Renata Sancken
As a kid this wasn't my fav JB book–I didn't relate to Margaret's desire for boobs and her period at alllllllll but I still found other parts of Margaret's character to be very relatable. Judy Blume is an icon for a reason, she is SO great at creating these very honest, vulnerable voices. And re-reading it as an adult I found I picked up on more nuances, especially among the parent/grandparent dynamics.
MANY more thoughts on the podcast:
https://www.frowl.org/worstbestsellers/episode-220-are-you-there-god-its-me-margaret/
I love Sam Irby of COURSE. I checked this one out on audiobook and it worked for me–I'm not a big audiobook person bc it's harder for me to pay attention long-form and I often will realize I spaced out and need to scrub back a few minutes. But with the essay format it was easier to follow (and TBH some of her more in-depth discussions of pop culture stuff that I don't know as well, like Sex and the City and Dave Matthews, I was fine spacing out on). Overall: just the funny, frank (to the point of grossness) stuff you'd expect from Sam Irby.
claws face I stayed up too late to finish this!! AAAA
Also thank you Juno Dawson for helpfully providing a list of characters/minor recap at the beginning of this! Series authors stop expecting me to remember everything from the previous books challenge!! I want to re-read the first one now though because I've been reminded how much I love these characters. AAAAAAAA
I loved Shenice as a character and I loved the stuff about the stress of her softball team + racism, and I loved the family mystery stuff. I did think the execution of the mystery was a little clunky...like that great-uncle's dementia seemed to be extremely plot-convenient in its symptoms, but...whatever, a good quick read for sporty/mystery-enthusiast tweens.
I picked this up because a friend said it was his FAVORITE book and I HAD to read it and I was like, OK! I will! And I did! I think it first came up in conversation when we were talking about [b:The Guncle 54508798 The Guncle Steven Rowley https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1594848421l/54508798.SY75.jpg 85077741], which we had both enjoyed and which textually refers to Mame. I've never seen the movie(s) or musical but I get why the character has endured. A lot of the humor here still really hits, although reading it in 2023 it is definitely notable that Mame is written as a pretty progressive character but let's say that her takes on antisemitism still hold up but her exoticizations of Asian cultures are uhhhh not cool. It is also interesting to me that the edition I read had an afterword by the author's son where he specifically calls out the opening chapter, in which the narrator mistakes Mame for being Japanese because of the way that she's dressed and her hairstyle, as the most beautiful part of the book?????? OK???????? anyway–large parts of this hold up remarkably well but some parts DON'T for sure. but overall very funny.
Oof this was a tough read, just because of all the pain Virginia has been through. For me it's interesting to compare/contrast with [b:The King Is Dead 63251781 The King Is Dead Benjamin Dean https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1668395479l/63251781.SX50.jpg 91767276] because I read that and I was like “why is this kid making the WORST choices ughhh” and here Virginia is also making very bad choices but you get why and see how victims of abuse can get into these cycles. Her kind of dreamy friend group gave me [b:The Perks of Being a Wallflower 22628 The Perks of Being a Wallflower Stephen Chbosky https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1650033115l/22628.SX50.jpg 2236198] vibes.I don't think this book is for everybody but I think it's going to mean a lot to some teens. Major content warnings for child sexual abuse/parental neglect.
man I LOVED [b:Miles Morales: Spider-Man 32793053 Miles Morales Spider-Man Jason Reynolds https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1495746889l/32793053.SY75.jpg 53387226] but this didn't hit as hard for me–it felt a lot like retreading the same material without adding a lot. Which on one hand, I know, that's kind of the whole superhero thing. But I guess I expected more after how great the first one was–I really really loved the way it blended superhero shenanigans with institutional racism and I thought the Big Bad was so clever. This book felt like repetitive enough that it didn't hold up to the first one, but also SO immediately a sequel to the first one that I don't think it would necessarily stand on its own. And also the pacing–it basically all takes place in one day (of In School Suspension, which he got from events of the previous book) and it just.....yeah it felt rushed and odd. I did still really like Miles' poems–Jason Reynolds is OBV a great writer I just don't think this is his best.
I was getting annoyed with YA protagonists for being so immature and teenagery and then I was like lol you dummy take a break and read a grownup book. And then I did and I was like wow look at these responsible women! Small business owners! Upstanding community members! Humane beekeepers! Being reluctant to discuss their feelings due to propriety but ultimately working it all out! Truly I loved to see it.
