The Weight of Our Sky (review)

The Weight of Our Sky

by Hanna Alkaf

A music-loving teen with OCD does everything she can to find her way back to her mother during the historic race riots in 1969 Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, in this heart-pounding literary debut.

Melati Ahmad looks like your typical moviegoing, Beatles-obsessed sixteen-year-old. Unlike most other sixteen-year-olds though, Mel also believes that she harbors a djinn inside her, one who threatens her with horrific images of her mother’s death unless she adheres to an elaborate ritual of counting and tapping to keep him satisfied.

But there are things that Melati can’t protect her mother from. On the evening of May 13th, 1969, racial tensions in her home city of Kuala Lumpur boil over. The Chinese and Malays are at war, and Mel and her mother become separated by a city in flames.

With a 24-hour curfew in place and all lines of communication down, it will take the help of a Chinese boy named Vincent and all of the courage and grit in Melati’s arsenal to overcome the violence on the streets, her own prejudices, and her djinn’s surging power to make it back to the one person she can’t risk losing.

Rating: 5 stars

 

I had heard a lot of good about this book and it did not disappoint. It was probably one of my favorite books in a long time and reminded me why I love historical fiction. I’m desperate now to read more stories like this and can’t seem to find any that comes close to this important story.

 

This story deals with a lot of hard topics such as two groups fighting against each other, the violence that indigenous people often face, mental illness, grief, and a lot more. And it was all handled well and in a way that made you desperate for more of it and more stories like it. The way this story deals with these difficulties is amazing and very well done. It handles this history well, as an author who knows what happened and understands the emotions that this event occurred. Mel as a character is interesting and real. She’s flawed and brave and willing to do what she must to survive.

 

The mental illness element in this story is so important. It’s realistic of a person who is suffering from untreated OCD. Real OCD, not what people like to pretend is OCD. As someone who has been in a similar space, of a different mental illness, it felt as real as my own moments so close from breaking apart. Of course, this story also plays the fact mental illness was treated in a totally different manner as of today. There was insane asylums and the fear of being left there, of lobotomies. It of course then touches on religion and the belief that a Djinn is the fault for her behavior. I think this was well done. Djinns are real creatures according to the Muslim religion, so to think it was corrupting her thoughts was logical for her to believe. And it’s important to understanding her story. My favorite part however was that there was no magical fix. Mel is forced into a horrible situation that shock and the stress of it almost completely breaks her before she has a moment of clarity. After, she still suffers from her OCD but she realizes she has some control of it. The amount of triggers she faces in this week that the story takes place is mind blowing. But she’s strong and is able to live through it when others failed.

 

I loved this story and I highly recommend it. But like the author, I do not recommend it if you aren’t in a good headspace. There is a full list of triggers in the start of the book that you should look over before reading. It did nearly trigger my own depression more than once, was faced with horrors that felt almost real. It’s what makes this story so important, but you need to look after yourself first.

Review: Trail of Lightning

Trail of Lightning

by Rebecca Roanhorse

While most of the world has drowned beneath the sudden rising waters of a climate apocalypse, Dinétah (formerly the Navajo reservation) has been reborn. The gods and heroes of legend walk the land, but so do monsters.

Maggie Hoskie is a Dinétah monster hunter, a supernaturally gifted killer. When a small town needs help finding a missing girl, Maggie is their last—and best—hope. But what Maggie uncovers about the monster is much larger and more terrifying than anything she could imagine.

Maggie reluctantly enlists the aid of Kai Arviso, an unconventional medicine man, and together they travel to the rez to unravel clues from ancient legends, trade favors with tricksters, and battle dark witchcraft in a patchwork world of deteriorating technology.

As Maggie discovers the truth behind the disappearances, she will have to confront her past—if she wants to survive.

Welcome to the Sixth World.

Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ (and 5x 💜)

 

Part fantasy, part dystopian novel, this book brings these genres into a new light and giving us something we haven’t read it based on Native American history and beliefs. The world has been just about destroyed by global warming and Native Tribes have once again taken back whats left of the United States, now known as Dinétah. The novel is heavy with Native American terms, history, beliefs, and more. Which is what brings a new level to this genre and makes an exciting read that’s near impossible to put down. Maggie, the main character, is strong, fierce, and admits she’s no hero. She drives the story and keeps things from ever getting slow. She drives the pace for the fact she can’t seem to slow down. She faces off with monsters and gods, making friends and enemies (a lot of enemies) on the way.

I loved every second of this. I had seen the hype for it on twitter and was extremely interested so I added it to my edelweiss, where the publisher then contacted me to tell me I could get it on Netgalley, after a struggle of trying to get it for a week on Edelweiss. I basically stopped reading everything for this book. And I have zero regrets about it. It probably renewed a love for more Urban-esq Fantasies and even Dystopian worlds. It’s so unlike any book I’ve read and in part, it’s because of how the author drew from her culture. I have a basic knowledge of some Native American tribes and history in part because I’ve taken classes at my college, but I admit, I didn’t know a lot fo the things mentioned in the story or locations until after (it just happens this week we’re learning about one of the big locations in the book). It’s why I’m saying this now: don’t let that scare you away from the story if you don’t know. Take time to read this and use google if you need to. Learn about another culture through this amazing book. The book isn’t written for most of us, but it doesn’t mean you can’t sit down and try it and enjoy it like I did. Which I’m happy I did, it’s joined the group of one of my all time favourite reads.

Maggie as a character is similar to a lot of dystopian female characters, the difference, she’s hard and fierce because she was raised that way by gods. She learned to hunter monsters because of who took her in and due to her clan powers. She actually has a blood lust built into her. But she’s leveled out by Kai, a man she meets who’s a medicine man who doesn’t believe in violence and tries to tell Maggie that there are other ways of going about different then she always has. Kai is a balancing force while also one new to the area, having lived outside of Dinétah, though still knows a lot more then a lot of readers might being Native himself. There are characters who aren’t Native, we meet a mixed race family later in the book who is African American and white. And of course, there are plenty of gods running around this story.

Why this book matters: it was written by a Native American author who draws on their own culture in a way a lot of people outside of it might not know. They avoided the normal Native stereotypes that white people have branded them with while a the same time using those familiar ideas and twisting them to the correct way. There are Medicine Men, Monster Hunters, Warriors, Outlaws, and simple people just trying to survive.

Do I recommend? Uh, yeah. If you haven’t really been paying attention, I’m basically yelling that you should preorder this now and learn about a culture that deserves to be heard. This story and series is my new everything.

 

Review: Love, Hate, and Other Filters

 Love, Hate & Other Filters

by Samira Ahmed

A searing #OwnVoices coming-of-age debut in which an Indian-American Muslim teen confronts Islamophobia and a reality she can neither explain nor escape–perfect for fans of Angie Thomas, Jacqueline Woodson, and Adam Silvera.
American-born seventeen-year-old Maya Aziz is torn between worlds. There’s the proper one her parents expect for their good Indian daughter: attending a college close to their suburban Chicago home, and being paired off with an older Muslim boy her mom deems “suitable.” And then there is the world of her dreams: going to film school and living in New York City—and maybe (just maybe) pursuing a boy she’s known from afar since grade school, a boy who’s finally falling into her orbit at school.
There’s also the real world, beyond Maya’s control. In the aftermath of a horrific crime perpetrated hundreds of miles away, her life is turned upside down. The community she’s known since birth becomes unrecognizable; neighbors and classmates alike are consumed with fear, bigotry, and hatred. Ultimately, Maya must find the strength within to determine where she truly belongs.

Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

 

My first review on here for the year and it was definitely worth the wait. This own voice story is already my favourite read so far this year and we’re only almost done Januaray now.

