Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi, via Bond Street Books, out now.

[I received this book from Penguin Random House Canada in exchange for an honest review; this did not affect my opinion of the book whatsoever.]

Reading Homegoing is a substantial experience – you can feel the weight of generations of two different families as they live through slavery and segregation in Africa and the US. You will not emerge from this book a ray of sunshine. You will emerge having felt a lot of feelings and thought a lot of thoughts. It is especially a significant read for the kind of world we are living in these days.

Each chapter is a different family member between the late 1700s until about the 1980s or 90s. That is a lot of ground to cover. 14 characters, in fact. We start with Effia and then Esi in Africa. The two are sisters but they will never know that or each other. Effia grows up as the most beautiful girl in Fanteland, she is promised to the soon-to-be leader, but her stepmother Baaba devises a plan to protect her, but Effia doesn’t know why. Effia ends up being taken to the Cape Coast Castle by a rich white soldier to be his secret black wife, which is what Baaba wanted, to keep Effia safe from harm between warring villages. Meanwhile Esi, who grew up in neighbouring Asanteland, one of those villages, is taken hostage as a slave to live in filth and dismay in the dungeon below Cape Coast Castle. The sisters would never cross paths. Esi is raped by a soldier.

Hell was a place of remembering, each beautiful moment passed through the mind’s eye until it fell to the ground like a rotten mango, perfectly useless, uselessly perfect.

Those are the stories that start this harrowing journey. Along it goes from Effia’s son Quey to Esi’s daughter Ness, and it goes and it goes and it goes. Each character’s story feels like a short story that has fingers in others. Sometimes I felt sad that I couldn’t stick with some characters for longer, but they lived on in other ways. As each family member gets their turn, your heart will feel heavier and heavier. It feels unfair that we can now breeze through a story like this but for them it was literally centuries, centuries that are still going. It is fascinating to read through such a history to see how it very slowly gets a bit better, but I cannot stress enough how much time it takes for them. Gyasi’s writing is beautiful and deserving of its great critical acclaim – I forsee Homegoing collecting accolades over the next year. When things are so terrible in the world, especially for black lives, Homegoing serves as an important reminder, path to empathy and educational resource (though technically fictional). It’s something I’d love to see on high school or university English curriculum. It has the power to start and continue conversations. Each character is so special and crucial to the story – you will be captivated by every one. This book truly shows you why black lives matter.

I am running a contest to win a copy of Homegoing, courtesy of Chapters Indigo! Head on over to my Instagram page to find out how to enter. (Canada only.)

Sing by Vivi Greene, via HarperTeen, out now.

[I received this book from HarperCollins Canada in exchange for an honest review; this did not affect my opinion of the book whatsoever. Disclaimer: I am now an intern there (weee!), but received this book before I started!]

Lily Ross is the world’s biggest pop star who wears her heart on her sleeve, and she’s going through yet another breakup in front of everyone. Sound familiar? It should, because this book is basically a fictionalized Taylor Swift story, which I totally gobbled right up.

In the summer months before she’s supposed to start her massive next tour, Lily needs to unplug from life and remember what she’s made of – so her and her friends Sammy and Tess go live in a cottage in Maine to chill out for a while. But of course, while Lily is trying to relax and write new songs – who would want to go sing their love songs for their ex for the next year? – she meets a cute townie named Noel, who challenges her in more ways than one.

Lily has to figure out if Noel is the spark behind her new flush of creativity or if he’s taboo. She has to distance herself from her ex Jed (also a rock star). She wants her new songs to not be about a guy for once.

I grab my journal from the nightstand, my guitar from its case on the floor, and cozy up in a corner of the bed, wedging the pillows behind me.

There’s so much I want to say. I could write a dozen songs in the next three hours about all the ways Jed has hurt me. But they would still be about him. Every time I write a song it feels like I’m giving little bits of myself away. And I don’t want to give Jed – or any of the guys I’ve dated – another piece of me.

Lily’s a pretty solid girl – she cares about people, she’s mature, she’s aware of her surroundings. She likes the business of her work and knows she does it well. She understands that almost everyone around her is there for her but tries to find the modest parts of it. And for the most part, she’s quite driven (when she’s not wanting to shut the world off for a day or two). But her biggest sensitivity seems to be how she gets distracted by guys and love.

I loved this quote from Lily’s best friend Tess:

“This is who you are, Bird. It’s the reason people who have never met you send you holiday cards, and knit your face into sweaters, and light candles for you at church. They love your music, yes, but they also love you. Like, really love you. And it’s because they know you care about them. You care about everyone. You’d fall in love with a paper bag if it hung around you long enough.”

