Book Review: Dreamland

Book Review: Dreamland (YA edition)
by Sam Quinones
Publication Date: July 16, 2019 
read courtesy of netgalley.com

You know how there are One School, One Book or One City, One Book campaigns? Well, Dreamland (YA edition) by Sam Quinones should be a candidate for One Country, One Book. It's that good and that meaningful. I'm going to try to find a way to get as many people as I can at my high school to read this.

Quinones does an amazing job of clearly explaining a vast amount of research, of pulling all of the information together in a hugely accessible manner. Quinones has reinforced my already-existing tendency to question everything - which under some circumstances can be quite annoying, but in this instance is well justified. From a worldwide organization to the smallest home towns, Quinones pieced together the story of an epidemic.

Quinones addresses the metamorphosis of communities, societies, people, families, borders, industries, professions, and policies all under the influence of opioids. The author smoothly discusses the human effects as well as the business prowess associated with OxyContin and heroin. The confluence of events that created the perfect storm of addiction and death is astonishing, and Quinones provided a way for everyone to understand how it happened... and unfortunately is still happening.

HIGHLY RECOMMENDED as an independent read or as a curriculum connection in a psychology, sociology, economics, marketing, journalism, biology, or health class.

Book review: Wilder Girls

Book review: Wilder Girls by Rory Power
read courtesy of Netgalley.com
Publication date: July 9, 2019

I didn't want to put this book down, until I did... at the end... disappointed & frustrated.

Back to the beginning. I was hesitant at first to even begin the story when I read its comparisons to Lord of the Flies, which I didn't like. (Sure, I understand LOTF's significance and symbolism and all of that, but I just wasn't into reading about an island full of 12 year old boys.) So I wasn't too excited to read about an island full of teenage girls. The author of Wilder Girls, however, caught my attention with a very telling sentence of how the girls were about to become, um, wilder, "Even when there's no bread, there's always shampoo." Though I didn't know at the time that was prescient, or actually backstory, but either way, it provided me a way to see the "feminist" point of view without having the perspective shoved down my throat -- for which I was honestly also fearful, given the fem-LOTF references.

Some notes I took along the way...

• I was surprised that the islands on which the story took place were in Maine; I think 'islands,' and I think tropical. I liked the Maine setting, because it made sense that a girls' school would be in Maine.
• I was confused that all of the girls had different symptoms. If they were all suffering from the same 'disease,' then why were they all showing different manifestations? This was even more confusing when, later on, the girls figured out that one thing was causing everyone's illnesses. 
• The different manifestations of the disease felt derivative to me of the Star Trek: Next Generations' episode called Genesis.
• It wasn't cleared up until the end why males and animals and plants also got the disease, which of course is the point of a mystery 😏 
• It never made sense to me why the Navy would keep arming the girls' school and replenishing their ammunition. The adults were also keeping knives away from the girls but not bullets - although, some of that is explained later in the story. And... the Navy sends bullets but not space heaters?
• Another good, succinct explanation of the girls situation, "At some point the order was alphabetical but we've all lost things, eyes and hands and last names."
• Feminism isn't the same as female... what purpose did it have to not have the disease kick in until puberty, especially since the disease struck males and animals, too?
• It's not clear why the girls had to surreptitiously and clandestinely be moved to be examined, especially because the attending physician seems like a mensch. 
• When the girls were running,  and had to shoot a gun, how come no one back at the school heard the shot?
• I loved the reason the parents were given to cut off communication with the students, especially because the reason the girls were initially told communication was cut off made no sense.
• Towards the end, just at the point where I was having difficulty remembering which 'side' everyone was on, the author provided a brief memory through a character that helped place each character in perspective again.

And that's when it all fell apart. The end of the story made no sense. It felt rushed and didn't follow any trajectory that was started anywhere prior to the end. So, so disappointed! I really, really wanted to like the story, but it ended so abruptly and awkwardly that I felt cheated out of a real ending.

Book Review: The Lovely and the Lost

The Lovely and the Lost
by Jennifer Lynn Barnes
Pub Date: 07 May 2019 

Read courtesy of Netgalley.com

I really enjoyed the way the author had the character think like a dog. It added interest to the story. I LOL'ed at the "Boop." Look for it :o) 

That being said, though, I'm not sure the author (or maybe it's the publisher) knows who her audience is. The vocabulary is very lofty, and it doesn't seem to match the genre of the story. Moreover, the author uses some old references that I'm not even sure today's readers would understand (for example, John Hughes movies, Fred Astaire).

I found myself not engrossed enough in the story to follow the mystery itself. Following the mystery, therefore, was more confusing than intriguing. As a whole I wanted to like it more than I did, but I struggled to finish it.