December Wrap-Up

I don’t know about any of you, but I can’t wait for 2017 to be finished. It’s been nothing but a shit show ever since Donald Trump took the Presidential Oath of Office, and it hasn’t slowed down since, so in that regard, 2018 will probably be more of the same. On an individual note, however, 2017 wasn’t too terribly bad for me. I mean, I haven’t found a “real job” yet, but that’s no one’s fault but my own because I suck at answering or returning calls when I know the caller is from someone I sent an application to. Here’s hoping that I’ll get better at that in the new year…

ANYWAY.

On to what I read this month, which wasn’t too bad, actually. I managed to read four books, three of which were on my Kindle Fire, and then I read one physical book. Four is pretty average for me, and I seem to have kept my mojo from November, so as long as I’m reading something, I’m happy.

The first book I read was The Wife Between Us by Greer Hendricks.

A novel of suspense that explores the complexities of marriage and the dangerous truths we ignore in the name of love.
When you read this book, you will make many assumptions.
You will assume you are reading about a jealous wife and her obsession with her replacement.
You will assume you are reading about a woman about to enter a new marriage with the man she loves.
You will assume the first wife was a disaster and that the husband was well rid of her.
You will assume you know the motives, the history, the anatomy of the relationships.
Assume nothing.

Discover the next blockbuster novel of suspense, and get ready for the read of your life.

I don’t want to say too much about this because I feel like this is one of those where everyone should go in as blind as possible, but I will say that I loved the twists and turns that the story presented. It’s split into three parts and each one ends with some kind of revelation, and just when I think I know where it’s headed, I get steered somewhere else. I ended up giving this a full 5 Stars.

The next book I read was one of two that I borrowed from my online library, Dear Martin by Nic Stone.

Raw, captivating, and undeniably real, Nic Stone joins industry giants Jason Reynolds and Walter Dean Myers as she boldly tackles American race relations in this stunning debut.

Justyce McAllister is top of his class and set for the Ivy League—but none of that matters to the police officer who just put him in handcuffs. And despite leaving his rough neighborhood behind, he can’t escape the scorn of his former peers or the ridicule of his new classmates. Justyce looks to the teachings of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. for answers. But do they hold up anymore? He starts a journal to Dr. King to find out.

Then comes the day Justyce goes driving with his best friend, Manny, windows rolled down, music turned up—way up, sparking the fury of a white off-duty cop beside them. Words fly. Shots are fired. Justyce and Manny are caught in the crosshairs. In the media fallout, it’s Justyce who is under attack.

This one I… liked it for what it was. I could appreciate what Nic Stone was attempting to do, but the writing was all over the place. The romance in this felt out of place to me, mostly because it felt like it took center stage as opposed to everything else that this book is supposed to be. The arguments being made were too black and white, and mostly one-sided, but again, I didn’t hate the book. I just wish Nic Stone could have chosen only one plot point and stick with it. Instead, she tried to put too much in a book that’s not even that long (I think it’s somewhere around 210 pages, but the Kindle edition that I read was somewhere around 225). I wanted more letters to Dr. King, instead of the four that were actually “written,” and I would have loved to see Justyce actually read what he claims to have to read about Dr. King, but we’re just stuck with him telling us that he did. The concept is there, but it was just executed rather poorly, but I didn’t hate it, so I gave it a “meh” score and left it at a full 3 Stars.

The third book that I read in December: Long Way Down by Jason Reynolds.

A cannon. A strap.
A piece. A biscuit.
A burner. A heater.
A chopper. A gat.
A hammer
A tool
for RULE

Or, you can call it a gun. That’s what fifteen-year-old Will has shoved in the back waistband of his jeans. See, his brother Shawn was just murdered. And Will knows the rules. No crying. No snitching. Revenge. That’s where Will’s now heading, with that gun shoved in the back waistband of his jeans, the gun that was his brother’s gun. He gets on the elevator, seventh floor, stoked. He knows who he’s after. Or does he? As the elevator stops on the sixth floor, on comes Buck. Buck, Will finds out, is who gave Shawn the gun before Will took the gun. Buck tells Will to check that the gun is even loaded. And that’s when Will sees that one bullet is missing. And the only one who could have fired Shawn’s gun was Shawn. Huh. Will didn’t know that Shawn had ever actually USED his gun. Bigger huh. BUCK IS DEAD. But Buck’s in the elevator? Just as Will’s trying to think this through, the door to the next floor opens. A teenage girl gets on, waves away the smoke from Dead Buck’s cigarette. Will doesn’t know her, but she knew him. Knew. When they were eight. And stray bullets had cut through the playground, and Will had tried to cover her, but she was hit anyway, and so what she wants to know, on that fifth floor elevator stop, is, what if Will, Will with the gun shoved in the back waistband of his jeans, MISSES.

And so it goes, the whole long way down, as the elevator stops on each floor, and at each stop someone connected to his brother gets on to give Will a piece to a bigger story than the one he thinks he knows. A story that might never know an END…if WILL gets off that elevator.

This is my lowest-rated book for the month. It got 2 Stars from me, but I wish I could have liked it. It was another one of those, “Great concept, but poor execution,” because it’s a story written in verse, which isn’t ordinarily an issue for me since I love Ellen Hopkins’ books, but for this one in particular, that wasn’t the best writing choice, in my opinion. There was no flow in the writing and nothing really made any sense. It ends on a cliffhanger where you, the reader, get to make your own ending if the main character goes through with his plan or not. That was fine, I guess, but for a story that’s supposed to be told in 60 seconds while on an elevator going down, there could have been more sentences. Not every author can write in verse…

The final book I read this month was Tricks by Ellen Hopkins.

Five teenagers from different parts of the country. Three girls. Two guys. Four straight. One gay. Some rich. Some poor. Some from great families. Some with no one at all. All living their lives as best they can, but all searching…for freedom, safety, community, family, love. What they don’t expect, though, is all that can happen when those powerful little words “I love you” are said for all the wrong reasons.

Five moving stories remain separate at first, then interweave to tell a larger, powerful story — a story about making choices, taking leaps of faith, falling down, and growing up. A story about kids figuring out what sex and love are all about, at all costs, while asking themselves, “Can I ever feel okay about myself?”

This was a reread for me, and I loved it more the second time around than I did when I read it for the first time in 2016. I mean, I still gave it 4 Stars the first time I read it, but this time I ended up bumping it to 5 Stars because I didn’t fly through it this time. Hopkins is an author who writes in verse, and normally I can fly through her stuff, but for some reason, my brain wanted me to take my time reading it, so I finished it on Friday (12/29). What really made me bump it up this time around was the fact that Tricks actually managed to get some kind of emotion out of me (read: I cried). I can’t wait to finally pick up the sequel, Traffick, which will be one of the first books I pick up in the new year.

Well, that’s it for this post. I never know how to conclude these things, so I try to treat it like my BookTube channel, but I don’t know how that’s working.

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