Hello everyone! I hope that you’ve all had a great start to the year! I changed jobs and I’m now working at a college library instead of a public library. I’m enjoying it so much more than my previous job, there’s so much less stress and I actually go home NOT crying it’s amazing! I still visit all of my friends at the public library once a week but I honestly don’t really want to go in there anymore. I almost have a small panic attack when I go inside the building, I can really only handle going in there once a week. And this has nothing to do with my coworkers, I do miss working with them. We had an active shooter situation last summer and it wasn’t handled great by our management. I started looking for a new job the same week that everything happened. And when I heard that someone was going to be leaving the college library I applied the same day. I was hired within two weeks but I had to wait until the college was back from winter break so that’s why I started in January. I love it here and I get free tuition! Which is great since I was already working on my Bachelors at the college. Anyway, it took me a little bit to be able talk about what happened (and I’m skimming over a lot of the details) but I just wanted to update you guys about why I left my job. Now let’s move on to a more fun topic, books!
One of the first books that I want to talk about is Welcome to Consent by Yumi Stynes & Dr. Melissa Kang. I’m trying to read more non-fiction lately and this seemed like an “easy” one for me to read. I say easy like that because while the book was relatively small and not hard to read, it dealt with some heavy topics. I honestly loved this book and it’s one that I think every kid should read. It really prepares you for what to say, how to say it, and what to do if someone crosses your boundaries. I liked that it had a bunch of resources in the back too.
The Stonewall Riots: Coming Out in the Streets by Gayle E. Pitman is another non-fiction that I read recently. I knew a little bit of the history of Stonewall but this went into so much detail. I learned a lot about the history of the time as well as the aftermath of the Stonewall riots. I really enjoyed how this book was set up. Each page was an entry about something pertaining to Stonewall. So on one page there could be a picture of the police batons that were used to subdue the rioters and then the next page could be a picture of a group of people that were protesting. This made it a lot easier for me to read because everything was in little snippets which worked great for my ADHD brain. I could read a page or two and then put it down and not be confused when I picked it back up again. If you are looking for a history of the Stonewall Riots then this is a great place to start.
The next book that I want to talk about is Hooky volume 3 by Miriam Bonastre Tur. This is the final volume of this series which makes me sad but it was a great volume. In this volume we pick up three years after the events of volume 2 happened. During those three years, the king had banned all magic and our and of heroes and heroines – Princess Monica, Nico, Damien, and Prince William – now know that is it up to them to save everyone. They have to ban together to try and break the curse that Dani has been under for the past three years AND try to find Damien who has been missing that whole time as well. No spoilers about what happens but I really enjoyed the ending to this series. If you’re looking for a fun, interesting, and captivating book series all about magic, friendship, and loyalty, then check this series out!
When You Trap a Tiger by Tae Keller is a book that I read for my Read Harder Challenge, for the read a middle grade book with an LGBTQIA main character prompt. In this book we follow our main character Lily, her sister Sam, her mom, and her Halmoni (her grandmother). Lily, Sam, and her mom have just moved in with Halmoni because she needs some support. Lily is excited to live with her Halmoni. She loves the stories that Halmoni tells, which I also loved hearing about through this book. The Korean folklore that was interwoven throughout the book were so interesting and fun to learn about. It made me want to look into other stories on my own and check them out. As the story progresses we see how Lily and Sam and even her mom deal with living with Halmoni and trying to help her while she’s sick.
I don’t want to spoil anything because this book was just so good and I really want you to experience it for yourself. I loved seeing how the family dealt with everything together. The relationship between all of the women in this story is fantastically written. I honestly don’t usually like books that are about generational trauma and family histories but I really enjoyed this! I would highly recommend checking it out.
The Lucky Poor by Mazie Lovie is about Mazie and her family getting to move into a Habitat for Humanity house that was built for them. This graphic novel deals with charity, being poor, struggling, but it also deals with hope. We see how Mazie’s family deals with the amazing gift that they are given in the form of a free house but also how that act of charity defined them to other people. This is a fascinating look into how having a safe, secure place to live can help or hurt you.
Queer Power: Icons, Activists & Game Changers from Across the Rainbow by Dom&ink was another non-fiction book that I read and really, really enjoyed. This was such a fun book! I learned about soooo many queer activists that I hadn’t heard of before. I ended up following so many people on social media and I’ve really enjoyed seeing and interacting with their posts. I knew a lot of the icons that were mentioned in the book so there weren’t to many new people in that section of the book but I still learned interesting things about them. I loved that this book was easily digestible and the artwork inside was colorful and fun. It was an eye opening read and one that I think everyone should check out!
The last book that I want to talk about is Good Girl, Bad Blood by Holly Jackson. This is the second in the A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder trilogy. I’m currently reading the last one and it’s so good! But in this book we are back with Pip and all of her friends. One of those friends, Connor, asks her to look for his missing brother. Jamie went missing the night of the six year memorial that the town held for Andie and Sal, who were the subjects of the first book and season one of Pip’s podcast. But Pip has sworn that her detective days are behind her and hesitates to help locate Jamie. But after going to the police and them essentially saying, he’s an adult there’s not much we can do, she decides to help out Connor and his family by investigating Jamie’s disappearance.
I really loved this book. The struggles that Pip goes through are written about very well throughout this book. I can’t wait to see what happens in book three! Especially after the ending of Good Girl, Bad Blood. I’m very curious to see how Pip is going to come back from the events in this book.
That’s it for this post! I hope that you all had a nice start to the year. I’m keeping up with the reading goals that I set for myself. I’ve read 19 non-fiction books already this year which is probably more than I’ve read in the last five years. I’ve been reading a lot of YA non-fiction and I think that is helping because honestly the information is easier to digest in a YA book. And I’m not getting bored while I’m reading them. I hope that you’ve all had a great start to the year and I will see you in the next post!
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