"Scarlet" by Marissa Meyer

This is the second chronological book in the Lunar Chronicles series. It introduces almost all new characters. Scarlet is a play on Red Riding Hood, if you couldn't tell by the picture. Scarlet is a girl who lives on a farm in France, who helps her grandmother deliver groceries. Her grandmother has been missing for a while, and disappeared without her tracking chip. People thought her grandmother was crazy, but Scarlet thinks something happened.
One night when she is delivering at a bar, she hears people talking about the weird cyborg girl and talking about how she deserves what she's getting. Scarlet gets on the bar and defends Cinder. One of the patrons (who caught the eye of Scarlet's friend) follows her out and talks to her. He wants a job, but Scarlet said they didn't need more help on their farm. He said his friends call him "Wolf". He invites her to a fight that he's in later that night, but she declines. When she gets back to her house, she finds her deadbeat dad at her grandmother's house. He has burn marks up and down his arm, and says he was tortured by people. They had the same type of tattoo as Wolf. She tracks him down at the fight. The police come raid the fight, and Scarlet and Wolf escape.
Meanwhile, Cinder is working to escape from jail. She miscalculates how far to tunnel, and drops into the cell of a man named Carswell Thorne. They break out of jail, and escape to his spaceship. She found out where Michelle Benoit (Scarlet's grandmother) lives, and they head out for France. Michelle Benoit is the person who kept Cinder alive for 8 years in a state of suspended animation after she was burned on Luna. The man who brought Cinder down was named Logan Tanner, and is Scarlet's secret grandfather.
Scarlet and Wolf get to Paris via the train. She meets a man named Ran on the train, and have to jump off and escape when there's a leadimosis outbreak on the train.
When they get to Paris, Scarlet finds out that Wolf is actually a Special Operative of Queen Lavana. He has had his DNA melded with that of a wolf, which heightens his senses. They throw Scarlet in jail, and Wolf kisses her one more time in order to pass on a tracking chip. Scarlet finds her grandmother, but Ran (who is also an operative) kills Michelle. Scarlet escapes, and Ran nearly kills her too before Wolf comes and kills him.
They manage to find Cinder and Thorne, who were following the trail to find Michelle. They escape on Thorne's spaceship, and decide what to do next. Cinder still has the chip that connects to Lavana's spy (from the last book), and it ends with her deciding what to do.

I KNEW Wolf had to be bad. It was too good to be true that this mysterious stranger with bright green eyes was going to actually be a help to her. But Wolf's escape from his pack is a big deal, I think he's going to be good in the end.
I love a good cliffhanger. I wish Cinder had been able to meet Michelle, because she kept Cinder alive and it would have been amazing for her to meet her hero. I can't wait for the next one!

Book Club November 2019 Book- "Running for my Life" by Lopez Lomong

This was a gut wrenching book. Lopez Lomong was a boy in South Sudan when he was taken by the army and forced to be a boy soldier. He was trapped with boys for months, watching them drop like flies, before he escaped with 3 older boys and ran for 3 days straight. While they were running to their village, they actually made it to Kenya and were put in a refugee camp. There Lopez stayed for 10 years before he was given a once in a lifetime chance to go to America. He makes it to America, is placed with the most amazing family ever, and begins to run with his high school, college, and then in the Olympics on the United States team.

One of the lessons Lopez teaches is that he sees the hand of God everywhere he goes. When he escaped with the older boys, the cabin door didn't squeak for the first time ever. The guards were not paying attention, and they never saw the grass moving. The boys found water and food when they needed it most, and even though they didn't make it to their village they still made it to a refugee camp and they survived the ordeal. Lopez said he wishes he remembered the names of the older boys but doesn't, so he just calls them "his angels". Even the fact that he was able to write an essay in English, a language he didn't read or write, to be accepted was nothing short of miraculous.

The second lesson is the resiliency of the human spirit. While this was the "least" sad of the Africa war books I have read (I only nearly cried happy tears, not sad tears), it is still incomprehensible what some people go through. Lopez is still on the United States Olympics team. He went to the United States in July 2001, and was a sophomore in high school. This wasn't a time long ago. This was within my lifetime. He was one of the last Lost Boys of Sudan to make it to America, because 9/11 happened shortly after he immigrated here and they shut the program down.

