ARC, Books

Book 929: Portrait of a Thief – Grace D. Li

I’m punching myself for not reading this book earlier AND for goofing off (aka knitting and Minecrafting) while reading it instead of blazing through it as it deserved. I’ve been sitting on this since November of LAST YEAR when someone in marketing at the publisher reached out with it.* I forced myself to wait until late March/early April to read it because I had a feeling I would really enjoy it and that barely covers my enthusiasm for it.

The premise was fascinating to me even if I was a bit wary of the Boston setting (I have bad experience with books being set where I live/have lived), but international art theft by college students, critiques on colonialism, BIPOC author, and characters, discussion of diaspora, ummm obviously I was going to say yes to it. I found out while reading the acknowledgments, that this has already been optioned by Netflix and I cannot tell you how much I’m ready for that!

Continue reading “Book 929: Portrait of a Thief – Grace D. Li”

Books

Book 920: Fifteen Hundred Miles from the Sun – Jonny Garza Villa

I’m not sure where I first came across this work, it might’ve been on a library list of YA novels to read, or it might’ve been a random Insta ad/post by someone I follow.

Either way, I added it to my list immediately and promptly forgot about it. When we went on vacation last month this was one of the few reserve books I took with me that I didn’t quite make it to, so I slotted it in at first chance and am so glad I finally got around to reading it. If I would’ve read it on vacation it would’ve taken half as long, but I kept falling asleep reading it this time (stupid time change).

Continue reading “Book 920: Fifteen Hundred Miles from the Sun – Jonny Garza Villa”

Books

Book 911: The Bluest Eye – Toni Morrison

Toni Morrison is one of those authors who have always been on my list, mostly due to the controversy around their books (stupid book banners), but I’ve never gotten around to reading them. Both The Bluest Eye and Beloved were on my The Classics Club list I created back in 2012 and I picked up phyical copies sometime after that.

When Morrison passed in 2019, I told myself I would read her works and it took me this long to get to them thanks to always being distracted and just not making an effort. Both are relatively short so ended up on my Rando Book Selector spreadsheet using randomly generated titles from roughly 60 books to slowly chip away at my TBR pile and The Bluest Eye came up as I was planning for a recent vacation and here we are.

Continue reading “Book 911: The Bluest Eye – Toni Morrison”

Books

Book 910: Back Where I Come From (Five Points Stories #4) – Kyle Baxter

This is the fourth book by Baxter that I’ve read and is the fourth book in his Five Point Stories. It’s been languishing on my Kindle for a few months and I finally added it to my queue when I was preparing for a vacation that would result in a week of offline time.

My first observation of this one is that the cover is creepy AF. Seriously go to Goodreads or Amazon and blow up the image. I can’t quite put my finger on it but both Zach and Grant’s faces are just a little bit off and Taylor’s (the kid) just doesn’t quite look finished. Thankfully, I didn’t stare at it too much before starting or I might’ve put it off even longer!

Continue reading “Book 910: Back Where I Come From (Five Points Stories #4) – Kyle Baxter”

Books

Book 901: More Happy Than Not – Adam Silvera

So I have talked about gut punches when reading books before, but Silvera took it to a different level with this one—and this was his freakin’ debut novel!

I’ve known about Silvera for some time and even read his co-authored What If It’s Us? with Becky Albertalli, but this is the first time I’ve sought out his work. I came across it on a list of must-reads and so grabbed it when I saw it was available at my library.

Continue reading “Book 901: More Happy Than Not – Adam Silvera”