It's Monday (and a long weekend)!

Hello everyone! How are you? Are you enjoying the long weekend?

If anyone had consulted me (it's rude that they didn't, right?), I might have suggested that a five day weekend with the end of the school year just a few weeks away was a bit much. But what can you do? We're a bit hot (hello 96% humidity!) but we're going to make the best of it.

I got a lot of reading done this week, in no small part due to the Take Back Your Shelves Readathon hosted by Jenna. It runs through the end of today and basically encouraged us to spend a chunk of the long weekend with a book in hand!

I read Chris Cleave's Everyone Brave Is Forgiven (set during WWII), Maine (about several generations of women reuniting at their family beach house), What We See When We Read (nonfiction about the ways we imagine characters and locales that aren't explicitly described), and I have about 10% left in Country of Red Azaleas (a novel about a woman searching for her childhood best friend in post-war Serbia).

              

                

Next up? I'm going to read some JK Rowling, I mean Robert Galbraith, with The Cuckoo's Calling and then I'm going to try Dinner: A Love Story. 

    


What are you reading this week?

Unconventional Princess Books

In spite of my best efforts to carefully balance trucks and tiaras, my daughter hit a very intense princess phase right around the time she turned two. One year later, we are still very serious about dresses and princesses.

As a parent, I certainly allow my children to pick out the books they want both from the library and the bookstore. But I also try to subvert expectations a bit; if my son keeps reading books about boys, I will slip in a book featuring girls or add a nonfiction book about nature or a biography to a stack of picture books. When it comes to my favorite little princess, I am happy to read to her about princesses every day. But I am on the lookout for princesses who don't quite fit in the traditional box. Here are a few of our favorites:

1. Sleeping Cinderella and Other Princess Mix-Ups
In this story, the princesses grow tired of their lives and decide to try someone else's for a while. Snow White hangs out in Rupunzel's tower, Rapunzel goes to the ball in Cinderella's stead, Cinderella gets some sleep instead of Sleeping Beauty, and Beauty goes to live with the dwarves for a while. Each one discovers that there are pluses and minuses to each kind of life. My favorite part is the real-world application, though; each princess figures out what will make her life a bit happier and takes steps to make it happen. Sleeping Beauty switches from spinning to knitting to save her fingers, Cinderella goes to college, and Snow White gives the dwarves a chore list (hey, they all live there!).

2. The Princess in Black 
To the casual observer, Princess Magnolia is the perfect young royal. Her castle is beautiful, her dresses are pink, and she serves delicious hot chocolate to guests. But the princess has a secret: she is also the Princess in Black! Garbed in a black cape, she defeats any monsters who want to get into her kingdom. Of course, fighting monsters is not something that young princesses should be doing so Magnolia must hide her secret identity from everyone. This book (and the two that come after it) are laugh-out-loud funny and the perfect chance for mom and dad to perfect their voices, as you get to narrate for Magnolia, the suspicious Duchess Wigtower, and the young goat herder who is surprised when his flock almost becomes an appetizer!

       

3. Not All Princesses Dress In Pink
This picture book features princesses going about their normal kids lives, as they go to their soccer games, build a fort together, and play pretend. My daughter, at least, gets very caught up with the idea that all princesses need to wear frilly dresses all the time. So it's nice to remind her that a princess is still a princess when she's wearing cleats or muddy rain boots or overalls.

4. Princess Pigsty
Princess Isabella thinks being a princess is a bum deal. She is never allowed to get dirty, the dresses and crown are uncomfortable, and she would like for once to do something for herself! One morning, she rebels and declares that she will not wear her crown. Her father tries to teach her a lesson by sending her first to work in the kitchen and later, to work in the pigsty. But Isabella discovers that she loves both of those things. Can Isabella convince the king to allow a dirty, happy princess to be herself?
(Also check out The Princess Knight by the same author) 

 

Do you have a favorite nontraditional princess story?

Review: Alice and Oliver

Alice and Oliver have a lot going for them. They are happy together, they love their jobs, and they have just had a baby girl. But Alice doesn't feel well as they head out of town for Thanksgiving, and she is soon diagnosed with leukemia.

This may be a novel, but it is one of the most in-depth looks into the effects of cancer on the patient and her family. This is likely because Bock lost his wife to cancer in 2011. We see Oliver battle with the insurance company and try to find care for their daughter after the first deluge of help has subsided. The couple is initially thankful for help from friends and family, but the the offers soon become rare or just plain unhelpful.

Alice and Oliver is difficult to read. In a story like this, we want everyone to be selfless: the patient should be grateful for the help of the medical team and family and never lose hope or be angry and the family should work endlessly to get payments in, schedule appointments, and be moral support without neglecting their own lives. But that's not how things work, either in this novel or in real life.

Both Alice and Oliver oscillate between being thankful for their good fortune in each small triumph and making increasingly dangerous decisions, especially when it comes to their marriage. We watch as they reach for each other in their darkest moments and then push each other away.

One of my favorite aspects was the way other patients are woven throughout the story. Bock gives us a few pages of insight into their situations, before Alice bumps into them in the hallway or Oliver rides with them on an elevator. It reminds the reader that this is the story of one woman specifically, but thousands of people are waging a battle against cancer each and every day.

Alice and Oliver
By Charles Bock
Random House April 2016
416 pages
Read via Netgalley

It's Monday and I'm back to reading!