Because I knew that this book was loosely based on TSwift, it made it almost impossible for me to read it as if it was anyone else. So it was a bit hard to make Lily her own character in my head. I didn’t really mind, though. It was an interesting exercise for me, because I don’t usually go for the retelling or fanfic kinds of stories. It was also interesting to read it just as Taylor’s breakup with Calvin Harris and new ‘relationship’ with Tom Hiddleston (I call lies) started to play out and knowing the world is just so ready for new Taylor post-guy songs.

Lily’s relationship with Noel is super sweet, he’s just that quiet hometown boy who doesn’t really want to be in the spotlight, so Lily has to figure out how to combine her two favourite lifestyles/circles. Reading Sing was like the equivalent of watching a Disney Channel movie (I loved that). It’s a simple story with all the predictable plot points, but it’s so enjoyable. It’s a great light summer read – I read it within two days – and will leave you wanting to dance around your bedroom to poppy love songs.

Welcome back to the Georgia Nicolson Readalong!

Quick refresher: in honour of our dearly departed Teen Queen Louise Rennison, I started a readalong so that we could read (or re-read) her classic Georgia Nicolson series. Every three weeks we’ll post about the next book in the series. You’re invited to join in at any time!

You can catch up with posts on Angus, Thongs and Full-Frontal Snogging, On the Bright Side, I’m Now the Girlfriend of a Sex God, Knocked Out By My Nunga-Nungas, Dancing in My Nuddy Pants and Away Laughing on a Fast Camel.

Please note that if you haven’t read this book yet and intend to, there are spoilers!

Alright, here we are, book 6! We find Georgia on the rack of luuurve pining after the replacement Sex God, the stereotypical Italian heartthrob Masimo, thinking that she can find him when her family goes on a trip to America.

So, a theme across this book seemed to be that Georgia is kind of dumb. She never truly realizes how big America is – her friends make fun of her for not paying attention in ‘geogs’ but she never actually sees a map this whole time. Georgia and her family are going to Memphis, but Masimo is in Manhattan. Georgia thinks she can just take a bus or phone up Masimo while she’s there. Oh, teen love. They’ll stop at nothing!

Georgia actually convinces her parents to let Jas come along on the trip.

“Jas, I am so vair vair full to the brim with excitementosity. Aren’t you?”

“Hmm.”

“Yes, so am I. Let’s sing ‘New York, New York’ to get us in the mood.”

“No.”

“That’s the spirit. You see, that is why coming to Hamburger-a-gogo is sooo good for you – it will broaden what there is of your mind.”

I started to sing, ‘I want to be a part of it, New York, New YORK!!!!!’

I stopped because of intense pensioner glaring when we passed the post office.

Jas was slouching along by my side like a trusty . . . badger.

“Jas, why do they call it that? New York, New York? We don’t say London, London, do we?”

“Hmmm.”

“Perhaps it is because Hamburgese people are a bit on the slow side and don’t get it immediately, so they have to say it twice.”

The girls are actually pretty funny and sweet with each other on the trip, and I loved the commentary on ‘why the heck are Americans so nice to us? What do they want?’ though there was one scene at the end of their trip when the girls decide to do a naked photo shoot with bison horn hats on in their hotel room, which was completely random and weird on a few levels. Yknow, like when Georgia constantly calls Jas a ‘lezzie’ (and does again as soon as they get home) and the fact that they were never shown as comfortable with their bodies like that before, and just, what? I really don’t know.

Once they get home, the hunt for Masimo is back on, because he was pretty much forgotten after a couple days in the US. But Masimo is full of mixed signals – rolling up on his scooter, kissing cheeks, asking for phone numbers, and not just for Georgia. She sees him flirting with ‘Wet Lindsay’ aka the older girl who also went out with Georgia’s first boyfriend Robbie (first), so the competition’s already there, and Georgia gets sad and jealous. At this point, Georgia’s in a state of confusosity – with the Masimo game, the fact that she received a letter from Robbie saying he still thinks about her all the time, and Dave the Laugh admitting he thinks he made a mistake and that they should be together – a girl’s got some pondering to do. But right now, her mind’s all Masimo. He eventually valiantly asks her on a date by showing up to talk to her father, giving off the appearance that he’s a suave nice guy (hm, foreshadowing that he’s a player? I think so.) and Georgia is elated to go out with him.

He put just the tip of his tongue in my mouth; it was really sweet. I felt so full of luuurve for him that I put my tongue in his mouth a little bit. And our tongues touched!!! They were snogging as well!!! When you describe it it doesn’t sound like it would be very nice, but it is. Perhaps that is why Angus and Gordy put the tips of their tongues out, because they know how sexy tongue-touching can be,

No, on second thoughts, I know that they put their tongues out because they are idiot cats.

