Category: reading

• Mini Book Reviews for June 2019

  Posted at 9:32 pm by Mrs. Ram Jam, on July 6, 2019

  

  

  

  

  

  

  I had high expectations for my June reading month. Read more nonfiction! Read less fantasy! Read less YAL! Read sixteen-twenty books!

  Then I made a rookie mistake–I fell down a Sarah J. Maas hole named the Throne of Glass series–shattering my June reading hopes and dreams because the books are fiction, fantasy, YAL, and tomes.

  If you’ve ever found yourself at the bottom of a Maas rabbit hole, please please please tell me how you extracted yourself from it. When I realized the depth of my addiction, I resorted to alternating one of the books from the series with an adult, non-fantasy venture in a bizarre attempt at self-preservation, quitting after book four cold turkey.

  Here’s what I read in June:

  1. The Other Woman by Sandie Jones–3 stars–mystery/thriller–I keep reading this genre despite my low expectations. Emily meets Adam. He’s a catch but a total mommy’s boy. I saw the ending coming from about halfway through the book.
  2. The Book of Three (The Chronicles of Prydain, #1) by Lloyd Alexander–4 stars–middle grade/fantasy–Not my favorite fantasy read, but I see why it would appeal to middle grade readers. It’s no Narnia; the world building is blasé. However, it does feature a sassy, soothsaying pig, a welcome addition to ANY novel if you ask me.
  3. Throne of Glass (Throne of Glass, #1) by Sarah J. Maas–4 stars–YAL/fantasy–Ahhhhh. Welcome to my demise’s advent. Celaena Sardothien, an former assassin and current slave, gets offered her freedom in exchange for becoming her mortal enemy’s champion in a world where magic is banned. I like this series more than Maas’s A Court of Thorn and Roses series. 
  4. The Au Pair by Emma Rous–3 stars–mystery/thriller–Mehhhhhhhhh. Of course there’s au pair drama. Cliché cheating with the nanny and unrealistic falling action drag this book down.
  5. Crown of Midnight (Throne of Glass, #2) by Sarah J. Maas–4 stars–YAL/fantasy–Just as entertaining as book one.
  6. One Day in December by Josie Silver–3 stars–contemporary fiction/romance– I found this Reese Witherspoon pick frustrating; the self-absorbed characters grated my nerves. 
  7. Heir of Fire (Throne of Glass, #3) by Sarah J. Maas–4 stars–YAL/fantasy–Book 3 isn’t nearly as good as the first two. Too many Harry Potter/Lord of the Rings/Twilight parallels for it to be original. My least favorite word in all of YAL (“chuckle”) made hefty appearances, too. Insert eye roll here.
  8. The Thirteenth Tale by Diane Setterfield–4 stars–contemporary fiction–This novel has been on my TBR for awhile. It’s eerie and keenly written, a mashup of The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo and Jane Eyre.
  9. Finale (Caraval, #3) by Stephanie Garber–4 stars–YAL/fantasy–If you love YAL and fantasy and haven’t picked up the Caraval series yet, you should. The trilogy finished too neatly and lovey dovie, but overall, I’ll remember Garber’s Caraval, a teenage version of The Night Circus, fondly.
  10. My Lovely Wife by Samantha Downing–3 stars–mystery/thriller–A married couple tackles serial killing together. Take a look at this book jacket. Little Thing gave me major side eye the whole time I was reading this book. 
  11. Dopesick:  Dealers, Doctors, and the Drug Company that Addicted America by Beth Macy–5 stars–nonfiction prose–Read this book. It will change the way you view drug addiction and treatment.
  12. Queen of Shadows (Throne of Glass, #4) by Sarah J. Maas–4 stars–YAL/fantasy–I’m a fan of this series–I swear–but these books keep getting longer as the series progresses (This one clocked in at 648 pages.) and are wordy, wordy, wordy. To reach my read-150-books-in-2019 goal, I’m taking a Throne of Glass hiatus because there are three more books in this series, the last one housing nearly 1,000 pages. I wish Maas would consider writing trilogies.
  13. The Lost Man by Jane Harper–4 stars–mystery/thriller–I heart Jane Harper’s Australian outback mystery novels so hard.
  14. Factfullness: Ten Reasons We’re Wrong About the World–and Why Things Are Better Than You Think by Hans Rosling, Ola Rosling, and Anna Rosling Rönnlund–4 stars–nonfiction prose–Approach this nonfiction read with an open mind and consider that the data collection method is mildly flawed. The authors present an interesting argument that the world is “better but still bad,” iterating the mass gains that civilization has made over the years through examining our outdated knowledge of the world. 

  Bright side: at least I managed two nonfiction reads?

  (All cover art taken from Goodreads.com)

   

   

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  Posted in books, reading, Uncategorized, writing | 3 Comments | Tagged blogging, blogs, book reviews, books, caraval, dopesick, factfullness, finale, jane harper, read, reading, sarah j. maas, the lost man, the thirteenth tale, throne of glass, writing

• Mini Book Reviews for March, April, and May

  Posted at 11:28 pm by Mrs. Ram Jam, on May 31, 2019

  

  

  

  

  

  End of my thirteenth year of teaching? Check. (P.S. How the hell did that happen?)
  End of musical theater and soccer season for Little Thing? Check.
  End of physical therapy? Check.
  End of the house being on the market? No check. But we’re hopeful.
  End of Mrs. Ram’s Jams’s blog pause? CHECK!

