The Broken Kingdoms by N.K. Jemisin

*Book 2: The Inheritance Trilogy*

A decade after the World Tree ripped through Sky and created the city of Shadow, the godlings who've inhabited the city are enjoying life among the humans. Oree Shoth is a blind artist who seems to attract godlings, even falling in love with one. When a mysterious man shows up at her home, Oree tries to care for him but he keeps killing himself, but his deaths are always temporary, which makes her think he must be a godling.

Oree becomes the target of a cult and her and her new friend Shiny are kidnapped by them. Oree learns their plan and the truth of her own peculiarities.

This book started out a bit slower than The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms but once it picked up it really took off. Sieh, Nahadoth, and Yeine aren't featured as much as book one, but they're still here.

Us Against You by Fredrik Backman

*Beartown, book 2*

Beartown was the first book I read in 2018 so when I heard there was a sequel, I ran to the library to scoop this up.

Just a few months after the end of Beartown, Us Against You tells the story of Beartown versus Hed and how the split in hockey takes its toll on the people of Beartown. Backman's writing is beautiful and he's so good at building tension. I thoroughly enjoyed reading this and I can't wait to pick up my next Backman book at the library.

The Girls in the Picture by Melanie Benjamin

Frances Marion and Mary Pickford were best friends who helped shape Hollywood in its infancy. Mary was the face, the perpetual little girl, while Frances worked behind the scenes as a scenarist (writer). The book follows both women from their beginnings with “flickers” to wondering what kind of future they'll have when the “talkies” become popular. Their friendship, like most, has it's ups and downs, but they eventually fracture in a way that neither thinks can be repaired. 

I enjoyed this story because it taught me a lot about the early days of Hollywood, however, I felt at time that the conflicts between Frances and Mary were insanely petty. I felt like a story about women who were pioneers in the film industry was basically boiled down to arguments about men and who's trying to upstage who at work. The book was a quick read and kept me interested. 

Little Fires Everywhere by Celeste Ng

Who is May Ling? Who is Mirabelle? 

Elena Richardson grew up in Shaker Heights, Ohio: a Cleveland suburb. In 1997, she has 4 high school children and the perfect lawyer as a husband. Elena's life is her own perfect plan, and 3 of her children easily fall into her cookie-cutter family recipe. Her youngest, Izzy, has always been a wild card.

When Mia and Pearl Warren move to Shaker Heights, the 2^ndfloor apartment they rent is owned by Elena Richardson, who has a soft spot for Mia. Elena offers Mia a job before digging into Mia's personal history. Under normal circumstances, Elena and Mia may have been friends. If only Elena hadn't hired Mia to clean and cook for her teenage children. 

Pearl and Mia attract all four of the Richardson children: Lexie, Trip, Moody, and Izzy. And each of these teenagers reacted differently to the mother/daughter family. When Shaker Heights is thrown into an adoption scandal that attracts media attention, everyone takes sides. When Elena realizes that Mia is intimately involved with the “other side” she pushes Mia and Pear right out of her family's life, which has dire consequences for her perfect little life.

This book is wonderfully written and every character feels like a real person. This story brought me back to 1997 and my sophomore year in high school, and I loved it. 

My Dear Hamilton by Stephanie Dray & Laura Kamoie

My Dear Hamilton is the story of Eliza Hamilton, one of the Founding Mothers of the United States and wife to Revolutionary War hero and Treasury Secretary Alexander Hamilton. This is an historical fiction novel, not a biography, so not all of the details are accurate. However, there seems to be a consensus among writers that the craziest parts of historical fiction novels are the true parts. With that in mind, Eliza tells her story in relation to her husband, “the $10 Founding Father without a father.” (Hamilton: An American Musical, Lin-Manuel Miranda)

Betsy Schuyler was the daughter of General Phillip Schuyler of the Continental Army. She met Alexander Hamilton during the winter of 1780, in an under-provisioned Continental camp in New Jersey. Betsy worked with her uncle to help as many American soldiers as possible. After Betsy and Alexander married they lived in a simple home near General Washington so Hamilton could continue his work as aide de camp. After the war, the couple moved back and forth between New York City and Philadelphia, depending on where Hamilton was needed. 

