Books

Turn Right at Machu Picchu by Mark Adams

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My friend Jenna has always wanted to go to Machu Picchu, and I have never been interested in joining her.  But when travel blogger Nomadic Matt recommended this book about a guy researching Machu Picchu’s discovery while exploring the Incan ruins for himself….I got totally hooked!  Where is my ticket to Peru?  I’m ready to go!

Well, not really.  If Adams did anything successfully, it is convey the physical toll of climbing up and down numerous mountains.  I’m not hugely into exercise, but he’s also brilliant at describing the stunning views from those same moutaintops.  I’m willing to work through the pain for the reward.  Continue reading →

Golden Son by Pierce Brown

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If it were acceptable book review practice to simply post paragraphs of “!!!!!” over and over again, I would.  Pierce Brown seems to delight in leading his readers to believe that one thing will happen…and then making everything fall apart so that you’re left staring at the page, wondering how in the world Darrow will escape this time.  And by “this time” I mean every fifty pages or so.  The big moments come hard and fast, and nothing ever goes as I expect it.  I LOVE IT.

While Rising Red was a small(er) stakes revenge story, Golden Son widens its scope to the whole solar system, and this time Darrow has matured into a desire, not for revenge, but for transformation.  He doesn’t shy away from the battles he needs to fight (and agh!  the battles!  the enormous death counts of actual main characters!), but his overarching goal is to redesign the Society into a place where every color can be and do what they will.  It’s a more complex goal, but nobler as well.  Continue reading →

Pastrix: The Cranky, Beautiful Faith of a Sinner & Saint by Nadia Bolz-Weber

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There is a growing awareness amongst Christians that the Church in America has often become a place of meeting for the healthy and privileged.  Nadia’s church, House of All Sinners and Saints, deliberately fights against this habit, reaching out to the culturally disenfranchised–the alcoholics, the homeless, the queer and transgendered.  Reading about her passion (based on her history as a conservative Christian turned Wiccan alcoholic turned Lutheran pastor) was completely invigorating.

What really impressed me, though, was that her knowledge of God’s love doesn’t stop there.  As an outsider, it is easy for her to love outsiders.  But when her church started attracting middle-class suburban men and women, she felt many of the same emotions of disgust and tight-lipped smiles that are usually directed for her crowd.  What is amazing about Bolz-Weber is her commitment to live out her faith, no matter how hard or how long she spends fighting against it.  So against her natural inclinations, she welcomed the “normal” people into her church and created space for conversations between the different groups of people.  What resulted–friendships and healing relationships between two often opposed groups of people–was absolutely beautiful to read about.  Continue reading →

The Darkest Part of the Forest by Holly Black

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Apparently, I’m really into unapologetically other mythical creatures.  I’m glad we’re trending away from nice vampires and friendly werewolves.  The fun of fantasy comes from the collision of two cultures that are truly dangerous to each other.  Black’s faeries are wild, passionate, and creepy.  Fairfold is a place of changling babies, drowned tourists, and missing persons.  Despite this, the humans are tentatively accepting of their faerie-surrouned world…until the sleeping prince wakes up and everything falls to pieces.

I love Black’s high-stakes world of debts repaid, female knights, and sibling support.  The Darkest Part of the Forest was entirely engrossing from page 1.  Hazel was a super cool protagonist whose eccentricities are fleshed out as the book progresses?  What makes a girl desperate to become a knight while kissing a bunch of boys on the side?  She’s not a Mary Sue character–she’s got reasons for her actions, and I loved seeing them explored.  Her brother Ben is also amazing.  I really enjoyed the gender swap dynamic wherein the older brother feels secondary to his younger, battle-ready sister.  Continue reading →

The Signature of Jesus by Brennan Manning

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Many books that describe “how to follow Jesus” read like a to-do list.  Pray, read your Bible, fellowship with believers, confess sins, practice accountability, etc etc.  Manning’s book does none of those things!  It’s as if he really believes and understands that Christianity is a relationship with God that involves interaction and emotion.  Instead of checking off spiritual disciplines, Manning tells his story, detailing moments in his faith when he felt close to God, when God seemed distant, when he was overwhelmed by the reality of Jesus’s love for him, Brennan.

The Signature of Jesus presents a high calling to a life of sacrifice and discipline, but Manning makes it sound not only possible, but desirous.  And that’s the difference.  We don’t do things to please God or to make ourselves feel closer to Him.  We seek out God and receive Him and feel His love for us–and then we do things.

I love everything Manning has written.  I think he is such an important voice to listen to, especially for perfectionistic task-driven people like me.  Continue reading →

Althea & Oliver by Cristina Moracho

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I’m confused!  Some books give you what you want, and other books give you reality.  Often, when I’m reading the ones that give me what I want, a small part of my brain is grumbling about how unrealistic it is.  But then a book like Althea & Oliver comes along, and it’s just too realistic!  I want happy endings!  I want neatly tied up plots where everyone I love is exactly where I want them!  But….I do like the messiness.  I like the ending that stares into the future, letting the characters be confused, disappointed, and excited by what might happen to them off page.

