Things I've Read Recently (74)

If you're new around here, Things I've Read Recently is a series of posts I do that are basically mini-reviews of books that I either forgot to review, didn't have enough to say for a full review, or just didn't want to do a full post about for whatever reason.

Sisters Red by Jackson Pearce

Published: June 7th, 2010 by Little, Brown Books for Young Readers
Genre: YA Paranormal
Binding: Hardcover
Page Count: 324 plus acknowledgements
Part of a series? Yeah, there's four of these, although none of them feature the same characters as far as I know. Each book is a retelling of a different fairy tale.
Got via: I think I bought it at Walmart?
Amazon / Book Depository / Indiebound

Summary (from goodreads): Scarlett March lives to hunt the Fenris — the werewolves that took her eye when she was defending her sister Rosie from a brutal attack. Armed with a razor-sharp hatchet and blood-red cloak, Scarlett is an expert at luring and slaying the wolves. She's determined to protect other young girls from a grisly death, and her raging heart will not rest until every single wolf is dead.

Rosie March once felt her bond with her sister was unbreakable. Owing Scarlett her life, Rosie hunts ferociously alongside her. But even as more girls' bodies pile up in the city and the Fenris seem to be gaining power, Rosie dreams of a life beyond the wolves. She finds herself drawn to Silas, a young woodsman who is deadly with an ax and Scarlett's only friend — but does loving him mean betraying her sister and all that they've worked for?

Thoughts: I didn't like this. Honestly, I kind of wish I had disliked it more because that'd be a more exciting review. Somehow, I have three pages of notes for this book and my overall thoughts on it still manage to just be "meh". It's not very unique, even for the time it was published (especially for the time it was published, really), and it's really predictable. The only reason that I didn't guess the big plot twist is because I thought it was going to be a different one, which honestly would have been a better twist.

I also struggled a lot with the worldbuilding. One, only guys can be werewolves in this universe. What in particular is the reason for that? What about trans people? Intersex people? And why? Two, they hunt with hatchets, axes, and knives. Why not guns. Seriously, I'm pretty anti-gun, but why not guns. The book says that guns don't do enough damage, but you're going to tell me that a sixteen year old girl with a knife does more damage than a shotgun? Third, the sisters seriously walk around all the time in red capes. Do you see a lot of people walking around in capes? In summer? In Atlanta? That's just... it's a stretch of the imagination.

Four, I have no clue what year it's supposed to be in this book. There is a lack of cellphones and internet that is jarring. The internet doesn't come up until nearly the end of the book in places where it really should, and it's barely mentioned at that. Like they went for microfilm before they did a google search. I just don't get that, even in 2010. And their small town has a video rental store that apparently only stocks 90s rom-coms.

I also really, really disliked the romance in this. The book has a romance between a sixteen year old girl and a twenty-one year old man. Then they do the lovely trope of "I've always been in love with you but you didn't notice and somehow it's your fault that I never spoke up because you're supposed to read my mind or something". Scarlett, also, is kind of coded as aroace and I kind of hated that. It's annoying, stereotypical, and bordering on offensive as her trauma is almost treated as the reason she doesn't want to date anyone.

Last, I want to address that this book kind of uses werewolf attacks as an allegory for sexual assault. It's not explicit, but it's definitely there. The werewolves only attack girls, and they prefer young, pretty, thin ones. (Why are none of the werewolves gay? Like... they're eating them. Hey, come to think of it, if Scarlett was eleven when they were attacked and Rosie was nine... why are they only ones that young attacked in the book? Are they saying that werewolf is... well, you know.) Anyways, this leads to some unfortunate places, frankly. There's implications that girls who are pretty, who dress up and act flirtaciously or drink, are asking to be attacked by werewolves. And with the sexual undertones of that, it's not a good thing. And that reflects the tone of misogyny through the book. Other girls besides Rosie and Scarlett are bad and shallow and "stupid", and they're not like other girls.

Along with that, there's a lot of ableism, and casual homomisia and aromisia. (Silas' "date" couldn't be with a guy named Jason, because no dudes date guys named Jason.) There's one character who's coded as gay, who appears for one scene, and is incredibly stereotypical. He sashays. There's also apparently only one black guy in Atlanta.

Last, to go back to my first statement, I found this kind of dull. The way the plot progresses isn't that lively. It's like fight, talking scenes, fight, talking scenes, fight, talking scenes. And the fights aren't that interesting. There are so many of them that they all starts to blend together, and there's not really any stakes to them when the worst thing that happens is they get a bit scratched up. Only the very last one has any real tension. I just overall wasn't excited about this, even if it hadn't had the problems with being offensive that it did.

I'm going to pass this one along. I'm sure someone else might like it better. It just really disappointed me.

People Like Us by Dana Mele

Published: February 27th, 2018 by G.P. Putnam's Sons Books for Young Readers
Genre: YA Mystery/Thriller. I'm never really sure where to divide those. More mystery, I guess.
Binding: Hardcover.
Page Count: 375 plus acknowledgements
Part of a series? No.
Got via: The library.
Amazon / Book Depository / Indiebound

Summary (from goodreads): Kay Donovan may have skeletons in her closet, but the past is past, and she's reinvented herself entirely. Now she's a star soccer player whose group of gorgeous friends run their private school with effortless popularity and acerbic wit. But when a girl's body is found in the lake, Kay's carefully constructed life begins to topple.

