bucket loads, especially when he hasn't released a book in years. I still think it's one of the most boring of all of his book covers.

Crossposted on Cannonball Read.

#CBR10 Book 62: "Love and Other Alien Experiences" by Kerry Winfrey

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Page count: 269 pages
Rating: 4 stars

From Goodreads, as I'm once again reviewing books from over a month ago:

Mallory hasn't left the house in sixty-seven days--since the day her dad left. She attends her classes via webcam, rarely leaves her room (much to her brother's chagrin), and spends most of her time watching The X-Files or chatting with the always obnoxious BeamMeUp on New Mexico's premier alien message board.

But when she's shockingly nominated for homecoming queen, her life takes a surprising turn. She slowly begins to open up to the world outside. And maybe if she can get her popular jock neighbor Brad Kirkpatrick to be her homecoming date, her classmates will stop calling her a freak.

In this heartwarming and humorous debut, Mallory discovers first love and the true meaning of home--just by taking one small step outside her house.

Mallory has developed severe anxiety and agoraphobia after her father left without any explanation. She feels severely ill if she even goes to check the mail. As there's no way for her to get to school, she attends via web cam, and her mother has software on her computer to make sure she doesn't spend too much time on non-school related activities. While her mother and younger brother seem completely unconcerned (and actually rather relieved by her father's absence), Mallory can't get it out of her mind, and wants to find him, so she can discover why he just disappeared like that. Of course, she will need to conquer her anxiety enough to let her leave the house.

Unsurprisingly, since teenagers aren't known to be super empathetic or all that kind, she's pretty much seen as the town freak, and no one is more surprised to discover she's been nominated for homecoming queen than Mallory. While she would love to ignore the whole thing, there's a $500 cash prize for the winner, and Mallory needs that money to sign up for a bird watching trip she's sure her father will be on. So with the help of her best friend Jenni, her brother and the boy next door, Brad Kirkpatrick, she sets out to win the homecoming crown (even though she's still feels sick leaving the house).

Mallory spends most of her spare time watching The X-Files and discussing aliens on "We are Not Alone", an online message board. Recently, she seems to be hitting it off with another user, BeamMeUp, while in her real life, she keeps getting into embarrassing situations or arguments with Brad Kirkpatrick's half-brother, who's also right next door. I don't want to spoil things for anyone, but you haven't really experienced a lot of narratives if you're in any way surprised by the last minute reveal of BeamMeUp's real identity.

This was a sweet book, which as far as I can tell deals pretty realistically with severe anxiety disorder and agoraphobia and features characters that feel like realistic teenagers. The sibling relationship between Mallory and her brother (who came out as gay a year ago, and gets his first boyfriend over the course of the book) is lovely and her friendship with Jenni is also sweet, while there are some complications as the story progresses (stemming in large part from the fact that it would be super difficult if your best friend never actually showed up at school or left her house, and you were stuck defending her to everyone gossipping). The sibling relationship between Brad and his brother (while not dwelt on as much) also seems very supportive. Brad is one of those "most popular guys in school", who also turns out to be genuinely sweet guys, which is always a nice twist.

This is Kerry Winfrey's debut novel. Goodreads tells me she has a new book out this summer, and I am probably going to check that out too, because this was a quick and entertaining read.

Judging a book by its cover: I really don't have a lot to say about this cover. It's not hideous, it's not great. It gives the reader very little idea of what the book is about, but the colours are nice enough, I guess?

Crossposted on Cannonball Read.

#CBR10 Book 53: "Eliza and Her Monsters" by Francesca Zappia

Page count: 400 pages
Rating: 5 stars

I was going to start this review the way I normally do, with a few paragraphs trying to sum up the story of the book. But having written nearly two whole paragraphs, I went back and deleted them, because I don't really want to say too much about the plot of the book. I didn't know a whole lot going into the book, and I think my reading experience was better for it.

