Book review - What to Say Next

Title: What to Say Next
Author: Julie Buxbaum
Genre: realistic fiction
Similar books: Don't Tell, Don't Tell, Don't Tell by Liane Shaw
                      Hello, Goodbye, and Everything in Between by Jennifer Smith
Rating:

mostly delightful with a few disappointments

Summary (provided by publisher): Sometimes a new perspective is all that is needed to make sense of the world.
KIT: I don’t know why I decide not to sit with Annie and Violet at lunch. It feels like no one here gets what I’m going through. How could they?  I don’t even understand.
DAVID: In the 622 days I’ve attended Mapleview High, Kit Lowell is the first person to sit at my lunch table. I mean, I’ve never once sat with someone until now. “So your dad is dead,” I say to Kit, because this is a fact I’ve recently learned about her.
When an unlikely friendship is sparked between relatively popular Kit Lowell and socially isolated David Drucker, everyone is surprised, most of all Kit and David.  Kit appreciates David’s blunt honesty—in fact, she finds it bizarrely refreshing. David welcomes Kit’s attention and her inquisitive nature. When she asks for his help figuring out the how and why of her dad’s tragic car accident, David is all in. But neither of them can predict what they’ll find. Can their friendship survive the truth?

My opinion: I liked the characters in this novel better than the plot. I loved the interplay between Kit and David. They both reject the label "normal", largely by necessity. David is aware that his personality quirks will forever separate him from his peers. Kit's grief is a tangible barrier from her old life. These characters have glimpsed beyond the societal facade. That part I loved. I even loved their doomed infatuation, even with it's obvious conclusion.
What I didn't love was the mystery. For the first two thirds of the book, the mystery of the car accident is seldom addressed, merely mentioned. For it to become the major plot catalyst felt a little clumsy. The revelations about the accident didn't have enough evidence supporting them.
It was still an engaging and emotionally complex novel. It just could have been much stronger.

More information: What to Say Next releases July 11.
Advanced Reader Copy provided by NetGalley.

A wild purse

I have this thing about sloths. They're kind of ugly/creepy but also completely adorable. When I spotted this bag on Amazon, I loved it. But I didn't love the price tag, especially since I knew it wouldn't be hard to replicate it. I bought a plain brown hobo bag instead.

A few customized felt appliques made it a close enough approximation of the original. It's loads of fun to carry.

Book review - The Song From Somewhere Else

Title: The Song from Somewhere Else
Author: A. F. Harrold
Genre: magical realism
Similar books: The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman
                      Skellig by David Almond
Rating:

intriguing, though not really my thing

Summary (provided by publisher): Frank thought her summer couldn't get any worse--until big, weird, smelly Nick Underbridge rescues her from a bully, and she winds up at his house.
Frank quickly realizes there's more to Nick than meets the eye. When she's at his house, she hears the strangest, most beautiful music, music which leads her to a mysterious, hidden door. Beyond the door are amazing creatures that she never even dreamed could be real. For the first time in forever, Frank feels happy . . . and she and Nick start to become friends.
But Nick's incredible secrets are also accompanied by great danger. Frank must figure out how to help her new friend, the same way that he has helped her.
Paired with gorgeous black-and-white illustrations from Levi Pinfold, acclaimed author A. F. Harrold weaves a powerful story about unlikely friendship, strange magic, and keeping the shadows at bay.

My Opinion: An interesting blend of multiple dimensions, magical realism, and mild horror. The first word I would use to describe it is, honestly, weird. The whole atmosphere is a half step away from normal, like a David Almond novel. Harrold takes a number of normal kid experiences (bullying, the missing cat, the weird kid at school) and makes them very "other", vaguely menacing. Shadows, mystery music, government, random ladies with carriages. All of these things are given mild menace. This would be a decent choice for a kid who enjoys reading outside of the mainstream.

More information: The Song From Somewhere Else releases July 4.
Advanced Reader Copy provided by NetGalley.

