[Book] Leia, Princess of Aderaan by Claudia Gray

Book cover This book is a Star Wars story.  It takes place during Leia Organa's 16th year.  I would like to say that familiarity with the Star Wars universe isn't absolutely necessary, but I cannot be sure of that.  It is, at its base, an exhilarating and sometimes sad, coming of age story, where we see Leia grow from a teen who thinks she's all grown up, to a woman who knows she isn't quite there....

12 Sep 2018 · 2 min · Gary Allen Vollink

[Book] Home After Dark by David Small

Book cover Bonus review this week (because this book comes out on the 11th), and I finally figured out what to say about it. This tale is, all at once, heartbreaking, terrifying, uncomfortable, troubling with a tiny bit of hopeful mixed in.  Trigger warnings would be helpful here: racism, suicide, sexual predation, sexual bigotry, bullying, alcoholism, violence (both human and animal), parental abandonment, and smoking....

8 Sep 2018 · 2 min · Gary Allen Vollink

[Book] Insurrecto by Gina Apostol

Book cover Even though I'm reviewing an Advance copy, this story is surprisingly nonlinear, and I doubt that will change, though - really - it could.  The book starts, like a 1970s movie, listing the cast of characters in the approximate order in which the characters appear.  It's a story about two people, writing screenplays that are not exactly about the same thing, but are derived from a shared starting point and past....

5 Sep 2018 · 3 min · Gary Allen Vollink

[Book] Things That Make White People Uncomfortable by Michael Bennett and Dave Zirin

Book cover "We have got to make the white population uncomfortable, because that is the only way to get their attention."  That quote at the start of this book is from Bill Russell in 1964.  He was a Basketball player, but also a civil rights activist. I categorize this book as a Memoir, mostly because it follows the narrative flow of a memoir.  It starts out introducing the reader to Michael Bennett's childhood on a rural farm in the South, into college through the NFL, and discusses his own discovery of the importance of both support and activism on a number of issues of equality....

29 Aug 2018 · 2 min · Gary Allen Vollink