Very short summary: Eliza Mirk is a teenager soon to graduate high school. Hardly anyone knows that she is the beloved creator of wildly popular web comic Monstrous Sea, which has millions of fans. One day, a new kid transfers to her school, and she discovers he is a fan of her work. They become friends, and Eliza struggles with keeping her true identity from him.

There were a lot of thing that reminded me of Rainbow Rowell's Fangirl in this book, except Eliza isn't actually writing fan fiction, but creating her own unique and extremely popular web comic. Nevertheless, the explorations of creativity and fandom, the pressure to perform, the anxiety about not being good enough, what it's like to truly love and identify with something - be it a book series, a web comic (or it could be movies or a TV show) are themes that run through both books.

Cath and Eliza are both introverted and have difficulties making real life connections in the world around them. They both find it easier to interact with people online, something I myself can absolutely identify with. They are both incredibly creative, and feel the pressure to deliver good content to their fans. Eliza has parents who are a lot more reliable than Cath, but they don't really understand their daughter much at all. They find it much easier to relate to her boisterous younger brothers (who I found annoying at first, but who ended up making me cry happy tears because of how awesome they turned out to be towards the end of the book).

Because of the similarities with Fangirl, I was probably a lot harder on Wallace than I should have been. Because Levi is such an awesomely supportive and great guy, I wanted Wallace to be exactly the same, despite the fact that unlike Levi, who is a very laid back and comfortable in his own skin college kid, Wallace is still in high school and has some serious trauma in his past. He also has some pretty heavy parental expectations to live up to, and Eliza keeps a secret of major proportions from him. The fact that he acts like an idiot for a while, instead of just being there for Eliza is frankly much more realistic, it just took me a while to come to terms with this.

As well as writing a really lovely book, which made me feel a vast array of emotions while reading it, Francesca Zappia also illustrates the story, so you can see what Eliza's artwork looks like. In some places, you get the novelisation of her story, which becomes more significant as the story progresses. As is more often than not the case for me with fiction within fiction, I desperately wanted to be able to read the entirety of Monstrous Sea, as well as the book series that Eliza loved as a kid (although it would probably gut me that it was never completed - as it does its fans within this story).

This was such a wonderful book and I am going to have to what else the author has written, so I can get my claws into that too.

Judging a book by its cover: I like that the cover artist has kept the dark-haired girl blurred out for the most part, so the reader is free to imagine their own image of Eliza. Her hands, which she uses to create her art, are in the foreground, holding little animated versions of what I'm assuming is supposed to be Wallace and Eliza. I only question why the girl's hands are paint-stained, as Eliza clearly uses digital tools to ink her drawings. I guess paint-stained hands are a good short hand for artist.

Crossposted on Cannonball Read.

#CBR10 Book 50: "When Dimple Met Rishi" by Sandhya Menon

Page count: 320 pages
Rating: 4 stars

All Dimple Shah wants is to go to Stanford and become a web developer. She fights against her mother's expectations of her, that she wear girlier clothes and make-up and find a "nice Indian husband". When her parents agree to let her attend a web development seminar in San Francisco for the summer, she becomes more optimistic that they may in fact support her career goals.

Rishi Patel loves hearing the story about how his parents met and has no problem with the idea of his parents arranging his future marriage. Even if he knows nothing about programming, he will happily attend a web development seminar in San Francisco before going off to MIT, since that's where his intended is going to be, giving him the chance to properly woo her. Unfortunately, their first meeting is somewhat of a disaster, as it turns out Dimple has absolutely no idea who he is and what her and Rishi's parents have been discussing. While Rishi embraces his Indian culture and loves the ideas of the traditions and rituals, Dimple feels wholly American and fights her heritage tooth and nail.

Now she's teamed up with Rishi for the entire program, and she wants so desperately to create the winning app, so she can meet her role model and kick start her career. She wants to hate Rishi, but quickly discovers that he's actually a perfectly nice person and she can't deny that she at least wants to be friends with him. Of course, as the weeks pass and they spend most of their time together, Dimple grows closer to Rishi, and may be forced to acknowledge that her parents may have known what they were doing when they considered him as her future spouse.

