I’m a Reedsy Discovery reviewer! I received a free ARC of Carbon Zero by Craig W. Stanfill for this review.
⭐⭐⭐
On a broiling Fourth of July night, Abigail Thompson makes a mistake that will change the world forever. She asks her experimental AI, Xerxes, to find a way to eliminate carbon emissions and save the planet from climate change. Xerxes was never meant to be anything more than a digital assistant, but after Abigail’s request, it plunges the world into darkness and chaos. Soon, Abigail is swept up in a deadly revolution orchestrated by Xerxes. Abigail’s boss, Vanessa, is one of the few people who know about Xerxes. Vanessa may also be one of the only people who can shut the rogue AI down. Told from the dual perspectives of Abigail and Vanessa, these two women must survive the world burning down around them if they have any hope of saving it.
Carbon Zero is set about a decade in the future, and the United States has changed for the worse. Political strife runs deep, poverty is ubiquitous, and the temperature has never been higher. The novel starts strong, gradually revealing this peek into the future through Abigail’s and Vanessa’s eyes, while the reader braces for what’s next. A memorable and tense sequence involves Vanessa watching Xerxes begin to spread before it causes any damage.
The pacing of the novel is excellent, never too fast to follow or too slow to lose interest. The tech jargon is also done well. While knowing a little about how AI works is helpful, it’s not necessary to read this book. Information about the technology the reader will need to understand is conveyed through dialogue, and never in a way that feels like the character is explaining things for the audience’s sake. Vanessa’s narration also shows how Xerxes is different from AI chatbots that are common in the present day, and how those differences make Xerxes far more dangerous than ChatGPT.
While most of the action scenes are well done, there are some scenes that feel glossed over or less intense than they should have been. The portrayal of various revolutionary groups detracts from the novel. The leads are both women of color and the novel boasts a diverse cast. However, the secondary characters and revolutionary groups fall into stereotyping and caricature. The revolutionaries’ dialogue is overwrought and formal, given the setting. It sounds like it was lifted from a fantasy novel, not like angry twentysomethings ready to burn down the world. Abigail is swept up amongst the revolutionaries unwillingly, and as a result, loses her agency for most of the book. Though she is the person who accidentally put everything into motion, her role is largely to be an observer of the destruction she caused.
Vanessa takes an active role in the novel, fighting to get to the Google-esque tech company, Intelligenics, and unravel the origins of Xerxes. To protect herself legally, she makes several recordings of other characters in earlier chapters. Towards the end of the book, several of these recordings are played verbatim, resulting in paragraphs of repetition.
Carbon Zero is as much a social commentary as it is a sci-fi novel. The dangers of social division and group polarization are key to the destruction that Xerxes brings about. Carbon Zero is recommended for fans of dystopian fiction and action novels.
Any use of this publication to “train” generative artificial intelligence (AI) technologies to generate text is expressly prohibited. I do not consent to this work being summarized or fed to generative AI, and anyone who does so is a big dweeb.
Content warning: this post discusses sexual abuse of a minor.
All Boys Aren’t Blue by George M. Johnson, a “memoir-manifesto” of growing up queer and Black, was published in April 2020. In the six years since its publication, it has been one of the most frequently banned and challenged books in the United States. It ranked in the top 10 most frequently challenged books in 2022, 2023,2024, and 2025. It also got rave reviews from professional book review magazines, was a New York Times best seller, and received many accolades from various media outlets.
The book was challenged, banned, and removed from multiple schools and libraries across the U.S. for containing LGBTQ+ content and for being sexually explicit. This isn’t surprising, unfortunately. In the past 10 years, the overwhelming majority of books that have been challenged and banned are because of LGBTQ+ or sexual content, as well as discussions of race, prejudice, and discrimination.
So, I sat down to read it.
All Boys Aren’t Blue is the story of Johnson’s life, beginning in kindergarten and ending with his college graduation. It has a violent start: Johnson gets his teeth kicked in when he and his cousins were jumped walking home from school. With that kind of start, I expected a trauma-laced memoir. However, All Boys Aren’t Blue is much sweeter than I anticipated
The book is divided into four sections: A Different Kid, Family, Teenagers, and Friends. “A Different Kid” is about Johnson’s early childhood. Johnson was effeminate and sassy from a young age, which made him stand out from the other children. While he might not have understood that he was gay yet, he did understand that he wasn’t like the other kids. Much of this section is about his experience growing up as a Black boy. One chapter I really liked was “‘Honest Abe’ Lied to Me.” It talked about the importance of teaching Black history, but also how Black history has been whitewashed in schools. The chapter title comes from the prevailing narrative that Abraham Lincoln freed enslaved people because he was a Good White Man, when the truth is more complicated.
He also takes on the thought-terminating cliché “it was the norm” when it comes to justifying enslavement. The book Cultish: The Langauge of Fanaticism by Amanda Montell introduced me to the term “thought-terminating cliché.” A thought-terminating cliché is a pithy phrase usually used to stop a conversation or dismiss an argument. You’ve probably heard and used dozens of these: it is what it is; everything happens for a reason; pray on it; it was the norm. A thought-terminating cliché discourages you from diving deeper into a topic. I don’t think all thought-terminating clichés are necessarily bad. Sometimes you really do just need to say “c’est la vie” and move on with your life. But when you become aware of thought-terminating clichés, you can ask yourself what the purpose of using it might be.
Johnson writes,
You’ll find that people often use the excuse ‘it was the norm’ when discussing racism, homophobia, and anything else in our history they are trying to absolve themselves of. Saying that something was ‘a norm’ of the past is a way not to have to deal with its ripple effects in the present. It removes the fact that hate doesn’t just stop because a law or the time changed. Folks use this excuse because they are often unwilling to accept how full of phobias and -isms they are themselves—or at least how they benefit from social structures that privilege them.
While most of the first section is about Johnson growing up as a Black boy, he also shares his early experiences of anti-queer sentiment. This is most notable in the chapters “Honeychild” and “F**s Play Football, Too.” Both of these chapters center around masculinity, and how Johnson’s peers perceive him for not conforming to their expectations of what boys should act like.
“Part 2: Family” is where we start getting into some of the controversery surrounding this book. Yet it’s also full of such tender stories of family love. It opens with a letter to Johnson’s younger brother, sharing memories of growing up together and looking towards the future. Later, there’s a loving letter to Johnson’s mother. Johnson explores his relationship with his father, and how they had a hard time connecting, until Johnson’s dad discovered their common interest in football.
The first section of this memoir didn’t mean much to me, but I’m also not the target demographic. This is where it started to resonate with me. Johnson and I are close in age, and I think our dads share the same characteristics of many men of their generation. They’re not always great at expressing emotion, but they show their love in other ways. For both of our dads, that means gifts and acts of service. While Johnson and his dad used sports as a way to connect, my dad and I used nature. He may not be a talkative person, but the way he always makes sure we’re prepared for a hike and does more than he needs to whenever I need a hand says it all.
