Monkey Beach is the first novel by Indigenous writer Eden Robinson and was first published in 2000. It is set in Haisla territory on the British Columbia coast just north of Vancouver Island, where Robinson was born. Monkey Beach is an engrossing read, but the ending devastated me, and I actually woke up in the middle of the night thinking about it.
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I had my eye on White Fox for awhile before finally purchasing it. It sounds exactly like the kind of novel that I would eat up: a mystery about two sisters whose famous actor mother, Mireille Foix, disappeared a decade earlier, they discover their mother’s long-lost screenplay, White Fox, that she was working on when she disappeared, and it may hold clues to what really happened to her. I devoured this novel in two days, not able to put it down until I knew what happened to Mireille Foix. I found this novel very interesting to read because of the way it is structured, but I think the whole mystery behind the mother’s disappearance was a bit too simplistic in the end.
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I enjoyed reading The Library of the Unwritten, but do I think it is an amazing book that would I recommend over a lot of the other books I have read recently? No. The concept is interesting, but the characters are not original enough to make this novel really stand out. I am not saying that you would be wasting your time reading this novel, but I would not blame you if you had something else you are really excited to read instead.
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Firekeeper’s Daughter is an impressive debut from Angeline Boulley that I highly recommend. It is classified as YA, but aside from the 18-year-old protagonist, it reads like an adult novel. There is no magic, no supernatural creatures, no “chosen one” trope and certainly no love triangles. Firekeeper’s Daughter is very much grounded in the real world and in real-life situations and is a mystery/crime thriller rather than a fantasy novel.
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The Leavers is an interesting and compelling novel about living as an undocumented Chinese immigrant in America and about being caught between two cultural identities.
It is about Deming Guo and his mother, Polly, who is the undocumented Chinese immigrant. Deming was born in New York City, but his mother sent him to live with his grandfather in China when he was about a year old because she could not afford to work and take care of him at the same time. His grandfather dies when he is five, so he ends up back in New York, reunited with his mother. Deming has a close relationship with his mother; they live in a small apartment with Polly’s boyfriend, Leon, and Leon’s sister and her son, Michael, who becomes Deming’s best friend.
One day when Deming is eleven, his mother goes to work as usual at a nail salon, but never comes home. No one knows what has happened to Polly, not even Leon. Deming spends the next ten years of his life wondering if she abandoned him on purpose and where she might have gone.
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Things You Save in a Fire turned out to not be the book that I thought it was going to be, not that this is bad thing. I thought it would be a more serious family drama, along the lines of anything by Jonathan Franzen or even Little Fires Everywhere by Celeste Ng, but Things You Save in a Fire leans more towards rom com, so it is the perfect read if you are looking for something light and enjoyable that you could take with you to the beach.
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One of Us is Next is the sequel to One of Us is Lying. I read One of Us is Lying a couple of years ago. It has good reviews that make it sound like a twisty mystery that I would not be able to guess the ending of. It is about five high school students who are in detention together, and one of the students ends up dead. A gossip blog reveals secrets of the four surviving students that points to one of them being responsible for the death. I knew right away there was two possible explanations for what happened to the student that died, and the explanation I decided on turned out to be correct, so I was disappointed at how easily I figured it out. The surprising part of One of Us is Lying is not the whodunnit, but rather the motivation behind the death. The other thing I got from One of Us is Lying is how toxic of an environment high school is (I did not enjoy high school, but I really do not remember it being as bad as depicted in a lot of YA novels these days). McManus has another novel called Two Can Keep a Secret that I have read as well, but to be completely honest, I do not recall what happened, that is how memorable it is. So, you must be wondering by now why I would bother reading One of Us is Next. Well, first, I was trying to get free shipping at Book Outlet, and second, I was curious to know if McManus’ plotting had improved enough to keep me guessing until the very end.
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I am very late to the Where the Crawdads Sing party, but better late than never, right? After reading this novel, I can see why it was such a hit when it first came out. I really enjoyed reading it and had a hard time putting it down; I finished reading it in two days. I very highly recommend you read this novel if you are like me and are also late to the Where the Crawdads Sing party.
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Hench is an entertaining novel set in an alternate reality where some people are born with “superabilities” and they grow up to become either superheroes or villains. But Hench questions whether there is really a difference between superheroes and villains. Are superheroes really any better than villains, or are they just as bad, or worse, for society as villains?
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My Dark Vanessa was published to much fanfare in March 2020. At the time, I was indecisive about whether I wanted to buy a book that I felt for sure, based on the subject matter, I was not going to like. In the end I decided not to read it. About a year later, My Dark Vanessa went on sale on Kindle books and once again I found myself dithering over whether I wanted to buy it. In the end curiosity won out and I decided to read it. It turns out that I was right, I did not enjoy reading My Dark Vanessa. I do not know how anyone can enjoy reading a novel about a 15-year-old girl being sexually groomed by her 42-year-old English teacher. However, that does not mean I think you should not read this novel.
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