I've seen this book raved about on a number of review websites since it came out and since I was in a bit of a reading slump and needed something sweet and cheerful, this book seemed to fit the bill. All those rave reviews were completely right, this is a delight of a book and a very sweet YA rom com in book form. While they're both from the same cultural background, initially at least it seems Dimple and Rishi couldn't be more different, both in interests and future plans and dreams. When Dimple allows herself to give Rishi a chance, she comes to see that it's quite nice to spend time with someone with the same kind of parental expectations and not needing to explain or give context to everything.

While Dimple feels entirely American and feels like her mother's expectations of her are stifling, her parents are actually very supportive of her wishes to be a web developer. She discovers that while Rishi is set to go to MIT after the summer, his true passion is art. He's a very talented artist and has developed his own comics character, but feels that pursuing a creative arts degree would be pointless as it's unlikely to lead to a long term career, and with his younger brother being an athlete, Rishi feels he needs to follow in their father's footsteps.

While Dimple and Rishi's parents are good friends and would love for their children to make a match of it, it's made very clear that none of the children are going to be disowned or shunned if they don't like one another. Rishi really has no interest in coding or programming and only goes to the summer program to get a chance to meet Dimple, and when he discovers that she has no idea who he is or that their parents are hoping they may fall for one another, he offers to leave. When he does stay and understands just how important winning the app development is to Dimple, he's very supportive and does all that he can to help her, including bolstering her confidence to help her during the more extroverted parts of the course.

Dimple and Rishi's parents aren't exactly in the book a lot, but when they do appear, you can tell how much they love their children. Rishi's younger brother becomes an important supporting character in the second half of the book, as does Dimple's party girl roommate Celia. I obviously have little personal experience with arranged matches, but the author, Sandhya Menon, is of Indian descent, and clearly wanted to make a romantic story between American teens with a different cultural background than a lot of their peers. In terms of representation, a brainy girl interested in tech and a sensitive boy with a passion for the arts are hopefully good things for other teens of South Asian descent.

This was a very cute and fun book and I'm already looking forward to Ms Menon's new book, which came out earlier this year.

Judging a book by its cover: The cover is cute and appropriate, with a sweet South Asian girl drinking iced coffee, as Dimple often does in the book. To fit even better, the girl should have been wearing thick-framed glasses as well (us bespectacled people would like to see our own on book covers on occasion too).

Crossposted on Cannonball Read.

#CBR9 Book 125: "Not Now, Not Ever" by Lily Anderson

Page count: 320 pages
Rating: 4 stars

From Goodreads:

Elliot Gabaroche is very clear on what she isn't going to do this summer. 

1. She isn't going to stay home in Sacramento, where she'd have to sit through her stepmother's sixth community theater production of The Importance of Being Earnest.
2. She isn't going to mock trial camp at UCLA.
3. And she certainly isn't going to to the Air Force summer program at her mom's base in Colorado Springs. As cool as it would be to live-action-role-play Ender's Game, Ellie's seen three generations of her family go through USAF boot camp up close, and she knows it's much less Luke/Yoda/"Feel the Force" and much more one hundred push-ups on three days of no sleep. And that just isn't appealing, no matter how many Xenomorphs from Alien
she'd be able to defeat afterwards.

What she is going to do is pack up her determination, her favorite Octavia Butler novels, and her Jordans, and run away to summer camp. Specifically, a cut-throat academic-decathlon-like competition for a full scholarship to Rayevich College - the only college with a Science Fiction Literature program, and her dream school. She's also going to start over as Ever Lawrence: a new name for her new beginning. She's even excited to spend her summer with the other nerds and weirdos in the competition, like her socially-awkward roommate with neon-yellow hair, and a boy who seriously writes on a typewriter and is way cuter than is comfortable or acceptable.

The only problem with her excellent plan to secretly win the scholarship and a ticket to her future: her golden-child, super-genius cousin Isaiah has had the same idea, and has shown up at Rayevich smugly ready to steal her dreams and expose her as a fraud in the process. 