Eliza (still going by Betsy, her childhood nickname) gave birth to nine children. Because of her husband's history as an orphan, she agreed to adopt a friend's daughter and foster another's son during difficult times for her family, both emotional and financial. She watched her husband make questionable decisions and was publicly humiliated by her husband's affair, which is considered the first sex scandal in American politics. She lived for almost a hundred years but she lost three children, two sisters, both her parents, and her husband within a decade. 

Eliza Hamilton was a strong woman who we don't know nearly enough about, but this book is a start. Thanks to Ron Chernow's Alexander Hamilton and Lin-Manuel Miranda's Hamilton: An American Musical, everyone knows who Eliza was, but we still don't know who she really was, at the core of her being. This book is obviously well-researched and extremely well-written. I enjoyed seeing what I know from Miranda's musical from Eliza's perspective. I also liked the personal spiritual crises Eliza found herself in throughout the novel; whether it was her views on slavery in her own life versus the country as a whole or coming to terms with her husband's betrayal of their marriage vows, I felt like I was right there feeling everything she may have felt. 

I was excited to read this book for three reasons. I read America's First Daughter, the first novel co-authored by Stephanie Dray and Laura Kamoie, and loved it. I'm also a huge musical theatre geek and I know all of the lyric's to Miranda's musical. (My 4yo knows a few lyrics himself!) I've already recommended this book to five people and I'm sure I won't stop there. My final reason is the American Revolution has always been the only war I've ever been interested in. 

The Stone Sky by N.K. Jemisin

SPOILER ALERT: This is book 3 in The Broken Earth trilogy.

In the final book of The Broken Earthtrilogy, Essun and Nassun are both trying to open the Obelisk Gate. Essun hopes to bring the Moon back to Father Earth so the Seasons will end at the Stillness might once again be still. Nassun has a darker purpose and a Guardian to help her. Both must travel to the other side of Earth to Corepoint, a city in the middle of the ocean, a city where obelisks were made, the city where it all began and ended. 

Another beautifully written novel, The Stone Skybrings us back in time to a world in which stone eaters were human, although they were never treated as such. In the present, Nassun grieves as she watches Schaffa, the only adult she loves and believes in anymore, slowly waste away while he fights the core stone in his brain stem. Essun is turning to stone as Alabaster did after causing the Rifting, but she doesn't seem to care too much until she wants to use her orogeny. 

This is an amazing story, a perfect ending to a remarkable series!

Exit West by Mohsin Hamid

When Nadia and Saeed first meet, their country is being torn apart by war. Islamic militants take over their city and eventually the entire country. Their love is heightened by the atrocities they witness against neighbors and loved ones. When they hear whispers about doors leading to other, better countries, they're desperate to find one. Saving and scrimping, pretending to be married, the couple slips through one door, into a refugee camp. The next door brings them farther from their homeland and everything they know. But it's the final door that makes them question not just each other, but themselves as well.

This is a brilliant book about the horrors people face in the homelands before they become refugees, as well as the indifference, hatred, and bigotry they face as refugees. I love the prose, I think Hamid's writing has a nice flow to it, and I'm amazed that he could be vague and specific at the same time. The only aspect of the story I didn't like was Nadia's insistence on wearing the black robe in public, especially after leaving the country, because she thought it made her safer. 

Love, Hate & Other Filters by Samira Ahmed

Maya is a typical American teenager in a typical small town. The only thing that makes her different from everyone else in her town is her background. She's Muslim and her parents emigrated to the United States from India before she was born. She's torn between doing what her family wants and what makes her happy, as we all are. After a terrorist attack her family is suddenly plunged into violence and hatred from people in their peaceful community. 

DISCLAIMER:

I am a white woman in America and have no idea what it's like to be anything other than a white woman in America.

I was very excited to read this book, I love reading anything about different cultures, especially the ones that bring the culture into America. I was very disappointed, however, because Maya doesn't seem much different from other Muslim or Indian characters I've read about in the past. I enjoyed the scene snippets before each chapter, a kind of foreshadowing of events to come. I think the portrayal of the aftermath was very believable, as bigoted white folks are known for attacking minorities in this country. 