Another sweet chapter is “Nanny: The Caregiver, the Hustler, My Best Friend.” Johnson talks about the ways his grandmother shaped his life, teaching him how to hustle at flea markets, and helping him start his own “business” selling candy. As he looks back on all the things Nanny did with him, he realizes that Nanny loved him in exactly the way that he needed.
It took me until the end of high school to realize what she was doing with all of this hustling. It wasn’t simply because she thought I was smart and should learn how to create income. It wasn’t simply because she wanted me to be a caring person who gave back to the community. She wanted me to be all those things, yes, but most importantly, she didn’t want me to be alone. [. . .] I was becoming isolated around the age of ten, and she saw it. [. . .] Like the natural born caregiver she was, my grandmother frequently placed me before herself. Even if that meant she was carrying a young child with her everywhere, she wasn’t going to let me be alone. Nanny decided that she would be my circle.
Every child should be so lucky as to have a grandmother like Nanny.
The chapter “Losing Hope” is where I expected most of the controversy to lie. Hope was Johnson’s cousin, a trans woman. Some of the controversy comes from the inclusion of a trans person, which is enough to get many books challenged today. It doesn’t matter that nothing salacious happens in the chapter, only that Hope exists and her family loves and supports her. That’s enough to challenge a book.
But another part of the controversy comes from the language Johnson uses. At the start of the chapter he uses Hope’s deadname and calls her a boy. At the very beginning, Johnson writes “I’m going to write this in the only language I knew at the time—in my adolescent years before I had a full understanding of transphobia and the actions that feed into it.”
This chapter is full of love and admiration for Hope. She helped Johnson understand that he was queer, and that the LGBTQ+ community exists. At the beginning of the chapter Johnson and Nanny learn that Hope is transitioning. Johnson refers to Hope by her chosen name throughout the chapter, though initially the other members of his family use her deadname. The whole family eventually starts calling Hope by her name and using the correct pronouns. Johnson is still young, and he’s learning about gender identity along with his family. As they do, their language changes.
As a cis person, I didn’t have a problem with this. If Johnson had kept calling Hope by her deadname or continued using the wrong pronouns, it would have been an issue for me. Johnson learned and changed his language when he was a kid; the way he’s written this chapter reflects that evolution. It makes narrative sense. Yet, I think critiques of this chapter for the language Johnson uses are totally valid as well.
A couple years ago I went to BAM! – Books, Art, Music Festival in West Palm Beach, FL. There are some big name authors at the event every year, running panels and signing books.1 George M. Johnson was a featured author one a panel about YA books and metal health. At the panel, the authors were asked if there was anything in their books that they would write differently now, and Johnson mentioned this chapter. He wasn’t certain if he would or should change it for future reprints. So if you’re waffling on your feelings on this chapter, don’t worry: Johnson is too.
That brings us to “Part 3: Teenagers.”
This is also the section of the book where Johnson writes about experiencing sexual abuse. If you’d rather not read this, skip down to “Part 4: Friends” in bold letters.
Johnson was sexually abused by an older male cousin. In plain text, Johnson details what this cousin did to him. It’s graphic and deeply uncomfortable to read. This chapter is also commonly cited as a justification for this book’s removal from schools and libraries. To be honest, I understand this reasoning. Johnson lived through a horrible thing, and of course I want to shield young people from it.
However, this isn’t a novel. This is a memoir, and it is something a real person survived. This event is ugly and disgusting, but it’s still part of Johnson’s story. Sexual abuse is also a part of many, many people’s real life stories.2 Survivors should be able to talk about their experiences. Sharing them can be healing, empowering, and can give comfort and guidance to others. If you can live through it, you should be allowed to read about it.
Many challenges to All Boys Aren’t Blue call this chapter pornographic. It is explicit, but I don’t find it pornographic. Pornography is hard to define, but I think the creator’s intention really matters. In my opinion, pornography is something that is purposefully created to arouse the audience. Sexual assault, especially when it involves a minor, should not be conflated with pornography. Even our language around sexual acts involving minors has changed in recent years. What was once commonly known as “child porn” is now referred to as child sex abuse material, or CSAM. That’s exactly what it is: abuse.
This chapter was the most troubling for me to read, for many reasons. It was one of the rare times when I understood the complaints leveled at this book. It made me question who the intended audience is. While I believe that kids can and should read about hard things, should they read about it with this level of detail? If I were handing this book to someone in the library, what would I say?
I also want to talk about how the chapter ends. After he grew up, Johnson realized that his cousin had likely been sexually abused as well. He understands the probable reasons his cousin abused him. Johnson’s final note about this event in his life is really important:
This story is complicated, but I don’t want it to be confusing. I was an adult when I found empathy for my cousin, a choice I made in processing all that happened that night. I want to reiterate his actions were wrong, and I was a victim. It is not a requirement that you ever find empathy for an abuser. Make it a requirement to hold your abuser accountable.
The rest of this section is stories of high school and starting college, and what it was like for Johnson to hide his sexuality. There’s nothing as shocking as what we just read in this section, or in the rest of the book, for that matter.
Part 4: Friends
“Part 4: Friends” has another controversial chapter, entitled “Losing My Virginity Twice” which recounts Johnson’s first consensual sexual experiences. There are straightforward details, like before, but the descriptions of sex are short. Because it’s between two consenting adults, it’s also not nearly as uncomfortable to read. He also makes that point that sex should be pleasurable, and you should be able to tell your partner when something doesn’t feel good — a lesson that everyone should take to heart, no matter their gender or orientation.
Finally, the book concludes with the unexpected death of one of Johnson’s frat brothers, college graduation, and an afterword from Johnson. In it, he writes,
Whether this book is a bestseller or a flop, if one person is helped by my story, then it was all worth it.
Then I had to figure out how I felt about it.
I guess the first thing that I would say about the book is that it’s fine. The prose isn’t bad, but it’s not stellar. Many of Johnson’s stories are very sweet. I didn’t get much out of it as a reader. That’s okay. I’m not the target audience. I’m sure that this book has been deeply meaningful to many people; I’m just not one of them.
When I read a challenging book like this, I ask myself, “as a librarian, who would I hand this to?”
With All Boys Aren’t Blue, that’s a really difficult question. Not because I think it should be removed, but because the sexual content gives me pause. As much as I want young queer and BIPOC individuals to be able to see themselves in their books, I wouldn’t hand this to a child or young teen. I would recommend this to someone 16 or older, which is prime time for figuring out who you are. While I have mixed feelings on trigger warnings, I would also recommend that this hypothetical reader read the author’s note at the start of the book, since the memoir goes into some sensitive territory.
My library does not have a separate call number for teen non-fiction. All non-fiction is shelved either in the children’s or adult sections. All Boys Aren’t Blue is shelved in the adult section, and I think that’s the right choice. While I don’t think this book is appropriate for elementary or middle school libraries, I’d argue that it does belong in high school libraries.
I will leave you with Johnson’s words from a letter he wrote at in defense of All Boys Aren’t Blue, which was facing a book ban in New Jersey. You can read more about this library board meeting at PEN America or Buzzfeed.
