Author: Laurel Snyder

This was another difficult book for me to read.

There are a few reasons I kept at this one: my students recommended it (and their recommendations so far have been pretty awesome) and there was enough intrigue for me to find out what it was all about in the end.

Here’s why it was difficult—I didn’t care for the main character. At all.

In fact, if the main character were to have died midway and the rest of the book turned into nothing but cooking recipes for open fires, I would’ve been fine with that. I just couldn’t find anything redeeming or anything that would make me want to care about her outcome.

But that’s just me. Maybe I’m a heartless guy. Who knows?

There are other characters to be concerned about and they were written well. I did care about their outcomes, which is why push through to the end. It was when I got to the end that my frustration hit its high point.

It just ended. No explanation, no resolution… for any of the characters… and still nothing redeeming about the main character. The whole idea of leaving it up to interpretation is fine if there’s enough depth and background information for the reader to draw their own conclusions. In this case, there wasn’t.

It’s a thrilling novel for a young reader chocked full of mystery with just enough hints of some kind of supernatural elements to keep them hooked. For me, it just fell flat.

Author: Nic Stone

Wow.
Just… wow.

It’s not often a book comes along and slaps you in the face so hard that you feel the world turning. Stone manages to do that while leaving you upset and, to quote my students, “woke.”

The book originally caught my attention after hearing it was banned in school libraries. So, naturally, I had to pick it up right away. Anytime a book is banned, you know there is something uncomfortable in there based on a reality they don’t want to face.

In this case, we have a story about racial profiling. A young, black Justyce is wrongfully arrested after attempting to prevent his grossly inebriated girlfriend from driving. This event spirals as his eyes open to the ways racial discrimination still overtly plays out in society. This ultimately leads him to write letters to and try and act like Martin (MLK Jr.).

The writing is intense, the plot is fresh and the characters are real.

After putting it down, I immediately wanted a classroom set and told every teacher in my department about it. Budgetary constraints prevent me from doing so in the meantime, but you can be assured I’ll be working towards getting this in my room. It’s a doorway to see the world that many refuse to believe is real.

Author: Michael Grant

This book was hard for me to read.

At first, it intrigued me because it looked like another Lord of the flies style of novel. A dystopia that my students really enjoyed, except with a more fast-paced narrative style.

However, getting into it required a lot more of my willingness to make it happen. It started off with an intriguing premise: all at once, for no reason, everybody over the age of 14 disappears.

The problem is… I’m a parent.

So immediately I start to think of my own children and how would they survive given this situation. Then I think about other children and infants and… you get it.

Putting aside the fact that this would be a dark reality, I realize the author hooked me in. Even though the scenario was frightening, I really wanted to know where it was going. For that—this book gets top marks.

It really is a fast-paced action novel, full of adventure, intrigue, and mystery. As cliché is that sounds, this book does have it all.

My only contention is that it does get kind of repetitive near the end and there were a few times and I was rolling my eyes that certain situations kept repeating themselves.

In other words, I was predicting a lot what was going to happen.

Given that I blasted this whole thing in one weekend, it still kept me going and I will eventually get to the rest of the series. Overall, great read… but tough at first as a parent to get through the first hundred pages.

Author: John Grisham

Okay, Mr. Grisham, we need to talk. I haven’t read you in twenty years and it was brought to my attention I need to read your latest. Let’s get the obvious out of the way: you’re still writing the same book, just packaged differently.

However, that’s not a bad thing.

Not a bad thing at all because your writing is on an entirely new level. If your name wasn’t on the cover of this one, I wouldn’t have guessed it was you. There’s still your fingerprints all over it, but you’ve turned them into style points for others to emulate.

As for the book itself, it’s a story and information lecture all in one. While many might gripe at this proselytizing, it provides excellent background for those of us who do not understand the issues. Coming from a Theology background, I always appreciate when someone wants to tell me what Religion is about based on the media and their feelings. /sarcasm

The pacing in this is kind of strange, but I can’t put my finger on it. It keeps you coming back to find out what kind of trouble the young, inexperienced lawyer facing the giant coal corporations gets herself into, but it never resolves in a way you would expect. You get these nice plot twists, but never a real resolution and you keep going to get that resolution you want.

