June Mid-Month Wrap Up
I wasn't going to bother with this. When I looked at my reading on Monday, I'd read 4 books. I didn't think that was worthy of a whole post. At this point today, I've now finished 7 books. That is enough to warrant a post. So here goes.
Fire In Paradise: An American Tragedy by Alastair Gee and Dani Anguiano - This is a sad story about a devastating fire that destroyed an entire town. It wasn't the first fire in the area. The town was located in an area that regularly saw wild fires, but none had ever come as far as their city limits. The firefighters said a big one was coming. The recent fires were getting bigger, stronger, and more difficult to fight. The city leaders thought they had a great evacuation plan and they would be ready. Spoiler alert: they did not, and they weren't. The authors are journalists who talked to survivors and families of people who were victims. The book starts with the loose electrical wire that sparked the whole thing and goes through the traffic jams from an entire town trying to evacuate at once and on to the refugee camps in the Walmart parking lot in the next town. Some people read horror novels to feel scared. Me? I read books about fire. shiver
Love, Pamela by Pamela Anderson - I know no one is going to believe me, but I have believed Pammy to be smarter than she acts for some time now. This book proves it. Yes, she's a little woo-woo. Yes, she makes terrible choices in men. But she reads difficult literature and she is not afraid to evaluate herself and try to do better. She only touches on a few of her acting projects. My personal favorite (Stacked, a TV show that ran in 2015) was not mentioned. She mostly focused on what was happening in her personal life and her internal life. I, for one, try to avoid thinking about my internal life. It's messy in there.
Laid-Back Camp, Vol. 1 by Afro - This was recommended in an article in Oh Reader magazine about cozy manga. This is indeed cozy. A girl named Rin loves to go camping alone. She takes her tent and her little fire pit and her book and she spends the night at a campsite. She particularly likes to go in winter, when no one else goes. A girl names Nadeshiko is at the same campsite, but she falls asleep at the visitor center (she sleeps a lot) and can't get back home. The two girls share some cup noodles and Nadeshiko falls in love with camping. Nadeshiko is loud and chaotic and outgoing while Rin is introverted and reserved, and really wants to be left alone. Nadeshiko joins a group at school called Outdoor Explorers Club, but they've never been camping. She motivates them to get going. It's very cute and cozy and almost makes me want to go camping.
The Sisters: The Saga of the Mitford Family by Mary S. Lovell - This was a lot of fun. I didn't realize how many big figures these women knew. I knew about Hitler and his ilk, but I didn't realize they were related to Churchill or all the artists and Hollywood types. The youngest became the Duchess of Devonshire. What!? I have a picture of the Duke of Devonshire enjoying his library at Chatsworth in one of my books about impressive libraries. I read a book about Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire years ago. I had no idea! I read Jessica Mitford's books in high school. They were some of the only required reading I actually liked. I still have my copy. Anyway, all of that is to say, I thought this was great. It's over 20 years old now, which means the information is in need of an update, but so good.
The First Thing About You by Chaz Hayden - Once I got started on this, it went really quickly. I read most of it at work during slow times. Harris is a sophomore at a new high school. He is determined to make a clean start and be a different person. He is confined to a wheelchair and he is afraid that's all people will know about him. He gets a new nurse and she gets him into all the right places and groups of people he wants to be seen with. But she also leads him out of his comfort zone. He kind of likes it, and he wanted to be different, but he may not really like who he is now. There's a girl he likes, but he keeps messing that up. He has this idea of who he wants to be, but not how to make that guy happen. The author is also confined to a wheelchair and all of Harris' experiences with that are drawn from the author's own experiences. This is a Sequoyah book and so far, this one might be the one that makes the most sense on that list.
Laid-Back Camp, Vol. 2 by Afro - I liked the first one enough to order the second one. I get them from my library because they take about 2 hours to read. If I don't plan to read it over and over again, I don't feel like the ROI is worth it. That's why I only own 2 manga series and they're both about book readers. Anyway, in this one, Rin and Nadeshiko are friends and going to different campsites. They send each other pictures from their sites. Then they go camping together and get help from some neighboring campers when their fire doesn't light properly. It remains cute and cozy. I still won't go camping, but it's fun to read about their experiences.
unOrdinary by uru-chan - I got this manga from NetGalley in an Advanced Reader's Copy. It comes out in November I think. John is an ordinary high school kid. He goes to school at a special private school where all the kids have powers. The kids with the most powers run the place. They even go have Turf Wars (yes, capitalized) with other schools to see who is most powerful. John has no powers, so he gets beaten up every day by people with power. Then a girl who is a "high-tier" befriends him and steps in when he starts to get too beat up. No one understands why she would risk her reputation to hang out with him, but he takes a bunch of pressure off her. He doesn't expect her to be perfect all the time. Anyway, the "King" of the school thinks something is up so he starts sniffing around trying to figure out what or who John really is. I liked the art a lot in this one. Sometimes manga art is so clunky I can't tell what is happening. If every part of the picture has the same level of color brightness, I can't tell what's important. This was done very well in that regard and I liked the color scheme. I know this is a webcomic, so I could probably go find more online. I might. In all my spare time. eyeroll
So there you have it. The 7 books I read in the first half of June. I realize half of them were manga, but I'm okay with that. It's a nice brain break.