  Here’s what I’ve read during my absence. Since nada writing happened during my break, these reviews are bare bones (and I skipped reviewing a few *wink wink*). After all, I crammed in 39 books in March, April, and May. The ones I highly recommend are in bold with their book jackets (All book jacket art is taken from Goodreads.).

  March

  • Thunderhead (Arc of a Scythe #2) by Neal Shusterman, YAL/science fiction, five stars:  This series has yet to disappoint me. I can’t wait until book three comes out in September.
  • The Light We Lost by Jill Santopolo, romance/contemporary fiction, three stars:  I hate it when book reviews/blubs tell you that a book is like another book when it completely gives away the story’s ending. That happened to me with this one, and I might have enjoyed this read a bit more if it hadn’t been totally predictable.
  • The City of Brass (The Daevabad Trilogy #1) by S.A. Chakraborty, YAL/fantasy, three stars:  It drew me in but couldn’t hold my attention. It felt breathy. What happened to conciseness as opposed to needlessly drawn out pages?
  • The Kiss Quotient (The Kiss Quotient #1) by Helen Hoang, romance/contemporary fiction, three stars:  I liked this a lot better than The Light We Lost, but this one was way more what I consider to be true romance/erotica. However, it was not anywhere as close to good as The Hating Game.
  • The Fifth Season (The Broken Earth #1) by N.K. Jemisin, fantasy, four stars:  Okay, I get it. One of the characteristics of fantasy is a long story, but damnnnnnnnn. I lose interest in a book around the 400 page mark if it’s not phenomenally written. However, this was still a good read.
  • An Unwanted Guest by Shari Lapena, mystery, one star: I don’t think I’ve ever ranked a book with one measly star. This was awful. Lapena tried to emulate Agatha Christy, and it came off like a poorly written book version of the game Clue.
  • Something in the Water by Catherine Steadman, thriller/mystery, three stars: Please someone recommend a more than decent thriller/mystery for me. This genre hasn’t been doing it for me lately.
  • An Anonymous Girl by Greer Hendricks and Sarah Pekkanen, thriller, three stars: Read The Wife Between Us instead; it was a much better collaboration than this one they put out.
  • The Library Book by Susan Orlean, nonfiction, five stars:  One of the coolest things I’ve ever read. It’s the story of a Los Angeles library fire, a love letter to books, and an homage to libraries.

  April

  • The Passage (The Passage #1) by Justin Cronin, horror/apocalyptic, three stars:  At first, I was captivated by this vampire apocalypse story, but it’s gargantuan without needing to be. I will not be picking up book 2.
  • The Wicked King (The Folk of the Air #2) by Holly Black, YAL/fantasy, four stars:  A YAL faerie and mortal love story done right. Book 3 is out in November.
  • The Lightning Thief (Percy Jackson and the Olympians #1) by Rick Riordan, middle grade/fantasy, three stars: I didn’t see what all the hype was about.
  • More Than Words by Jill Santopolo, romance/contemporary fiction, four stars:  So much better than The Light We Lost.
  • Queenie by Candice Carty-Williams, contemporary fiction, four stars:  I love me a good Brit lit read. This was Jojo Moyes-esque but with a narrator who makes terrible decisions.
  • The Bird King by G. Willow Wilson, fantasy, four stars:  Read this instead of City of Brass.
  • On the Come Up by Angie Thomas, YAL/contemporary, four stars:  Not as good as The Hate U Give. The dialogue and the narration cheese so hard, but ‘tis to be expected with YAL.
  • Maid:  Hard Work, Low Pay, and a Mother’s Will to Survive by Stephanie Land, memoir, four stars:  The title explains it all.
  • The Care and Feeding of Ravenously Hungry Girls by Anissa Gray, contemporary fiction, three stars:  Boring, but nicely penned.
  • The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo by Taylor Jenkins Reid, contemporary fiction, four stars:  Where has Taylor Jenkins Reid been all my life? A fledgling magazine writer gets the chance of a lifetime to interview an old school movie star, Evelyn Hugo, and gets the juicy scoop on each of her husbands.
  • Coraline by Neil Gaiman, middle grade/horror, four stars:  I’m trying to tackle the entire Gaiman cannon, and while I thoroughly enjoyed this middle grade read, I liked The Graveyard Book more. The characters in Coraline looked blurry and read blurry, and that’s probably Gaiman’s point, but The Graveyard Book felt more concrete.
  • Mr. Penumbra’s 24-Hour Bookstore (Mr. Penumbra’s 24-Hour Bookstore #1) by Robin Sloan, contemporary fiction, five stars: I honestly don’t think this book will be everyone’s cup of tea, but I adored the blend of humor, intrigue, and nerdiness.
  • The Gentleman’s Guide to Vice and Virtue (Montague Siblings #1) by Mackenzi Lee, YAL/historical fiction, four stars:  A swashbuckling adventure that I didn’t know I was missing.
  • American Spy by Lauren Wilkinson, contemporary fiction, four stars: A solid, albeit, slow paced, spy story.
  • Good Riddance by Elinor Lipman, chick lit/contemporary fiction, two stars:  Bleck. Bleck. Bleck. Good riddance Good Riddance.
  • The Winter of the Witch (Winternight Trilogy #3) by Katherine Arden, fantasy, four stars:  So, I adored this entire series. It’s Russian folklore meets history clashing with Christianity. The first two books were lyrical and magical, and this last one had a very satisfying ending but lost its poetical syntax.
  • A Midsummer Night’s Dream by William Shakespeare, classics/plays, four stars:  I love teaching this play to 8th graders. A love triangle, plays within plays, and fairies. What’s not to love?