This summer's going to be great. 

Last year, I read the rather excellent The Only Thing Worse Than Me is You, a modernised YA take on Much Ado About Nothing, set in a prep school for especially gifted students. So when I discovered that Lily Anderson had written a companion novel, with very gifted students competing with each other at a summer camp, as a modern YA retelling of sorts of the Oscar Wilde play The Importance of Being Earnest, I knew I was going to have to read it. Now while I absolutely adore the Shakespeare play, honesty forces me to admit that I haven't actually ever read the Wilde play (nor even seen a movie version - shameful, I'm sure). I did read a summary, and while the previous book was fairly loosely based on the Shakespeare, this book is an even more loosely inspired retelling.

This book is clearly set some time after TOTWTMIS, with the protagonists of that now college-age, with some of them helping out as advisors at the summer camp. Because Elliot/Ever is terrible with remembering names, she gives pretty much everyone, especially the counsellors, nicknames, so they're "Perfect Nerd Girl" and "Lumberjack Beard", even having read the previous book, it took me a while to place familiar characters. Brandon, one of the supporting characters from that book, is the mysterious young man who carries around and works mainly on a typewriter (it has a fairly logical explanation, he's not just a hipster). He's one of the members on Ever's decathlon team, and as the weeks pass, it's clear that there's a lot of chemistry between them.

Isaiah, Ever's cousin, has promised mutually assured destruction if she lets anyone know that they are not in fact twins (he's technically too young to compete, and has lied about his age to get in - and told one of the counselors that they were brother and sister before Ever could intervene) or if anyone in their families finds out where they are. To begin with, some of the other campers are worried that Ever and Isaiah are going to go easy on each other because they're related, but Ever soon proves that she is utterly ruthless and willing to crush her "twin", should the need arise. Having her obnoxious relative close by isn't the only problem facing Ever, though. As the camp progresses, it's clear that someone is stealing important items from the campers, and trying to sabotage the competition. Things get increasingly more tense as the weeks pass and the frustration among the various competitors starts building.

As in the previous book (which you in no way need to read to enjoy this, but possibly should check out just because it really is such a fun read), there's tons of nerd references throughout the book. As science fiction is Ever's passion, there were a lot more references to that here, and as I myself am not as big a fan of the genre (certainly not in book form - I keep trying), I think more possibly went over my head, but it in no way took away from my enjoyment of the book as a whole.

I liked the various friendships that built as well as the romance between Ever and Brandon. Leigh, Ever's strange and wonderfully oddly behaved roommate is a delight and the camp seems a pretty awesome place to spend the summer (even if I'm not vaguely smart enough to qualify). While I think I liked last year's book a tiny bit better, this was still a very fast and fun read, and I will be waiting eagerly for whatever Lily Anderson writes next.

Judging a book by its cover: Not exactly the most exciting of covers, but they've managed to find a girl with pretty big hair (Ever is tall and her impressively large hair is mentioned several times in the book) and a guy who looks adorably scruffy enough to be Brandon. Not entirely sure I like the big font they've used, but the yellow background is very cheerful.

Crossposted on Cannonball Read.

#CBR9 Book 43: "Weird Girl and What's His Name" by Meagan Brothers

Page count: 336 pages
Rating: 4 stars

Lula and Rory are basically the "Weird Girl and What's His Name" of the title. Odd-ball teenagers in the little town of Hawthorne, North Carolina. They are best friends, sharing an interest for fantasy and sci-f, but their deepest and most abiding love is for the TV show The X-Files, being active in the online fan community and writing a joint blog where they analyse and comment on the episodes. Both have been abandoned by parents. Rory lives alone with his alcoholic mother, while Lula is obsessed with her missing mother, who at least left her to be raised by her supportive grandparents. That Lula's grandfather refuses to ever speak of his absent daughter or even allow her name to be spoken in the house doesn't dampen Lula's desire to find out more about her missing parent.