The third lesson is the power of America. We take SO MUCH for granted what we have here. If Lopez had stayed in his village in Sudan, he would not have gotten an education. In the refugee camp, he had a basic education and learned how to speak Swahili. But he was blown away by what he saw in America. He had to learn how to shower, what a toilet was... he had barely seen what a TV was and it was a tiny thing hooked up to a car battery. To go from that to New York must have been just boggling. His parents were amazing, and did so much for him. However, he felt that he didn't deserve what he had been given and was worried that at any moment his parents would realize there was some mistake and send him back. So  he said one of the few English words he knew- "Yes"- in response to everything. It took years before he finally told his adopted parents what had happened to him.

The last lesson (which goes with the above) is the responsibility we have. We are SO BLESSED in America. How can we turn a blind eye to people suffering so much? I am pro-helping refugees. They have seen things we can't even process. Things that send a chill up my spine to even read. Meanwhile I'm sitting here in my own house with my own electricity and computer to write this blog post on. Clean water, education, and food are readily available. We can't help everyone, but we should help where we can.

I am donating to http://www.lopezlomong.com/lopez-lomong-foundation.html as part of the "Light the World" initiative, to help provide clean water to people in Sudan.

"Fairest" by Marissa Meyer

This is a shorter story in the Lunar Chronicles series, an origin story of the villain Lavana. They suggested that you read this as the fourth book in the series, but I wanted to read it now. 

I was surprised at how much I felt for Lavana in the first half of the book. Her sister Princess Channary, who would become Selene's mother, was a horrible and cruel person. Lavana was not the heir to the throne, and she was mocked by Channary. 

Lavana was in love with a royal guard named Everett, and was horrified to find out he was married and about to become a father. His wife died in childbirth, but the daughter survived. Lavana was able to use her Lunar gift (or "Glamor") to cover up scars from a childhood accident, and learned how to control Everett's feelings to make him love her. He knew she was controlling him, because his feelings changed every time she wasn't there. But Lavana convinced him to marry her and to move into the palace with his daughter, who he named Winter.

Queen Channary became pregnant with a baby, even though she didn't know the father. Shortly after baby Selene was born, Channary became ill and died. Lavana became the queen consulate, until Selene was old enough to become queen.  Lavana took her role seriously, more serious than Channary ever had. She brought Luna into a time of plenty. She kept up her Glamor, not only making herself look beautiful to everyone but also putting in everyone's mind the idea that they loved her. She couldn't stand the idea that someone else could be loved more than her. She wanted ALL of her subjects to be 100% loyal to her.

This is where you start to not like Lavana as much. She was so jealous of her niece and stepdaughter's beauty that she did not want to be around them. Eventually, the idea of Selene taking the throne was too much for her. She Glamored the nanny to fall asleep in the nursery with a lit candle under a blanket. She thought that it killed Selene, and knew that her throne was secure.

The last thing was that Everett did not truly love her. He told her one night that he would never love her. The next week she came to his room (he still slept in the guard's quarters, despite having been married to Lavana for 10 years), and that night a Thomiturge (the name of the aides to the queen) came in and killed him. Turns out Lavana had made a deal with him.

Turns out Lavana was severely disfigured when Channary had Glamored Lavana to put her own body in a fire. That's why she has the veil on the book cover. She also banned all cameras and mirrors. They don't show Glamors, and would show Lavana for what she really looked like.

This book makes me more excited to finish the series now! 

"Cinder" by Marissa Meyer

My friend recommended this book to me, it is my first time listening to an audiobook. I like that it's the first book in a series. The books are all based on fairy tales, set in a futuristic world. This story takes place in New Beijing, and has some Asian descriptions so I imagine that it's based in China.

We are first introduced to Cinder (I'm guessing you can imagine what fairy tale she is based on), a cyborg mechanic. She was a human orphan and had an operation to make her part machine, which usually happens when there is an accident or something. She was living in Europe and adopted by a man, who died shortly after. So she was raised by her "legal guardian" and step sisters. Cyborgs are treated at second class citizens, and Cinder hides her real identity.

What I loved about this story is it was predictable (you had a general idea of what would happen knowing the fairy tale), but also had its own twist. You know that Cinder will go to the ball and meet the prince, and run away and leave something behind. But Cinder actually meets the prince early on in the book, and he does not know her secret for a long time.

A big twist in this book is the outbreak of letimosis, a disease that Cinder's nicer step sister catches. They are racing to find the cure throughout the course of the book.