Books on screen

Maximum Ride

I was not surprised that the movie version of this story deviates from the plot of the novel. Firstly, the movie takes it's plot from only the first half of the novel, the part I would argue is less interesting. And it is a significant deviation. More concerning to me is the change in the characters. Their basic personalities and the way they interact with one another in the movie are a far cry from the book. Patterson presents us with this group: Max, the strong but loving leader; Fang, the dark and brooding, secretive protector; Iggy, the playful boy with hidden depths; Nudge, the excitable talkative girl; and Gazzy and Angel, siblings who are the most child-like, the most "normal" in spite of their enhancements. We see their special abilities, but also the bond between them. They are a family, a flock. Closely connected. None of that is present in the movie. The characters are indistinct and do not form a particularly tight knit group. In fact, they fight more than anything. Even their relationship with the School, Jeb, and Ari is altered, and not in a way that strengthens the story. It's not a particularly good representation of a complex series.

Non-fiction book review: Coding Projects in Python

Coding Projects in Python

I've read a variety of coding books and websites of varying quality. This is a particularly good one. Coding books for children have a tendency to be simplified, often to the point that they are hardly useful. DK, though, has provided young readers with an in depth introduction. Explanations are clear. Loads of examples of the various coding principles. Even more importantly, the examples are more than just code. We're given concrete, applicable uses for these principles, how to use them for creating, say, a game. It's this direct application, not for a particular project (as web guides tend to have) but for a type of project. This is an excellent choice for any kid or adult looking to get started in Python.

Book review - The Road to Winter

Title: The Road to Winter
Author: Mark Smith
Genre: post-apocalypse
Similar books: Parched by Melanie Crowder
                      The Road by Cormac McCarthy
Rating:

a good level of tension

Summary (provided by publisher): Since a deadly virus and the violence that followed wiped out his parents and most of his community, Finn has lived alone on the rugged coast with only his dog Rowdy for company.
He has stayed alive for two winters—hunting and fishing and trading food, and keeping out of sight of the Wilders, an armed and dangerous gang that controls the north, led by a ruthless man named Ramage.
But Finn’s isolation is shattered when a girl runs onto the beach. Rose is a Siley—an asylum seeker—and she has escaped from Ramage, who had enslaved her and her younger sister, Kas. Rose is desperate, sick, and needs Finn’s help. Kas is still missing somewhere out in the bush.
And Ramage wants the girls back—at any cost.
Finn, Rose and Kas try their hardest to look after each other in the harsh post-apocalyptic world. They suffer setbacks, difficulties brought on by adults but also sometimes as a consequence of their own poor decisions. They’re kids—they make mistakes. They stuff up but they find a way through. There are no superheroes, no magical powers to help them out of life-threatening situations.
A novel about honor, friendship and love, and a gripping realist teen survival narrative.

My opinion: Think of this book as The Road meets The Children of Men, though appropriate for teens. The interesting thing to me is that this post-apocalyptic novel doesn't show society devolving. It has devolved. We get, instead, the attempt of the remnant to live in the aftermath. Teen fiction tends to show the down fall. This is a more adult approach. It works surprisingly well. While listings for this book make it clear that this is the first in a series, it stands fairly well. Additionally, the writing has a distinctly foreign feel but is not so foreign as to be distancing. A solid choice for teens interested in survival.

More information: The Road to Winter releases June 13.
Advanced Reader Copy provided by NetGalley.

We're too cool for regular business card holders

My sister recently received business cards at work and was looking for something to hold them on her desk. Sure, we could have rigged up some kind of little box, but when I spied this recipe card holder it seemed like the perfect solution.

Plain white is a little boring, so this cow needed some paint. Personally, I'd have decorated the cow to look like Harry Potter, but my sister is a little more conservative. We went with a more subtle patterning.

It won't hold very many cards, but it certainly has more personality than a box.