Book Report

[stormkeeper_lovedoris]

 All This Could Be Different by Sarah Thankham Mathews – I am always so glad when I read a novel that takes place in current times and that I love. I lean so heavily towards historical fiction that when I read something like this one, I want to shout ‘Yes! A contemporary novel and I loved it!’ This one tells the story of Sneha. She’s the daughter of immigrants, she’s trying to get work during the 2008 recession, she knows she’s lesbian but she doesn’t want to break her parents’ hearts by telling them, she is trying to build a community of friends but the past haunts her. She falls hard for a dancer but doesn’t know how to be with her. Everything came together really well here – the characters, the writing, and the pacing. The author and the book places a special value on friendship, and the friendships here are vivid, flawed, and important. Grade: 8

 

Blow Your House Down by Gina Frangello – A very personal memoir. The author went through so much, and she writes of it all brilliantly. I love that she just opens her heart and opens her life.  I won’t go into detail about what she writes of, but it did involve the ending of a 23-year marriage. I was struck by the part where she writes that she gradually realizes that if she’d met him today, she wouldn’t even go on a date with him, let alone want to be married to him. (I was so glad that that is NOT how I feel about my spouse!) Grade: 8

 

The Delivery by Peter Mendelsund – This is an unusual novel taking place in modern times. The main character is “the delivery boy”, an unnamed lead who fled an unnamed country where he ekes out a living in another unnamed country. I give it credit for innovation but I can’t say I was ever captivated. Grade: 4

 

Reality is Broken by Jane McGonigal – Ah, this writer is so good! She’s written an older book about how inventing a game helped her recover from a concussion and the depression that came with it, and she’s written a newer book about how we can imagine the future and then better deal with what might happen. This book was published in between the aforementioned two books. This writer is just such a good thinker, and her ideas are practical and easy to act on! She writes about games. How games can be a good force in the world that bring out our sense of cooperation and creativity, and how we can use game design principles in everything from education to solving crises like running out of oil. And McGonigal is always completely readable too, and she’s a smart and grounded optimist. Grade: 8

 

Taking Down Backpage by Maggy Krell – This is a concise book by the lead attorney who brought down Backpage. Ugh, what can I say about Backpage. Its creators and owners made millions in sex trafficking of children. They knew fully what they were doing, it made them rich, and I wish a thousand painful deaths on them. In a perfect world, bringing down these assholes should’ve been easy but of course it wasn’t. This book reads almost like a thriller at times. It took Maggy Krell and a committed team working together in a herculean effort, but they finally brought them to justice. I also appreciated that Krell is grounded in social justice and always takes the time to consider other perspectives, while holding fast to the truth that adults buying minors for sex is illegal and immoral (even though the defendants in this case tried to frame this as ‘big bad government making me take down my website’). Grade: 8 (Like I said, I sure appreciate that the author kept this book brisk-paced and didn’t weigh it down in legal jargon and lengthy court transcripts.)