Books read in February 2018

Lotta picture books, read in a clump.  Then I struggled to remember which was which for reviews.  Oh, awards season.  And I also read a lot of other things too, some of them rather obsessively.

Picture books: All Around Us
Middle grade: The Stars Beneath our Feet
Young adult: The Gentleman’s Guide to Vice and Virtue. But also: Truly Devious
Young nonfiction: Sea Otter Heroes. But also: Chef Roy Choi and the Street Food Remix
Adult fiction: We Were Eight Years in Power
Smart smut: Brutal Game.  But only if you’ve read Willing Victim.  If not, then: Thank You For Riding

All Around Us
Gonzalez and Garcia
Read for Librarian Book Group
I loved the different kind of circles in this book and the illustrations were particularly excellent.

Side note that has nothing to do with this book: in Portland, Oregon the words of the title are used to promote the surround-sound environment at the St. Johns Theater.  Which meant that every time I encountered the title I heard the power chord, mentally saw the balls bouncing, and then whispered “All. Around. Us.”

Effective marketing.  It’s a thing.

La Princesa and the Pea
Elya & Martinze Neal
A retelling of the Princess and the Pea.  The story rhymes, and some of the rhymes use Spanish words.  It was easy to understand the meanings of the words from context, and there was a glossary in the back.  I found the use of Spanish words completing the rhyme scheme to be delightful.

My Kite is stuck and other stories
Salina Yoon
Read for Librarian Book Group
What happens when a kite gets stuck in a tree?  Some ineffective (and funny) problem solving.

Snail and Worm Again
Tina Kugler
Read for Librarian Book Group
Is is a mirror, or is it a penny?

I See a Cat
Paul Meisel
Read for Librarian Book Group
What does the dog see through the sliding glass door?  Good repetition.

The Stars Beneath our Feet
David Barclay Moore
Read for Librarian Book Group
Sheesh, there’s a lot going on in this book.  Should I start with Lolly’s love of LEGO? Or the fact that his brother was killed a few months earlier? Or the pressure to join a “crew”?  Or his changing friendships?  Or all the interesting things that happen at the after school club?  All of these things flow through this novel in a masterful way that leaves me surprised to learn this is David Barclay Moore’s first novel.

Lucky Broken Girl
Ruther Behar
Read for Librarian Book Group
This is a great slice-of-life book for anyone looking for insight into the 1960’s New York City Cuban expat community, or what it’s like to spend a year in bed healing from two broken legs. There’s a lot of good detail, especially about the time as an invalid.  (Maybe slightly too much detail in some places.)

Meet Cute
Various Authors
Various YA authors bring their best “meet cute” short stories in this winning collection. There were no duds.

Truly Devious
Maureen Johnson
This mystery has it all: boarding school environment, map, remote location, plucky heroine, a mystery in the past, a mystery in the present, a rhyming riddle, those magazine cutout messages, friendships made and strained, plus a brooding potential love interest.  The worst part?  It ends.  The second worse part? It’s a cliffhanger ending and book two (of three) is not due until next year.

Truly Devious
Maureen Johnson
Sometimes, when I read a very good book and get to the end, I must then turn to the first page and begin again.  Well done, Maureen Johnson.  Well done.

Suite Scarlett
Maureen Johnson
Sometimes, when you read a really good book, you pick up another of the author’s books in an attempt to keep the magic going. While this is no Truly Devious, it was fun to experience the life of a daughter of New York City Hotel owners.

The Inexplicable Logic of my Life
Benjamin Alire Sanez
Read for Librarian Book Group
I found parts of this novel to be clunky. For example, there’s a point where the main character runs into his friend and the friend gives us a monologued paragraph with his entire life story–something that would not happen in real life.  The plot tends to wander hither and yon, and two characters experience the same type of loss within a few months of each other, something I found to be unbelievable, especially since the main character has also experienced that same loss in his past.

None of these things on their own sank the book, but they contributed to me finding it to be a slog.  Here’s hoping for a tighter narrative for the next book.

As the Crow Flies
Melanie Gillman
Read for Librarian Book Group
This book left me with a lot of questions.  It was never explained to my satisfaction why such a secular person was going on such a religious pilgrimage-type hiking trip.  The structure of the book set me up to be very interested in what happened when the hiking group got to the top of the mountain, but then the book ended before they got there.  Is this a deliberate technique, or just poor storytelling?

Good stuff: the uncomfortable feelings of being an outsider, in this case, the only person of color among white people and a queer person among (presumably) straight people. The dichotomy of an all-women, Christian hike was interesting.

The Gentleman’s Guide to Vice and Virtue
Mackenzi Lee
A rollicking eighteenth century adventure of a tour of the Continent gone wrong. This book is full of many emotional highs and lows and is great fun all around.

Frida Kahlo and her Animalitos
Brown/Parra
Read for Librarian Book Group
Picture book about what the title says.  (Aside: I heard a picture book author talk recently, and he said, “This isn’t independent cinema.  We know what the ending will be.”)