The Obelisk Gate by N.K. Jemisin

In the second book in the Broken Earth trilogy, we follow Essun and now her daughter Nassun as they explore their orogenic powers by connecting to the obelisks floating above the continent. Castrima is threatened by another comm demanding they give up every orogene if they want to live. Nassun learns how to control her power in the Antarctics under Schaffa's watchful eye while Essun learns everything she can from Alabaster in his weakening state. But is it enough to bring the moon back?

Jemisin's magic continues as we see through both Essun's and Nassun's eyes. You are still Essun, but there is a new POV, there is an I. The jumps from first, second, to third person flows seamlessly because each POV is written so well that it's not as noticeable as one would think. While both Essun and Nassun believe they are trying to save the earth, at this point we have no idea whose methods will win, or even if that win is good for not only earth but humanity as well. 

The Year of the Flood by Margaret Atwood

Book 2 of the MaddAddam series. 

After Oryx and Crake, we expect the series to follow Jimmy/Snowman, but it doesn't. We start with Toby and Ren, two women who used to be a part of the God's Gardeners cult. We watch them survive the Waterless Flood, the plague Crake set upon humanity. We see the events that lead up the Waterless Flood as told by Toby and Ren, including how they know some of the characters we've already met.

In true Atwood fashion, we're jerked from the present to the past and back again. How does the God's Gardeners cult relate to Crake? How do our heroines fit into the part of the story we already know? And how does this cult predict what's coming?

The answers are murky at best, but through the “scripture” and hymns of Adam One and the God's Gardeners we see how they perceive the world around them, a world that is so close to ours. Reading Oryx and Crake, I thought Atwood's future was crazy, but once I see it through someone else's eyes I see it's already happening. It's on it's way. 

So you have two questions to answer: Will you read MaddAddam, the final book in the trilogy? Will you realize that it's coming, that the Waterless Flood will overtake all of us before we can fight it?

The Fifth Season by N.K. Jemisin

A different Earth, a supercontinent ravaged by earthquakes and volcanoes. A girl with a potential power, a seasoned Orogene trying to cull the quakes, and a woman desperate to find her daughter bring us into The Stillness. Magic, fear, and a volatile land make for a scary place to live. Damaya, Syenite, and Essun walk us through the events leading up to the most recent Season. A Season is a period of cold, darkness, and/or anything else that can happen after a giant earthquake sets off a giant volcano, as the Stillness rests on many. 

This is the first book in the Broken Earthtrilogy by N.K. Jemisin. Jemisin creates a vivid world, something we can see without having ever been there. She also puts us in one of the characters' bodies, using “you” instead of another pronoun. It made me feel like I was part of the story more than other books. She creates tension, she relieves part of it, and then she throws something else at you. This is an amazing book and I'm excited to read the magic of the next book, The Obelisk Gate.

A Man Called Ove by Fredrik Backman

A Man Called Ove is the heartwarming and heartbreaking story of Ove, a man so grumpy that it takes a village to wake him up and remind him who he is. Ove is a man who was set in his ways as a child; he's a man of a certain generation, a man who can learn everything about someone by what car they drive. When Ove has given up, a new family moves into his neighborhood and shows him that there's still love and laughter in the world and more importantly, there's always someone to fight for.

Fredrik Backman reaches out to all of us with this story. I laughed just as often as I cried, and sometimes the tears were brought on by laughter and joy. Parvaneh, Ove's newest (and very pregnant) neighbor, irritates him so much that he feels he needs to help her. Then he helps someone else, and then a cat. Everyone knows and Ove; I jokingly told my husband I was reading his best friend's biography! This book is filled with so many wonderful and colorful characters, not just Ove and Parvaneh. Ove has just as many rough edges as soft spots, and this isn't a story to miss.

 

Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates

Between the World and Me is a letter from Ta-Nehisi Coates to his 15-year-old son. It's part autobiography, part philosophy of what it's like to be black in America. It's a heartbreaking story of love and loss.

Coates' main theme is the loss of the black body. He reaches back into history to slavery, his family's history, like most black Americans, to explore the obvious exploitation of black lives from the beginning of our country. The right over one's own body seems obvious to most white people, especially men. While most of us white women can partly understand the concept of having our body broken and taken away from us, no one can understand what the black population in the Americas has been through. Coates talks about himself and what he wants for his son, only briefly talking about his wife's experiences as a black woman, the culmination of being black in America and being a woman in America.

