Reading is Inevitable

Hello everyone! How fitting it is that this year's anniversary of same-sex marriage being legalized in the U.S. falls on Monday, one of my posting days! (And if you didn't know that it was the two-year anniversary, well I guess you know now!) Last year I made a list of some good books with LGBTQ representation, and I will include a list at the end of this post, but to shake things up a bit I thought I'd quickly discuss why representation is important in the media, specifically in books. After all, this is a mainly bookish blog. (If you would like to view last year's post, click here .) First of all, what is  representation? Well, it's exactly what it sounds like. It's the inclusion of people with sexualities and/or genders outside of heterosexuality and the gender binary. It's having a gay character or a trans* character and showing readers that, "hey, LGBTQ people do exist" and "hey, not being cisgender or 'straight' is okay...

Series: Wake Trilogy  Author: Lisa McMann  Genre: YA fiction, romance, crime, mystery, suspense Rating: 4 out of 5 stars Reviewer: Em Wake. Fade. Gone. I. Don’t. Know. What. To. Say. This trilogy was somehow amazing and disappointing all in one? I have very mixed feelings about this trilogy. First off, I finished it in two days over my spring break, and it was a great read. Took me about 4-5 hours to finish each book, which is not too bad. It kept me interested and made me go into a rut of reading after not reading for the longest time! First, I will share my individual feelings on each the book and then my evaluation on the whole series, in which I have huge opinions and conflicting thoughts. ,0[This is going to be long, so stay with me. There’s going to be quite a rant at the end. NO MAJOR SPOILERS (only what it says in the book description) Wake Wake was a great book! I thought it introduced the topic very well. It started off my explaining...

Whether you want to admit or not, summer is coming to a close. Well, at least the summer vacation part, which is what I'm referring to. (School's going to begin only just around now for us, for anyone who was confused because they started earlier.) That means that I really don't have any more time left to cover my summer TBR list. If anyone doesn't remember or didn't see it, towards the beginning of my summer vacation, I had composed a TBR (to-be-read) list of books that I hoped to possibly read over the summer. Now, dd I completely tackle my TBR list? Partially? Barely? Not even at all? Well...

Title: Infinite in Between Author: Genre: YA/teen fiction Rating: 4.25 Reviewer: Em This book was really good. It's about 5 teenagers and their journey throughout high school. They all meet at freshmen orientation. There, they are all placed into the same group, and their group decides to write letters to their future selves. They then make plans to meet at graduation. This book is over their four years of high school.

Title: Gena/Finn Authors:   Kat Helgeson and Hannah Moskowitz Genre: Teen/YA realistic fiction Rating: 4 Reviewer: Em This book is way different then I thought it would be. When I picked it up at my local book store, I chose it because, first of all, I liked how it was all in emails and texts and stuff like that; not in the usual format you read a book in. I like books like that. Anyway, I read this book in a day. It was a fairly quick read, but it was interesting - very interesting. I thought it'd just be a cute book on two people meeting, and then becoming great friends (or more, maybe). It was so much more than that. It wasn't like my new favorite book, but still. Like Finn said (I think it was Finn) about the TV show they both love, it's about how the characters change more than the plot. And I found that to be kind of true with this book. You really get to know the characters in this book.

Title: The Light Between Oceans Author: M. L. Stedman Genre: Historical Fiction/Drama R ating:  ∞ out of 5 stars Reviewer: Julia Okay, I'm not sure if I'm allowed to give a book infinity out of 5, but I'm going to do it because this book was that good. I have never cried so much or intensely over a single book. (I cried throughout the book and in one consistent stream for the last 50 pages.) I am so in love with it that I have made a shrine of sorts (still looking for a better term for it) on top of my dresser dedicated to it. (Em even contributed to this shrine by making me a lovely drawing of the cover of the book!)

Title:  Bud, Not Buddy Author:  Christopher Paul Curtis Genre:  Historical Fiction/Drama Rating: 3 out of 5 Reviewer:  Julia When I read the first few pages of this book, I had to hold back a moan. The text in the book was much larger than I was used to. It also appeared to be too easy to read, and I was able to breeze through the first few chapters quite quickly. The plan was to read it within a week or so and then to ditch it so that I could move on to another book. I kept this attitude for the first few parts. And then-- wooop, zoop, sloop!-- it changed.

Title: Made You Up Author: Francesca Zappia Rating: 5/5 Genre: YA fiction Reviewer: Emily "'But-but what if this whole place"-I had to suck in air again-'what if everything is inside my head? East Shoal and Scarlet and this bridge and you-what if you're not real because nothing is real?'" This book is told from the point of view of Alex, a high school senior with schizophrenia, which is a mental disease which causes you to have hallucinations, or see or hear things that are not real. She constantly struggles with trying to figure out what is real. Starting her first day of senior year at a new high school, she takes pictures of possible hallucinations, and hopes that no one will ever find out about her. However, there's this boy that looks exactly like her childhood friend, but she had surely made him up, hadn't she?