I have ADORED Abdurraqib's other writing so much and have often commented on how much I love reading his thoughts about music even when I'm not familiar with the artists he's writing about. And yet I was still a little reluctant to pick up a whole book just about 1 group that I'm not at all familiar with. But I finally did it and guess what....it's so fucking good. He is so so gifted at making you understand what about music speaks to him, and also at fusing it with memoir and history because after all music is something that's both so personal and yet so public and generational.
Also yeah then I went and listened to a bunch of A Tribe Called Quest's music and uhhh guess what...they're great. (Hot takes no one asked for from a millennial white lady.)
Written as an extended conversation/interview, this was a quick, engaging read. Miss Major is definitely someone worth listening to (although I don't necessarily agree with all her views, eg, gun control, which comes up because her co-author Toshio Meronek brings up how she was invited to speak at a gun control rally bc they assumed she'd be for it and she was like, lol) and I'm glad she got to publish her story while she's still here. Meronek, who I guess is sort of Major's personal assistant or something like that, comes across as really hagiographic in his interview questions and you know what, that's deserved.
I'm a fan of Alexandra Petri's online humor, and these were all very funny little pieces. I think the effect kind of wanes as you read it, like, to me it's funnier in small doses and often I would end up skimming like “OK I get the joke.” I feel like some of these might be very fun to use in high school history classes.
I love that this anthology exists and I think its very existence is very validating. Like with any anthology some of the stories are hit or miss, but overall a strong collection. I particularly liked the stories by Dove Salvatierra and Ash Nouveau, I'll be keeping my eye out for future work from them.
My reaction to a lot of this was just like, nodding and thinking “That's clever, I get it” (or reading a footnote and then being like “now I get it”). Like I get what it's doing as a Gothic parody but because of that I wasn't particularly engaged with the characters. Like obviously Austen is an iconic writer but this just isn't my fav of hers.
This book has a lot going on....maybe....too much going on?? I really liked the parts about the Civil War history and the idea of playing soccer on these former battlefields is really powerful, and the erasure poems from the news articles about the arson committed on the historic cabin owned by a free Black man and his formerly enslaved wife were gorgeous.
But, also in the graphic novel art...everyone is drawn as wolves? And I was like ok...it's a metaphor...the team is a pack...sure. And then because of like, Maus and also the way animal symbolism works, I was sort of expecting the historic Black figures to be depicted as another animal? But they were also wolves? And then at the very end of the book there's a text epilogue that explains that everyone is wolves because her dead brother's favorite animal was wolf. Which isn't really referenced anywhere inside the text? Like...if that's what your grief journey is maybe that should have just been for your journal or something???
I also didn't love the earlier poetry interspersed with the graphic novel, but I really liked the arson poetry. I think this could have been a dead brother grief book and then also a Civil War history book and that would have been 2 strong books instead of 1 like...very weird book.
It's possible that my third eye just isn't open wide enough for this.
Ohh this was so sweet and yet also emotionally tense. Imogen is such a sweet main character and her intense self-doubt/flagellations were hard to read at times. Parts of this felt a little like, lecture-y but in a relatable way–I think most people, especially Gen Zers, know at least one person who tends to speak in all Discourse like Gretchen does. And (as Becky Albertalli's own life experience indicates) there are a lot of messy Discourses within and without the queer community regarding coming out etc. I think this will really resonate with a lot of queer and questioning readers (teens but not only).
I was so charmed by this and NOT ONLY because of the magic cat but magic cats do, of course, help. Logging onto GR and seeing the author's note about the circumstances of writing it during the pando and wanting something more simple and joyful (hence the Sailor Moon comp) and I get it. This book is super tropey and the characters are often adorably clueless. It reads like pretty young YA and we need that!! And we need more magic cats!!
CBB was one of the first podcasts I really got into, but over time my listenership faded. This book both reminded me why I loved it and also why my interest waned. There are some real literal laugh out loud moments in this (Fourvel really sent me), but also some clunkers. Some the things benefitted from images/formatting while others seemed less funny than their audio counterparts because of not having the voice performances. Basically: fun for existing fans! Probably will not convert many new listeners!
Simply NO ONE is doing it like MT Anderson!! All of his books are so different from each other in terms of content/genre and yet they are all so good. Fuck. What the fuck. How is he doing it. This book is a fun fantasy and a painful but moving look back at early COVID quarantine days. It's a coming of age story. The dog doesn't die. The dog's narration is incredible. The illustrations by Junyi Wu are incredible. I think it would be a great classroom or bedtime readaloud. I think adults should read it. I think dogs should read it. I think dogs should be allowed to vote. I think MT Anderson should write a book about a magical cat next but it's probably going to be like, an instruction manual for mining equipment written in verse, and I'll fucking read that too.