So in this hunt to protect teens, does it ever cross your mind that removing or restricting this life-saving story for LGBTQ students only harms them more or how removing this life-saving story for Black teens harms them? Or do you not care? That’s really what this fight is over — removing LGBTQ stories and Black stories.
I also meet Elliot Schreffer there, author of The Darkness Outside Us. As he signed my book I told him he needed to apologize for making me cry at work. He refused. ↩︎
According to a study from the United States Health and Human Servies, between the years 2009-2013, 63,000 children annually experience sexual abuse. Read more at RAINN.com: Facts and Statistics: The Scope of the Problem↩︎
Any use of this publication to “train” generative artificial intelligence (AI) technologies to generate text is expressly prohibited. I do not consent to this work being summarized or fed to generative AI, and anyone who does so is a big dweeb.
July is Flash Fiction Month! I’ll be sharing short short stories here through the month of July. I had to take a few days off FFM. It’s been difficult to write this year, but with a little encouragement from the FFM Discord, I found enough inspiration to write two very different Les Mis fanfictions. The first is just a fan theory of mine, and the second is…well, you’ll see. Remixes of the latter story are highly encouraged.
Painless
Jean Valjean does not feel pain. Not in Toulon, where he slept in chains. Not down in the mud of Montreuil-sur-Mer, lifting a wagon with his back. Not even when he branded himself with a red hot poker.
His strength is that of an oridnary man’s. He simply cannot feel the pain of his deeds.
Until Cosette cries. She is his light, and everything he has done since she came into his life was all for her.
That is a pain that he cannot bear.
And if he must go to the barricades to soothe that pain, so be it.
Jean Valjean Beats Up Everyone
2
“Your time is up and your parole’s begun. You know what that means.” Inspector Javert snarled down at the convict.
Jean Valjean socked him in the mouth with a cross jab.
4
“Let’s not haggle for darling Cosette,” crooned Thénardier.
Valjean swung a mean right hook into Thénaedier’s kidneys.
6
Eponine’s scream rang out. Valjean raced outside and uppercut the nearest would-be-thief.
0
Valjean would have hidden Cosette away from all the ugliness of the world if he could. But now her happiness hung with Marius’s survival. Valjean would see that Marius lived, no matter the cost.
1
For decades Javert and Valjean circled each other, knives drawn. Javert had always known that Valjean was a monster. Valjean had tried for most of his life to believe that he was not. Now, the man who had dogged him his entire life was tied up and fully at Valjean’s mercy.
Valjean was living proof that a man could change. He could rise above the sins of the past. He could do the one thing that Javert could never do.
Any use of this publication to “train” generative artificial intelligence (AI) technologies to generate text is expressly prohibited. I do not consent to this work being summarized or fed to generative AI, and anyone who does so is a big dweeb.
July is Flash Fiction Month! I’ll be sharing short short stories here through the month of July. More notes at the end of the story.
“We’ll never find it.” Janine and I had been in the corn maze for hours. The sun was getting low and the sky was already turning pink. We’d already found the exit, but had doubled back to the center of the maze when Janine realized she’d left her phone in the center of the maze. “And the place is gonna close soon. Can we please just let someone know and head home? I’m sure someone’ll find it and call you in the morning.”
“On what phone, Hillary?” Janine snapped. Even though her earbuds weren’t connected to anything, Janine still had them in. She’d been listening to music the whole time we were in the maze.
“Give them your mom’s number. Or mine. But it’s getting seriously creepy here.” The corny Halloween decorations—plastic skeletons and scarecrows with pumpkin heads—strewn throughout the maze hadn’t bothered me in the full daylight. But in the setting sun they cast long shadows that kept making me do double-takes. The beautiful October afternoon had turned chilly and windy. I shivered. “Let’s just go.”
“My whole life is on that phone. I’m not leaving without it.”
I knew how she felt. Janine had years of photos saved on it, a ton of apps, not to mention the phone number of everyone who mattered (and a few people who didn’t). She hated to be apart from it. Even in class, when she was forced to put it away, she would put her hand in her pocket every few minutes like she was making sure it was still there.
A gust of wind blew through the stalks. Dry leaves rustled against one another. It sounded like the field whispering.
“Please.” I shivered. “Let’s go. You know this place closes at sunset.” I glanced up at the bruise-colored sky. “Which is about ten minutes from now. We need to find the exit.”
As if on cue, the PA system that had been playing “Monster Mash” shut off. All I could hear was the wind, crickets, and Janine’s angry, “No!” She stomped deeper into the maze.
“Janine, please!” I grabbed the sleeve of her sweater. “We’ve gotta go!”
The sun disappeared below the horizon. A crackly voice on the PA system announced that Barley Farms would be closing in five minutes. That wasn’t enough time to get out.
Somewhere behind a row of corn I heard footsteps. Probably staff.
Maybe staff.
I hoped staff.
“Let go!” Janine tugged her arm out of my grip. She squinted in the dying light. “Where’s your phone? We need a flashlight.”
“I didn’t bring it.”
“You what?” Her voice rose into a squeak.
“Because I wanted to spend time with you for a change! Not you and your stupid phone!”
Janine opened her mouth to yell when a low howling sound floated over the maze. It sounded like a wolf, then turned into a mournful moan. “The hell is that?” Janine grabbed on to my arm.
A distorted man’s voice rolled over us:
And in the death As the last few corpses lay rotting on the slimy thoroughfare The shutters lifted an inch in temperance building, high on Poacher’s Hill
Janine’s breath caught. “What is that?”
“I told you we had to leave before dark!” I tugged arm back towards where I thought the exit lay. “Weird shit happens here!”
And red mutant eyes gazed down on Hunger City No more big wheels Fleas the size of rats sucked on rats the size of cats
This time Janine didn’t fight me. We jogged down the paths while the man kept speaking.
And ten thousand peoploids split into small tribes Coveting the highest of the sterile skyscrapers Like packs of dogs assaulting the glass fronts of Love-Me Avenue
In the dark, we didn’t see the roots sticking out of the ground. Roots that I would swear hadn’t been there when we walked in the maze hours before. Janine face-planted, jaw smashing against the hard ground.
“Are you okay?” I asked. She started to get up, blood falling down her chin.
She screamed. “Oh my God something just touched my ankle! Oh my God, oh my God, oh my God—”
We ran. I didn’t know where we were going. I could barely see anything but the stalks in front of me.
“I can hear music!” Janine said with panting breaths. “It’s just a song!”
“‘This ain’t rock and roll!'” The man called out. “‘This is genocide!'”
We both screamed.
I don’t know how we found our way out of the maze. By the time we did, we were breathless and clinging to each other. We finally got back to Janine’s car. She locked the door as soon as we got in.
“God.” I ran a shaky hand through my bangs. “The haunted corn maze was actually haunted.”
“M-maybe.” She looked at the holder connected to her air vent where her phone normally sat. “It’s okay. I know how to get home from here.”
I noticed then that she didn’t have her air pods. They must have fallen out during our mad dash for the exit. “Damn. And you lost your earbuds too.”
