As per usual, I’m awful at keeping up with the review part of the Cannonball Read equation, so here’s another review dump! To begin, let’s discuss When You Trap a Tiger, one which caught my eye primarily because of its cover art and the Newberry Medal.
Having liked my last pick from Target’s middle-reader end cap (A Kind of Spark) so much, I’d been making a point to check out when new books get added to the rotation there and this one in particular caught my eye, thanks in part to that shiny medal emblazoned on it. Even dating back to my elementary school days, that medal has always been a pretty good omen for a book, and so I grabbed it after little more than a cursory glance. What I got was lovely magic realism that draws you effortlessly into this Korean family, each one of them flawed yet endearing just the same. My only complaint is that this isn’t already a movie, because my aphantasia-suffering ass simply cannot picture those magical bits. I want so badly for it to be realized as an animated film in the style of the cover. Maybe that’s why I’ve never been a huge fantasy fan: the inability to mentally picture most of the goings on. Thankfully, what was most important about those moments of magic was not the magic itself, but the emotional content. No matter how out there the story gets, Keller keeps it emotionally grounded. It’s just a lovely story that brought me close to tears by book’s end and gave me a taste of Korea’s wonderful folklore.
Rating: 5/5.
After A Kind of Spark, I immediately purchased McNicoll’s other two books, especially after reading they too feature neurodivergent main characters. Of course, I worked chronologically, starting with Show Us Who You Are, a story about an autistic girl and the promise of a new kind of immortality through advanced AI holograms. Although I enjoyed the book overall – particularly the two neurodivergent characters, Cora (autistic) and Adrien (ADHD) – I must say McNicoll lost me a little with the climax. From the inciting moment, which I won’t spoil, to what follows, the story takes a detour into rather silly territory. Our surprise villain(s) is cartoonishly evil, the neurodivergent-inclusive message about bludgeons readers with how not-subtle it is, and that inciting moment feels a tad cheap (I audibly asked “really?” out loud upon reading it). It’s not outrageously bad in any of those respects, at least not to the point of souring me on the book altogether, but I do wish McNicoll hadn’t skewed so preachy at the end there. She still does a lovely job of portraying autism in a fair and balanced way, and she does an alright job of showing ADHD here too (though Adrien seems a little more one-note than Cora, his over-active brain seemingly being the only ADHD calling card properly discussed). It’s just a shame that winds up being set dressing to lead up to page after page of competing monologues from our villain and main character, Cora, all to double, triple, and quadruple underline McNicoll’s point. Still, I liked and care enough about Cora and Adrien that I was able to forgive it, push through, and come out on the other end without it hurting my opinion of the book too much in the long run.
Rating: 4/5.
Why don’t they lead with “written by a teenager”? I assumed, once I realized it was an autobiography, that they’d grown up by now and this was them looking back. Nope, they wrote this as a teenager just beginning to receive hormone therapy. Were it not addressed in a rather upfront fashion in the book itself, I wouldn’t have suspected that; I know I wasn’t writing anything of this level at their age. I think kids would be even more drawn to the book if they knew it was written by one of their peers, so I really am at a loss for why they buried the lede like this. Anyway, another (positive) surprise was that Grayson’s family was so supportive, starting back when they first began to question their gender identity, all the way up until their transition. They practically give them the idea of transitioning. That, I guess, should’ve been another clue that this wasn’t a story set in a more distant past; no parents, aside from maybe millennial ones, would be this welcoming. I hope for every child questioning their gender identity to be treated with this much respect and understanding, but I know it’s probably not going to happen most of the time still. We just watched that short 40-minute Netflix doc Lead Me Home about the huge homeless population in LA, San Fran, and…. I forget the third city, and one of the homeless people was cut off from their family upon telling them they were trans when they were in college. Hopefully Grayson’s story slowly becomes the new norm, and this book helps educate folks on the process. There’s even a glossary in the back of important terms, including ones not directly covered in the book. It’s just so refreshing a read, and it’s amazing that it came from a teenager.
Rating: 5/5.
For my birthday, we took a weekend trip the weekend prior to Pittsburgh, where I went to college. My wife thought it would be cute if my birthday presents were things I picked from the places we went during our time there, keeping to a budget of $100. The budget thing kinda went out the window at the end when I found first an Accidentally Wes Anderson book, with pictures and lengthy details about each one, and this at the last place we went. One was $30, the other $40, and I knew I’d already spent at least $60, so I informed my wife I’d be putting back Accidentally Wes Anderson in favor of this… only for her to say (I’m paraphrasing) “why not both?” We may have also spent $200+ combined at that store between the two of us, which is just the tip of the iceberg for our spending on the trip, but that is neither here nor there. Back to the book, I felt I absolutely had to get it, especially after my wife found me these adorable Pooh and Piglet book-ends (and a little Pooh frame) at a thrift store a little while back. I love Disney’s version of Pooh bear, I say as I sit beneath a Pooh ornament I’m using as decoration after Christmas, and in front of my pin board that has its own “Pooh Corner” full of Pooh pins. And I’ve always neglected buying a stuffed Pooh because I wanted the traditional Pooh (like the one on my book-end), not Disney’s. Yet I’d never read any of the original stories upon which Disney based their character(s). This, obviously, had to change, and I’m overjoyed that it did because, whereas Disney’s Pooh has both its good and its bad, Milne’s original stories are the model of consistency. We don’t even begin with the whole cast of characters; however, that makes each one’s introduction all the more special. I know I couldn’t wait for Eeyore to join the fray; I’ve always felt a kinship with him, similarly to how I relate so much with Charlie Brown (I’m sure you’re noticing a trend there). Except every character is a joy, and it was like meeting them all over again. You can see plenty of these original stories in the Disney adaptations, which was nice in its own way, but they remain their own special beast that warmed my childish heart.
Rating: 5/5.
Found this one at Goodwill, and didn’t notice until I got it home and went to read it that it had been autographed by Yang himself. It’s personalized for somebody else, but still a cool touch. Having remembered nothing about the Boxer Rebellion from history class, and not having the companion book, Saints, to accompany it, I feel like I can’t properly judge the book. That being said, I love the art, and Yang did a great job of making me feel for our main character in the beginning. I say in the beginning because, well, things sorta go up in flames, pun intended, the further in you get. The line between good and bad gets blurred significantly and I was left not sure what to feel, which is why I’m bothered that I didn’t have Saints at the ready. I’m sure my opinion will change on this once I’ve read both, but for now I’ll say I liked it, but the ending left me on such a dour, inconclusive note that it bothered me a little. Again, that’s probably the fault of me not having the full picture available to me, so to speak, but what can I do when I only have the one?
Rating: 4/5.
Yes, now this is more what I was after with the last one. As I read through this voraciously at work, I had to stop every so often to text my wife a picture of one of the comics that was totally her, or me, or us. Catana simply gets it. What she portrays in her comics isn’t even necessarily a picture-perfect love; the two of them are oftentimes shown confounding or annoying one another. That being said, that is what love is. There’s the warm moments, and then there’s the moments where you’re groaning at your wife because she, the one who always complains about you taking the sheets, managed to strip the sheets completely off of you. Or when your wife sits in disbelief (and laughs) as you eat a pepper that later in the day has you worried you’re going to need a trip to the hospital because your stomach is in the most excruciating pain you’ve felt in your entire life. You may not always understand one another, or be perfect to one another, but behind everything you do is still love. These are all little moments of love, just like this book.
Rating: 5/5.