I don’t know.  Continue reading →

Close Kin by Clare B. Dunkle

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Okay, I’m sad to say I didn’t like Close Kin nearly as much as I liked The Hollow Kingdom.  Although it was so much fun to return to a world where Victorian humans interact with goblins, elves, and dwarves, there was not nearly enough Kate and Marak to satisfy me. Of course, this was not their love story.  It was…Emily and Seylins’?  Which is weird, because they spend very little of the book together.  Even when they are finally reunited, we hardly get to see them.  Other couples, like Sable and Tinsel, dominate the last fourth of the book.  Which is okay, I guess, because the goblin/elf relationship was oddly sweet.  But it was disorienting to root for one couple the whole time, only to be left with an anticlimactic reunion.

The best part, for me, was getting to see the cultural differences between goblins and elves.  I loved Dunkle’s subversion of the norm, so that her goblins are loyal, respectful, and kind, while her elves are cruel, vain, and dirty.  The ugly creatures are beautiful inside, and the beautiful creatures are ugly inside.  Fun!  Semi-relatedly, I also really love how the goblins see their deformities as based in strength.  There was one especially sweet scene when a goblin heals someone’s scars, but not fully.  He’s happy about this, because the scars are reminders of her courage, and he wants her to be able to keep some part of that.

I still love the world Dunkle has created, but it was definitely the Beauty & the Beast storyline of Kate and Marak that so completely enthralled me in The Hollow Kingdom.  Guess I’ll just have to reread it!

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“Goblins are just a tale to frighten children.”

Emily might have believed this once, but she knows better now.  For years she has been living happily in the underground goblin kingdom.  Now Emily is old enough to marry, but when her childhood friend Seylin proposes, she doesn’t take him seriously.

Devastated, Seylin leaves the kingdom, intent on finding his own people:  the elves.  Too late, Emily realizes what Seylin means to her and sets out in search of him.  But as Emily and Seylin come closer to their goals, they bring two worlds onto a collision course, awakening hatreds and prejudices that have slumbered for hundreds of years.

In this sequel to The Hollow Kingdom, Clare Dunkle draws readers deeper into the magical world that Lloyd Alexander, winner of the Newbery Medal, calls “as persuasive as it is remarkable.”

Release Date:  2004

Want another opinion?  Check out reviews by The Thunder Child and Scribd.

The Vacationers by Emma Straub

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What a disarmingly enchanting book.  It takes real skill to introduce a cast of characters, all of which are varying levels of gross.  The Posts and their friends are fully-formed people, which means they have hidden secrets that made me think, “Ugh, people are the worst.”  By the end, these secrets are not explained away, nor are they really atoned for, and yet…and yet by the end I loved this dysfunctional family.  Maybe that’s the real beauty of the story, that we can hugely screw things up and still find solace in the people we love.  Continue reading →

Sisters by Raina Telgemeier

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I’ve loved Telgemeier’s previous cartoon reminiscences of adolescence, Smile and Drama.  She captures the confusion, dreams, and crankiness of being a teenager through perfect pictures and timely dialogue.  This time we shift away from school to her home life, especially her relationship with her sister during a three week vacation one summer.

I loved the way Telgemeier portrays family as annoying people you have to put up with but will cling to desperately when things get rough.  No one has the power to lift you up or tear you down quite like your siblings.  And these relationship changes take place in the smallest gestures, like taking off headphones in the car.  The book is a quick sweet look at the ups and downs of family life from the perspective of a 14-year-old girl.  More, please!

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Raina can’t wait to be a big sister.  But once Amara is born, things aren’t quite how she expected them to be.  Amara is cute, but she’s also a cranky, grouchy baby, and mostly prefers to play by herself.  Their relationship doesn’t improve much over the years.  But when a baby brother enters the picture, and later, when something doesn’t seem right between their parents, they realize they must figure out how to get along.  They are sisters, after all.

Raina Telgemeier uses her signature humor and charm to tell the story of her relationship with her little sister, which unfolds during the course of a road trip from their home in San Francisco to a family reunion in Colorado.

Release Date:  August 2014

Want another opinion?  Try reviews by Stacked and Alice Marvels.

Yes Please by Amy Poehler

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Let the autobiographies of funny famous people keep rolling in!  I continue to be entertained and enlightened by these memoirs (including those by Neil Patrick Harris, Tina Fey, Mindy Kaling, and Rob Delaney).  Amy Poehler’s memoir is a combination of autobiography and essay compilation, a choice that frustrated me until I accepted the decision and found myself really enjoying her book.

The chapters are not chronological, nor is this anywhere close to an attempt to share her whole life.  Sometimes she digresses from her main point to share a particularly funny or juicy anecdote.  Although this is not the best from a writing standpoint, it makes the book feel more like a conversation.  Reading Yes Please is like talking to an excited Amy Poehler who wants you to know about this, and oh yeah, this thing happened too!  Continue reading →