The dead girl has left Kay a computer-coded scavenger hunt, which, as it unravels, begins to implicate suspect after suspect, until Kay herself is in the crosshairs of a murder investigation. But if Kay's finally backed into a corner, she'll do what it takes to survive. Because at Bates Academy, the truth is something you make...not something that happened.

Thoughts: Now this one, I really liked. Also I did not know going in how queer this was going to be, so that was a pleasant surprise. Kay doesn't use a label, but she has romantic/sexual relationships with boys and girls in the book, and there's another character with the same circumstances. It was neat to read a book that I ordered because I'm reading a lot of mysteries/thrillers and get surprise queerness. It's not just those two characters, either. There's a fair few.

This isn't perfect, obviously. I think that I read it the same year it was published helps a lot as I think parts of it will easily become a bit dated, because there are some really current references. There's also like no fat rep at all. There's one character who used to be fat (and the book uses the phrase "extremely overweight" which... incredibly ugh) and had bariatric surgery, and she's still in the honeymoon period before regain started, which I do think is pretty realistic. There's also an aromisic phrase used.

In general, though, this was really good. I really liked that the chracters who could be shallow, stereotypical "mean girls" characters were given a lot more depth than they normally would have been. These are still real people who have feelings and depth, even if they've done bad things. Kay is one of the "mean girl" characters, and it's not done in a stereotypical shallow way at all.

I dunno, you all, this one just really worked for me. Great atmosphere, really cool boarding school setting, fairly diverse. I liked it.

Content warnings for brief aromisia (from the book), mentions of racism, brief homomisia (called out as inappropriate), a student/teacher relationship, revenge porn, grief, murder, and a fair amount of talk about suicide which can be a bit graphic. There's also an animal death, and some alcohol use/talk of drugs.

The Clearing by Heather Davis

Published: April 12th, 2010 by HMH Books for Young Readers
Genre: YA... Science Fiction? Time travel is science fiction, right?
Binding: Paperback
Page Count: 215 plus acknowledgements and an about the author.
Part of a series? No.
Got via: I bought it as an Amazon bargain book, I believe.
Amazon / Book Depository / Indiebound

Summary (from goodreads): Amy is drawn to the misty, mysterious clearing behind her Aunt Mae’s place because it looks like the perfect place to hide from life. A place to block out the pain of her last relationship, to avoid the kids in her new town, to stop dwelling on what her future holds after high school.

Then, she meets a boy lurking in the mist—Henry. Henry is different from any other guy Amy has ever known. And after several meetings in the clearing, she’s starting to fall for him.

But Amy is stunned when she finds out just how different Henry really is. Because on his side of the clearing, it’s still 1944. By some miracle, Henry and his family are stuck in the past, staving off the tragedy that will strike them in the future. Amy’s crossing over to Henry’s side brings him more happiness than he’s ever known—but her presence also threatens to destroy his safe existence.

Thoughts: Eh, this was okay. It wasn't terrible, but it wasn't awful either. I feel like if this had been longer it would have been really good, because a lot of the book does feel kind of underdeveloped. The characters are okay, but I had trouble with the romance because it's so fast paced that I couldn't really get that invested in it.

I did honestly really like the premise. It's got a bit of a Tuck Everlasting thing and I've always enjoyed time travel books, romance or othewise. There's just nothing that really made this stand out for me. However, I do think if you know anyone who really likes romance and wants to try YA, they might enjoy this. It's got a lot of a genre romance feel to it.

It just didn't do it for me, and there was enough stuff that was an issue (aromisia, misogyny/girl hate, a kind of bad message about abuse victims needing to confront their abusers alone like that isn't dangerous, a bit of abuse victim blaming, ableism, and a couple lack of diversity of any kind, although the book did find the time to use the word queer in reference to something being strange) that I'm not really satisfied with it. I'm going to be passing this one along.

Content notes for physical, emotional, and sexual abuse, suicide, death from war, a bit of victim-blaming tbh, and some weird sex morality stuff.

Remembering Raquel by Vivian Vande Velde

Published: November 1st, 2007
Genre: Contemporary YA
Binding: Hardcover
Page Count: 137
Part of a series? No.
Got via: I believe this was also an amazon bargain book.
Amazon / Indiebound

Summary (from goodreads): Fifteen-year-old Raquel Falcone is, as one of her classmates puts it, the kind of kid who has a tendency to be invisible. That is until the night she's hit by a car and killed while walking home from the movies.

In brief, moving chapters, we hear about Raquel from her classmates, her best friend, her family--and the woman who was driving the car that struck her.

The loss of this seemingly invisible girl deeply affects her entire community, proving just how interconnected and similar we all really are.

Thoughts: Meh? This book is so short. 140 pages is short for middle grade, let alone YA, and some of this is told in, like, blog entries and such, so it's even shorter. It's so hard to connect to the characters in that time, and everything is left so open-ended. It's like the first third of a book that could be great.

I like the author's writing, and have for a long time, but there was hardly any of it actually in this book. I also found the fat rep tiresome and Raquel's POV was full of food shaming and diet language.

Just not a fan of this one. I'm gonna be passing it along.

Kind of a mixed bag this post, huh? What have you all been reading?

Peace and cookies,
Laina