Category: Senior Literary

“I’ll Give You the Sun” by Jandy Nelson is one of my all-time favorite books. It is set in an upstate California town, narrated by two siblings, Noah and Jude. They are twins who see the world the same way at the beginning of the book, but as the book goes on, and they fall away from each other, their differences become more apparent. They both struggle with the same internal struggle of wanting to be their own independent people, despite being twins, and their story follows them through their stages of grief after losing their mom in a car accident. 

Noah, the ‘younger’ of the twins is narrating their younger years, and we follow him in his efforts to get into the local art high school. His narration is very close to being unreliable due to his exaggerated accounts of his surroundings. It is often hard to tell what is really happening and what is actually real. His narration was the polar opposite of his sister’s in his accounts of growing up. He made it very obvious that he had lost his mother, distanced himself from his father, and barely talked to his sister. As the book goes on, he uncovers his most prevalent internal and external struggles, revealing him being gay, and how he has to reevaluate who he hangs out with and how he has to act. While his mother is alive, he is somewhat comfortable in being the artsy, weird gay kid, but after she dies, he takes time completely rearrange how he lives. After Jude, his sister, sabotages his portfolio for the art school, and his mother dies,  he becomes the popular, athletic kid. It’s a very interesting way to see how different grief and self-loathing can affect characters. 

Jude, polar opposite of her brother, begins the book being a sunny and cool character. She is the typical rendition of surfer-popular-girl. She has the most friends and distances herself from her weird brother unless they’re hidden away at home. She hangs out with guys older than her and goes to too many parties. She grew up being closer to her father, but striving to gain her mom’s approval. Her narration starts as soon as her mother dies, and the total shift in her character is even more extreme than her brother’s. She begins to totally isolate herself, wearing baggy clothes in hopes that boys will not notice her, and talking to her dead grandmother’s ghost. Because of Noah meddling with her portfolio, she gets into the art school, but is close to flunking out because she thinks her mother’s angry spirit is breaking her sculptures. Through much personal growth and revealing secrets about her mother and herself, she eventually realizes that she is not cursed and the whole family finally reunite again. 

I love this book for so many reasons, but the main one is the beautiful way Nelson captures the process of grief. I was recommended this book in a very hard time after I lost a loved one, and reading it was very refreshing. I stand by it being my favorite book, telling anyone I see that they should definitely give it a read. 

The Ancient Magus’ Bride is a 10 volume manga series written by Kore Yamazaki. The series follows the adventures of Chise Hatori, an orphan sleigh buggy, and her fiance and mentor, Elias Ainsworth.

Volume 1 is jam-packed with content. But the most significant portions in my opinion would include Chise’s run in with the fairies, the couple’s visit with Angelica, and the ending scenes that ultimately lead to the next volume.

Of course, there are many things that happen in this volume that are significant to the story as a whole, like her visit with Lindel and his dragons (more specifially Nevin). But I find these scenes to be more filler content and explanatory than anything else.

From the start, everything is fast paced and it gives very little direct information about how it is Chise was sold into slavery. Of course, there are bits and pieces we get from her memory that give us slight hints as to how her home life negatively affected her.

The first we really hear of Chise’s family starts with the fairies. Ultimately, we learn that after he mother’s death, she was passed around from family member to family member until she willingly gave herself up for auction. This lack of family and love makes her susceptible to the fairies’ somewhat sinister plans. However, it is this same sentiment that makes her deny the fairies.

After this encounter, Elias takes Chise into the city where they meet with an old friend of his. In true manga form, Angelica, an artificer mage, has a small breakdown upon learning of the couple’s engagement. She throws Elias out of her shop and begins to shed light upon the more magical aspects of the world Chise has found herself thrust into.

Here we learn about difference in Alchemy and Magic. Angelica, not knowing of Chise’s sleigh buggy status, has Chise try out some magic. This of course goes wrong and Elias has to step in before the entire shop is turned into a crystal poppy field. This is where we learn what a sleigh buggy is.

Skip to the end of Chapter 5, we find Chise at the beginning of a purification spell. This of course seems dumb considering how inexperienced she is. If you think back to her first try at magic by which she almost destroyed Angelica’s shop, you’d agree that she should not be performing magic at this time.

Elias says that his powers are more aligned with the darker side of nature. Personally, I feel this excuse was not worth the problems that would have definitely arrived with Chise doing somewhat complicated spell work.

But of course, right as she is separated from Elias and beginning her spell, Renfred and apprentice capture her. Now, this being the first volume of the series, there was no way we could have expected Yamazaki to not leave us hanging.

Overall, if you like fantasical magic, inhuman creatures, narcissistic alchemist, and cliff hangers, this is most definitely the manga for you.

