Tour: IN THE ROLE OF BRIE HUTCHENS by Nicole Melleby

5+ Stars!

LGBT YA

Review:

How I love this novel! Brie is all of us at one point or another, when our path seems clear before us, but we just can't manage that first step, or those around us seem more like obstacles to our course than like cheerleaders or fulcrums. Brie is so admirable and so adorable; I couldn't help but love her character and integrity.

Brie wants to be an actress,  but her parents' finances barely maintain her in parochial school.  There's no funds for the Performing Arts High School  [remember the film and TV series FAME? Different schools,  same purpose. ) Brie, at thirteen,  even more importantly struggles with her personal identity--including the early unflowering of potential interest in girls. It's so much for anyone to cope with; but I cheered for Brie, who after all is a remarkably special character. 

Description

An own-voices LGBTQ novel from the acclaimed author of Hurricane Season, about eighth-grader Brie, who learns how to be true to herself and to her relationships with family, friends, and faith.

Introducing Brie Hutchens: soap opera super fan, aspiring actor, and so-so student at her small Catholic school. Brie has big plans for eighth grade. She’s going to be the star of the school play and convince her parents to let her go to the performing arts high school. But when Brie’s mom walks in on her accidentally looking at some possibly inappropriate photos of her favorite actress, Brie panics and blurts out that she’s been chosen to crown the Mary statue during her school’s May Crowning ceremony. Brie’s mom is distracted with pride—but Brie’s in big trouble: she has not been chosen. No one has, yet. Worse, Brie has almost no chance to get the job, which always goes to a top student.
 
Desperate to make her lie become truth, Brie turns to Kennedy, the girl everyone expects to crown Mary. But sometimes just looking at Kennedy gives Brie butterflies. Juggling her confusing feelings with the rapidly approaching May Crowning, not to mention her hilarious non-star turn in the school play, Brie navigates truth and lies, expectations and identity, and how to—finally—make her mother really see her as she is.

Tour: WHAT UNBREAKABLE LOOKS LIKE by Kate McLaughlin

Review 5 Stars

Early in this unflinching novel of sexual violence and human trafficking,  a rescued young woman, our narrator,  exclaims, "We ain't never going to be okay. Never." While that proves to be true for some of the secondary characters,  and while "Poppy" (Alexa) still has trouble and danger in her future, she has an unbreakable,  ultimately untrammeled, spirit. For those readers who can endure, the ultimate outcome will prove hopeful, inspirational,  and well worth the wait. Ultimately,  Alexa has won, despite all the horrors, because her spirit and soul remain unbroken.

WHAT UNBREAKABLE LOOKS LIKE Book Info
Jacket Copy:
Lex was taken–trafficked–and now she’s Poppy. Kept in a hotel with other girls, her old life is a distant memory. But when the girls are rescued, she doesn’t quite know how to be Lex again.

After she moves in with her aunt and uncle, for the first time in a long time, she knows what it is to feel truly safe. Except, she doesn’t trust it. Doesn't trust her new home. Doesn’t trust her new friend. Doesn’t trust her new life. Instead she trusts what she shouldn’t because that's what feels right. She doesn’t deserve good things.

But when she is sexually assaulted by her so-called boyfriend and his friends, Lex is forced to reckon with what happened to her and that just because she is used to it, doesn’t mean it is okay. She’s thrust into the limelight and realizes she has the power to help others. But first she’ll have to confront the monsters of her past with the help of her family, friends, and a new love.

Kate McLaughlin’s What Unbreakable Looks Like is a gritty, ultimately hopeful novel about human trafficking through the lens of a girl who has escaped the life and learned to trust, not only others, but in herself.

Author Bio:
KATE McLAUGHLIN likes people, so much so that she spends her days making up her own. She likes writing about characters who are bent, but not broken - people who find their internal strength through friends, strife and sometimes humor. When she's not writing, she likes studying people, both real and fictional. She also likes playing board games with friends, talking and discovering new music. A proud Nova Scotian, she'll gladly tell you all about the highest tides in the world, the magical creation known as a donair, and people who have sofas in their kitchens. Currently, she lives in Connecticut with her husband and four cats. She's the author of What Unbreakable Looks Like.

Early Praise:
"With unflinching honesty, What Unbreakable Looks Like exposes the injuries and scars we wear on our skins or in our souls. Hidden damage is tragically common, but helpful others who dared embrace hope invite Alexa to step onto the healing path. This novel may offer a springboard for a reader's own healing or foster empathy for life's walking wounded." - Liz Coley, author of international bestseller Pretty Girl-13

"Raw, unflinching, and authentic, Kate McLaughlin's thoughtful What Unbreakable Looks Like carefully crafts a story exposing the vulnerability of underage trafficked girls and what it takes to begin the process of healing from sexual trauma." - Christa Desir, author, advocate, and founding member of The Voices and Faces Project

“This is a powerful book about a sobering topic that I found myself thinking about for days after I completed it. It is wonderfully poignant, painfully real, and even laugh out loud funny at times. Not everyone can truly wrap their minds around the trauma these victims endure and yet somehow, despite all of it, are still just regular kids. But Kate McLaughlin gets it. ‘Lex’ is truly what unbreakable looks like and you’ll fall in love with her spirit.” - Tanya Compagnone, Trooper First Class

“Sex trafficking continues to seep into all our communities. In this novel, Kate McLaughlin brings to life the trauma that transpires in youth who forced into the life of sex trafficking. Her novel is a reminder that each of us can make a difference in someone’s life.” - Dina R. St. George, MSW, Juvenile Re-Entry Unit OCPD

Buy Link: https://wednesdaybooks.com/the-real-deal/what-unbreakable-looks-like/

Social link: https://twitter.com/alterkates

Tour_ORDINARY GIRLS by Jaquira Diaz

Synopsis of ORDINARY GIRLS:

In this searing memoir, Jaquira Díaz writes fiercely and eloquently of her challenging girlhood and triumphant coming of age.

While growing up in housing projects in Puerto Rico and Miami Beach, Díaz found herself caught between extremes. As her family split apart and her mother battled schizophrenia, she was supported by the love of her friends. As she longed for a family and home, her life was upended by violence. As she celebrated her Puerto Rican culture, she couldn't find support for her burgeoning sexual identity. From her own struggles with depression and sexual assault to Puerto Rico's history of colonialism, every page of Ordinary Girls vibrates with music and lyricism. Díaz writes with raw and refreshing honesty, triumphantly mapping a way out of despair toward love and hope to become her version of the girl she always wanted to be.

Reminiscent of Tara Westover's Educated, Kiese Laymon's Heavy, Mary Karr's The Liars' Club, and Terese Marie Mailhot's Heart Berries, Jaquira Díaz's memoir provides a vivid portrait of a life lived in (and beyond) the borders of Puerto Rico and its complicated history-and reads as electrically as a novel.

Review: 

5 Stars

The best memoirs are those in which the author is unafraid of transparency and vulnerability, of holding themselves accountable for living their lives, able to write with clarity of the good and bad. With such emotional exposure, the reader is able to examine the author's life, to relate, to learn, and sometimes even to gather renewed purpose. In ORDINARY VOICES, Jaquira Diaz explores her life vividly and saliently.