Books Read in 2022

I set a goal at the beginning of the year to read more books this year than I did last year.... which was 9 (lol) so, here they are:

(I also read more books cover to cover in a day or 2 than I ever have, and that is marked by *)

All My Rage, Sabaa Tahir ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️/5*

Clap When You Land, Elizabeth Acevedo ⭐️⭐️⭐️/5

Wave: A Memoir of Life After the Tsunami, Sonali Deraniyagala ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️/5*

Where the Crawdads Sing, Delia Owens ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️/5

What's Mine and Yours, Naima Coster ⭐️/5

They Went Left, Monica Hesse ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️/5*

Firekeeper's Daughter, Angeline Boulley ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️/5*

Along for the Ride, Sarah Dessen ⭐️⭐️⭐️/5

The Midnight Library, Matt Haig ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️/5*

Panic, Lauren Oliver ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️/5

More Happy Than Not, Adam Silvera ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️/5*

The Marrow Thieves, Cherie Dimaline ⭐️⭐️⭐️/5

The Orphan Collector, Ellen Marie Wiseman ⭐️⭐️⭐️/5

Heart Bones, Colleen Hoover ⭐️⭐️/5

House Rules, Jodi Picoult ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️/5

The First to Die at the End, Adam Silvera ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️/5*

I Must Betray You, Ruta Sepetys ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️/5*

Four Souls, Louise Erdrich ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️/5

The Other Black Girl, Zakiya Dalila Harris ⭐️⭐️/5

Four Three Two One, Courtney Stevens ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️/5*

We Are Lost and Found, Helene Dunbar ⭐️⭐️⭐️/5

"The Earth was broken. Too much taking for too damn long, so she finally broke. But she went out like a wild horse, bucking off as much as she could before lying down."

Cheri Dimaline, The Marrow Thieves

vote YES if you have finished the entire book.

vote NO if you have not finished the entire book.

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I think this was the first time in a damn while I actually had to put a book down and have a break from reading

I read the tws, I knew this scene would be here, but fucking hell

currently running to my cat video compilations to fix this, the book is "The Marrow Thieves" By Cherie Dimaline, I'll do a full book review once im done reading it

She was wearing a new pair of bright pink rubber boots. She'd found them under the bed in her room the first morning. "Look! They're made outta candy," she'd said, then licked the shiny surface of one boot and cringed. "Not candy." RiRi had never had candy, but she'd seen pictures and heard stories about it. So every time something was shiny or bright -- and these boots were both -- she assumed they were candy. It was a constant disappointing hunt for her.

The Marrow Thieves, Cherie Dimaline

Review of the Marrow Thieves.

If you want to read a dystopian story about the after effects of climate change and how Native people try to survive it. Give this book a read. It’s written by Cherie Dimaline who is a Métis (tribe) author.

This story also has a lot of dark things going on in it. Like Native people being harvested like cattle. Or how the world tore itself apart after Climate Change. It focuses on North America mainly Canada.

This story also has happy or pleasant undertones to. Like how the Native elders share the culture with the younger generation. Or how they interact while on the run.

when your book for english class is not only interesting but actually heart wrenching and sweet and relatable >>>

Quote of the Day - November 6, 2022

Quote of the Day – November 6, 2022

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Review: The Marrow Thieves

Synopsis:

In a futuristic world ravaged by global warming, people have lost the ability to dream, and the dreamlessness has led to widespread madness. The only people still able to dream are North America's Indigenous people, and it is their marrow that holds the cure for the rest of the world. But getting the marrow, and dreams, means death for the unwilling donors. Driven to flight, a fifteen-year-old and his companions struggle for survival, attempt to reunite with loved ones and take refuge from the "recruiters" who seek them out to bring them to the marrow-stealing "factories."

Plot:

Francis (Frenchie) and his brother Mitch were on the run. They were hiding from the Recruiters, whose job was to hunt down Indigenous peoples and take them to school, where they would do operations to drain their dreams from their bone marrow. These schools were based on Canada's Residential Schools, an old theory to assimilate the Indigenous peoples of “Canada”.  With the world thrown in chaos and the need for dreams to become the only lifeline, the Indigenous peoples were hunted once again. Mitch, gave himself up to save Frenchie, allowing himself to be taken by the Recruiters leaving Frenchie all alone. When discovered by Ming, Frenchie was taken into a group containing an elder, four boys and two girls. Growing and surviving with them, Frenchie began to claim them as his family, especially Rose, a beautiful Metis girl who stole Frenchie's heart the day she arrived. With the goal of survival, our family moves north, constantly on the run from Recruiters and trying to stay alive. Frenchie and his family must endure as their peoples have done for centuries with the threats of discovery, capture, and death at every corner. They survived accumulation once before; they will survive again, keeping their dreams and stories intact.  

 Thoughts:

Cherie Dimaline wrote this genuinely heartbreaking story about a found family in a dystopian world. Winner of countless literary awards, Dimaline's story has a lot of heart and culture interwoven throughout its plot of surviving an apocalyptic world. The story is told from the first-person point of view of seventeen-year-old Frenchie, who saw his father go off to fight the Recruiters, and his older brother taken away to protect him. Frenchie has a lot of anger towards his people's situation and for all Indigenous peoples of "Canada" for once again being hunted. Dimaline really makes you feel Frenchie's anger and sadness throughout the novel, especially after hearing his fellow family member's "coming-to" story. Dimaline also adds in the story told by Ming as a type of Indigenous storytelling of the past, which is how the world got to the state of hunting Indigenous peoples for their bone marrow. There is a lot of pain in this story. Dimaline does not shy away from resilience that Indigenous peoples have shown in real life in this story. No matter what is thrown at them or how hurt they are, Ming tells his family they must continue on and survive as that is what their people do. Dimaline does not hold back, and you are thankful for it. The plot is fast-paced as Dimaline does a fantastic job moving through the present day, history of the world, history of the characters, adding detail when needed, and only when the characters feel like sharing the painful past of themselves. Unfortunately, this book follows the lines of a "camping" novel, where characters are constantly on the move but never end up at their final destination despite constantly on their way there. Some people are annoyed by this concept and think of it more about the journey than the destination, as Dimaline does fill their "camping" time with the meat of the story that makes it worth a read. Overall, this story does a fantastic job of integrating Indigenous culture into a young adult dystopian novel and has the heartfelt message of family and resilience.

Read more reviews: Goodreads

Buy the book: Amazon

It was a great tree house; some lucky kid must have had a contractor for a father. It was easily two storeys up from the unmown lawn and had a gabled roof with real shingles. We'd been here for three days now, skipping school, hiding out. Before he'd left with the Council and we never saw him again, Dad had taught us that the best way to hide is to keep moving, but this spring had been damp; it had rained off and on for over a week, and we couldn't resist the dry comfort of the one-room tree house with built-in benches. Besides, we reasoned, it was up high like a sniper hole so we could see if anyone was coming for us. It probably started with that first pop of air against metallic plastic, no louder than a champagne cork. I imagined the school truancy officers – Recruiters, we called them – coming for us, noses to the wind, sunglasses reflecting the row of houses behind which we were nestled in our wooden dream home. And sure enough, by the time we'd crunched through the first sweet, salty handfuls, they were rounding the house into the backyard.

The Marrow Thieves, by Cherie Dimaline

"Sometimes, you have to not bring things into the open, put them aside so that people have the hope to put one foot in front of the other."

Cheri Dimaline, The Marrow Thieves

25 YA Books for Indigenous Peoples Day

NOTES: For brevity and diversity, I did not include all the North American Native books I found, but there are plenty more - feel free to post your favorites in the comments! Most books are from indigenous authors, but not all - do your own research if you like. Not all books may be “technically” YA. I’d love to hear more suggestions of Latin American indigenous stories or Hawai’ian native stories which were difficult to find.

EDIT: This is just a random list by a random tumblr blog from 2022 - get out there and find your own books or list some in the comments if you find this list lacking.