  May

  • The Library of Lost and Found by Phaedra Patrick, contemporary fiction, two stars:
  • The Last Romantics by Tara Conklin, contemporary fiction, four stars:
  • His Majesty’s Dragon (Temeraire #1) by Naomi Novik, fantasy, three stars:  Can anyone recommend a good dragon story? I thought for sure Novik wouldn’t disappoint, but this wasn’t nearly as compelling as Uprooted.
  • Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare, classics/plays, four stars:  I hate teaching Romeo and Juliet. I know it’s poetry, but I can’t stand Benvolio. Everytime he gets on stage he repeats EVERYTHING that has just transpired.
  • What If It’s Us by Becky Albertalli and Adam Silvera, YAL/contemporary fiction, four stars:
  • Confessions of a Domestic Failure by Bunmi Laditan, chick lit/contemporary fiction, two stars:  This was supposed to be funny, but it missed its mark. The humor relied on overplayed mommy situations instead of wit. Read How to Party with an Infant instead.
  • Daisy Jones & The Six by Taylor Jenkins Reid, historical-ish fiction, five stars:  A sixties rock band story told in an interview format. It has an Almost Famous vibe.
  • The Witch’s Daughter (The Witch’s Daughter #1) by Paula Brackston, fantasy/historical fiction, four stars:
  • How to Party with an Infant by Kaui Hart Hemmings, chick lit/contemporary fiction, four stars:  Hilarious, but the narration could use a little tweaking for cleanliness.
  • Kitchens of the Great Midwest by J. Ryan Stradal, contemporary fiction, four stars:
  • The Girl Who Chased the Moon by Sarah Addison Allen, magical realism, three stars:
  • Year One (Chronicles of The One #1) by Nora Roberts, fantasy/apocalyptic, two stars:  My first venture into Nora Roberts’s prolific writings crashed and burned. You’ve got your standard apocalypse scenario: a virus knocks out most of the world’s population. Then you throw in fairies, witches, elves, etc. and the worst written dialogue I’ve ever seen on a page (and it’s dialogue heavy y’all) to ultimately reveal a good vs. evil/the chosen one archetype. The ONLY reason I didn’t rate this book as one star is because it was TERRIBLY readable (emphasis on the terribly). I kind of hate myself for even finishing this book and ranking it this highly.
  • The Ocean at the End of the Lane by Neil Gaiman, fantasy/horror, four stars:  Normally I staunchly eschew from assigning ½ ratings to books, but this book is more deserving of 4 ½ stars. I would have rated it five, but it’s a loosely adult parallel of Coraline. Gaiman’s ability to weave a fantasy, make it seem so real, and write subtle truths into his fiction makes him one of my favorite authors.

  And as always, any and all discussion about these books is welcome. I’ve missed y’all.

  Posted in books, reading, Uncategorized, writing | 7 Comments | Tagged angie thomas, blogging, blogs, book reviews, books, candice carty-wlliams, coraline, daisy jones & the six, holly black, how to party with an infant, jill santopolo, katherine arden, kitchens of the great midwest, lauren wilkinson, mackenzi lee, maid, mr. penumbra's 24 hour bookstore, naomi novik, neal shusterman, neil gaiman, queenie, read, reading, robin sloan, tara conklin, taylor jenkins reid, the ocean at the end of the lane, the witch's daughter, thunderhead, what if it's us, writing

• A Poem: Collecting Dust in the Dungeon

  Posted at 5:34 pm by Mrs. Ram Jam, on March 23, 2019

  

  I am a day late using this word prompt! My bad! Please forgive me daily word prompt aficionados! Also, it’s a bit of a mess. Like me.

  ---

  a dungeon of

  Birds Killed and Mocked and Thorns

  Letters Scarlett O’Hara-ed in the Wind

  Gatsby’s Expectations unGrateful

  Naked Juliets and suicidal Romeos

  Mice, Lennie, and George Orwell

  451 flames flickering like 5 Slaughterhouses ignited

  Purple Arms will never Color Farewell in a Dark Tower

  because they’re collecting dust in the dungeon

   

   

   

   

   

   

   

  Posted in books, poems, poetry, reading, Uncategorized, writing | 0 Comments | Tagged blogging, blogs, books, dungeon, poems, poetry, reading, writing

• Mini Book Reviews for February 2019

  Posted at 12:39 pm by Mrs. Ram Jam, on March 2, 2019

  
  

  

  

  

  Well. It’s happened. I screwed up my I-must-write-my-mini-book-reviews-as-soon-as-I-finish-books New Year’s resolution. I didn’t pen a single one in February. I blame the flu-like virus that made me miserable last week, Little Thing’s flu bout, two out-of-town friends coming to visit, and sheer laziness.