It’s aggravating, but addictive.

So Grisham, whatever you’re doing, keep going.

I’ll keep pace with you now.

Author: Patrick Rothfuss

Here’s the thing with fantasy—it was the genre that got me into reading. Fantasy books were my escape in late elementary and high school, my videogames of choice and there was no greater joy than finding a new series to get into.

I would even go as far to say that it was the genre that influenced my passion for magic.

However, fantasy requires attention, time, concentration and a willingness to let go of the world. It requires a great deal of imagination to visualize the scenes happening. These were all things I was dropping as I left my adolescent years. In their place were thick textbooks, non-fiction and adult responsibilities.

Every so often, a fantasy book would tug at me out of curiosity, but my concentration just wasn’t there. I feared that either the genre was getting complicated for the sake of getting complicated, or that I had lost my imagination for it (there was some of both).

This book pulled me right back to my younger years.

It was a complete escape into another world and every page felt like a magic tome, written in just the right way to pull you into its world. There was such a depth to it that pulled you right in and didn’t let you surface for air… even if it was late at night and my wife was kicking me to get some sleep.

It’s a story—about a story—told through a storyteller. In the end, you have seeds of doubt about the credibility of it all, but you just don’t care. You want to know more.

Nothing about the writing is pretentious and nothing about the world is complicated. The writing gently takes your hand and guides you through it all, slowly wading you through the waters until you’re naming areas like people on the west coast can name of the freeways in California.

Rothfuss, you wrote a gateway book that is getting me to jump back into the genre and I thank you.

Author: Kwame Alexander

Kwame Alexander: the author who can get even my most reluctant students to read a book in its entirety. The man who teachers the power of the spoken word still has a prominent place in our society and should be held up by all.

Or to quote my students, “This guy’s got bars!”

Rebound is the prequel (chronologically, but released afterward) to The Crossover. It’s the story of a young person overcoming the challenges of a household after losing a parent. And yes, it’s also about basketball.

This is a wonderfully written narrative where you want to dive into each page. There’s never a point where the story hangs, drags on, or the writing feels forced. It’s proof that Alexander has a tremendous command of language and knows how to use it to speak to the reader.

I’m thankful there are authors like him out there because my students love him, and so do I.

Author: Jennifer Mathieu

Moxie girls fight back!

Small town, Texas. High school football rules and everyone, from the schools to the local businesses, rally behind the team. And this is where the issues arise.

Although Mathieu picked, what I could consider, a stereotypical setting, the atmosphere of this book can relate to almost any place. Swap out football star for hockey captain and you now have a completely Canadian setting.

In this book, all the attention, money and respect, goes to the football players. They get away with sexist remarks, offensive clothing and everything just under murder.

Well, the girls had enough and it’s time to fight back.

This is a fantastic foray into the mindset and perspective of what it feels like to be a in a young woman’s shoes today (and yesterday for that matter). It addresses the serious concerns we still face.

Most important, for the male readers, it gives an emphatic viewpoint that we just don’t get. I’m looking specifically at the, “not all guys are like that,” crowd. As a student, I look back and realize how awful some situations really were and as a teacher, I try to be hyper aware of what’s happening. From someone who grew up with three very tough, and intelligent, sisters, I get why they had to be solid as a rock.

This book really dives into the serious consequences of what are seemingly innocent remarks and what they escalate into. I applaud Mathieu for delivering such a powerful story in a way that is relatable to anyone reading through it.

It was a text that sat dormant in my classroom library for a year now, but will now be at the forefront for my students to explore. My hope is that more will hear the call of Moxie and continue the fight.

Author: Brandon Sanderson

There’s something to be said about a Sanderson book.

Just looking at one can give you the sweats and cause you to lose faith that you can ever be brave enough to read it. After all, he’s one of the very few still writing tomes of epic fantasy with each one weighing enough to hold down the foundation of my house.