You expect that the worst person in the book will be her stepmother, but you actually meet the evil queen Lavana. She is the queen of Luna (on the Moon), and is based on the queen from Snow White. She even (allegedly) killed her own 3 year old niece because the niece was the heir to the throne.
Prince Kai becomes the emperor when his dad dies of letimosis, and it is after his death that you meet Queen Lavana. She wants to marry Kai to form an alliance with New Beijing and Luna. Cinder finds out that Lavana means to kill Kai afterward, and runs to the ball to warn him. Lavana exposes Cinder as a cyborg, which shocks Kai.
(SPOILER ALERT AHEAD)
After Cinder is arrested, she finds out that she is actually the princess of Luna. She is supposed to be handed over to Lavana to go back to Luna, but the book ends as she cuts out her own ID chip and plans to break out of prison.

Book Club October 2019 Book- "House of Salt and Sorrows" by Erin A. Craig

This book is a YA retelling of the fairy tale "Twelve Princesses Dancing". In the fairy tale, the 12 princesses go dancing all night and have to get new shoes every day. (I've never actually read the original story, so I only know that.)

In this story, the story opens with the funeral of a girl. She is the fourth sister in a family of twelve to die. Her younger sister, Annaleigh, is the narrator. They are the daughter of a duke, who is also a widower. They have a new stepmother, who announces her pregnancy at the funeral luncheon.

 Strange things start happening at the manor. Annaleigh is not sure that Eulalie (her sister who just died) committed suicide. She investigates with the help of her friend Fisher, and finds out Eulalie had a secret lover. But before she can talk to him about the night Eulalie was going to run away, he falls to his death. She also meets this man named Cassius, whom she takes an interest in.

She and her sisters find a secret passageway to different parties that happen around the land every night.

That's all I want to share right now because there are some crazy plot twists that I don't want to give away. We read this in our book club in October because it is slightly creepy and has to do with death and ghosts. There's also a main character named Camille, which was exciting and *spoiler alert* she doesn't die! Yay! If they make this into a movie it will be a good teen movie. Lots of romance, beautiful dresses (which I wish I could wear sometimes!), suspense, and just enough scare factor to keep you super into the book. The plot twist is mind bending, and it makes you wonder what is real and what is fake.

Book Club August 2019 book- "Where the Crawdads Sing" by Delia Owens

So my friend Susan started a book club here! I'm so happy about it, because it's giving me a chance to really kick up my reading.

The first book was "Where the Crawdads Sing" by Delia Owens. I have seen the picture on the library website, since it is popular. So I'm glad she picked it out!

The book opens up with a scene of a man's body being found in a swamp. They don't know who killed Chase Andrews, but they had some suspicions. 

The first half of the book were memories about a girl named Kya (born Catherine) who grew up in the swamps outside a tiny town in North Carolina. She is abandoned by her family at a very young age (like ages 6-8), but somehow has the drive to survive. She sells clams to a local store run by an old "colored" man named Jumper, and makes rudimentary food. CPS comes to bring her to school, but she gets made fun of so much that she only goes one day.

Her older brother, Jody, has a friend named Tate that recognizes Kya and helps her. She learns to read and write, and eventually falls in love with Tate (in a way). She has no way of knowing what human emotions are or how someone should act besides the animals that she has seen. Tate prevents anything from happening at the last minute, and eventually goes off to college.

Meanwhile, she meets Chase, who wants to spend time with her. He shows interest, and one day when Kya is in town she sees him with his arm around another girl. He blows her off, but comes back and apologizes. They eventually go on a trip together, where he takes her virginity and she does not like it. He gets engaged to another girl soon after, and Kya writes him off.
She had been documenting the animals that she has seen, and Tate finds a professor who publishes it. This gives her money that allows her to not only survive but begin to thrive for the first time in her life.

Shortly after this is when Chase's body is found, and Chase's mom is sure it was Kya. He wore a shell necklace that she gave him every day, even after he was married. However, Chase was the type of person who had multiple affairs and could have had many enemies. Ultimately, Kya was arrested and thrown in jail.
The next whole part of the book is the courtroom and trial. It was a big shift in narrative, losing all of her descriptions and talking about the nature around her. Instead it's very matter of fact and cold. It's obvious from the get-go that the prosecution was very biased against Kya. There was no real solid evidence against her. There were no fingerprints period, which was suspicious. But nothing to suspect her.
(SPOILERS AHEAD- if you haven't read it don't keep reading!)