They share everything with each other, or so Lula believes. When she discovers that Rory tried out for the high school football team without telling her, not to mention the much bigger secret that he's been having an affair with his much older, divorced employer, she starts to question not only their friendship, but her own judgement and identity. Lula suddenly disappears, without a trace, leaving Rory to fend for himself - desperately wondering where his friend has gone, or whether she's even still alive? When Lula eventually returns, everything is different. Her grandparents no longer trust her and Rory won't even acknowledge her existence. Can they ever repair their friendship?

It's never easy being a teenager, what with all the hormones raging and the changes you have to go through. Working with teens, I thank my lucky stars regularly that I never have to go through adolescence again. For kids like Rory and Lula, who have a number of additional challenges on top of just being teens, it's extra difficult. Rory is gay in a small Southern town and it's not like there are a lot of guys lining up for him to date. Hence his boyfriend, who he genuinely seems to believe he has a future with, being his middle aged, recently divorced. They meet in secret, what with the statutory rape aspect involved and it's clear that deep down, Rory isn't as secure in the long-term viability of his relationship, or I think he would have confided in Lula. He clearly feels guilty about keeping secrets from her.

For all of Rory's difficulties, at least he's relatively secure in his own identity and sexuality. Lula is a lot more adrift, nursing more than one unhappy infatuation and questioning whether she's straight, bi or queer in some other way. The same night she discovers that Rory was keeping secrets, she has a series of unfortunate episodes that culminate with her disappearing from Hawthorne, without anyone who cares about her knowing where she's gone or why. As we find out in the second half of the book (the first is told from Rory's POV), it's not calculated callousness that causes Lula to leave town without leaving any hints of where she went - it's more the thoughtlessness and obliviousness of youth. She is in turmoil, desperately needs a change and goes about making that change for herself, without considering the long term consequences or those she leaves behind.

The second half of the book, from Lula's POV, alternates between her time away and her new life back home in Hawthorne. Upon her return, she obviously has a lot of trust to rebuild with her grandparents and she's literally friendless for a while, as Rory has been forced to adapt to a life without her and is not interested in letting bygones be bygones. Lula hurt him deeply by running away and it's understandable that they can't just pick up where they left off. Because she missed a great deal of school, Lula opts to take her GED rather than having to retake a whole year of high school. She makes a connection with a girl in one of her classes at community college, but it's nothing like the friendship she had with Rory.

This has been reviewed by several Cannonballers, including Narfna and Baxlala, both of whom tend to share my taste in books. I must admit that I did not have the same X-Files obsession as these two ladies, but I was a pretty fantatical follower of Buffy the Vampire Slayer (true story, I just this weekend unpacked the last few boxes after our move more than a year and a half ago, and in one of them, I found a large file folder full of printed copies of episode scripts for seasons three and four. I suspect I will have printed those out while at University and have moved at least five times since then (including to a different country) and yet I still had them after all this time) and while the exact details of the fandom may differ, I suspect the general idea is the same. I absolutely remember the intense devotion, almost counting the hours between episodes, the plot speculation, the anticipation, the shipping.

Reading about these LGBTQ teens, I once more feel my extreme privilege of growing up cis-gendered and straight. Being an awkward, socially inept teenager whose interests mark you as an outcast is bad enough. I was really never a "popular" girl, but I was lucky enough never to be that much of a target for bullies either. Nor was I ever alone in my weirdness, I always had a little group of oddballs to be unpopular with. We didn't care that we weren't invited to parties or whether boys liked us, we wanted to stay at home and read our massive fantasy tomes and discuss our TV shows instead. As long as you're not entirely alone, being seen as weird and being largely ignored by the crowds can be quite nice. But Lula and Rory really only have one another and when that friendship fractures, they are both helpless and adrift. It was all rather heart-breaking to read about.

As with the best YA fiction, the characters in this book all felt like they could be real people. There are no Mary Sues here, both Lula and Rory and the people around them are actual characters with a number of flaws. There were times when I wanted to shake either or both of them (especially Lula, that running away stunt was NOT well thought out), but mostly I wanted to hug them and I am glad that both of them, while they don't exactly start out with the best of support networks around them, end up in a better place than they began.