 This book affected me on too many levels. I cried for my sister-in-law, who has most likely dealt with more discrimination than I could imagine. I cried for my nephew, who I hope won't be discriminated against for being biracial. I cried for my son, because he has no idea the privilege he's been born into because of the color of his skin. All I can do is teach him to be a human being, not a white person. I hope I succeed.  

Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi

This multi-generational family saga begins in Ghana in the mid-18^th Century and ends at the beginning of the 21^st. Effia and Esi are half sisters who have never met and don't know the other exists. Effia is married to Ghana's British Governor while Esi is kidnapped and sold into slavery, bound for America. Following seven generations, Homegoing tells the untold story of Africa and America through slavery and war. The similarities and differences between Africans and African-Americans are explored through each generation.

Homegoing is the story we didn't realize we needed. Too many African-Americans don't know their heritage and too many white Americans don't care. We don't want to be reminded of what our ancestors did to their ancestors. The beauty of this novel is it's simplicity. Each chapter follows a different character, starting with Effia and then Esi. We follow their children through life in Ghana and life in America. We see how they struggle with trying to fit in; because Effia's husband was white her family was marked as different and Esi's descendants were slaves, then free, then slaves again. Each chapter is only about 20 pages but Gyasi packs so much depth and history into each character that you feel like you know them. 

The Help by Kathryn Stockett

It's 1962 in Jackson, Mississippi. The white folks want nothing to do with Civil Rights and some of the black population are too scared to fight for them. When Skeeter, a white woman who recently graduated from Ole Miss, asks Aibileen, her best friend's black maid, if she wants to change how things are in Jackson, she's immediately shut down. It's not only dangerous, but illegal, to talk about integration, and Aibileen knows her life would be at risk if she tried to change anything. But Skeeter just wants to tell stories about what it's like for black women working as maids and nannies in white families, and she eventually convinces Aibileen to write with her. Aibileen convinces her best friend Minny and ten other maids to share their stories with Skeeter in the hopes that the country will know what life is really like in the segregated South. Skeeter is ostracized by her friends, the same women who appear in the maids' stories, as Aibileen and Minny fear for their jobs and their lives.

The lives of southern white women and their “separate but equal” black maids are laid bare in this novel about Civil Rights in the 1960s. The author weaves actual historic events, like the murder of Medgar Evers by the KKK, Martin Luther King Jr.'s March on Washington D.C., and the assassination of JFK, into the fictional people of the real Jackson, Mississippi. Aibileen, Minny, and Skeeter are brilliant narrators, each with her own unique voice. Aibileen and Minny show us the love-hate relationship between white families and the black women they let raise their children, even if they aren't allowed to use the same bathroom or eat at the same table. Skeeter shows us that sometimes it just takes one privileged person who's willing and able to say, “This is wrong; we shouldn't be doing this; it needs to stop.” Lives are destroyed and redeemed many times over in this instant classic.

Beartown by Fredrik Backman

Fredrik Backman's Beartown focuses on a small hockey town in the middle of a Swedish forest. Outsiders believe the town is finished, but the town believes in the promise of their young hockey stars. These stars are children, teenagers still in high school. As the team gets closer to the national finals, they begin to unravel. They seem to believe they are gods and they love the adulation of the town, especially the teenage girls. When the team captain makes a mistake that can't be undone, the town begins to unravel. Violence and accusations rage across the small town in the middle of a forest until someone finally snaps and someone else does the right thing.

 This novel hooks you from the first sentence and does not disappoint in keeping you on the edge, always uncertain what's going to happen next. Backman's style is short, concise scenes that fit together in a way that each chapter seems to have its own theme. I felt the whole range of emotions while reading this, from sadness, anger, and rage to happiness and incredulity. All of the characters were fully formed, even those who didn't warrant actual names (Kira's colleague, Kevin's father and mother). Both the best and the worst aspects of human nature are explored in a way that shows communities can come together with a common goal, but that goal might be misguided and downright harmful.