I read books this week. I even wrote a post (eventually)! I'm back, ladies and gents!

It's been another good, long week here at the Literary house. In addition to all of the regular craziness, D had a project for school about sharks, the husband was preparing for the church's annual meeting this Sunday, and it was my mom's birthday! We surprised her for dinner and brought cake (chocolate with peanut butter frosting, if you were wondering).

I finished reading both Alias Grace and Bad Feminist this week. I forgot just how immersive reading Atwood can be, but I thought it was a great story. The Bad Feminist essays were an ok read for me. Many of them made me consider things in new light, and I appreciated Gay's thoughtfulness and compassion about the topics she covered.

        

This week, I'm really excited to read Chris Cleave's newest book Everyone Brave is Forgiven. Then, since it's finally starting to act like spring in New Jersey, I'm going to give Maine a whirl.

          

What are you reading this week?

Mini-reviews: Tales of Accidental Genius and A Tyranny of Petticoats

Simon Van Booy is the beloved author of the novels The Illusion of Separateness and Everything Beautiful Began After. In Tales of Accidental Genius, his second short story collection, he takes readers to the pet store with an old man hoping to help his fish and with a fashion designer on her trip to find inspiration. A couple is torn apart by the wife's alcoholism and infidelity and the final story is a Chinese folktale through the eyes of a film director who wants to make a different kind of movie.

Tales of Accidental Genius will not give you high speed chases or epic battles. Instead, the stories focus on quiet moments of understanding and the melancholy of loneliness. The genius referenced in the title has nothing to do with admission to Mensa or high test scores. Instead, the genius in these stories is the one that comes from kindness, from doing the right thing even when it's difficult or unexpected. So often in literary fiction, we read about darkness and pain and loss. But these tales give us hope that kind people do still exist in the world and that, once in a while, goodness is rewarded.

Tales of Accidental Genius
By Simon Van Booy
Harper Perennial November 2015
272 pages
From my shelves

In A Tyranny of Petticoats, 15 of the best young adult writers bring history alive through the stories of brave, smart young women. In the introduction, editor Jessica Spotswood says that their aim was to bring American history to life. They travel through the Alaskan wilderness in the 18th century, carry out espionage for the Union during the Civil War, and fall in love with a fellow riveter during WWII.

Collections like this one are a perfect way to hook you on new authors. One of my favorites was Leslye Walton's El Destinos, which reimagined the Fates are three young sisters in 1848 Texas. It was such a clever and unique spin on a well-known tale. I also greatly enjoyed Gold in the Roots of the Grass by Marissa Meyer, where a young Chinese women gets more than she bargained for when she tries to speak to spirits in a mining town. Y.S. Lee introduces readers to The Legendary Garrett Girls, sisters who refuse to let a man take over their Alaskan bar. While not every story is equal, I love that this collection is not just populated by white girls and it equally features girls fighting for love and marriage and girls who want nothing to do with it because they have awesome things to do. This is a book I will be happy to share with my daughter in another decade or so!

A Tyranny of Petticoats
Edited by Jessica Spotswood
Candlewick Press March 2016
368 pages
From the library

It's Monday and I didn't read anything!

My literary friends, a very strange thing has happened this week. I didn't finish a book. I can't really remember the last time that happened...

But I had very, very good reason to not get much reading in! My sister arrived from California and it was the first time the four sisters had been together in many months. We also planned a birthday party for a certain little girl in our house and celebrated with our families on Sunday. It was a party for my husband and sister too, although they had no say in the princess theme. My best friend is here for the next few days, so the fun will be continuing.

In the meantime, I will keep reading Alias Grace and Bad Feminist. What are you reading this week?


                  

Readalongs: Pirate Ship Time Travel Edition

Readalongs is a new feature here at Literary Lindsey. As you probably know, I have two littles (8 and 3, respectively). It's fun to read beloved childhood classics with the kids in your life. But it can be even more fun is to pair books for kids and adults that have the same kind of stories. So, welcome to volume 1 of Readalongs!


The Map to Everywhere is recommended for children in grades 4-6, but my 2nd grader had no trouble with it. This story features Fin and Marrill, who team up to find a pirate map. They both want to use the map to get back to their families. My son said, "I think that both books have a lot of magic in them. They are just unbelievable. And the main characters (named Fin and Marrill) are. just. CRAZY AWESOME! Don't let this ship set sail without you!"

Grownups can find adventure traveling through time and space on a pirate ship too with The Girl From Everywhere. Nix has spent a lifetime traveling with her father. If he has a map of a place, he can travel there regardless of the year or location of the map. While she loves their life of travel, she knows that there is danger around every corner. The greatest danger may come from her own father, who is determined to find a map of 1868 Honolulu. He wants to be save his wife's life, but Nix wonders if that will mean she is never born.

This book has a lot of strengths. Nix is a great protagonist and she responds with all the fire and determination you want to see in an adventure. Ms. Heilig also does a great job of creating a sense of place; I would read all day about her descriptions of Hawaii, New York City, and the other places the crew visits. The story does feel a bit long in places, though. There are some really fascinating secondary characters that I would have liked to spend more time with, specifically the rest of the ship's crew. If you are a reader who loves journeying to new and exciting places in a book and you don't mind another love triangle in your YA novel, this would be a great book for you!

The best news about these two books? The Map to Everywhere already has a sequel, and another Girl From Everywhere book should be out next year!