If I don’t post this now, I’ll never post it. Who cares if it’s past the middle of October?
I finished a book in September but didn’t post about it:
My rating: 3 of 5 stars
Okay, so this book is kind of annoying but also compulsively readable. Most annoying: Ella (and her mom!) is referred to as exotic because she is Chilean so has “caramel skin” and blue eyes. 🙄 (Exotic is used THREE TIMES in the book. I mean, seriously. So annoying.) Also, at one point, Ella’s dad tells her that her mom ignored the fact that she was also half-white and has white traditions, which, again MASSIVE EYEROLL 🙄🙄🙄. What is a white tradition? Come on, white people. You can do better than that. [All of these moments happened when I was far along in the book and see above re: compulsively readable for why I didn’t stop reading. However, these are the things that keep a book from getting four or five stars is all I’m saying.]
Anyway, what I really liked about this book was the focus on an internet friendship, and it just really thoroughly WARMED MY HEART and now I might have to post about all the reasons why on my blog. So.
This is also a pretty different take on the Cinderella story, and so that was fun. Some of the relationships aren’t as fully developed as I would like (I’m still not sure how Ella’s closest friends–minus one, perhaps one and a half–are her closest friends), but the main relationship is and the one with Ella and her dad so I guess it kind of balances out.
That brings my total number of books read in September to 6:
- Cinder & Ella by Kelly Oram (YA/NA)
- Best Friend Next Door by Carolyn Mackler (middle grade)
- Hamilton: The Revolution by Lin-Manuel Miranda and Jeremy McCarter (adult, nonfiction)
- All’s Fair in Love, War, and High School by Janette Rallison (YA)
- A Whole New World by Liz Braswell (YA)
- The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet by Becky Chambers (adult, sci-fi, abandoned)
Fave was Hamilton, obviously.
September was a blur of adjusting to the new job, adjusting to being to work at the ungodly hour of 7 a.m., adjusting my sleep schedule, and meeting a slew of famous authors. I also took a couple of writing classes (one of which is still ongoing) and met some cool people. Needless to say, I was exhausted. (I am exhausted!)
The Englishist 
“What is a white tradition?” Best question of my day. I have no answer, but am intrigued by the assertion that such things exist. How’d this book get published, anyhow?
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It’s self-published. But still. If the character had said that his family has their own traditions that the mom ignored without the author calling them white traditions, I would have been fine with it! Or even ascribe it to him being Italian or *something*. Sigh.
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The self-publishing helps explain it. I agree with you. Italian traditions, make sense. But with white traditions, I’m clueless.
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