This Librarian's Quick Picks: Well, That Was Awkward...

Well, That Was Awkward
by Rachel Vail
Viking (2017)
Middle Grade Fiction

What It's All About:

Gracie has never felt like this before. One day, she suddenly can't breathe, can't walk, can't anything and the reason is standing right there in front of her, all tall and weirdly good-looking: A.J. 
It turns out A.J. likes not Gracie but Gracie's beautiful best friend, Sienna. Obviously Gracie is happy for Sienna. Super happy! She helps Sienna compose the best texts, responding to A.J. s surprisingly funny and appealing texts, just as if she were Sienna. Because Gracie is fine. Always! She's had lots of practice being the sidekick, second-best. It s all good. Well, almost all. She's trying.

Why You'll Love It:

• This modern, middle-school retelling of Cyrano de Bergerac is heartwarming, funny, and tender, offering a story of young love and loyalty, friendship and family.
• This tween romance proves that some stories stand the test of time, even with modernization.
• Gracie's breakneck narration is presented in and out of text messages, folding in an effortlessly diverse cast, including Latina Sienna and Filipino-Israeli Emmett.
• Readers will see themselves in Gracie and her friends, root for them, and likely figure out who is actually texting whom before the characters do, even if they haven't read the source material.

Who Should Read It:

Great for 5th-8th graders.



What Else You Should Read:

• Goodbye Stranger by Rebecca Stead
• Finding Ruby Starling by Karen Rivers
• A Year in the Life of a Complete and Total Genius by Stacey Matson

Review: Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte

Jane Eyre
by Charlotte Bronte
Smith, Elder, & Co. (October 16, 1847)
532 pages
Fiction/Classic

Summary in a Sentence: 

Jane, a plain and penniless orphan in nineteenth-century England, accepts employment as a governess at Thornfield Hall and soon finds herself in love with her melancholy employer, Mr. Edward Rochester, a man with a terrible secret.

My Thoughts: 

This isn't my first rodeo with Jane and Mr. Rochester. I first read Jane Eyre in college as part of a Victorian Literature seminar. And yes, that class was AWESOME. Instead of a conventional review, I'd like to touch on a few topics of interest.

Physiognomy and Phrenology:

"I noticed her; I am a judge of physiognomy, and in hers I see all the faults of her class."

Physiognomy was a popular method of character assessment in the 18th and 19th centuries using complicated charts which included measuring the width and height of the forehead and observing the way a person walked to determine certain attributes.

"He lifted up the sable waves of hair which lay horizontally over his brow, and showed a solid enough mass of intellectual organs, but an abrupt deficiency where the suave sign of benevolence should have risen."

Phrenology was a common means of character analysis at the time of Jane Eyre's publication. Developed by F. J. Gall, the practice is based on the assumption that certain traits or characteristics can be located on various points of the skull. Thus the 'organ of veneration' and such that is often mentioned in the novel.

Feminist, What-What?

"Women are supposed to be very calm generally: but women feel just as men feel; they need exercise for their faculties, and a field for their efforts as much as their brothers do; they suffer from too rigid a restraint, too absolute a stagnation, precisely as men would suffer; and it is narrow-minded in their more privileged fellow-creatures to say that they ought to confine themselves to making puddings and knitting stockings, to playing on the piano and embroidering bags. It is thoughtless to condemn them, or laugh at them, if they seek to do more or learn more than custom has pronounced necessary for their sex."

This excerpt speaks to the Victorian ideals that stifled so many women in Bronte's time. Throughout the novel, Jane is constantly striving to overcome oppression and to gain equality, first from Mr. Brocklehurst, then Mr. Rochester, and St. John Rivers. Each of these men prefer to keep Jane in a submissive position, but Jane must remove herself from under the control of each, and returns to Rochester only when their relationship can be that of two equal minds.

---

Now, for an important query: Which movie adaptation should I watch first??

~ Read for Our Mutual Read, Women Unbound, All About the Brontes, and Take Another Chance Challenges ~

Books By Theme: Love on the Page

 

Photo: Bob.Fornal

Censoring an Iranian Love Story

by Sharihar Mandanipour

Beautiful black-haired Sara and fiercely proud Dara fall in love in the dusty stacks of the library, where they pass secret messages to each other encoded in the pages of their favorite books. But Iran’s Campaign Against Social Corruption forbids their being alone together. Defying the state and their disapproving parents, they meet in secret amid the bustling streets, Internet cafés, and lush private gardens of Tehran.

Yet writing freely of Sara and Dara’s encounters, their desires, would put Shahriar in as much peril as his lovers. Thus we read not just the scenes Shahriar has written but also the sentences and words he’s crossed out or merely imagined, knowing they can never be published.

My Mistress's Sparrow Is Dead
by Jeffrey Eugenides

It is perhaps only in reading a love story (or in writing one) that we can simultaneously partake of the ecstasy and agony of being in love without paying a crippling emotional price. I offer this book, then, as a cure for lovesickness and an antidote to adultery. Read these love stories in the safety of your single bed. Let everybody else suffer."—Jeffrey Eugenides, from the introduction to My Mistress's Sparrow Is Dead
 
All proceeds from My Mistress's Sparrow is Dead will go directly to fund the free youth writing programs offered by 826 Chicago. 826 Chicago is part of the network of seven writing centers across the United States affiliated with 826 National, a non-profit organization dedicated to supporting students ages 6 to 18 with their creative and expository writing skills, and to helping teachers inspire their students to write.

Valentines
by Olaf Olafsson

The stories in Valentines capture the most candid moments between lovers, husbands and wives, parents and children, when truths and true feelings surge to the surface and everything changes. A wife realizes her closest confidante is much more than that. A father tries to make his new lover into the image of his late wife. A husband, a wife, a child, a boating accident: no harm done . . . or is there? Olaf Olafsson's fans will recognize the perfect restraint and precision—and quick wit—with which he explores these dark epiphanies, when the heart is suddenly laid bare, whether by love or betrayal, disenchantment or the shock of loss. Valentines is a powerful work of fiction from one of our most gifted and subtle international writers at work today.

What are your favorite books about love?

~ For more themed book lists, check out Listless by One Librarian's Book Reviews and Listed by Once Upon a Bookshelf ~