Yet, he’s such a great author and I love reading him because his books remind me I still have an imagination. His words create enough imagery in my head without ever causing me to slow down to remember some obscure kingdom name which now has a pivotal role in the plot.

The Way of Kings still made me nervous.

Would I have the patience to endure a true one thousand page epic, which is only book one of many? To top it off, would I have the willingness to finish it when my time was limited to smaller sips instead of the giant gulps fantasy requires?

Well, I went for it and happy that I did.

It does require a bit more patience than his other works as this one follows the perspective of six different characters, with some side tangents on minor ones. You will have to re-acquaint yourself with the world you’re in every time you jump because the story lines are seemingly disconnected.

I found myself attached to two of them while plodding along with the other two, which is why I think I kept at it. I wanted to know what was going to happen to my two favourites (Kaladin and Shallan). Although, if I had to guess, this book was setup to lead you that way anyway.

Then you hit about the three quarters of the book and your patience is rewarded. Up until now, it’s been a slow burn that gently tugs at your interest. Once you get to this point, it skyrockets. You fly to the end and then you get hungry for more.

Now I’m worried because he setup some high hopes for book number two. I haven’t read any reviews or descriptions for it… but I do know the book is the maximum possible size a publisher can print.

What did I get myself into?

Author: Ursula K. Le Guin

My introduction to Le Guin came at an early age from reading A Wizard of Earthsea. It was a great fantasy that was probably responsible for my foray into an entire decade of love for the genre (The Chronicles of Narnia also gets a serious nod here).

Largely forgotten until my University years, my professor assigned “The Dispossessed” for our course on science-fiction. It was then I not only appreciated her genius, but her literary prowess. I proceeded to read much of her collection that year.

As things go, this collection of essays peered out from the shelves of the public library, begging me to go back into her world. If I had to summarize what I read in just one sentence:

She’s a genius and a rockstar with words.

The depth of her thoughts and the way she articulates her strong arguments begs for people today to study and emulate her. I couldn’t help but smile every time she tore down the ivory towers of the literati who claim only certain genres (and authors) are “true” literature.

My favourite is her passing remark about Cormac McCarthy’s, “The Road,” gently reminding readers that science-fiction writers were writing about solitary individuals crossing barren wastelands for decades beforehand. It reminded me of the minor detail that Hemingway was a subscriber to the pulp fiction magazines and much of his style (and process) was modeled after the pulp writers.

Although she has passed away, she still might be happy to know the idea of genre itself is transforming (and almost disappearing)–still kept alive, however, by academics needing to justify their existence. Teachers, too.

Everything she has written about the state of the publishing industry, to whether people ever read as much as we think they did (they didn’t), to a message of assurance that writers will always find their audience, was spot on. It felt like she managed to take my thoughts and translate them into words I could never put together.

It’s sad to know our world will no longer hear from her.

The book reviews at the end, while nicely written, felt like padding demanded from the publisher. I skimmed and skipped most of it.

Author: Adam Silvera

Okay, it kind of sucks having the book spoiled for you in the title, but it really works here. It’s also comforting in knowing nobody will ruin the ending by giving it away.

Imagine having a service that calls you at midnight to tell you this will be your last day on Earth. In the timeline of this story, “Death-cast” is such a service and is always accurate. However, many services have also been offered to those who have been served their notice (they are called “Deckers”). The prominent one in here is an app called “Last Friend,” allowing a decker to connect with someone on their last day.

Although the story centers around just two characters (Mateo and Rufus) who meet each other through the app, Silvera does a tremendous job interweaving many storylines together. There’s nothing forced into this web, nor does it feel like any characters act out of convenience for the author.

He also stays away from the existential question of betraying your own destiny (which subtly plays in the background) in favour of looking at the human condition in the face of death.

How do you face it?

What do you regret?

Is there still a chance for you to grow?

As you connect to the characters as they face these questions, a part of you develops a hope that maybe the title will betray what happens. Then you get to the end.

And I bet you can guess what happens…