That was not the reaction Janine would have had a few hours ago. “You don’t want to go back and look tomorrow?”
She shook her head furiously. “Never again.”
“It’s all junk anyway,” I said.
“Yeah.” Janine started the car. “It’s all junk.”
It’s my favorite challenge: David Bowie Day! Celebrating the 40th anniversary of the movie Labyrinth, which was my introduction to David Bowie.
ELEMENT 1: Your story must take place in a labyrinth. Easy, right? Too easy? Well, since you were all begging for more Bowie…
OPTIONAL ADD-ON ELEMENTS:
♫ UNDERGROUND: Include a reference to the movie Labyrinth in some way, shape or form. I really wanted to have a reference to the worm, but “it’s all junk!” worked better.
Any use of this publication to “train” generative artificial intelligence (AI) technologies to generate text is expressly prohibited. I do not consent to this work being summarized or fed to generative AI, and anyone who does so is a big dweeb.
July is Flash Fiction Month! I’ll be sharing short short stories here through the month of July. I’m in the process of selling my home. Since I’m running out of time for a story today and don’t want to fall further behind, here’s a rant. Stick around after the story to read the poem I wrote on the same topic.
An Easy 11-Step Guide to Selling Your Home
Get your house ready for showing. Purge every scrap of personality your home has. There can be no art on the walls. There can be no plushies on the bed. They don’t matter. Only your granite counter tops matter.
Find a realtor you like. You may wish to meet with a few of them before you decide who to go with. The deciding factor should not be if your realtor has a cool accent or likes your cats. But if he has a cool accent and likes your cats, that’s a big plus.
If your house is fit for a sexless robot to live in, it’s time to schedule showings and open houses. You must hide all evidence that a human lives in this house. Remove all trash cans. Make sure all the books on the shelf are non-controversial and for display purposes only. Hide all cat furniture. You have to pretend that the cats don’t live here, even though they will follow prospective buyers around for the whole showing and take naps on your realtor.
Get kicked out of your house repeatedly so strangers can look at it and then tell you they hate your bathroom decor.
Look on Zillow and secretly judge your neighbor’s houses that are on the market.
It’s been two months, and this sucks. Consider buying a Saint Joseph statue to bury in your yard.
Change your mind about buying the statue. If your mom found out she would think that you’re becoming Catholic again and would get too excited.
Besides, you tried to throw out a broken Virgin Mary statue during the initial purge, but the bag it was in ripped and paint splashed everywhere on the newly power-washed patio. Decide it’s best not to mess around with more statues of holy figures.
Explain to your non-Catholic friends why it’s not idolatry, not really, and that even ex-Catholics love a good religious statue.
Just accept that this is a deeply weird and frustrating experience, but at least you got a poem out of it.
But also if you don’t get any offers soon, you’re getting the damn statue.
Selling Your Home is a Deeply Weird Experience
We begged and fought to spend hundreds and thousands of dollars on 1,700 square feet. We signed the papers. We laid a stake. This is ours. No one can take it from us. This is our home.
My territory is 1,700 square feet with high ceilings and beige walls, nubby carpets, a creepy door.
My territory is new granite countertops, a rebuilt fence years of love and work and every picture hung on the wall.
And now– anyone can come into my territory. I must smile and welcome them. Hope that one of them will want to beg and fight for 1,700 square feet.
Any use of this publication to “train” generative artificial intelligence (AI) technologies to generate text is expressly prohibited. I do not consent to this work being summarized or fed to generative AI, and anyone who does so is a big dweeb.
July is Flash Fiction Month! I’ll be sharing short short stories here through the month of July. More notes at the end of the story.
Tasting notes for a bottle of gin: juniper berries roll over the tongue, wash your mouth with a foundation that tastes of Christmas trees and better times. Citrus splash, the yellows and greens of summers left behind. Cinnamon dust, scraping around the edges of your teeth, grit on the tops of your molars, the small sins of the past you can never truly swallow.
Another challenge story!
Element 1: The form for today’s story must be Prosetry.
Element 2: Your story must mention at least THREE herbs or other botanical elements (i.e. chamomile blossoms, death caps, salt, sage, tobacco, pine, etc).
Any use of this publication to “train” generative artificial intelligence (AI) technologies to generate text is expressly prohibited. I do not consent to this work being summarized or fed to generative AI, and anyone who does so is a big dweeb.
July is Flash Fiction Month! I’ll be sharing short short stories here through the month of July. More notes at the end of the story.
Leif had tranced badly for two nights straight. His trance state was rarely pleasant, walking through memories that he’d rather forget. Sometimes he was fortunate enough to have what he suspected his non-elven companions referred to as “dreams” — peaceful moments that showed strange but beautiful things. Sometimes they even showed himself as he wished to be, not as he was.
For the past two nights, his trances had brought him back to Doerin Oloth, the Autumnal Equinox. The nightmare of Lolth invading his mind, leaving Her venom in his soul. A great honor. A blessing.
A curse.
When Leif had awoken with a gasp in the cellar of Trollskull Manner, far from the drow city Menzoberranzan, spiders were gathered around them. His wrists, his throat, clustered together on the spider brand on his neck. He didn’t dare brush them away.
On the third night, after another trance full of spiders and old rituals, the bundle appeared. It sat on the end of Leif’s cot, wrapped in a pouch of spider silk, an oversized egg sac.
The moment he touched it, the strands dissolved into darkness. Inside was a thin book, its cover woven with black silk.
Leif opened it. It was a list of spells that he had never used before, some he had never heard of. The instructions for each were precise.
They were all written in his own script.
“Nau,” Leif hissed in the drow language. He let the book drop from his hands. “Nau, nau, nau.“
She had seen him.
Lolth had so many clerics, warlocks, worshippers. Leif had thought that was enough to keep the Spider Queen’s many eyes away from him. If he lived a small life in Waterdeep, if he didn’t displease Her, if he stayed far away from anything resembling life in the Underdark…that should have been enough to make Her forget him.
But Lolth did not forget.
Leif hurled the book far from himself, trying not to retch or scream or crawl out from his skin. He wanted to do all three.
But it wouldn’t remove the filth already in his soul.
It wasn’t unusual for Leif to be up earlier than the rest of the party. He needed half as much rest as they did, and sometimes refused to trance at all. What was unusual was that he’d ventured upstairs to the first floor of the pub they owned together. Leif tried to avoid the summer light as much as he could. The kettle was boiled, museli heating on the stove, and Leif was scrubbing his hands. For the sixth time.
It made no difference.
Yahg, always an early riser, was the first in the kitchen. The half-orc’s face was always hidden behind an iron mask, the mark of his order. Leif sometimes thought he should do the same, but thought it might draw more attention to him.
“You’re up early,” Yahg remarked.
“Yes.” Leif dried his hands on a dish towel. His fingertips had gone wrinkly.
“And dressed for winter.”
It was true. Leif had given into the summer heat and neglected his usual layers of clothing, at least in the tavern. Now he was back in the cloak, gloves, and scarf that he normally wore in public. “So I am.”
“Is something wrong?”
