The Blue Fairy's Bookshelf

Between the World and Me Ta-Nehisi Coates, 2015 Premise: This blend of memoir, academic treatise, and cultural theory takes the form of a letter from Ta-Nehisi Coates to his teenage son. Read this book. It's not very long, but it might take you a while. If you, like me, stop to savor the language, to let the ideas sink in, to sit with the truths and the history, it might take you a while. Coates recounts his personal history of striving to understand and survive being black in America: from the fear behind teenage street-corner bluster to his discovery of great voices to follow to learning the breadth of black experience at Howard University to becoming a parent. Around every corner he finds a new nuance, and every page is full of the kind of wisdom that comes from a combination of alert observation of lived experience and directed, intelligent study. It's both emotional and academic, unflinching in criticism of the racist systems and attitudes that maintain Amer...

If I Was Your Girl Meredith Russo, 2016 Premise: Amanda is starting a new school year in a new town. She can't live with her mom safely anymore, not around kids who knew her before. She only hopes that she'll be able to get through high school without her new friends finding out her secret. This novel got a lot of love last year, and it deserves it. Amanda's story is both a touching, puppy-love, YA romance and a story of depression, attempted self-harm and assault, as well as about the love of both family and found family. It's compelling and an easy read. I think I flew through it in under a day. Amanda's pain and paranoia, followed by hope and tentative trust only to have the rug cruelly pulled out from under her -- it's easy to be swept up in this tale. The supporting characters are a wide range of small-town types, very few of whom are who they first appear to be. Everyone has secrets, but not everyone is in danger when their secrets are told...

In the Country We Love Diane Guerrero with Michelle Burford, 2016 Premise: Actress Diane Guerrero shares her family's experiences with being undocumented in America. When Diane Guerrero was just fourteen, her parents were deported. She was overlooked by the child welfare system and stayed with friends and neighbors until she finished high school. There are the bones of a really fascinating, moving story here, but that isn't quite what this book ended up as. There were parts I really liked. I found her parents' lives interesting. It was moving how hard they tried to become American citizens, although all the while the knowledge of their status stole some of the joy from their lives. I was moved by her feeling pulled between two worlds, especially after her parents were deported. She is an American citizen, and America was her only home, and her parents both knew that and were happy for her and at the same time wanted her with them in Columbia. All of the chapt...

Winning Marriage: The Inside Story of How Same-Sex Couples Took on the Politicians and Pundits - and Won Marc Solomon, 2014, afterword 2015 Premise: The behind-the-scenes details of the fight for marriage equality from one of the key players. Author Marc Solomon was the executive director for MassEquality from 2006 to 2009, and he then became the campaign director for the nationwide group Freedom to Marry. In short, he is uniquely qualified to tell this story. The details in this book were fascinating; everything from the personal stories that touched the hearts of Massachusetts legislators to the internal politicking in New York to the testing that went into campaign ads and PR spending. It also includes some moments that were both big picture and largely unseen by the general public - when, how and why advocates decided to make marriage the key of the argument (rather than civil unions) as well as when, how, and why they decided to push President Obama on the issue. I...

Hope in the Dark: Untold Histories, Wild Possibilities Rebecca Solnit, 2004, 2015 Premise: A case for hope despite adversity, describing several progressive movements of the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. I thought at times while reading it that this was an odd book to read now, even though it was lauded and spread around in the immediate wake of the 2016 election. Somewhat ironically and somewhat logically, I found the chapters about principles and ideas more solid than the chapters which detailed the events that ostensibly supported those principles. Although additional material was added in 2014 and 2015, the book was originally written during the second Bush administration and is often focused on news that was current at that time. I am either not fully familiar with or not fully convinced by the results of some of the movements and protests that she cites as evidence. This means that her argument -- said movements created more change than is imme...

Love Is Love Hundreds of creators organized by Marc Andreyko, published by IDW, 2016 Premise: This comic anthology was created in response to the 2016 Pulse nightclub shooting in Orlando. Proceeds benefit the victims, survivors, and their families. It's not easy to review any anthology, and this is an extreme example. Every piece is only one or two pages, and they range from straight art pieces, to evocative art and poetry, to stylized or indy comic style pieces, to classic modern superhero mini-stories. Common themes include resilience, grief, and, of course, love. There are little stories about children coming out to parents, about the place clubs have in LGBT culture, about the shock and anguish as the reports came out, about how hate is passed on and how it is overcome. Not every piece hit home for me, some were more esoteric or I'm not sure I understood. It is an overall a very emotional book to read, though. Some of the most powerful pieces (no surprise) ...

Well, it's 2017. In 2016 I took on the Book Riot Read Harder Challenge, and I posted 22 reviews out of 24 challenges . The only two I missed were reading a book out loud and a book about religion. There were probably several books I read last year that qualify as being "about" religion, but I didn't finish the one I intended to read for the purpose of the challenge. That leads me to the trend of this year - Did Not Finish I gave out a LOT of four- and five-star reviews this year, at least partially because this was the year that I stopped reading a lot of books halfway through. This used to be fairly unusual for me. I used to care a lot more about finishing any book I started. Especially for the purpose of review, I'll sometimes finish a book I don't like so I'll be able to articulate why I don't like it. But this year, between completing a certificate program in editing, starting a new editing job with a 45-60 minute commute and then BUYING A ...