  Oh well. At least I read 13 books? And February is a short month. Huzzah!

  Here’s my February reading list:

  • All We Ever Wanted by Emily Giffin:  Easy peasy breezy read. I’ve always enjoyed Giffin.
  • Bird Box by Josh Malerman:  Do I even need to review the book since everyone’s seen it on Netflix? I refuse to watch it, but I sure as hell loved reading it.
  • The Seven Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle by Stuart Turton: This. Book. Killed. Mrs. Ram’s. Jams. Seven. Times. I hated it. It was 200 pages pages too long and hard to follow.
  • The Astonishing Color of After by Emily X.R. Pan:  The best thing about this book is its gorgeous cover. I love magical realism, but I haven’t encountered a spectacular YA one yet. After Leigh’s mother commits suicide, Leigh’s convinced her mom has turned into a bird. Leigh also talks and thinks in colors. Her best friend constantly asks her, “What color”? By the end, I was color blind and gagged at every pretentious color mention.
  • The Common Good by Robert B. Reich:  Reich argues that America has lost sight of its founding ideals. I wholeheartedly agree with him.
  • Always and Forever, Lara Jean (To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before #3) by Jenny Han: Lara Jean for life! Book 3 was better than book 2 but super predictable.
  • Without Merit by Colleen Hoover:  I’ve not had much luck with Hoover. I picked this up because I thought it was her rather well-reviewed suspense novel, but it wasn’t. Sigh.
  • Inside Out & Back Again by Thanhha Lai:  This middle grade poetry read stunned me. Ha and her family evacuate Saigon during the Vietnam War and find safe harbor in Alabama.
  • The Trouble With Poetry–And Other Poems by Billy Collins
  • The Hating Game by Sally Thorne:  Romance is my least favorite genre, but I loved this book. Lucy and Joshua’s repartee was hysterical.
  • Scythe (Arc of a Scythe #1) by Neal Shusterman:  YAL gold. For realz. In the dystopian future, people live forever, but for population control, scythes select people to be killed.I haven’t had this much fun reading a dystopian novel since Red Rising.
  • My Favorite Half-Night Stand by Christina Lauren:  After finishing The Hating Game, I thought to myself:  Hey maybe I do like romance novels. I’m going to try another one out. Bad choice Mrs. Ram’s Jams. Bad choice.
  • The Boy in the Striped Pajamas by John Boyne:  It’s no secret that I eschew reading World War II and Holocaust literature, but I teach this novel in 8th grade ELA. And it breaks my heart every damn time.

  What are you reading?  And as always, conversations are welcome!

  (All book art is taken from Goodreads.com.)

  Posted in books, reading, Uncategorized, writing | 2 Comments | Tagged blogging, blogs, book reviews, books, read, reading, writing

• Mini Book Reviews for January 2019

  Posted at 11:25 am by Mrs. Ram Jam, on February 2, 2019

  

  

  

  

  

  Y’all. At January’s end, I’m still on target with New Year’s resolution number one. I finally wrote my mini book reviews upon a book’s completion. Aren’t you proud of me? Your virtual back pats are appreciated. Thanks!

  However, I’m not exactly on target for reaching my “Mrs. Ram Jam shall read 150 books in 2019”  decree. I read 11 books, but two were stupid long, and I didn’t finish one I was 100 pages into. But here’s the bright side:  I’ve already read 4,427 pages this year. How do you like them apples?

  Just a heads up, my January reads were backlist books since my library hasn’t amassed many 2019 releases yet.