I liked the use of color, and the age-appropriate version of Kahlo’s biography.

Chef Roy Choi and the Street Food Remix
Martin, Lee, Man One
Read for Librarian Book Group
The story, the text, and the illustrations all came together in the story of Chef Roi Choi and his food truck.

Mama Africa! How Miriam Makeba Spread Hope with Her Song
Erskine & Palmer
Read for Librarian Book Group
South Africa.  Apartheid.  One woman and song.

Malala: Activist for Girl’s Education
Frier & Fronty
Read for Librarian Book Group
Picture book story of Malala.  Bold color used in the illustrations.

Not so Different: What You Really Want to Ask About Having a Disability
Shane Burcaw
Read for Librarian Book Group
A nonfiction picture book about Burcaw’s life and questions children (and adults) might want to ask him.  There are clear photo illustrations throughout and overall, the layout is great.

Sea Otter Heroes
Patricia Newman
Read for Librarian Book Group
This is the kind of book that makes me glad that Librarian Book Group feeds me a steady supply of nonfiction picture books.  I wouldn’t be up for reading an entire nonfiction book about Sea Otters and their effects on a slough, but this was exactly the amount of cool information I wanted to take in.  It’s also very informative in not very many words.

We Were Eight Years in Power
Ta-Nehisi Coates
If I had my druthers, everyone in America over the age of sixteen would read Coates’ article “A Case for Reparations” and then follow that up by reading “The Black Family in the Age of Mass Incarceration.”  If you missed those particular articles in The Atlantic, happily, they are contained in this volume, along with six other essays, plus material that introduces each articles.

Aside from being an excellent “Public Intellectual” and his words being worth your time, this book has awesome end papers.

After Hours
Cara McKenna
I’m pretty tired–kind of worn down from accumulated work stuff.  I’ve realized that when there is undue stress, illness or exhaustion in my life, I turn to my Smart Smut books.  And so it was time for a re-read of this novel.

Brutal Game
Cara McKenna
Holy cats, there has been a sequel to Willing Victim out for more than a year and I didn’t know?  What a terrible oversight.  This picks up Flynn and Laurel’s story eight months after Willing Victim ends.  Stuff happens to complicate things.  The feelings are real.  It’s a hot, worthy second book.

Willing Victim
Cara McKenna
Having read Brutal Game four days ago, I decide that it’s time to re-read this, just to make sure I hadn’t forgotten anything.  I hadn’t.  It was still good.

Brutal Game
Cara McKenna
And having finished my re-read of Willing Victim, why not see how the two books flow?  Very well, it turns out.

Thank You for Riding
Cara McKenna
While some of McKenna’s opening novels of her series are prohibitively expensive, even in Kindle form, this is a mere ninety-nine cents right now. It’s a quick short story where the action takes place on the Orange Line of the T and as a former rider of Boston’s MTA, I applaud this story.

Top Movies February 2018

(17 movies watched. Thank you, vacation!)

Excellent Noir
Good dancing

Very well done.

A quite good, sad story

Funny and slightly painful

Friggin’ amazing!

A worthy adaptation

Enjoyable hoodlums

Delightfully dirty

Bring a tissue

All-Black cast, from back in the day.

Some good bits here. Especially if you ever dated a drummer.

Engrossing

Perfect

Delightful adaptation

 

Song of the month: February 2018

“Adore”
Amy Shark

“Because I had a great night ’cause you kept rubbing against my arm”

This song–which Wikipedia tells me is from 2016–is being played with some regularity on one of the local radio stations.  The lyric above caught my ear and is the reason the song is featured this month.

I was so obsessed with boys as a teenager (and into my twenties). To this day, I wonder about the causes of that obsession and am thankful I don’t have to worry about raising a daughter to not be obsessed in that way.  I was completely the girl who would chalk up a great night to something that might be entirely unintentional. And “adore” is the exact right verb for what I felt for guys I liked.

I’m happy that period of my life is over, though I’m not fully convinced that it wouldn’t return if I found myself single again.

“This is the Day”
The The

This song is featured in the movie Every Day, which was a worthy adaptation of a really great YA novel.  I had a passing familiarity with this song, and I love when the music people involved with movies pluck just the right song to pair with the narrative and give a new audience a chance to also enjoy the song.

Also: When I worked for Bread & Circus (Whole Foods’ name in Massachusetts) one of my co-workers had a tangential connection to The The. Her husband had gone on tour with them, playing harmonica.

“Electric Love”
BORNS

Also featured in the movie Every Day, I just love everything about this, from the first word, “Candy,” to the last “Baby you’re electric love.”* I like it so much, I’m not 100% certain I have not already included this in the Song of the Month rundown. A quick search tells me I haven’t, so welcome “Electric Love.”

*I did some cross-checking because I would have spelled it “your electric love” but I could see how “you’re” also works.  Most lyrics have both ways.

