@SeptemberAr

Chatterbox: Blab About Books

@September
@SeptemberAr ...

@September

Are you still here? I haven't been active at all recently (ahh freshman year) and I know the book club ended messily, so I was just wondering about you. How are you, book twin?

submitted by Bibliophile
(November 4, 2017 - 4:59 pm)

Biblio! *tackle hugs* How've you been? (ahh schooooool) Read anything spectacular lately? Book recs? Super awesome things that need to be said? I've been doing alright ( ahh 8th grade!) but I definitely need book recs ;))

submitted by September
(November 7, 2017 - 11:12 pm)

Hey!!! *hugs back* I've been good, although it's stressful being at a new school. Mostly academically, I have some friends and I joined drama club and writer's guild which are both super fun! 

The things I've read mostly recently are Radio Silence by Alice Osman, Release by Patrick Ness, Turtles All The Way Down by John Green, and Magnus Chase and the Ship of the Dead. I didn't like Turtles as much as a thought I would (probably because I overhyped it in my head). It was good and it raised a lot of awareness about mental health, which is obviously amazing, and it definitely didn't fall into the trope of "oh you have a mental illness oh ok just fall in love and all your problems will be solved", because John Green has actual experience with a mental illness, but the story seemed a bit disconnected to me, and..... I don't know exactly what it was, but it didn't really pull me in as much as TFIOS did. 

Radio Silence was amazing, though. It's about a boy and girl who are friends (throughout the entire book. There's no romance implied. It's so great.) The boy is a creator of a podcast that the girl draws fan art for and it's really good and bittersweet and nerdy and heart breaking. I finished it in less than 24 hours.

Anyway, your book recs: 

- Radio Silence (see above) 

- Release by Patrick Ness (it's a bit mature at parts, but overall really good. It's about a boy grappling with his identity is a very religous family. It's very bittersweet and is funny at some parts too, and the characters are all very fleshed out and they feel very truthful. It also switches back and forth from this fairy-tale kind of story that I found hard to understand, but the writing style was beautiful.)

- This isn't a book, but there's a podcast called The Bright Sessions I think you might like. It's magical realism! It's about a group of people called atypicals who have superpowers who go to therapy "for the strange and unusual" and try to learn how to control them and live their daily lives in a healthy way. The writing and voice acting is amazing.

- My Lady Jane This one is more light and funny than the other ones. It's essentially the revised history of King Henry the 8th's son with shape shifters. 

- Eliza and her Monsters This is pretty similar to Fangirl and Radio Silence. It's about a girl who is the creator of a hugely popular web comic and how she balances her life "irl" (a term that she pretty much questions the entire book) and online. It was really relatable and sooooo much nerdiness!

-Goodbye Days. This is about a boy who's friends die in a car crash and how he and their families go through the grieving process. It's very moving and (needless to say) very, very sad.

submitted by Bibliophile
(November 12, 2017 - 1:45 pm)
submitted by SepTOPber!
(November 8, 2017 - 8:53 pm)