  1. Lethal White (Cormoran Strike, #4) by Robert Galbraith aka J.K. Rowling–I’m a fan of this series, but this underwhelmed me. I’m invested in Strike and Robin as characters and was eager to see their relationship’s direction. However, I found the narration silly. There was a whole bunch of Strike and Robin going back and forth questioning their feelings for one another like a bad romance novel. The book is super long too, which I’m not against, but tedious detail makes me feel Rowling was trying too hard.
  2. Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi–This novel tells the story of two half sisters, who have never met, and their offspring over several generations, starting in Ghana during the late 1700s. I appreciate the epic’s scope, the heart-rending stories, and the crisp prose. However, I had a difficult time orienting myself. Once you’re introduced to a narrator, he/she is never reintroduced. The novel’s biggest strength is the author’s ability to craft different voices through third person narration. The stories sucked me in but left me yearning for more than the minuscule snapshots of the narrators’ lives.    
  3. To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before (To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before, #1) by Jenny Han– In a cathartic act, Lara Jean, a high schooler, pens letters to her past crushes and stores them in a hatbox. Mysteriously her letters get shipped out, including one to her older sister’s ex-boyfriend, Josh (who’s also the boy next door), triggering a love life mayhem avalanche. To avoid an uncomfortable situation with him, she and Peter Kavinsky, another love letter recipient, fake a relationship and hilarity ensues. Bottom line:  Lara Jean is damn likable, and the stark writing describing Lara Jean’s dead mother made me sob. I need more Lara Jean in my life.
  4. The Name of the Wind (The Kingkiller Chronicle, #1) by Patrick Rothfuss– Kote, an infamous arcanist who’s hiding out as an innkeeper, tells the epic tale of his parents’ deaths, time at university, and search for the Chaudrain to a traveling chronicler. While easy to read and compelling, this novel could be shorter. I could have done without the world’s myths/stories, and the part where Kote is a homeless orphan drags.
  5. P.S. I Still Love You (To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before, #2) by Jenny Han–Book two spoiler alert!!!! Book two continues book one’s story line, and it’s slow at first. Lara Jean and Peter get back together, but someone posts a video of their steamy hot tub make out session to Instagram. LJ is convinced it’s Genevieve, but Peter doesn’t believe her. This is a great YAL read, but I was mad while reading it. For starters LJ gets bullied online and faces serious double standards. Also, I can’t stand Peter in this sequel; he’s conceited and a lousy boyfriend. However, Kitty, Lara Jean’s little sister, continues her precociousness, TV watching, and wisecracks, making book two worthwhile.
  6. A Wizard of Earthsea (Earthsea Cycle, #1) by Ursula K. Le Guin– A young boy named Ged calls on the fog to prevent his village from being pillaged. Once his wizarding powers are discovered, he’s sent to Roke for training where he butts heads with Jasper, another young wizard. To prove he’s more powerful than Jasper, he performs a magical act,  unleashing an unnamed demon into the world which he must vanquish before it takes over his body and mind. Originally published in the sixties, this book’s an oldie but a goodie.    
  7. Becoming by Michelle Obama– Obama gives enough of her personal story to make me feel like I know her a little better while maintaining a certain level of privacy surrounding herself. She doesn’t sugarcoat her history or her feelings, and she made me cry while discussing her and then President Obama’s reactions to Sandy Hook. It’s one of the best autobiographies I’ve read recently.
  8. A Place for Us by Fatima Farheen Mirza–In this narrative told primarily through the third person omniscient perspective, the reader is introduced to Rafiq, Layla, Hadia, Huda, and Amar, a Muslim Indian family living in San Francisco. It starts at Hadia’s wedding, where Amar makes his first familial appearance in years. From there, the story weaves back and forth from Layla, Hadia, and Amar’s point of views in non-linear, entwined perspective flashbacks. At the end, it switches to Rafiq’s, the patriarch’s, first person point of view. Third person omniscient is my least favorite perspective to read, but it’s done effortlessly and gorgeously. I ranked this five stars for multiple reasons, but take a look at these plain spoken sentences. They’re perfect–

  • Exhibit A:  “He wondered, on the drive, how they would address what had happened. And now he sees it is as easy as saying ‘knew’ instead of ‘know'” (86).
  • Exhibit B:  “He is so happy he could dance, uncharacteristic of him, but maybe with her he is someone who dances” (106).
  • Exhibit C:  “Just before Abbas turned the corner, he looked back and said, “Congratulations again.” Or maybe it was, “I was right back then.” And he held his hand up in a wave, and maybe she nodded, and maybe she stood still” (151).
  • Exhibit D:  “Who are you now? He wanted to ask her, but maybe she was who she always had been, and he was who he had always been, and it was foolish to think that the years had changed anything” (237).

  9. Dumplin’ by Julie Murphy–In this YAL novel, Willowdean Dickson, comfortable in her overweight frame, loves Dolly Parton and hanging with her bestie Ellen. However, her former beauty queen mother struggles with her daughter’s weight. When Willowdean starts dating her super hot coworker Bo, her confidence plummets and she decides to compete in the local beauty queen pageant as an “ef” you to her mama and the community. This book is a gazillion times better than the Jennifer Anniston produced Netflix film.
  10. Where the Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens–Abandoned by her entire family, Kya Clark raises herself in North Carolina’s marsh  in the 1950s and 60s. Her story alternates with a prominent man’s murder and its investigation in 1969. Once involved with the man, Kya gets arrested and put on trial for her life. Let’s be honest, the main character in this book is its setting. Owens painstakingly fleshes out the birds, grasses, and channels of the marsh. On the whole, it’s a compelling read, and I knocked it out in two days, but I was put off by the dialogue. It was stilted, and while I know it was written in a dialect, it was cheesier than a Wisconsin dairy cow.
  11. The New Jim Crow:  Mass Incarceration in an Age of Colorblindness by Michelle Alexander–Alexander’s premise, laid out in the title, argues the War on Drugs unfairly targets poor Black Americans creating a new “undercaste” in society. Once convicted and labeled felons (for mostly non-violent drug offenses), they are stripped of their voting rights, can be denied housing upon release, and can face job discrimination while assimilating back into the workforce–essentially a new, legal Jim Crow. While the statistical data and other odds and ends are a bit dated, the book was published in 2010, the embedding of legal precedent into her rhetoric and her comparison between Jim Crow and mass incarceration astounded me. Read this book.