Tune in next month for The Ancient Magus’ Bride Vol. 2.

the very first words readers ever see in this book are, “my name is mary iris malone, and i am not okay.” that’s it; that’s the first chapter. all you really know about the main character is her name, and you’re left wondering why she isn’t okay. of course, author david arnold is quick to provide the background and leap straight into the beef of her adventure. mary iris malone (mim) is not okay, and she’s trekking herself from jackson, mississippi back to her hometown in ohio to find her mom.

from the get-go, 16-year-old mim is sure of herself and her convictions. she despises her stepmother and father for hiding her birth mother’s illness from her and making her family move away, and she’s convinced that running away and going back to her mother will make everything okay again. her confidence makes readers trust her, because what does she have to lose? why would mim fabricate a story for herself just to ride a greyhound bus from mississippi to ohio?

readers receive real-time, first-person accounts of her journey to her mother. this is where her convictions start to become a little… fishy. it becomes very easy to get enveloped in the world of mim, which makes it difficult to pull away from it and ask, “why?” the extravagance of her tale and the strength of her emotions almost make mim’s story feel unbelievable. but she’s our protagonist, our heroine, so we want to believe mim. we want to understand her truth as nothing less than the truth.she’s weird and she’s endearing and we can’t help but love her, despite the little red flags telling us to proceed with caution.

as we learn more and more about mim, we also learned that she knows less and less of what she’s doing. readers experience her world and her plans completely unravel around her; everything she thought she knew was a lie, and we want to stick by her as she grapples with this new reality. and by the end of it all, we learn that mim’s convictions weren’t all she led readers to believe – or even what she herself believed. but we feel for her, and we want her story to end happily.

life throws mim curveball after curveball, and she deals with them by manipulating them into something manageable until making them easier to swallow isn’t possible anymore. they solidify into her reality with the grounding words: “a thing’s not a thing until you say it out loud.” she learns that in order to recognize the truths of her life and change her life for the better, she must first acknowledge the existence of such truths. this is of course an important lesson for all of us, the acknowledgement that it really is okay not to be okay.

david arnold’s mosquitoland is definitely a book to remember, from the idiosyncratic characterization its protagonist to the absolutely whirlwind plot to the lessons on humanity that never quite leave you. mary iris malone is not okay, and she doesn’t have to be. she just has to say it out loud.

Dispatches From Pluto is a non-fiction novel written by Richard Grant. It takes place in the Mississippi Delta after Grant and his girlfriend Mariah move to Pluto from New York. Grant was previously a travel journalist and spent time in many other countries, bringing him into contact with many different types of people. He decides to move himself and Mariah to Pluto after a single trip to visit a writer friend turns into him buying an old plantation home and the acres surrounding it in the heart of the Delta. Grant spends the book taking time to delve into the heart of the spirit of the South. Most of the book focuses on the racial tension still prevalent in the South and its hold over politics, the education system and regular day-to-day life. He makes friends ranging from a metal scrapper to Morgan Freeman himself, battling the wildlife and terrain of a new and often-times harsh landscape. 

I have to admit, I was fairly skeptical of reading Dispatches From Pluto when it was referred to me. For one, I don’t normally read nonfiction, but I have wanted to get more into real-life reading as I get older, and I figured this would be the perfect book to start. Another thing I was worried about was the nature of the author before I started reading; I was worried it would be narrated by a typical middle-aged white man thinking he knew more about things than he actually did, but I have to say, I was more than pleasantly surprised. 

I was ensnared by the beautiful writing to begin. Grant had a way with his descriptions that made it easy to understand the complicated background of Mississippi politics and life, even for someone who lives here. His words were causal and sincere in the way he wrote, taking great care to include even the most basics of interactions he had with the locals to show the reader the broad spectrum of people that preside in the South and in the Delta. 

For me, it was nice to read something about home that was not all bad. Of course, he made sure to include the semi-rampant racism and sexist behavior that runs deep through the South, but Grant also included his account of the people that make the phrase “southern hospitality” believable. 

Through his writing, Grant paints a picture of the South that ensures to capture the reader, and hold their attention, all while painting the picture of the South that I believe would have anyone falling slightly in love with Mississippi, as I believe he wanted. 

(I highly recommend this book!!)

You is a book by Caroline Kepnes. This book takes you on the day to day life of a bookstore worker named, Joe Goldberg and his new crush Guinevere Beck. But this isn’t just your typical love story. Joe Godberg is what anyone would call a stalker. The second Beck walks through his bookstore doors he becomes instantly infatuated with the women, and this is where he begins to make his plans to make her his and only his, and his first rule of thumb is to get rid of anyone who stands in his way. Of course, not everthing goes as planned and he has to jump through a lot of hoops to win her over. Not only does he kill her ex-lover to stop her for falling for him again, but he also tries to get rid of Beck’s friend named “Peaches” an African-American rich girl who has also found a almost obsessive fondness for Beck. All the while he tried to justify his action by naming her the stalker and reasoning with himself that he is only doing it for her protection. But between stealing her phone and watching her every move, he starts to realize Beck wasnt all he had built her up to be. He soon finds out that she’s obbsessed with attention and loves to date anyone and everyone who giver ber attention. He also learns that she is a compulisve lair and had been hiding with a major secret for half of her life. With this information his “love” for her only grows. And his simple affectiom starts to take a more demandong tone as he gets her into his grips, and that’s only half the book.