I apologise for the rambling nature of this review. I liked the book, and really think more people should take notice of it, especially anyone who's been part of any kind of fandom or felt like an outcast for one reason or another while growing up. I'm glad I took the time to read it.

Judging a book by its cover: I must admit that if I saw this in a bookshop or on a library shelf (do the young 'uns use libraries any more? I hope so), I'm not entirely sure I would pick it up. The silhouette of a girl's face with what appears to be smoke inside it isn't exactly all that inviting - there is very little to draw the eye here. That seems like a poor choice on the publisher's side.

Crossposted on Cannonball Read.

#CBR8 Book 33: "Kindred Spirits" by Rainbow Rowell

Page count: 96 pages
Rating: 4.5 stars

Elena is a huge Star Wars fan, but was too young to camp out in a queue when the prequels were released. She nontheless lives and breathes for the sci fi films and has heard all about her father's experiences with camping out in his day, so when the new Star Wars movie, The Force Awakens, is about to open, she decides that now she'll finally have the chance to experience the same sense of geekery, fandom and community that she's heard and read so much about. However, when she shows up four days before the premiere, the epic line she was imagining consists of only two people, one of whom will barely speak to her.

Elena's mother keeps trying to convince her to come home, Troy (the first guy in line) tries his best to motivate the other two with his many stories of previous camping out experiences and Gabe, well, he gradually seems to thaw a bit and during their long wait together, Elena discovers that he might not have been too friendly to her in the beginning.

This tiny book was released for World Book Day and all the proceeds from it go to charity. Huge and devoted fan that I am, I will take even a tiny sliver of a Rainbow Rowell book over nothing at all, and while I blazed through this and desperately want to find out more from these characters, the story still contained all the things that make Rowell's writing so great. There's a lot of humour and such well observed characters, interacting with each other in ways that just seem to speak directly to me. I laughed out loud several times while reading this, stopping to quote some of my favourite bits at my husband and towards the end I actually had to put the book down for a bit because I was so delighted with the way things turned out. Because it's so short, you only get brief sketches of the characters rather than fully fledged people you want to hug and talk to and hang out with, but there is still so much to admire here.

I loved Elena and Gabe and Troy (who I read somewhere is one of Lincoln's buddies from Attachments!) and their experiences being stalwart fans in an age when you really don't need to camp outside for days or weeks, because you can just buy your tickets in advance and you can usually interact with fans of all ages, creeds and obsessions on every kind of social media imaginable. The seeming futility of camping outside a cinema is discussed in the story, but I still admire the three hardcore members of "the line" for sticking to their principles, even though I would never ever do the same.

Personally, I am a big fan of booking in advance, and as all the cinemas in Oslo have assigned seating, you don't even need to camp in line to get a good spot. That's not to say people don't still do it here. I think people slept outside (in temperatures well below zero Celsius) for over a week once the tickets for The Force Awakens became available. Not to actually get into the cinema, but to be the first to buy tickets and to see it at the 10am screening in the biggest THX cinema in Northern Europe. Of course, because the film was the most popular thing being released in December, it was showing on something like 20 screens all over Oslo, and the husband and I saw it in the afternoon the same day (the 16th, which was opening day here, way before most of the world got a chance to see it) without me having to do anything but log onto the cinema's website a couple of days before. So yeah, in this book, when Elena finally gets to see the film she's gone through quite the hardship to enjoy, I couldn't help but remember that were she real, I would still have gotten to see the film before her. Not going to lie, it felt strangely good.

While I have never experienced any fandom that would make me willing to sleep outside on the ground for even a few hours, let alone days, I nonetheless loved this little story. The only thing that keeps it from being a perfect five stars is how short it is, and that I didn't get to know Elena and Gabe better and see them interact outside the queue. It would be awesome if they show up at some point in later Rowell books. A fan can hope.

Crossposted on Cannonball Read.