  As always, discussion is welcome! Happy reading y’all!

  (All images are taken from Goodreads.)

   

   

  Posted in books, reading, Uncategorized | 2 Comments | Tagged blogging, blogs, books, reading, writing

• A Poem: The Lie, Barry

  Posted at 12:58 am by Mrs. Ram Jam, on January 26, 2019

  

  You don’t want to go
  to the library.
  It’s full
  of lies, Barry.

  All silence, syntax, and story–

  You know the truth, Barry, lies

  in the noise, gibberish, and vainglory–
  of society’s gobbledygook and pocketbook.

  You can’t find truth
  in a book
  because books spread nothing
  but lies, Barry.

  To tell the truth, Barry, nobody goes
  to the library nor reads books anymore.

  Who needs to when they’ve turned all the good ones
  into shows
  on all the streaming services galore?

  Here’s the truth, Barry.
  The library is scary.

  Full
  of syntactic stories warning
  of silence

  Full
  of parables to teach children how to overcome violence

  Here’s the truth, Barry.

  The library is scary
  because it calls out vainglorious gibberish as noisome–
  you’re no longer able to hide
  behind fear and hate–anti-intellectual poison.

  Here’s the lie, Barry:
  the truth is buried at the library.

  But go ahead and continue to lie, Barry,
  while I unbury my truth, Barry, at the library.

  Posted in books, poems, poetry, reading, Uncategorized, writing | 5 Comments | Tagged blogging, blogs, books, libraries, library, lies, poems, poems about books, poems about libraries, poetry, read, reading

• A Poem: Books Are Babies

  Posted at 10:04 pm by Mrs. Ram Jam, on January 17, 2019

  

  I tell a version of this to my students the first time I hand out school-owned novels to them to read for class. Because. Middle. Schoolers. Destroy. All. Of. The. Things.

  ---

  Books are babies.
  If you wouldn’t do it to a baby, then you shouldn’t do it to a book.

  Would you
  throw a baby to another person?
  bend a baby backwards?
  leave a baby in the classroom or on the bus by itself for the night?
  step on a baby?
  smack your friend with a baby?
  shove a baby spine side up in the bottom of a backpack and then put books on top of him?
  balance a baby on your head?
  drop a baby?

  Books are babies.
  If you wouldn’t do it to a baby, then you shouldn’t do it to a book.

  You should
  read to your baby.
  talk to your friends about your baby.
  laugh at your baby when it says something funny.
  cry when your baby breaks your heart.
  cheer your baby on.
  learn from your baby.
  love your baby.

  Because books are babies.

  Posted in books, poems, poetry, reading, teaching, Uncategorized | 2 Comments | Tagged blogging, blogs, books, poems, poetry, reading, students, teaching, writing

• New Year’s Resolutions 2019

  Posted at 1:17 am by Mrs. Ram Jam, on January 12, 2019

  

  I sucked to the ninth power at sticking to my 2018 new year’s resolutions.   

  Did I reacquaint myself with the Russian language? Nyet. Did I perform 365 days of yoga? Namaste no. Did I read less and write more? Bahahahahahahah! That’s rich, considering I read 136 books last year compared to 119 the previous year.

  At least I semi-mastered the art of not spacing twice after a period. I’ll take that as a minor success in the face of failing my previous year’s resolutions.

  Here are my 2019 New Year’s resolutions. (P.S. I always wait to start my new year’s resolutions until after my birthday, which is January 7th, hence the delay.)

  • Lose my foot injury weight. Remember all my foot issues from last February? I JUST got released from physical therapy last month, and at this point, I’m unsure if my foot will ever be 100 percent again. And listen, I’m used to being chronically ill, but foot injuries are a whole other pain animal. And because I spent 2017 hobbled, I packed on 15 pounds due to decreased mobility. Let me throw it at you like this: in 2017, I had about 4.2 million steps. Last year, I only had around 3 million. That’s the equivalent of not moving at all for three months last year as compared to the previous year. I walked . . . wait for it . . . 500 miles less last year than I did the previous year. Seriously. 500 miles less. Since my pain is now managed, I need to suck it up buttercup and lose the extra pounds. If anyone has any exercise suggestions for me, I’ll take them. Yoga’s off the table. My feet simply can’t handle it. I can’t run, plank, or lunge. No jumping jacks. The elliptical machine is a no go either. I might just have to briskly walk in my orthopedic, old lady footwear for cardio and then do modified pilates. Or suck it up and fork out the money for a personal trainer.
  • Read more diverse authors. I thought I was doing a decent job, but when I look at what I read last year, it’s not nearly as representative as it should be. Another book loving friend of mine shared a kick-ass premade reading log spreadsheet (find it here on Bookriot.com) with me that tracks all kinds of reading stats, including an option to help me keep tabs on author diversity. This spreadsheet is my new best friend.
  • Write the damn mini book reviews immediately upon finishing a book. This. Will. Happen. I’m four for four already this year. Go me! I’ve promised myself I can’t start a new book until I’ve written a review for the recently finished one. I’ve added a tab on my reading spreadsheet to keep them all in one place for easy fluffing up prior to publishing.  
  • Get “Baby Shark” off repeat in my head. Send help!   
  • Stop being a chicken and try to get a literary agent. I finished writing a children’s book last year. Have I done anything to try to get in published? Uhhhhhhhhhhhh, does half-heartedly researching literary agents and sending it off to some friends for feedback count? I could have been using my foot injury downtime to make serious headway, but I’m terrified it’s not good enough and hid behind reading books instead. Putting it in writing here leaves me panic-stricken but holds me accountable. I’ll need all the happy thoughts I can get because I know rejection lurks around the corner. Rejection sucks, but it’s part of the process and will make me a better writer in the long run even if I never get published.