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Breakfast of Champions by Kurt Vonnegut may be my favorite new book. The way he describes and fully explores each character was a technique that I haven’t seen before. He explored their past and future in a way that didn’t truly move the storyline, but it did make the story the amazing book that it was.

The beginning started off rather slowly, and I almost stopped reading it. He over-explained things that I already knew such as America, but his use of drawings was interesting, especially the crude way that they were done. However, I continued reading the book, and soon, I began to thoroughly enjoy it. Despite enjoying it, I could not read it for long periods of time. Personally, I found that because each line of the book was so packed with information, I could not enjoy it in large amounts.

Kilgore Trout and Dwayne Hoover, the main characters of the book, were not the most interesting characters in the book. I found the other characters to be much more thrilling. However, at times, I found the story tedious whenever it got into a lull. At these points, I would have been much more interested if Vonnegut had compensated with things such as the description. Some parts were incredibly interesting while others simply had to be read through.

However, whenever Kurt Vonnegut began putting himself in the story and revealing personal aspects of his life and it related to the characters, I became enthralled. The only critique I have of this is that I almost didn’t make it to this point because of how slow the book started out. He didn’t have anything that caught my attention until almost a quarter through the book with the mentioning of how Dwayne’s wife died by eating Draino.

He also built suspense well with Dwayne’s “sickness,” and I loved how the chemicals sometimes kicked in, but all of the information that was revealed about how he would break down lessened the impact of the actual event. I thought it was interesting how Kilgore Trout caused this to happen with his own work, but I also felt like this scene didn’t reach its full potential.

My favorite part of the book was the dog, Kazak. Here, Kurt Vonnegut is on his way to meet Kilgore Trout, but he has forgot the character that he made because he edited it out. However, as he describes it:

“I should have known that a character as ferocious as Kazak was not easily cut out of a novel.”

The dog, his very own character, ends up attacking him.

I thought that it was especially interesting how even though the entire book was about Kilgore Trout and Dwayne Hoover meeting and how Trout’s story would cause Dwayne Hoover to have his meltdown, Hoover simply bit Trout’s finger off. They did not turn out to be epic friends at all; this wasn’t a book about two people who became friends or even enemies. It was a story of life and all of the people we meet along the way, their pasts and futures, and how everyone is affected by everyone else. To put it as the painter did, we are all simply bands of light.

“It is all that is alive in any of us—in a mouse, in a deer, in a cocktail waitress. It is unwavering and pure, no matter what preposterous adventure may befall us.”

“Like a Winding Sheet” is a short story written by Ann Petry. It is centered around an African-American man, Johnson, in racism. In this story, Ann Petry not only describes the racism towards African-American men but the placement of the African-American woman also. It begins with the man in bed with his wife. Their relationship is described through dialogue and metaphors. It seems as if they have a healthy, loving relationship. As the day goes by, the man is constantly verbally abused by white women. His boss is a white woman who talks to him like he is trash and the woman at the coffee shop refuses to serve him after a long day of work. His frustration builds throughout the story. The greatest metaphor used in this story is in its title, a winding sheet. The winding sheet describes his emotions and the buildup of anger over time—winding and winding until it was time to release it all. The phrase “and he couldn’t bring himself to hit a woman” (Petry) is repeated throughout when he enters a racist situation with the white women. It is a belief that has been imprinted on him, and he tries to remind himself of it and who he is a person. Every time he is disrespected, he clutches his fists tighter and tighter until they cannot anymore. “They were clenched tight, hard, into fists” (Petry).

There were some aspects of the story that stood out to me. Petry frames the story in a way and has great character development. The story has a swift but steady pace. The structure shows how Johnson’s attitude and emotions were in the beginning and how they were in the end, which is a huge difference. Petry uses many forms of symbolization and the setting contributes to the plot of the story. This story relies heavily on the characters’ actions. Some examples of symbolism used are lipstick and a winding sheet. Some themes that this piece possesses is love, failure, femininity, patience, imprisonment, and racism. There is plenty of foreshadowing in the story that hints at the terrible ending. In a way, the encounters create misogyny in the main characters. Not necessarily a major presence of it but to some extent, his frustration with women grows more and more. By the end of the day, he has become fed up with his surroundings and lashes out.

Ultimately, this story’s core theme is racism. Ann Petry examines the effect on African-American men and women, specifically spouses. It makes me wonder if she has observed this in marriages or if she has experienced it herself. Overall, this story was a good read. The ending is upsetting but extremely thought-provoking. Through numerous metaphors and actions, Petry successfully develops round and vulnerable characters. While reading this the second time, I discovered the underlying message of freedom and loss of identity. The conflict is so complicated that I do not know how to feel about Johnson’s ending character. I definitely recommend this story, click here to read it.