Ask the Passengers by A.S. King

Cover via Goodreads.

Rating: 4/5 stars.

Astrid Jones sends her love to strangers. She gives it away to passengers in the sky, because that’s the only way she’ll be free. Her demanding, over-controlling mother talks at her, her dad does crack, and her sister worries too much about her reputation to be of any help. Living in a small town has its downsides, and Astrid realizes just how damaging those downsides are when she finds herself falling in love – with a girl.

The Glass Menagerie by Tennessee Williams

Cover via Goodreads.

5/5 stars.

A lot of the literature I’ve read for school this year has disappointed me. It’s great that we got to read and watch The Glass Menagerie as part of my AP Lit class, because I reclaimed my title as extremely obsessive fanboy extraordinaire.

There’s just so much to love in this play.

Slammed by Colleen Hoover

Cover via Goodreads.

Rating: 2/5 stars.

I cannot count on my fingers and toes how many times I wanted to throw this book across the room. Or better yet, slam it down on the floor. (get it? “slam”?)

I kid. I didn’t have such an intense reaction to Slammed. I barely had any reaction at all; I sat through the book like one sits through a cheesy, melodramatic romance movie. Bored and waiting for the next feature, or in this case, the next typo…

Slammed had such a fascinating premise. My favorite part of the book was Hoover’s inclusion of slam poetry, because I had only heard about it a couple of times before reading the book. Hoover incorporated love at first sight, forbidden romance, death, tragedy, and a multitude of other themes/motifs in the story. It should’ve been fantastic.

But it wasn’t.

In the Shadow of the Banyan by Vaddey Ratner

Cover via Goodreads.

Rating: 4/5 stars.

As a senior in high school, it scares me that I didn’t know how to properly pronounce “Khmer Rogue” before reading this book. Even worse was my ignorance of Cambodia’s history in the late 1970′s – the genocide that took place serves as a lesser-known Holocaust, the horrors these people endured similar to that of the Jews.

In the Shadow of the Banyan follows seven-year-old Raami as she witnesses the communist regime take everything away from her.

Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn

Cover via Goodreads.

Rating: 4/5 stars.

Things I need to find out about my future partner before I marry him: 1) If he can get rid of bugs for me, 2) If he’s a super crazy psychopath who will kill me in my sleep.

Gone Girl starts out as a simple story about Nick and Amy Dunne, the average married couple gearing up for their fifth anniversary. Conflict arises when Amy goes missing and the media accuses Nick of kidnapping and murdering her. The investigation takes a turn for the worse when clues are found that implicate certain individuals and reveal ugly truths about others. As the story progresses it turns out that our average husband and wife may be more twisted than we imagined…

The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver

Cover via Goodreads.

Rating: 4/5 stars.

How ironic that I would read The Poisonwood Bible immediately after publishing a blog post defending the merits of YA books. One individual commented about how literary fiction takes themes/motifs/messages and pushes them to the edge. I can see that with Barbara Kingsolver’s work.

Yes, the book preaches about anti-Westernization and the plights of religion.

In Defense of Young-Adult Books

Some of my favorite books, that so happen to be young-adult.

Usually, I’m scared of my mom reading my posts. But not this time. With this post, I’m scared of my AP Literature teacher stumbling upon it, my elitist literature-loving friends finding it, or, even worse – my future college professors in the English department reading it. Because this post is dedicated to one argument: young-adult books are just as valuable as what many people refer to as “literature,” and on some occasions more valuable than such classics.

Just One Day by Gayle Forman

Cover via Goodreads.

Rating: 5/5 stars.

Are you looking for a whimsical romance filled with love songs and fiery kisses? Are you searching for a story with constant adventure, brimming with beauty and overflowing with passion?

If so, stop. Just One Day is not one of those books. It is not shallow. It is not like Anna and the French Kiss. It is beautiful, but in a bittersweet, lyrical, and oftentimes melancholy way. This is a book for people who have ever felt lost, for those who know what it feels like to be unsure of who they are, or of who they want to be.

After her senior year of high school, good girl Allyson Healey embarks on a journey to Europe. Except it’s not really a journey at all, or even a trip – just a boring tour with her blond best friend Melanie. That is until she sees a magical performance of Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night and one of the actors flips her coin. By chance she encounters this actor – Willem – again on a train, but their relationship turns an entirely different direction when she decides to spend a day with him in Paris. There she becomes Lulu, an adventurous soul with no reservations, and she discovers a side of herself with Willem she comes to love in less than 24 hours. But the next day she wakes up and Willem is gone. Allyson spends the next year struggling to find herself, who she thought she was, and who she’s turning out to be.

The Righteous Mind by Jonathan Haidt

Cover via Goodreads.

Rating: 4/5 stars.

From a psychological standpoint, The Righteous Mind: Why Good People are Divided by Politics and Religion earns five stars. The book loses some of its appeal when Jonathan Haidt veers into political philosophy, however – especially when he raises the biased question “why are religious people better neighbors and citizens?”

Let me backtrack. The Righteous Mind is split into three sections. The first focuses on how intuitions come first and are followed by strategic reasoning, the second shows that there are six moral foundations (Care/Harm, Fairness/Cheating, Liberty/Oppression, Loyalty/Betrayal, Authority/Subversion, and Sanctity/Degradation), and the third hones in on the belief that morality binds and blinds. By the end each part made sense in relation to one another and came together to pack a strong moral philosophy punch. Though the book had some dense sections – like the history and biology of moral philosophy – Haidt included interesting scenarios, research, and anecdotes to alleviate the doldrums.

Quiet by Susain Cain

Cover via Goodreads.

Rating: 5/5 stars.

I love reading on Friday nights, writing on Saturday afternoons, and having quiet get-togethers on Sunday. But I also enjoy giving presentations at school, tutoring peers in writing, and interacting with various people online and in real life. I’d describe myself as an introvert (and my Meyers-Briggs personality type agrees), though both introverts and extroverts would enjoy this fascinating book by Susan Cain. She provides an intriguing, in-depth perspective on introversion, its connotation in contrasting cultures, and the psychology behind it.

A profusion of the nonfiction I’ve read has contained too much of something – too many random anecdotes, too much scientific jargon, too many unnecessary statistics or explanations.