  Happy New Year to you and yours, and I apologize profusely for getting “Baby Shark” stuck in your head again. (You know you sang it to yourself at least once since I mentioned it.) I thought it would be a diversionary tactic to get it to ooze out of my head permanently.

  Sorry shark? Doo doo doo doo doo doo . . .

  

  Photo by rawpixel.com on Pexels.com

  Posted in books, reading, Uncategorized, writing | 2 Comments | Tagged blogging, blogs, book reviews, books, new year, new year's resolutions, read, writing

• Book List: Mini Book Reviews for December 2018

  Posted at 12:48 am by Mrs. Ram Jam, on January 5, 2019

  
  

  

  

  

  

  

  Because I struggle getting into the Christmas spirit (Yes, I detest most Christmas music and refuse to decorate prior to Black Friday.), I figured my Scrooge-laden soul could benefit from some holiday reads in December.

  I binged Elin Hilderbrand’s holiday series Winter suggested by a Facebook friend, and it did inspire me to be less bah humbug-ish. Promise. Don’t believe me? I played Mariah Carey’s “All I Want for Christmas Is You” and “Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree” while hanging ornaments and adorning the fireplace mantle with fake poinsettias and glittery snowflakes. Huzzah! The Ram-a-grinch’s holiday heart grew a seasonal three sizes. It has since returned to its nonholiday appropriate size.

  Here’s what I read in December with some mini reviews thrown in. (One of my new year’s resolutions is to write my mini reviews as soon as I’m done reading the books. It’s just too hard to write them a month after I’ve read them anymore, especially when some of the books are part of a series read in succession. Be prepared for some cop-out reviews.):

  • The Hazel Wood by Melissa Albert–YAL; Despite some negative Goodreads reviews, I really enjoyed this fantasy novel.
  • Winter Street (Winter #1) by Elin Hilderbrand–contemporary fiction
  • Winter Stroll (Winter #2) by Elin Hilderbrand–contemporary fiction
  • Winter Storms (Winter #3) by Elin Hilderbrand–contemporary fiction
  • Winter Solstice (Winter #4) by Elin Hilderbrand–contemporary fiction; These books chronicle Kelley Quinn, the owner of Winter Street Inn on Nantucket, and his flawed adult children, his Santa cheating wife, and his CBS news anchor ex-wife Margaret Quinn during the Christmas season. It’s dishy, dysfunctional, and soap opera-esque. While a total guilty pleasure, I did give the last book four stars because by the end of the series I loved these crazy characters.
  • Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind by Yuval Noah Harari–nonfiction; Harari’s portrayal of the human race’s history is sweeping and mind-boggling. He starts at the beginning of human evolution and then tackles the agricultural revolution, imperialism, industrialization, and capitalism (to name a few). His logic is thought-provoking, and you might not agree with everything he has to say. While I understand the limits of covering humankind’s history in a 443 page book, I thought it was neglectful of him to essentially ignore the historical implications of how women have been treated. Despite this, Sapiens earned a spot on my top twenty reads of 2018. (Side note: The world conspired against me reading this book. I had it on hold for two months, it came in while I was out of town over the summer for two weeks, so it got sent back. Then I placed it on hold again and waited eons for it. Chunks of pages were falling from the binding when I finally got my hands on it, and the library took it out of circulation upon its return.)
  • Vicious (Villians #1) by V.E. Schwab–YAL
  • Vengeful (Villians #2) by V.E. Schwab–YAL; The Shades of Magic Series by Schwab is one of my favorite fantasy reads ever so I had to pick up this young adult series by her as well. The first one left me a bit underwhelmed. Victor and Eli’s story begins in college, where they discover the ability to become extraordinary–by killing themselves and then coming back to life. Eli awakens from death with regenerative powers while Victor can cause pain. They end up nemeses and more nefarious than heroic, picking up a motley crew of extraordinaries along the way. The second book more than made up for the slow pacing of the first, and I ended up rating the second four stars.
  • The Perfect Mother by Aimee Molloy–suspense/mystery; Ummmm, it’s okay? I keep reading suspense even though most of it is less than stellar in hopes that one will finally wow me with brilliantly written prose. Am I asking too much from this genre?
  • Baby Teeth by Zoje Stage–horror/thriller; A nonverbal little girl, who idolizes her daddy, fantasizes about killing her mother and then tries to do so. It’s fucked up, but I was never genuinely scared during this book. It alternated between both Suzette’s (the mother’s) and Hanna’s (the daughter’s) perspectives. The more I read, the more I dislike authors trying to narrate from the “now” perspective of children; in this case, Hanna’s perspective is over-developed and the diction too rich for that of a seven-year-old.
  • So You Want to Talk About Race by Ijeoma Oluo–nonfiction; Read it. Digest it. Then, like Oluo beseeches, stop talking about it and start taking action. It’s a must read, making my top three of books read in 2018.
  • Gunpowder Moon by David Pedreira–Science Fiction; I liked Pedreira’s style, but in the midst of all the science fiction jargon, it was hard to keep track of the characters and the plot.
  • Dear Martin by Nic Stone–YAL; Much in the same vein as Angie Thomas’s The Hate U Give, Justyce, an ivy league bound African American student who goes to a mostly upper class white school, witnesses the gun death of his best friend by an off-duty white police officer. Throughout the novel, Justyce writes letters to Martin Luther King, Jr., explaining the everyday microaggressions and full-blown racism he faces from society, ultimately writing rhetorical questions as an outlet for his frustrations. This is joining my recommendation list for my students.
  • Bad Feminist by Roxane Gay–nonfiction: I had published my top twenty books read in 2018 before I read this novel, and dammit, I would add this book to it if I could. I love Gay’s personal critique of feminism, and her essays are the shit. Her writing style is enviable. Slapping me in the face, her sentences left me raw and awakened the bad feminist in me too. Also through close examination, she offers cinematic and literary critique of women’s tropes and race portrayal in artistic mediums.