Y’know, I am quite impressed that Georgia never seems to shy away from getting intimate with a guy. She barely has any shame and she likes to get what she wants. Which is why it was nice to see a bit of depth when she realized she couldn’t handle seeing a guy she likes with someone else any longer, and that she wanted someone who could call her their one and only girlfriend. Thus, some interesting tension between her and Masimo who has to take a week to decide on if he could do that (tip: if a guy says that, I feel like it’d be okay to dump his bum).

While Then He Ate My Boy Entrancers showed us a bit more depth and dimness to Georgia, it was a bit of an uncomfortable read. Part of me is feeling impatient and I just want her and Dave to end up together and be happy, but alas that is not the life of an average teenage girl. I also wish the books were a bit more fast-paced. Let’s see what happens in Startled by His Furry Shorts, which we’ll discuss on July 26!

Confession: I have a lot of unread books on my bookshelves. Tuff life. It drives me bonkers every day, just looking at them, teasing me. I so badly want to read them all by yesterday. Because awesome new books come out every week. How is a bibliophile supposed to keep up? I receive new books pretty often to review, on top of buying ones that I’m interested in, and I really want to read all of them. Who knew being interested in so many things could bother you? :p But the only way I could do that is if I did nothing else. (Wouldn’t be the worst.)

If I could pick a super power right now, it would be to be able to read (and absorb) a book a day pic.twitter.com/6GtB6UbkPS

— Jessica Lewis (@papertraildiary) June 23, 2016

I know I’m not the only one with this problem. I see all you book bloggers and bookworms with your fantastic shelves on Instagram and know there’s just no way you could have read all those books. We can’t feel too guilty because we know we’re supporting authors, publishers and bookstores, and we’re interested in lots of stories, so let’s be proud and honest about what we have. 😉

I have….. 136 unread books on my shelves.

So, I challenge you! How many unread books are on your shelves? Share on Twitter and Instagram with #OurTrueShelves!

The Loose Ends List by Carrie Firestone, via Little Brown, out now.

[I received this book from Hachette Books Canada in exchange for an honest review; this did not affect my opinion of the book whatsoever.]

“Hey Mads, one more thing. I want to make sure you understand that this trip is not about poor, dying Gram.” She looks at me, her face serious. “That is not what I want from all of this. I want to have some laughs, and get you people out of your boring little lives. This is not about dying. It’s about living. Do you understand?”

Maddie is so close to finishing high school when she finds out that her beloved grandma has pancreatic cancer. But not only that – Maddie’s grandma, Astrid, has booked the entire family for an eight week summer ‘vacation’ on a death with dignity cruise to see her off in style. From Maddie’s Loose Ends List of things to do before she starts university, in which she had crossed out ‘change hair colour,’ to Astrid’s list that takes the family all over the world in order to say goodbye, you could say Maddie’s boat has been rocked.

Maddie is the kind of pretty girl who doesn’t drink but drives all her sloppy best friends home from parties, the kind of girl who is the proper popular girl in school. (So I got a kick out of her being brought down a few notches by randomly mentioning that she has IBS. *shrug*) Maddie is careful, focused and safe. She has a ‘scrunch face.’ She’s a bit self absorbed. Astrid wants their adventure to show Maddie how much she can be living by taking risks, jumping in head first and not asking questions. (So, obviously, this includes hooking up with someone, smoking weed, getting a tattoo and learning to accept death.) It is interesting to be along for that mental process.

Maddie belongs to a dysfunctional family which includes her drunk mom, boring dad, stoner brother, sexy cousin, senile aunt and gay uncles. Each of them have something to overcome on this adventure, and they all learn new things. Some of them take a front seat in the story, which I liked. And I enjoyed how ridiculous Astrid is, though I could never imagine my grandma acting that way. What I liked the most though was how the family interacts with the other families on the cruise – the ones who were dying and the ones who love them. It gives them perspective.

Maddie and her family have lived a pretty privileged lifestyle, and to be able to say goodbye to a loved one in such an extravagant way is quite a finale. Astrid’s wealth is never really explained, but it is endless enough that it can generously help every main character out. I’m talkin’ Astrid not only paid for 10 people to travel the world, but she also helps bankroll the cruise ship and has arranged to leave a significant amount for everyone once she passes. But it’s quite clear that we’re not supposed to be thinking about the money here, we’re supposed to be thinking about how people can learn and grow, it’s just something that stuck with me. Is this really realistic? Should it be?

When I started reading the book, I enjoyed its silliness and fluffiness. I was excited to travel the world through the characters. It was a pretty quick read, but around the middle it started to plateau and I was a little impatient and annoyed. I had a bit of a hard time keeping track of characters and locations because there were so many. It’s definitely a summer read – it’s cool to read books in the time frame that they take place in, too – and it’s best if you just abandon control and go along for the ride. There’s romance, adventure, and family problems galore! A winning mixture. This book also won major points from me because it’s the prettiest cover I’ve seen all year! I can’t stop looking at it!