Job Spotter, a report

Here now is a report on Job Spotter, which is an app I found out about from the Financial Panther website. Kevin, the man behind Financial Panther, reports on his side hustles and the amount of cash they bring in. It’s not an insignificant amount of cash for Kevin. I thought I would dip my toes in with Job Spotter.

To use Job Spotter you download the app and then whenever you see a hiring sign you take two pictures: one of the hiring sign and one of the storefront. The app guides you through the process. After you submit the sign/storefront photos, Job Spotter assigns a point value to them. You can then cash in the points for Amazon credit. Each point is worth one cent of Amazon credit.

I already walk around and take pictures of things, so Job Spotter is a perfect match for me. And while I didn’t make a ton–the $13.91 total you see below was for January and February, it’s more than I would make if I didn’t stop for 10 seconds and take a photo.

It feels a little bit like a treasure hunt. First you find a sign (so exciting!) and then waiting to see what the point value will be is also exciting. While most things aren’t worth a lot of points–that 106 value I got for the Living Room Theater is the exception, not the rule–the points do add up.

Three sentence movie reviews: Every Day

David Levithan wrote a fabulous novel about a person named A who wakes up every morning in the body of a different person. While the book is from A’s perspective, the movie makes Rihannon–the girl A falls in love with–the focus. Aside from featuring 14 talented up-and-coming actors as A,* this movie is a somewhat magical love story that is also heartbreaking.

Cost: $9.25 (special vacation treat, also I had a gift card, so it was free)
Where watched: Regal Pioneer Place (which I have not been to in a very long time.)

*Fun to spot: Justice Smith who was Radar in Paper Towns; Lucas Jade Zumann, who was Jamie in 20th Century Women; Jacob Batalon who was Ned in Spider-Man: Homecoming, and of course Angourie Rice, who was so very good as the daughter in the Nice Guys.

Random note: As the movie started the production logo of Orion Pictures appeared. “I haven’t seen anything by Orion Pictures in years,” I thought to myself. “I wonder what they’ve been doing?”  I checked the IMDB trivia and learned that this is the first full-length motion picture to be produced and distributed by the revitalized Orion Pictures. I felt very smart.

poster from: http://www.impawards.com/2018/every_day.html

Three sentence movie reviews: Paterson

Given that I’ve written an entire book set on buses, and that I also love poetry, it is no surprise at my great love for this movie. I’m also a fan of movies where not much happens, and there is that too in this film. The scene with the two guys chatting about the girls that are totally into them will probably remain my favorite cinematic public transportation moment of the foreseeable future.

Cost: free from library
Where watched: at home

poster from: http://www.impawards.com/2016/paterson_ver2.html

An amusing poster comment from the peanut gallery on the IMP Awards site:
IMP Award for Most Unfortunate Name Placement

(He is referring to Golshifteh Farahani, who plays Adam Driver’s wife, and who looks nothing like the dog sitting on the bench)

Three sentence movie reviews: Darkest Hour

With the opening scenes, I steeled myself for yet another film of an insufferable man causing everyone to rotate around him. Thankfully, an underutilized Kristin Scott Thomas set him straight and we could proceed with the events leading up to the evacuation at Dunkirk.* I found the scene in the subway charming, and also annoying as it seemed very much a manufactured-for-the-narrative moment.

Cost: $6.00
Where watched: Living Room Theater, who has changed their menu for the worse.  I had a very sub-par sandwich, and I used to really enjoy their sandwiches.

*This would make a nice double feature with Christopher Nolon’s Dunkirk, also released in 2017.

poster from: http://www.impawards.com/intl/uk/2017/darkest_hour.html

Three sentence movie reviews: Cabin in the Sky

So, yes, it’s progressive for its time, which does not keep it from being fairly offensive today.* But still, you get performances from Ethel Waters and Lena Horne, and a really awesome nightclub scene that recycles some tornado footage from the Wizard of Oz. I think it’s worth watching, despite its flaws, because how often do you get a movie with an all-black cast?

Cost: $2.99 via Google Play
Where watched: at home. This is the first film in the Vincente Minnelli Marathon on Filmspotting.

*From the Wikipedia article about the movie: “The script was submitted before production to the NAACP. In a letter to the Editor, a writer of the film said he received a letter “congratulating [them] on the treatment of this black fable, which avoided cliches and racial stereotypes.”  While the NAACP might have been on board with it then, I can say now that watching this movie today I found it rife with cliches and racial stereotypes.

Three sentence movie reviews: Coco

Oh my goodness, when will I learn to bring tissues to Pixar movies? I loved this film, Miguel’s family and the portrayal of the Land of the Dead. The music was also fantastic, with “Remember Me” nestling itself perfectly into the narrative.

Cost: $4.00
Where watched: Kennedy School–which was good, because I could sink down into the couches while crying.

poster from: http://www.impawards.com/2017/coco.html