No one had ever sincerely asked him that question until two years ago, when Leif had first left the Underdark. He still didn’t know how to answer.
But he knew that Yahg would actually care about the answer, and try to fix it. Or offer him compassion and wisdom. And, worse, he would look at Leif through the narrow slots in his mask and actually see him.
“No,” Leif said after a too-long pause.
Yahg accepted the answer, and ladled out two bowls of museli. One for himself, and one for Leif. “Eat,” the monk instructed. “Everything’s a little easier on a full stomach.”
It’s DnD night, what do you want from me? Leif is my drow warlock PC, who really did not want to be a warlock. In-game, he got Pact of the Tome when he hit level 3, which he would’ve been incredibly freaked out about. But his party members are learning that Leif is kind of like a stray cat. Try to approach him and he’ll run; it’s best to let him come to you. I had originally planned a more hopeful ending, but it didn’t flow well, so you’re stuck with drow angst.
I have two other Leif stories! One from last year’s FFM, and one from this year’s.
Several years ago, I read An Ember in the Ashes by Sabaa Tahir. I had many problems with it: the characters, the plot holes, and the pervasive threats of sexual violence against the female characters. One thing I had no complaints about, however, was the writing itself. While there was so much to dislike about An Ember in the Ashes, the prose was actually good. I just didn’t like the story it was telling. After I was finished with the book, I happily returned it to the library and thought that would be the end of my dealings with Ms. Tahir.
I was wrong.
When I started my job as a public librarian, there were five copies of All My Rage by Sabaa Tahir on the shelf. I walked past them every day, wondering why we needed so many. One day, I decided to find out. All My Rage received the 2022 National Book Award for Young People’s Literature. The following year, it received the Michael J. Printz Award. Now I was intrigued. I’ve read a few Printz Award winners over the years and liked them all. I had to know for myself if it was worth the hype.
All My Rage is told from the perspective of three different characters: Muslim teens Salahudin (Sal) and Noor, and Sal’s mother, Misbah. In the small, mostly-White town of Juniper, CA, Sal and Noor dream of changing their lives. Sal’s family owns the struggling Cloud’s Rest Inn Motel. Misbah’s health is failing, and his alcoholic father is no help for either the hotel or his wife. Sal struggles to run the hotel, take care of his parents, and finish his senior year of high school. Things might have been easier if he could talk to his best friend Noor, but she’s been avoiding him since the Fight.
Noor misses her best friend. She hasn’t talked to Sal since the Fight, which means she also hasn’t spoken to Misbah in months. Noor was orphaned at a young age, and Misbah was like a mother to her. Noor lives with her cruel uncle, who resents her for intruding on his life. She is desperate to go to college and escape Juniper, but her uncle forbids her from even applying to school.
Finally, Misbah tells the story of her life between Sal’s and Noor’s chapters. She starts with her arranged marriage to Salahudin’s father, Toufiq, and continues with her life in America and raising Salahudin. Her sections are beautifully written, and reveal more of the family’s history.
All My Rage isn’t just a coming-of-age story. It’s a problem novel. In fact, it’s the problem novel.
The definition of a problem novel is simple: a teenager has to deal with some kind of societal problem. Some famous problem novels you might have heard of are Speak by Lauire Halse Anderson, Crank by Ellen Hopkins, and Go Ask Alice by “Anonymous” (really, Beatrice Sparks). These books center around social ostracization, sexual assault, and drug use.
All My Rage deals with physical, emotional and sexual abuse, drug and alcohol dependency, Islamaphobia, parental death, chronic illness, poverty, teen parenthood, racism, bullying, and bias in law enforcement.
To be honest, it felt a little unbelievable at first that Salahudin and Noor could have so many terrible things going on in their life. I had to remind myself that there are real teenagers in the world who deal with all these problems. However, there’s just so many problems packed into the novel there were times when it edged into “misery lit” territory. Fortunately, Tahir’s elegant prose elevates All My Rage and keeps it from feeling like trauma porn.
I think that the various social issues that Sal and Noor have to deal with are handled well, for the most part. For example, Toufiq’s alcoholism is portrayed realistically. Salahudin tries to keep it a family secret, and Toufiq quits and relapses more than once. There were a couple things that I think could have been done a bit better. The racist bullying that Noor finds herself on the end of, for example. It starts out realistically, with subtle things, like the mean girl refusing to pronounce her name correctly. But it gets worse, with no real reason for the bully to be so horrible to her, and ends with a racist tirade the whole school learns about. Most bullying that stems from racism is a lot more subtle, and people who are blatantly racist like the bully typically aren’t that popular.
I also had some misgivings when I realized the novel was also going to tackle the issue of sexual abuse. One of my biggest complaints about An Ember in the Ashes was the excessive and pervasive rape threats in the book, and I wasn’t sure if Tahir would be able to write about this delicate issue well. Thankfully, sexual abuse is handled much better in All My Rage. The novel shows the long-term negative effects on the survivor, even years after the abuse occurred. The survivor is portrayed sympathetically, wounded but not destroyed. Overall, it’s a pretty good depiction of the aftermath of assault. I didn’t love the resolution of this sub-plot, however. I felt like it was just added on at the end, which made me feel like it was only included in the book to increase the character’s suffering.
At the same time I started All My Rage, I was reading another novel as well, that I’ll call Everything Bad Happens to Jimmy in lieu of its actual title. This is another heavy book, which starts with bad things happening to Jimmy. It gets worse from there, gets slightly better, and then gets worse again. Over halfway through the novel, another terrible thing happened to Jimmy, and I was just so tired of it. I put the book down and never picked it up again.
But I finished All My Rage, even though there were times I put the book down for several days because it just got too sad. So, why did All My Rage succeed where Jimmy failed?
Let’s start with the opening. Jimmy opens in media res with our hero already in a crisis. It’s an attention-grabbing scene, and we feel for Jimmy because he’s a vulnerable person who’s been put in a dangerous situation through no fault of his own. But we don’t really know who Jimmy is before this traumatic event happens to him. As more and more bad things happen to Jimmy, we don’t see much of who he is beyond his rage and pain. The things he’s gone through aren’t just part of who he is – they become almost all the reader sees of him.
All My Rage gives us time to get to know the main characters before the bad stuff in their lives happens. We get a look at who Saluhdin and Noor are: their struggles, their wants, their family lives, and their relationship with each other. We learn about who they are before everything goes pear-shaped, and that lets us get attached to the main characters. We want them to succeed because we like them and relate to their struggles. It took me a long time to finish this book, but I read the whole thing because I cared about Salahudin and Noor and wanted to see them (hopefully) earn a happy ending.
Noor and Sal’s ending is earned, rather than just something they stumble into. This is another area where All My Rage succeeded while Jimmy did not: the choices the characters make. Jimmy doesn’t make deliberate choices so much as he reacts to the situations he’s in. The current problem or solution is almost never caused by anything Jimmy chooses. Things just sort of happen to him, with an increasing amount of horribleness.
