Read or be Read

                                           For this blog post, I decided to revisit one of my favorite graphic novels from my childhood: American Born Chinese by Gene Luen Yang. I got this book from one of my birthdays in Elementary School, but I don't recall wanting to read it right away. One day in fifth grade, just before leaving for school, I saw the book on the shelf and remembered that I had not read it yet. I quickly put it in my bag and ran to the car. During free reading time that day, I started reading the book. As the pages flew by, I became more and more in love with the book. This book is one of those graphic novels where you forget you are reading and start to feel like you are watching a movie.     Super brief Summaries of the stories in this book which I try my best not to spoil: American Born Chinese follow the stories of multiple different characters:  1. Jin Wang, a son of two Chinese immigrants who is trying to make friends and gain popularity in school, all w

  Tell Me Again How a Crush Should Feel (it’s uhhh….you know… 🏳️‍🌈) - by Stepheny   *Contains Major Spoilers I’ve always been a sucker for your typical YA romance novel. So, in an attempt to diversify my reading taste…I read another YA romance novel. Well, kind of.  Tell Me Again How a Crush Should Feel is Sara Farizan’s second novel, and a book I would definitely recommend. The novel’s main character is Leila, an Iranian American girl who attends Armstead Academy  and is hiding a big secret: she likes girls.  The main premise of the plot is the presence of a new girl at school: Saskia. Saskia is beautiful, confident, and bold. What else can Leila do but fall for her?  Within that main plot, there are more subplots: Leila’s attempt at rekindling friendships, and her struggling relationships with her family. There are more, but I won’t go into all the details. When I first started reading the plot, I felt like I could already guess the basic plot. Leila likes Saskia, they get toge

  Ready Player Two, by Ernest Cline     SPOILER WARNING FOR BOOK ONE AND TWO. I recently once again read Ready Player Two , by Ernest Kline, and I thought I might write about my thoughts on this book. The first time around I was surprised to find I didn't particularly like this book, which was especially shocking to me as I had quite enjoyed the first book. I was hoping to feel differently after my second read-through; however, I was saddened to find I did not feel that way.      One of my main gripes with this book was the regression of many of the characters, particularly the protagonist, Wade. The character growth of Wade from the end of the first book seemed to not continue into the 2nd book, as Wade seems to completely ignore most of what he learned from his first adventure. It seems to me that after becoming famous worldwide and being insanely rich, everything went to his head, and he believes himself above all others.     Another issue I had in this book was the element of r

Readers block. Any person who was ever obsessed with reading as a child has felt it. Or maybe everyone who ever felt like they would never be able to move on from the fantastic book series they just finished reading. Or maybe- Just everyone who reads in general. It happens to the best of us and although sometimes it can go by even unnoticed, reader's block can be a tedious and frustrating aspect of our lives. Especially when you have to write a book blog, or there's a book you've been dying to read but just can't seem to open. Reader's block can also have a sadness to it. If you are someone who has always loved reading it can feel alienating to not be able to enjoy that experience without your mind wandering as soon as you got past the second sentence. As someone who just went through quite a while of struggling to open a book and actually understand what I was reading instead of just blankly staring at words on the page, I think I've finally found the key to ge

  "For the queer readers. You deserve every adventure." - Nina Varela Ah. The classic enemies to lovers trope. Who doesn’t love it? But let’s give it a twist. A sapphic enemies to lovers. Still not interested? What about a sapphic enemies to lovers novel that involves robots, a dystopian world, and a forbidden romance? If that’s what you're craving, then Crier’s War by Nina Varela is the perfect book for you.  Crier’s War is set in a dystopian fantasy world where Automae, humanoid mechanical creatures, rule over the human race. While originally Made for a barren human queen, the Automae eventually revolted and started a war, a War of Kinds, which they won. Now they dominate the lands of Zulla as royalty and the superior creatures of the world, magnificent in every way. They don’t need to eat, they don’t need to drink, they don’t need to breathe, and their features are molded to perfection. The only weakness they have—if it is even considered a weakness, is redstone, a m

                                         Before I begin, I want to say that I have never drank wine in my life. I read this book solely because of my questions and misunderstandings about wine, and I sought to gain information from it. This book does not encourage the consumption of alcoholic beverages, nor does it go into excessive detail about alcohol consumption.       Ever since I was born, I have always been surrounded by wine. Wine is also an important part of my culture, as both my parents are from Europe. I have never been able to understand why wine is so important to some cultures, why pairing matters, and why people use such strange words to describe it. To get my questions answered, I went looking in the Library and found this: Wine Isn't Rocket Science by Ophelie Neiman.     This book is essentially an encyclopedia for wine, but it also includes fun little informational stories of characters who are not very experienced with wine and encounter common problems. The aut