February TBR Reads

[Serena Klos]

Hi Everyone,

The formatting for messages in the app is terrible. Here are my notes from our February meeting. 

Enjoy!

Serena

February Meeting - Selections from our TBR Lists

Diane's Pick - Postscript by Corey McCarthy

• A novella (the e-version is only 178 pages)
• A post apocalyptic world in which sapiens are surviving on what's left of a destroyed world, until West, a prophetic anthropologist, swoops in. He makes them a found family and challenges them to survive, maybe even thrive
• Corey is a poet, so it is beautifully written. 
• Diane found it very moving. It's a simple plot but extremely well written. She read it in one sitting. 

Jasmine's Pick - Sky Daddy by Kate Folk

• Warning: You have to have an open mind about it going in
• A woman believes her soulmate is a plane and in order to be with her soulmate, she has to die on a plane. She finds planes attractive and seeks out a particular plane that she hopes to die on. 
• Jasmine said it was reminiscent of Lars and the Real Girl. It has a sweet ending, but hang in there

Rachel's Pick - The Rose Field by Philip Pullman 

• The third and final book in The Book of Dust trilogy
• Rachel does not recommend the book, or even the trilogy, though she wishes she could. 
• It's 600 pages of new characters and plot points that don't get resolved, making it very dissatisfying.
• It is told from multiple perspectives, but you don't want to see the perspectives of some of the characters. Perspectives also change within a chapter, which makes it frustrating. 
• In the end, Capitalism is the real villain. 

Andrea's Pick - My Government Means to Kill Me by Rasheed Newson

• A queer coming of age story about a young gay Black man in 1980s New York
• Tre navigates past traumas, keeping familial relationships, ACTUP and coming to terms with the political and social reckoning around him
• He meets a lot of famous people from this time period, similar to Forrest Gump
• He's 18 years old and thinks the world is black and white when really there's a lot of gray area. His self-righteousness shows quite a bit.

Meghan's Pick - The God of the Woods by Liz Moore

• Story told from multiple perspectives of a girls camp in the Adirondacks in the 1970s
• It's a fast and fun read, but it may have been a titch over hyped.
• The story is about the girls at the camp and the family who runs the summer camp after their daughter goes missing.
• Be careful! The cover gives it away. It's a minor plot point, but it points you to an important point plot in the long run
• Portrays class war of that time (and now). It spends a lot of time with rich privileged people who are very poorly behaved. This makes it more difficult to read their perspectives. 
• The woman police officer is a fan favorite. 

Danielle's Pick - There's Always Next Year by George M Johnson and Leah Johnson

• The story of 2 Black gay teenagers who are cousins. One went to NY to be an influence and comes back home for the Festival of Lights. It feels like home is supposed to be Gary, Indiana
• Reminds Danielle of Let It Snow from Netflix
• A fun and light read but a lot of life changing moments are portrayed in just one day.

Katie M's Pick - More Happy Than Not by Adam Silvera

• Takes place in a charged and dangerous Bronx.
• Aaron's Dad committed suicide, Aaron has a star shaped scar on his wrist and he is in tremendous emotional pain. 
• He then meets Thomas and has unexpected feelings for him that he also needs to grapple with
• The book is reminiscent of Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
• Katie says she was on a journey with this book and she had a hard time making progress. She almost DNFed. But the intro made her keep going. You know these characters even if you've never been to the Bronx. 
• Young people of color are allowed to be the stars in this world, not the sidekicks. They get to be themselves.
• Katie is ultimately so happy she finished the book. Once you realize that Aaron is going to an institute to remove memories, you start to understand it better
• At times it does seem that Aaron is written by an adult man, even though he's a teenage boy

Kjersti's Pick - The Last Cuentista by Donna Barba Higuera

• Kjersti highly recommends this book
• The story of a girl who goes on a ship with her family to another galaxy. They are put to sleep and are supposed to be implanted with knowledge for when they get to their destination.
• The girl wakes up mid-flight though. She never wanted to be a scientist; she valued culture and humanity more.
• Good world building but the end leaves you to draw your own conclusions without making you feel like something is missing. 

Kathy's Pick - Birds without Wings by Louis de Bernieres

• This is a long one - 550 pages with small type
• Historical fiction about the last years of the Ottoman Empire. Takes place in a fictional town based in Anatolia/Southern Turkey
• Some first person POV, some third person POV. Lots of info about Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, from his childhood through becoming the leader of Turkey.
• Starts around 1900-1920s where most people are Turkish or Greek, but they identify as Ottoman and are very integrated into each other's lives despite having different schools, professions and cultures
• You follow one Turkish boy and one Greek boy. One's father is a potter who makes bird whistles that make the sounds of birds. They go by the names of each of the birds that the whistles sound like. The even dress up as each bird. 
• You learn a lot from the book and there are really memorable characters, but the wars and atrocities are rough. WWI, Armenian genocide, the expulsion of Christians in Turkey are all addressed. 

Karen's Pick - A Letter to the Luminous Deep by Sylvie Cathrall

• 'A cozy, epistolary fantasy novel set in an underwater world'
• Warning: The word luminous is used a lot
• Karen does not recommend the audiobook. It is really hard to follow the voices of all of the characters and the names are hard.
• E and Henerey are pen pals but then something terrible happens and you assume they die
• Their brother and sister then become pen pals; they also have all of the correspondences between their siblings and even with others
• There is good world building. Not too many holes, and there are fun fantasy, mystical moments.

Serena's Pick - Of Monsters and Mainframes (apologies, I believe I said the wrong name in our meeting)

• I do not recommend this as an audiobook. Each part, of which there are 5, starts with 3-5 minutes of 1s and 0s.
• Told from the point of view of an AI ship named Demeter (among other narrators), it is the story of how multiple AIs must team up with other monsters (e.g. a werewolf, Frankenstein's monster) to stop Dracula from killing everyone
• It's a fun premise and the story has quite a bit of adventure in it that is fun to watch unfold. There is A LOT of references to serial numbers, official product names and the like that interrupt the flow of the story when the narrator reads out every single digit and decimal point every time it comes up. 
• Ultimately it's the story of found family and acceptance.