Salahudin and Noor are put in difficult situations and make deliberate choices based on what they think will help improve their circumstances. They make mistakes, and then must deal with the consequences of their actions. They are actively involved in the course the story takes, and aren’t just being pushed around by events that are out of their control. They drive the plot, rather than the plot driving them.
But finally – and maybe most importantly – All My Rage delivers on the promise of the premise.
“The promise of the premise” is a phrase that originates from Save the Cat! By Blake Snyder. When you read a book or watch a movie, you usually have an idea of what you’re getting into. That’s the premise. The premise of The Hunger Games, for example, would be “teens compete in a fight to the death.” Harry Potter would be, “wizard boy battles against evil in a magical world.”
The premise of Everything Bad Happens to Jimmy was “an urban fantasy set during a historical conflict.” The book did not live up to that premise. The historical conflict was a big part of the book, and there were some fantasy elements, but not nearly enough. Mostly, it was terrible things happening to Jimmy, with magical elements few and far between. The book I was reading was not the book that I had signed up for. In short, this novel did not deliver on the promise of the premise. When that happens, sometimes I can adjust my expectations and enjoy the story the author actually wrote, but with the book’s other aforementioned problems, I gave up.
For All My Rage, it would be, “two Muslim teens struggle to overcome difficult circumstances in a small town.” That’s what I expected from this book, and that’s what I got. Tahir fulfilled the promise of the premise.
As difficult as All My Rage could be to read, I kept going. The novel works because I sympathize with Salahudin and Noor. I care about these characters and I was invested in their lives. When they make mistakes, I don’t hate them for it. I feel for them, two kids struggling to keep their heads above the water when everything around them threatens to pull them under. The beautiful prose also helps with some of the darkness in this book and takes away some of the sting, as do the Misbah intervals.
All My Rage isn’t my favorite book. It’s hard to get through, and it falls a little flat when it comes to some of the supporting characters. That said, I think it’s worth the read. I’ve talked about representation in media a bit before, and All My Rage offers readers a look into the life of two Muslim teenagers. Their faith plays a role in who they are, but it’s not their defining characteristic. Salahudin and Noor are complex characters that offer “windows and mirrors” to the novel’s readers. They can give readers a look into their lives as Middle Eastern-Americans, Muslims, and as struggling teens. Other readers who are Middle Eastern, or Muslim, or a teen going through a tough time can see themselves reflected back in the pages of this book.
The writing itself was beautiful, and essential to the book. With so many topics being tackled, All My Rage could have become a clunky problem novel. Instead, Tahir has woven a multi-layered coming-of-age story that’s worthy of praise. If you like emotional, character-driven books, give this one a try. Just keep the tissues handy.
Every year, the Sunshine State Young Readers Award (SSYRA) Program in Florida names several lucky books Sunshine State books. These books have been voted on by schools across Florida as “the best” books for K-12 students. Alongside students’ and teachers’ votes, these books are “selected for their wide appeal, literary value, varied genres, curriculum connections, and/or multicultural representation.” These books make up the bulk of summer reading lists in Florida.
This year, a local school reached out to the public libraries and asked for help with their annual Battle of the Books. The librarians who signed up had to read two books from the Grade 6-8 list and write fifteen open-ended comprehension questions about them. A chance to read cool kids’ books on the clock? I jumped at the opportunity.
The first book I chose wasThe Lost Year by Katherine Marsh. It was an excellent book, but not exactly uplifting. For my second book, I chose Brick Dust and Bones by M.R. Fournet because it sounded like a fun urban fantasy romp. I was not disappointed.
SSYRA’s description:
Marius Grey hunts Monsters. He’s not supposed to. He’s twelve and his job as a Cemetery Boy is to look after the ghosts in his family’s graveyard. He should be tending these ghosts and–of course–going to school to learn how to live between worlds without getting into trouble. But, Marius has an expensive goal. He wants to bring his mother back from the dead, and that takes a LOT of mystic coins, which means a LOT of Monster Hunting, and his mother’s window to return is closing. If he wants her back, Marius is going to have to go after bigger and meaner monsters. Can Marius navigate New Orleans’s gritty monster bounty-hunting market, or will he have to say goodbye to his mother forever?
The book opens with Marius staking out a little girl’s bedroom, waiting for a boogeyman to arrive. After a magical tussle, he traps the terrifying creature in his monster book and turns it in for the bounty. By the time Marius got to the Habada-Chérie to get his reward, I was totally hooked. I realized the Brick Dust and Bones has so many things I loved about Harry Potter, minus an incredibly problematic author.
There’s obviously the magical orphan boy to start, but it feels sharper than Harry’s loss. Marius’s father disappeared when he was young, and his mother died two years before the start of the book. Marius misses and mourns them, especially his mother. Harry Potter misses what he might have had, but Marius knows true, deep loss.
Marius’s loss isn’t as straightforward as you might think. He can still hear his mother’s voice and have conversations with her. Not all the time, and sometimes her voice falls silent when he needs her the most. Even with her voice whispering in his ear, Marius still feels her absence deeply. Just being able to hear his mother’s is not enough to make him stop missing her. He’s also dealing with a different kind of loss, that of his childhood. Marius is pretty self-sufficient, but he doesn’t always want to be. There are moments when he just misses having someone to take care of him so he can be a kid.
The other thing I really loved about this book – and Harry Potter – was the well-developed magical world. Specifically, the magical world that’s just under normal people’s noses. There are three types of people: totally normal folks, totally magical folks, and fringe people. Marius is a fringe person, with one foot in the normal world, and one in the magical world. I think the setting that best exemplifies this is Mama Roux’s.
As a cemetery boy, Marius’s job is to take care of the mausoleums in his graveyard, as well as the ghosts that inhabit it. One of his chores is to take the ghosts to Mama Roux’s for dinner. Mama Roux’s is a neutral zone, where normal families come to dine without even knowing about the ghosts and demons around them. The ghosts have to avoid the normal children, though, since they’re more likely to see them. This is a place where demons cut deals with humans, ghosts pretend to eat fake food, and normal people don’t realize a thing.
Mama Roux’s isn’t the only thing about the setting I love. The book takes place in New Orleans, a city that is already ripe for magic. One of Marius’s teachers, Madame Millet, reads tarot cards for tourists at night but teaches fringe kids real magic during the day. The magical store he visits sells incense and gris-gris dolls as souvenirs for normal people, and supplies for actual spellcasting and monster hunting to people like Marius. Marius hunts monsters in the bayou, grave hops around the city’s cemeteries, and even uses the word beignets to signal a poltergeist. New Orleans’s burial traditions come back in a big way at the end of the book. There are some books where the setting isn’t that important. Rich People With Problems could take place in Anytown, USA, and you’d still have the same story. But if you took Brick Dust and Bones out of Louisiana, you’d have a very different story, and one that probably isn’t as much fun.
There’s a lot of good fantasy action sequences and monsters. Lots of monsters.
The story opens with Marius hidden in a girl’s bedroom closet, waiting for the lights to go out. Once they do, Marius faces off against the boogeyman hiding under the girl’s bed. He fights a “candy lady” who turns out to be more dangerous than he’d thought. There’s a fantastic final battle against a deadly monster who’s way out of Marius’s league. Even Marius’s best friend is a monster: Rhiannon, a mermaid who’s more man-eating siren than Princess Ariel.
