Skip to main content

Featured

The Empress of All Seasons by Emiko Jean

Each generation, a competition is held to find the next empress of Honoku. The rules are simple. Survive the palace's enchanted seasonal rooms. Conquer Winter, Spring, Summer, and Fall. Marry the prince. All are eligible to compete--all except yokai, supernatural monsters and spirits whom the human emperor is determined to enslave and destroy. Mari has spent a lifetime training to become empress. Winning should be easy. And it would be, if she weren't hiding a dangerous secret. Mari is a yokai with the ability to transform into a terrifying monster. If discovered, her life will be forfeit. As she struggles to keep her true identity hidden, Mari's fate collides with that of Taro, the prince who has no desire to inherit the imperial throne, and Akira, a half-human, half-yokai outcast. Torn between duty and love, loyalty and betrayal, vengeance and forgiveness, the choices of Mari, Taro, and Akira will decide the fate of Honoku in this beautifully written, edge-of-your-seat YA...
Post a Comment
Read more
Labels

The House on Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros

The House on Mango Street uses vignettes to show snippets of a young Latina's life in a new neighborhood.

I like the way this book is structured, getting to know the MC and the people in her neighborhood a little at a time. I don't think we're ever told her age, but it has a feeling of her growing up a little, of some time passing but not more than a year or two. The characters feel distinct because the MC describes them in unique ways, with enough detail when previously mentioned characters reappear to let the reader keep track of everyone. She feels like a kid, with a kid's attention to people and ways of describing adult things without always knowing what they are. It handles some pretty traumatic events with care for the reader, sometimes through just mentioning that they happened, and sometimes by showing the MC's reaction without describing the details of the trauma. A lot of it is joyful, and while the sudden shifts in tone can be jarring, they fit the vignette style and it works well overall. The way it jumps around feels like the way someone might describe a year or so of living somewhere, so it's either a style you'll like or maybe it's not for you.

A few things keep this from being a book I can highly recommend, but I have no trouble seeing why this book would be praised. Now I would hesitate to recommend it because of racial slurs and stereotypes which may have not been commonly understood as slurs at the time, but now definitely are. They were jarring to come across and their use repeatedly pulled me out of the story. There was also a way of assuming large bodies were grotesque in a way that adds up to feeling very fatphobic. These weren't always portrayed with malice from the characters, but they are enough of an issue that I'd give a caveat along with any recommendation of this book.

CW for racial slurs, racism, sexism, cissexism, ableism, fatphobia, car accident, sexual assault, domestic violence (not depicted), child abuse (not depicted), death (not depicted), suicidal ideation.

Clear Your Shit Readathon 2020 prompt: Book you don't remember

Bookshop Affiliate Buy Link

A rectangular red house with a flat roof, a girl's face is a window on the left. The text "The House on Mango Street" fills the front of the house. The author's name "Sandra Cisneros" is on top of the roof.


Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment