Completely Full Bookshelf

Not to be a week behind on traumatic national events (sigh), but today (Monday) is the last day to enter in the 2021 Books by Asian-American Voices Giveaway , which I am holding as a response to the hate crimes committed recently against Asian-Americans. The linked page also has a set of valuable resources, so check it out! With that, today, I am recommending the YA graphic novel A Map to the Sun  by Sloane Leong. As usual, a reminder that this book is young adult (YA), not middle grade (MG), and contains some mature content. Also, TRIGGER WARNING  for arson and relationships between adults and minors. (I feel like the trigger warning really does set a certain tone for the rest of the post, but I certainly don't want people reliving any trauma, so here we are.)            As we all know by now, I love graphic novels, so I was thrilled to see a recommendation for a new one from the wonderful #IMWAYR blogger Sue Jackson, who blogs about an impr...

Lots to discuss today! First of all, I have redesigned my blog! I won't get too far into the details (since I already did so in this post ), but suffice it to say that the new template works better on smaller screens and is far more aesthetically pleasing. (It also has a new header image that I took myself, which features the book I am reviewing today alongside Faith: Taking Flight  and The List of Things That Will Not Change !) Also, it has officially been (a) an entire year since I joined #IMWAYR and (b) an entire year of me blogging every single week! I'm honestly as shocked as you are that I've managed it this long—as the MMGM bloggers know, I have had a history of dropping of the face of the Earth for months at a time. But I've finally managed to stick with blogging, and I plan to keep participating in both MMGM and #IMWAYR for as many consecutive weeks as I can manage! One more thing: make sure to keep going past the end of today's review for information about...

There are many things about Blogger that I have found frustrating in the past—the comment section that does not notify people when I respond to their comments, the archaic email subscription system, the random glitches, etc. I cannot fix any of these things, but there is one thing about Blogger that I discovered I could fix—my blog's design! The previous theme I was using looked like this: It was one of the older Blogger themes (which I literally chose because it was the first one on the list), and though it was reasonable enough, I never liked how it appeared in comparison to some of the other bloggers who were lucky enough to start out on WordPress.com. But as it turns out, Blogger has some new, much more aesthetically pleasing themes available, so I selected one and customized it to where my blog now looks like this: Here's what's different (and the same): I have a new header image of blue books without their dust jackets that I took myself! I think it came out well (and...

Time for some pre-post ranting. We had to get a new washing machine because the 3-year-old one from GE we had ( basically this one ) has been broken in progressively ridiculous ways for 2 years. Let's see...it would randomly stop in the middle of cycles (i.e. filled with water and soap), it would randomly start again with the lid open , it would forget to undo the electronic lid-lock and prevent us from getting our clothes out at the end, it would make random beeping noises (and not error beeps—just random, arrhythmic chirping), it would be constantly off-balance and making a racket during the spin cycle, and it would use so much energy as the agitator ran that our house lights would flicker, almost imperceptibly (but of course not imperceptibly, because I perceived it), to the rhythm of the agitations. So glad that beast is gone. That is now the fifth GE laundry appliance we have owned that lasted less than four years (including two dryers that made accordion-esque scraping noise...

I hope everyone is doing all right this week! I swear that some actual prose reviews are in the pipeline, but because I haven't gotten around to them yet, I have one more graphic novel review today for MMGM and #IMWAYR of  Class Act  by Jerry Craft. Please note that there are some spoilers  in the below review that I have tagged so you can avoid them if need be.           Class Act  is the sequel to the highly acclaimed graphic novel New Kid , which was the first graphic novel ever to win the Newbery Medal! And it deserved it too, as it managed to create a complex yet accessible examination of racism within the framework of a hilarious and energetic graphic novel. Class Act  follows in New Kid 's footsteps by continuing to examine Jordan, Drew, and Liam, with Drew acting as the protagonist (in theory, as you'll see), as they navigate life at Riverdale Academy Day School. As the school administration is executing numerous mediocre attempt...

On today's episode of "They Thought It Couldn't Get Any Worse...And Then It Got So Much Worse," Texas has basically been in an apocalypse since Monday, with a winter storm spiraling out of control into complete losses of electricity and even running water. I was looking at these horrifying pictures on BuzzFeed , and people's homes have literally fallen into the 40s INSIDE. Good thing I totally lost faith in 2021 being a better year, because it's not. At least Ted Cruz is having a blast in Cancún. I do want to mention a few good things in the world. First of all, I need to make everyone fully aware that Julie Murphy has THREE books coming out this year: Pumpkin  on May 25, If the Shoe Fits  on August 3, and Faith: Greater Heights  on November 2. So that's awesome! Also, the North Texas Teen Book Festival is holding a completely online and free book festival this year on March 5/6, and the list of panels  is truly star-studded with MG and YA authors: Katheri...

So here's a funny story. For my Four Weeks of Witches event, I planned to review a graphic novel I had on my shelf called The Witch Boy , written by Molly Knox Ostertag (I discovered this book because Ostertag is actually the wife of the multitalented author of The Fire Never Goes Out , ND Stevenson). So I grabbed The Witch Boy  and read it. And it was so good  that I wanted more. And there was more. Two sequels, to be exact, The Hidden Witch  and The Midwinter Witch . So I ordered them on Amazon. And I read both of them as well, all in the span of about a week. And they weren't just so good , they were even better  (a quality rarely found in sequels). And because I am but a humble servant of the book gods who bring us these gracious gifts, I determined that the best way to convey how absolutely amazing this series is would be to review the whole series in one mega-review, thus illustrating the fact that I literally read all three of these books in one week bec...