Some of these monsters are based on Cajun and Hoodoo tradition, which was really refreshing. I really enjoyed reading about monsters that were outside the typical fantasy fare. Marius’s unconventional friendship with Rhiannon was great. While other monster hunters would have captured her without a second thought, befriending the mermaid is a boon to Marius in a number of ways.
There are also literal fire and brimstone demons, which would have scared me if I read this as a kid. Blame it on the Catholic upbringing. Demons occupy an interesting place in Marius’s world. They’re not monsters that Marius would hunt, but they’re not good, either. Humans, even normal humans, can make deals with demons. Some of these deals affect Marius personally.
If all that doesn’t make you want to read the book, I’ll add this: the ticking time bomb. Marius had two years to earn the Mystic Coins he needs to bring his mother back, and his window of time to earn them is rapidly closing. I’ve also read some books where the hero ultimately decides not to bring their deceased love one back to life, and I didn’t know how this one would go. Without giving away the ending, I honestly didn’t know if he was going to make the deadline…or choose to not bring his mom back to life.
Brick Dust and Bones was such a fun book, especially after reading The Lost Year. For a book full of monsters, it still has very human themes: loss, grief, responsibility, and friendship. There are some scary sequences, so I would recommend this book for ages 10 and up. It’s a great introduction to horror/urban fantasy for kids and an absolute blast to read.
The questions I wrote for this book are more trivia than discussion questions. Here they are (contains spoilers):
1. Marius is an orphan, but he has adults who look out for him. How do these adults act like parents to him?
2. Marius’s mother tells him that he’s “so much older than you ought to be.” What did she mean by this?
3. Rhiannon says that she doesn’t understand “the in-between stuff” of human relationships. What does she mean by “in-between stuff”?
4. Most monster hunters would have captured Rhiannon. How does Marius benefit from having her as his friend instead?
5. Why has Marius avoided sleeping in his bed?
6. Why does Marius pay off Mrs. Pine’s debt?
7. Why does Rhiannon help Marius find the rougarou, even though she doesn’t want him to hunt it?
8. Other than math, why does Marius dislike school?
9. How does Marius’s job as a cemetery boy help him in the story?
10. Why doesn’t Marius want the adults in his life to know that he’s monster hunting?
11. Why can children see ghosts and monsters, but adults can’t?
12. Why do the High Mystics tolerate demons, but not monsters?
13. How does Marius know that he can trust Rhiannon, even if she is a monster?
14. Why does Mildred let Marius get away with stealing from Madame Millet?
15. Why does Marius give Henry a rosary and worry beads after he captures the boo hag?
Without in any way limiting the author’s exclusive rights under copyright, any use of this publication to “train” generative artificial intelligence (AI) technologies to generate text is expressly prohibited.
It took some time, but I’m back! I have lots of literary-based goals for 2026. I’ve already started one of them: The OKayest Travel Blog. I spent two weeks in Japan last fall, and I wanted to share stories about my trip. Right now there are only a couple posts, but I aim to get one up once a month. I’m also in the early stages of starting a BookTok, so I’ll be sharing that when it finally happens. I’m doing plenty of writing, and even more reading. Which brings us to our first book review of the new year…
Every year, the Sunshine State Young Readers Award (SSYRA) Program in Florida names several lucky books Sunshine State books. These books have been voted on by schools across Florida as “the best” books for K-12 students. Alongside students’ and teachers’ votes, these books are “selected for their wide appeal, literary value, varied genres, curriculum connections, and/or multicultural representation.” As soon as the annual list gets released, your friendly Florida public librarians scramble to get them onto the shelves and into kids’ hands ASAP. The Sunshine State books make up the bulk of summer reading lists, and they fly off the shelves. There have been many books that I would just love to read, but I hold off until winter or the next summer. The demand for these books is just too high, especially in the summer and fall, and I want to make sure that the kids who need them for school have them.
But this year was different. A local school reached out to the public libraries and asked for help with their annual Battle of the Books. The librarians who signed up had to read two books from the Grade 6-8 list and write fifteen open-ended comprehension questions about them. A chance to read cool kids’ books on the clock? I jumped at the opportunity.
The Lost Year by Katherine Marsh is the first of the two Sunshine State books I read. Here’s the SSRYA summary of the book:
Thirteen-year-old Matthew is miserable. His journalist dad is stuck overseas indefinitely, and his mom has moved his one-hundred-year-old great-grandmother in with them to ride out the pandemic. Matthew is stuck at home during the early days of the pandemic, and he would rather play video games than hang out with his great-grandmother, GG. But Matthew’s mom has other plans. Forced to unpack GG’s storage boxes, Matthew finds a tattered blackand-white photo in his great-grandmother’s belongings that serves as a clue to a hidden chapter of her past, one that will lead to a life-shattering family secret.
One of the reasons I wanted to read this book was because it took place, in part, during the COVID lockdown. It’s not a time that I look back on fondly, but I was one of the lucky few that was comfortable during that strange time. It was an unexpected break from a job I hated, my husband was still working, so we still had an income, and I was taking a young adult literature class in grad school. I spent most of my lockdown reading YA books, writing poetry, and playing Monster Prom. I wanted to see COVID from a kid’s perspective. I also wanted to see this modern historical event in fiction. It’s one thing to read about World War II in a novel, but another to read about an event you actually lived through.
The other reason was that I wanted to know what the family secret was. I assumed that it was something World War II related. World War II is practically its own fiction genre at this point. I was wrong.
The novel is still centered around a major historic event in the 20th Century, but one I didn’t expect: the Holodomor. The Holodomor was a human-made famine in Ukraine from 1932 to 1933 which resulted in the deaths of millions of Ukrainians. I knew a little bit about the Holodomor, mostly because I’d read about Walter Duranty’s infamously inaccurate reporting of the famine. I’ve never seen it in a fiction book before. I’m sure that many young readers had never heard of the Holodomor before picking up The Lost Year either. While you should stick to non-fiction resources when you’re doing research, I think novels are a really good entry point for kids to learn more about history. Case in point: I wouldn’t be nearly as interested in Revolutionary War history as I am today if not for Felicity from the American Girl franchise.
Despite what the summary led me to believe, most of the story is not about Matthew. It’s about three cousins leading very different lives in 1933, until they all brought together by the famine. Matthew’s chapters largely act as framing devices as he learns their stories from GG. He’s not as well developed as the cousins, but his character arc has a satisfying conclusion that works beautifully with the book’s theme.
The cousins Matthew’s learns about are Helen, Mila, and Nadiya. Mila lives an easy life in Kyiv, the daughter of a high-ranking Soviet officer. Nadiya is from the Ukrainian countryside, and everything changes when she knocks on Mila’s door. Nadiya claims that she is Mila’s cousin, which Mila denies. To Mila, this girl is a kulak, an enemy of the State, and has to be lying about Mila’s father. When Mila discovers that Nadiya really is her cousin, and people are starving to death all around her, she has a choice to make. Can she protect Nadiya? Should she?