Australia

The Things She's Seen by Amebelin & Ezekiel Kwaymullina

The Boy from the Mish by Gary Lonesborough

Becoming Kirrali Lewis by Jane Harrison

Swallow the Air by Tara June Winch

Canada

The Missing by Melanie Florence

Sorrow's Knot by Erin Bow

Son of a Trickster by Eden Robinson

The Marrow Thieves by Cherie Dimaline

A Girl Called Echo by Katherena Vermette

Surviving the City by Tasha Spillett

Japan - Ainu

Golden Kamuy by Satoru Noda

Latin America

Saints of the Household by Ari Tison

Tree Girl by Ben Mikaelsen

The Huaca by Marcia Argueta Mickelson

Gods of Jade and Shadow by Silvia Moreno-Garcia

The Lost Dreamer by Lizz Huerta

New Zealand - Maori

The Whale Rider, Witi Ihimaera

Falling into Rarohenga by Steph Matuku

United States

Firekeeper's Daughter by Angeline Boulley

Trail of Lighting by Rebecca Roanhorse

Elatsoe by Darcie Little Badger

The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie

If I Ever Get Out of Here by Eric Gansworth

Hearts Unbroken by Cynthia Leitich Smith

Rain is Not My Indian Name by Cynthia Leitich Smith

I was ten then, and I watched the military shuttling the cleaner citizens to new settlements and gated communities. We hid in a Dumpster we shared with a mute named Freddie when the school staff came for the Indians. Freddie was Malaysian, but he wasn't taking any chances. Freddie's wife had been carried away at the food bank and she was from Taiwan, but no one believed her. There was good money in snitching on Indians, and people would call in if a Swedish girl wore a braid in her hair. That's why we stopped going to the food banks: the volunteers called in Indian sightings and next thing you knew, a wave of white vans screeched up and off you went, kicking and screaming, watching yourself in the mirrored reflection of their sunglasses, throwing boxes of macaroni and cheese and screaming to some god or devil or anything in between. We'd heard too many stories about the death camps, the way we were being murdered real slow. One time, we were half a block away when they showed up. We watched them carry off an old man and his grandson before we remembered to run. I'll never forget the way that man looked when they tossed his grandson in the back of the van like a bag of rice. I watched his soul fold up on itself like a closing door. The light and warmth and humanity clapped shut in his eyes because he couldn't protect the one thing that mattered. There was no coming back from that, even if he did manage to walk away later on, which he wouldn't.

The Marrow Thieves, Cherie Dimaline

My guest blog with Bookish Brews has gone live! Head over there to read more on my SFF Anti-colonial reading recs! I included some of my favorite reads and some of the ones I'm most looking forward to this year!

Text ID:

[Anti-colonial SFF Reccs by Gabriella Buba

EMPIRE OF SAND by Tasha Suri

Babel by RF Kuang

Queen of the Conquered by Kacen Callender

Wicked as you wish by Rin Chupeco

Saints of Storm and Sorrow by Gabriella Buba

The Last Bloodcarver by Vanessa Le

The Space Between Worlds by Micaiah Johnson

So Let Them Burn by Kamilah Cole

The Marrow Thieves by Cherie Dimaline]

Happy Friday, Bookblr! This holiday weekend, the BDA team is honoring and amplifying Indigenous voices by showcasing four incredible authors and their powerful stories. Join us in celebrating the richness of Indigenous literature with Cherie Dimaline's "The Marrow Thieves," Ma-Nee Chacaby & Mary Louisa Plummer's "A Two-Spirit Journey," and Zitkala-Sa's "American Indian Stories." Let's carve out space for diverse narratives and gratitude for the wisdom these authors share.

tagged by @lurkingshan yeehaw, let's go!

hardcover or paperback (I generally prefer paperback, but they fall apart easier and I did just go on a wild goose chase to find hardcov ers of all three books in The Last Binding series) // bookstore or library (libraries are a vital resource, are often a place to provide shelter to the unhoused for hours, and are often doing really cool work/events! I have been sorely neglecting libraries in my life and I feel bad about it all the time) // bookmark or receipt (team: throw random shit in to my book to hold my place, or just remember what page I stopped at and close the book without saving my place) // standalone or series (impossible question, traditionally series have always been my preference, but most of my favorite books of all time are standalones) // nonfiction or fiction (I learn a lot in nonfiction but it is a battle for me to get through, fiction is where I have planted by feet and built a home) // thriller or fantasy (magic and dragons and evil curses 4 lyfe) // under 300 pages or over 300 pages (i'm a slut for prose, so give me all the words in all the pages) // children's or ya (i've been tearing through ya audiobooks recently) // friends to lovers or enemies to lovers (you met me at my worst and loved me anyway will get me every time. As will any and all sexually tense fights between characters) // read in bed or read on the couch (neither: listen to audiobooks during work, and then just keep listening to them from anywhere in the house after work because once I start a story I can basically do nothing else until I've finished it) // read at night or read in the morning (I don't have a time of day preference for reading) // keep pristine or markup (imo books are made to be loved and I think a book that's marked up or beat to shit is a great indication of love) // cracked spine or dog ear (i feel like dog ears are more likely to keep the book intact than cracking the spine. I know I said I loved a roughed up book, but I generally prefer when the pages stay bound to the spine)

Currently reading: I literally just finished the audiobook of Hunting By Stars by Cherie Dimaline last night, which is the sequel to The Marrow Thieves. Both were pretty good and I liked the storytelling structure in the chapters.

I having the following books on my Libby shelf as next book options:

Split Tooth by Tanya Tagaq: I do not know much about this book except that the audiobook should be listened to, so I borrowed the audiobook through Libby.

El Principito by Antoine de Saint-Exupery: I decided I needed to get my ass in gear and try to maintain some modicum of Spanish language ability so I checked this book out because it was one we started reading in one of my Spanish classes years ago.

A Marvellous Light by Freya Marske: I have listened through all three audiobooks of this series already, and just purchased the hard copies of the books because I missed my boys, but I'm traveling and don't have access to them, so I rechecked out the audiobook from Libby. I came for the magic and stayed for the gay sex. ALSO I would highly recommend the audiobooks, especially for the third book, A Power Unbound because the actor's voice performance was incredible.

tagging @happypotato48, @shortpplfedup, @ginnymoonbeam, @solitaryandwandering, and @my-rose-tinted-glasses