Happy New Year, bookworms! For the 1st Lit Club of 2017, we bring you another list of recommendations and reviews, many finding themselves in the sci-fi and/or fantasy genre. Happy reading!
RECOMMENDATIONS
Brush of the Gods by Lenore Look
Who wants to learn calligraphy when your brush is meant for so much more? Wu Daozi (689-758), known as China's greatest painter and alive during the T'ang Dynasty, is the subject of this stunning picture book. When an old monk attempts to teach young Daozi about the ancient art of calligraphy, his brush doesn't want to cooperate. Instead of characters, Daozi's brush drips dancing peonies and flying Buddhas! Soon others are admiring his unbelievable creations on walls around the city, and one day his art comes to life! Little has been written about Daozi, but Look and So masterfully introduce the artist to children. — Amazon
Genre: Picture book
Blackbird Fly by Erin Entrada Kelly
Apple has always felt a little different from her classmates. She and her mother moved to Louisiana from the Philippines when she was little, and her mother still cooks Filipino foods, makes mistakes with her English, and chastises Apple for becoming “too American.” It becomes unbearable in middle school, when the boys—the stupid, stupid boys—in Apple’s class put her name on the Dog Log, the list of the most unpopular girls in school. When Apple’s friends turn on her and everything about her life starts to seem weird and embarrassing, Apple turns to music. If she can just save enough to buy a guitar and learn to play, maybe she can change herself. It might be the music that saves her . . . or it might be her two new friends, who show how special she really is. — Goodreads
Genre: Fiction
Niobe: She is Life (NIOBE: She is Life #1) by Amandla Stenberg
“What becomes of the child who has lost her spirit?”
Genre: Comic
Even this Page is White by Vivek Shraya
Vivek's debut collection of poetry is a bold and timely interrogation of skin: its origins, functions, and limitations. Poems that range in style from starkly concrete to limber break down the barriers that prevent understanding of what it means to be racialized. Shraya paints the face of everyday racism with words, rendering it visible, tangible, and undeniable. — Goodreads
Genre: Poetry
REVIEWS
Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro
Cia’s rating - ⅘ stars
Half-World by Hiromi Goto
When reading the book, I immediately thought of Studio Ghibli’s Spirited Away, for its use of magic, creatures and female protagonist. As someone who only discovered the studio midway through 2016, I was ecstatic to find this comparison. Goto’s writing is not my favorite, but the story is definitely original. Although the setting and plot was vivid and enthralling, I felt as if the characters lacked depth. Whilst I did like that she was not only a Japanese girl, written by a Japanese woman, but also seen as realistically average instead of along the lines of the Plain Jane trope. With such a vibrant setting, it would have been nice to also have characters who were fleshed out, and I felt especially Melanie felt like a cardboard cutout for any girl in a fantasy world. There wasn't anything she brought to the table that was new or interesting, as well as all the other characters. But Goto’s description of the creatures of Half World are fantastic. A lot of the writing of the characters fell flat to me, but the monsters were vivid—they were grotesque and varying in shape, size and smell, some even revealed development, to my surprise, which was what I would have liked to see in Melanie herself.
I would recommend this novel for those who are Hayao Miyazaki fanatics, but can withstand a few flat characters.
Adele’s rating - ⅗ stars