Ultimately the jury did not convict her. However, Tate spent so much time and emotion invested in Kya's trial that he didn't notice his dad's failing health. His dad passed away shortly after. Kya and Tate got common-law married, but never were able to have children. They lived in her house in the swamp, and Kya died in her 60's, and while Tate was cleaning out her things he found out that she was also an accomplished poet. One of her poems talks about luring a man to his death, and pushing him off the tower into the swamp.



So, my thoughts on the book.
It showed how judgmental people can be in regards to "other" types of people. The prosecution had suspicions but they had many other people to look into. Why not the wife, since he has had many affairs? Why not the significant other of a woman that he had an affair with? But those were all "our" people in the town. Kya was an outsider and had been marginalized her whole life. She was an easy suspect.
It was fitting that she never got legally married. Why would she try to fit in with the government that had failed her this whole time?
It is sad that she wasn't able to have children. But since she found out her mom had a mental breakdown and left when she was 4, it makes me wonder if she would have handled having a child. Not having a nurturing presence in your life could have made it difficult to know how to raise a child. (I know it is possible, but she had a very feral childhood.)


Overall, a good read! Some of the descriptions are a little mature for younger audiences, but it was definitely engaging.

"Hillbilly Elegy" by J.D. Vance

I haven't written here in a LONG time, but this was such a good book I had to share it.

This also crosses off a book from the Modern Mrs. Darcy 2019 Reading Challenge- a book I have been meaning to read! I had this book recommended to me a few months ago and just found it again. I read it in about 3 days.

J.D. is a boy who grew up in Middletown Ohio, and spent his summers in Jackson Kentucky. He comes from a long line of proud hillbillies, and spends a good amount of time talking about what that was like. He had a variety of father figures in his life, and his mother was a drug addicted nurse. He grew up with a family history of taking electric saws to people's backs over a disagreement, or the time his grandma's brother made a boy eat a pair of her underwear at gunpoint after he made an inappropriate comment about her. Arguments regularly turned to blows, and defending your mother's honor meant beating the other man to a pulp. J.D. didn't know anything besides this. One of the men his mother married (for about 6 months) nearly took him away from Middletown and the comparative stability of living on the same street as his grandparents, and he fought that. His grandparents were the ones who helped him succeed in high school. He got into Ohio State but realized he didn't know the first thing about being an adult. So he joined the Marines. When he got back from the Marines he went to Ohio State and set his mind on Yale Law school. NOBODY from his town went to an Ivy League. So when he got in it was a big deal. He got married, and now lives a totally different life from the one he was dealt.

There are 2 huge points to take away from this. 1) With the right support system, you can achieve anything. 2) Don't let yourself be a victim of your circumstances.

About point 1: J.D. was born into a poor town that was not safe and had low education expectations. The college rate was low, and Ivy League was unheard of. His Papaw and Mamaw thought that they failed his mother, since she turned out to be a drug addict that begged her kids for clean urine so she could keep working to buy more drugs. They decided to be the best possible parents they could for their grandchildren. His grandmother told him he was not allowed to hang out with his old druggie friends. She made sure he didn't accept just barely passing for himself. He was going to work HARD and make something of himself! He has an older sister, who married someone that was not "like them". This meant that he didn't scream and throw things when they got into an argument. He treated J.D.'s sister well, and gave her a stable home.  Growing up in Appalachia is a different world from New Haven. He didn't know what sparkling water was. He didn't know how to network with the lawyers and law firms. But he found a support system at Yale that allowed him to navigate these new challenges, and now is a successful attorney. 

About point 2: J.D. was part of a world that is totally foreign to me. Hillbillies (which is what they proudly called themselves) were staunchly Democrat until about Nixon's time. Then within a generation they went from totally Democrat to totally Republican. Nobody quite knows why. But nowadays, only about 6% of the country trusts the media to be truthful. People always had an excuse. When a coworker of J.D.'s who had a pregnant girlfriend was fired, he blamed the manager. He didn't blame the fact that he was hours late to work, and took multiple half-hour long bathroom breaks every day. When another acquaintance was fired, he blamed "Obama's economy", not the fact that he didn't want to come into work anymore. If people want to find something besides themselves to blame for everything that goes wrong, they can. Their support system has let them down yet again. The government is making them out to be a victim. They were born without the ability to be successful. EVERYTHING is pushing them back! But until you accept that you CAN change something the world will seemingly always be against you.

I didn't even do this book a little bit of justice, but I recommend it to everyone.