  As always, any discussion is welcome, and I’m always taking recommendations.

  Happy New Year. My resolutions post is slated for next week.

  (All cover art taken from Goodreads.)

   

  Posted in books, reading, Uncategorized, writing | 3 Comments | Tagged bad feminist, blogging, blogs, book reviews, books, dear martin, read, reading, sapiens, so you want to talk about race, the hazel wood, the perfect mother, vengeful, vicious, winter street, writing

• Top Twenty Books 2018

  Posted at 12:19 am by Mrs. Ram Jam, on December 29, 2018

  

  

  (All book art taken from Goodreads.)

  As per requested, here are my top twenty reads of the year.

  I’m currently sitting at 132 books under my belt and am hoping to hit 135 before year’s end. Not only did I read more than I did last year, but I made an effort to read more nonfiction. And because I’ve already reviewed most of these books on this list, I’m taking the laziest route possible and not re-reviewing them. (Please feel free to check out my previously posted book reviews. Next week’s post will be reviews of my reads from December.) However, I did rank them from most favorite to not-my-favorite-but-still-really-good.  

  1. The Great Alone by Kristin Hannah–five stars–published 2018–historical fiction
  2. Uprooted by Naomi Novik–five stars–published 2015–fantasy
  3. So You Want to Talk About Race by Ijeoma Oluo–five stars–published 2018–nonfiction
  4. Ready Player One (Ready Player One, #1) by Ernest Cline–five stars–published 2011–science fiction
  5. The Bear and the Nightingale (Winternight Trilogy, #1) by Katherine Arden–five stars–published 2017–fantasy
  6. The Girl in the Tower (Winternight Trilogy, #1) by Katherine Arden–five stars–published 2017–fantasy
  7. Six of Crows (Six of Crows, #1)  by Leigh Bardugo–five stars–published 2015–fantasy/YAL
  8. Crooked Kingdom (Six of Crows, #2) by Leigh Bardugo–five stars–published 2016–fantasy/YAL
  9. Stardust by Neil Gaiman–five stars–published 1999–fantasy/YAL
  10. Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind by Yuval Noah Harari–five stars– published 2011–nonfiction
  11. The Martian by Andy Weir–five stars–published 2011–science fiction
  12. Tell Me More: Stories about the 12 Hardest Things I’m Learning to Say by Kelly Corrigan–five stars–published 2018–nonfiction/memoir-ish
  13. Furiously Happy:  A Funny Book About Horrible Things by Jenny Lawson–five stars–published 2015–nonfiction/memoir-ish
  14. An American Marriage by Tayari Jones–five stars–published 2018–contemporary fiction
  15. Red Rising (Red Rising, #1) by Pierce Brown–five stars–published 2014–science fiction
  16. Erotic Stories for Punjabi Widows by Balli Kaur Jaswal–four stars–published 2017–contemporary fiction
  17. Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can’t Stop Talking by Susan Cain–four stars–published 2014–nonfiction
  18. Sharp Objects by Gillian Flynn–four stars–published 2006–mystery/thriller
  19. Circe by Madeline Miller–four stars–published 2018—fantasy
  20. Less by Andrew Sean Greer–four stars–published 2017–contemporary fiction

   

  As always, I’d love to hear what you have to say about these books if you’ve read them. Cheers!  

   

  Posted in books, reading, Uncategorized, writing | 4 Comments | Tagged best books 2018, blogging, blogs, book reviews, books, reading, top twenty, top twenty books

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