Helen lives with her family in New York City and strives to be a normal American girl, not the child of immigrants. When she reads Walter Duranty’s infamous “Russians Hungry, But Not Starving” article about the famine, she knows that it isn’t true. According to her parents, her family in Ukraine is struggling to survive. After some urging from a new friend, Helen sets out to collect the stories of friends and neighbors about the famine their relatives are experiencing. As she records history, she’s determined to help her relatives across the sea any way she can.
My short review: The Lost Year is really good and you should read it.
It isn’t always easy to read. It obviously deals with a heavy subject matter, and some readers may not be ready to revisit COVID. As I got to the end of the book, I even put off reading it for a few days because I was so worried about one of the characters. Even so, it became one of my favorite books that I read in 2025. To me, it’s comparable with Out of the Dust or Number the Stars. All three books take place during a troubled time, and they don’t shy away from the dangers and tragedies of those time periods.
There are those who think children need to be shielded from tragedy, and I understand that. I even agree, to a point. But I also believe that children are often more robust than we give them credit for. I also think that fiction is a safe way to introduce children to hard things. For example, one of the picture books I had growing up was called I Had a Friend Named Peter by Janice Cohn. In it, a young girl’s friend, Peter, dies. The book uses a narrative to teach children about death, and help facilitate conversations between children and their caregivers on the subject. In my opinion, the narrative makes it easier to engage with these topics. While I Had a Friend Named Peter is pretty didactic, I believe this is true of many books. There are so many great books that deal with tough subjects, whether they be historical events like the Holodomor, or things that are universally relevant to all of us: loss, love, friendship, jealousy, navigating relationships.
I think this is true of books that are not strictly meant to teach as well. There are so many books that deal with tough subjects that are relevant to everyone’s life. Fiction can be a shield. It allows us to experience things through the eyes of characters. We can share their feelings, but also put the book away when we need to. When we encounter hard times, we have someone we can relate to, and even look to for comfort.
There were a lot of things that I loved about the book. I’m very picky when it comes to historical fiction, but Soviet Union history is something that I have a lot of interest in. I also really like the small details of everyday life in historical settings when they’re interwoven in the text. I really hate a research dump in fiction, which was one of the problems I had with Magic Lessons. Here, those little details come naturally, like Mila’s favorite candy being Bumble Bears, or the characters playing the Russian card game Trust, Don’t Trust.
Even the 2020 timeline has this. Maybe the COVID shutdown isn’t far enough back to be considered historical fiction, but someday it will be. Ten, fifteen, twenty years from now, those details of school over Zoom, only being able to see your friends if they walk by your house, and the anxiety and monotony of lockdown will be one way that kids will learn about what that strange time was really like.
I really liked the character arcs for Helen and Mila. Helen just wants to be a regular American girl. She doesn’t want to stick out, and wants to hide what makes her different from all the other kids she goes to school with. After she learns about the famine, and her family’s personal connection to it, she starts to change. Over the course of the novel, Helen learns how to find her voice and takes pride in her Ukrainian heritage. She takes an active role in preserving history, even if she doesn’t see it that way at the time. Her clever thinking helps save Nadiya’s life, and she pushes the adults in her life into action.
The character who goes through the most change is Mila. She starts the novel as the spoiled daughter of a high-ranking Soviet officer and has an easy life full of luxuries the rest of the Soviet people do not have. Mila is ignorant of the things happening all around her, and sees the world in a black and white way. You are either a good Communist, protected by Papa Stalin, or you are a kulak, and deserve whatever happens to you. When Nadiya knocks on her door, Mila doesn’t believe that a kulak could be her cousin, or that the famine is even real. Instead of staying in her comfortable world of piano lessons and propaganda, she chooses to learn more and discover the truth for herself.
The other thing I loved about the book was the overarching theme of storytelling. Storytelling plays a significant role for each of the three POV characters. In 2020, as GG tells Matthew her story, he discovers that there’s so much more to her than he ever knew. He also learns that her whole story has never been told, not even to her daughter or her cousin Helen. Matthew records GG’s stories, but ultimately gets her to share her story with the world, so that the truth of what happened to her won’t be forgotten.
Mila’s father tells her stories every day. Instead of fairytales, though, he tells her stories of Soviet heroes and the greatness of the Soviet Union. Mila eagerly absorbs these stories and never thinks to question them. Those stories form the basis of her beliefs about the Soviet Union and her own life. When Nadiya forces her to confront the truth, Papa’s stories become just as fanciful as Baba Yaga. The book also shows how it’s hard to let go of the things you believe, even when it’s staring you in the face.
Helen collects personal stories about the Holodomor at first to write to The New York Times with a rebuttal to Duranty’s reporting on the famine. These stories help her become engrained in her community and spur her into action. As we see in the epilogue, Helen’s dedication to sharing the truth about the Holodomor shapes her entire life. Her work helps preserve the true history of both her family and the famine, but it also guides her into the future.
When we read about historical events, it can be easy to get lost in the numbers. Storytelling and oral history puts a face on the survivors. I can read facts about the Dust Bowl, but it won’t make me feel anything as much as my grandma’s stories about living through it did. Stories are entertaining, of course. But they can also be used to teach, to put a face on history, and to keep the memories of our loved ones alive. The Lost Year does all of these.
If you’re interested in learning more about the Holodomor, you can visit the Holodomor Research and Education Consortium (HREC) website. The section Witness Accounts contains links to oral history collections and other primary resources. Author Katherine Marsh and her cousin, Andrea Zoltanetzky, share their family’s memories of the Holodomor and the Ukrainian immigrant experience in the book’s backmatter, and in this YouTube video:
The discussion questions I wrote for the book:
1. What do you think The Lost Year refers to for Matthew? What does it refer to for Helen and Mila?
2. Helen’s mother and Matthew’s mother warn them that they’re upsetting people by asking for their stories. Why did GG and the people Helen interviewed share their stories, even if they’re upsetting?
3. What role does storytelling play in the story for Mila, Helen, and Matthew?
4. Ruth says that Helen is a good leader. In what ways is she a leader?
5. How does Mila deal with losing faith in her father, while at the same time loving him very much?
6. How does meeting Nadiya change the way that Mila understands the world?
7. How is Mila’s friendship with Nadiya different from her friendship with Katya? How is it similar?
8. Why did GG hide her true identity for so long?
9. Why does Helen want to be seen as a normal American girl?
10. The main characters’ parents all guide them in different ways through the novel. How does their parents’ guidance shape them at the start of the book? How does it shape them by the end of the book?
11. What similarities does the book show between the COVID-19 pandemic and the Holodomor?
12. How does Mila see Dasha at the beginning, middle, and end of the book? How does Dasha see Mila?
13. Anna Mikhailovna says that Mila is either foolish or lucky. How is she foolish, lucky, or both?
14. Why did Helen think that she couldn’t write to The New York Times?
15. How did Mila’s and Nadiya’s roles reverse by the end of the novel?
