Week 13: 3/29 - 4/4

In terms of reading, this was a pretty good week. Trump extended out the Social Distancing advisory out til April 30 so this 40 book list I started last week (now 36) seems less ridiculous than it did. If I keep a rate of 4 books a week, that's 10 weeks or the end of May. If I average 5 books a week, that's only 8 weeks. I'll probably get tired of reading from the list somewhere in there and change it up. In any case, this is beginning to look like we are settling in for the long haul.

I've already talked a bit about my reading from last week, and I'm saving The Woman in the Mirror for a later group post, so I'll leave this with just one micro review.

Internment by Samira Ahmed is a book that came out in the last couple of years and that one of my coworkers highly recommended. This falls nicely into the area of speculative fiction. It isn't quite mainstream because it posits either an alternate present or a near future where something has happened so that non-Muslim Americans have turned against Muslim Americans and rounded them up in internment camps. The main character, Layla, is a teen-aged spitfire who has a natural flare for resistance. While the adults are more or less willing to go with the flow and try to wait out the camps, the teens band together to make their plight visible and heard.

This is a book that is making a point. It does a good job of pointing out the kind of thinking that lets a populace go along with blatant prejudice and the thinking of the members of the minority that lets it happen to them. There is always a sense of "but that couldn't happen here, it couldn't happen to me" that lets people ignore horrible things happening right in front of their faces. Internment also does a good job of examining the realities of confining a whole group of people. Regardless of intention (assuming there are positive intentions in there), it's a situation that lends itself to abuse. At the core, it is an act that allows a group of people to be judged based on some sort of arbitrary factor instead of who they are as individuals, which is wrong. I suspect that kind of thinking is the easiest way for an average person to become evil because it's not about hate really; it's about fear. Anyone can be afraid.

There are a lot of good things about Internment, but the writing was uneven and the plot a little forced. It's a book that could have really used more space to develop.  Given space to develop the secondary characters, a lot of the odd moments would have felt more genuine.

Plague List 2020:

1. Mosquitoland by David Arnold
2. Wonder Woman: Warbringer by Leigh Bardugo
3. Serafina and the Black Cloak by Robert Beatty
4. The Deceivers by Alfred Bester
5. White Cat by Holly Black
6. Ink and Bone by Rachel Caine
7. The Gauntlet by Eoin Colfer
8. Three Black Swans by Caroline B. Cooney
9. The Andromeda Strain by Michael Crichton
10. Alex & Eliza by Melissa De La Cruz
11. The Circle by Dave Eggers
12. Riverworld and Other Stories by Philip Jose Farmer
13. How to Stop Time by Matt Haig
14. Write Beside Them by Penny Kittle
15. We Are Okay by Nina LaCour
16. Razor Hurst by Justine Larbalestier
17. March: Book One by John Lewis, Andrew Aydin, and Nate Powell
18. March: Book Two by John Lewis, Andrew Aydin, and Nate Powell
19. March: Book Three by John Lewis, Andrew Aydin, and Nate Powell
20. Rags and Bones: New Twists on Timeless Tales edited by Melissa Marr and Tim Pratt
21. Edge of Spider-Geddon by Marvel Authors
22. Spider-Geggon by Marvel Authors
23. The Book Whisperer: Awakening the Inner Reader in Every Child by Donalyn Miller
24. The Rook by Daniel O'Malley
25. Here, There Be Dragons by James Owen
26. The Search for the Red Dragon by  James Owen
27. Good Omens by Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman
28. Such a Fun Age by Kiley Reid
29. Miles Morales Spider-Man by Jason Reynolds (Finished 3/30/2020)
30. Midnight's Children by Salman Rushdie
31. St. Lucy's Home for Girls Raised by Wolves by Karen Russell
32. The Vegetarian Epicure by Anna Thomas
33. Leviathan by Scott Westerfeld
34. Behemoth by Scott Westerfeld
35. Goliath by Scott Westerfeld
36. Brown Girl Dreaming by Jacqueline Woodson