This story is about Maya, an Indian Muslim teen living in white suburbia, being the only brown person in town besides her parents. The title tells you exactly what to expect from this story, Maya finds love in different forms, finds hate in different forms, and moving past traumatic experiences. Maya finds love of a friendship of a fellow Muslim Indian, who her parents would have loved for her to date, but it didn’t work that way. She finds love in a boy named Phil who seems to like her, but walls get put in their way when a terrorist attack occurs in their state, leaving Maya and her family threatened and even attacked. But Maya manages it all as the strong young woman she is, an insane amount of character growth left in her wake.

This book does something that isn’t done too often. It tells the story of Maya but at the end of each chapter talks about the coming terrorist attack. It’s done in both first person and third person, giving the read a whole new perspective of the read.

The writing in this story was drop dead amazing. I fell with Maya in swoony dreams over the boys she crushes on (despite not liking boys myself, it was simply impossible not to get caught up in her own emotions), the real fear after such traumatic events, leaving me with a number of panic attacks as some of you know. However, that in itself is good. I would hope a book that dealt with tough issues would cause the reader to panic with the main character, to feel all their feelings. And in the world we live in today, a lot of us still have trauma from these sort of events that it’s hard not to let these emotions coming rushing from you. Not only that, but much as other books that deal with tough family situations that leave children in a tough disiciouson, without any spoilers, I felt for Maya at the end of the book, having to face such a choice myself with my own father. For someone who also faced such a reality, it isn’t easy, but I do believe she made the right choice for her, even if her parents couldn’t agree.

Would I recommend? 100%. Go get this book. Read it, love it. Come back here and gush about it for me.

What do you guys think of books that deal with tough issues that we deal with so often such as bigotry, islamaphobia, racism, terrorism, and more? What are some of your favourite own voice stories you’ve read so far?

The Poet X

by Elizabeth Acevedo

A young girl in Harlem discovers slam poetry as a way to understand her mother’s religion and her own relationship to the world. Debut novel of renowned slam poet Elizabeth Acevedo.
Xiomara Batista feels unheard and unable to hide in her Harlem neighborhood. Ever since her body grew into curves, she has learned to let her fists and her fierceness do the talking.
But Xiomara has plenty she wants to say, and she pours all her frustration and passion onto the pages of a leather notebook, reciting the words to herself like prayers—especially after she catches feelings for a boy in her bio class named Aman, who her family can never know about. With Mami’s determination to force her daughter to obey the laws of the church, Xiomara understands that her thoughts are best kept to herself.
So when she is invited to join her school’s slam poetry club, she doesn’t know how she could ever attend without her mami finding out, much less speak her words out loud. But still, she can’t stop thinking about performing her poems.
Because in the face of a world that may not want to hear her, Xiomara refuses to be silent.

I really loved this book. It lived up to all the hype it’s gotten since it’s announcement and I’m so thankful I was able to read it. Xiomara is a first generation American who is trying to balance her life as such the best she can. Her family is from the Dominican Republic and her mother is extremely religious, only having married her husband to get to America. She tries to force these beliefs on Xiomara and her twin brother. But Xio is finding herself and questioning the things she’s known all her life. She does so through poetry and is able to find her voice in it. But this doesn’t come without hardships and cruelty when her mother finds out she’s dating a boy and about the poems themselves.

The writing in this book is simply beautiful. It’s done through poetry as Xio tells us the events that are some of her hardest to deal with. It makes these events more personal and brings you closer to her as a character. Though this book is something that is more focused on other first generation Americans that have to deal with finding a balance between their culture and the world they live in, I think a lot of people can still relate to different parts of this, such as questioning things your told to believe such as God and different things such as rules set by parents at this age.

I do warn that there is a lot of difficult subjects in this book such as abuse, sexual harassment and assault, sex, and a little bit about drugs. Sadly it’s something that a lot of people have to face, more so now it seems then ever. I think this book handled it well though and more than once I couldn’t help thinking how important this book is on subjects that are currently in the focal point of our news.

I highly recommend this book. It might not be for you, but it’s not written for you. This book is for all the first generation teens and adults out there. It’s about culture and finding balance. Even if it isn’t for you, I recommend it to better understand such issues people face.

Rating: 5 stars

You Bring the Distant Near

by Mitali Perkins

Five girls. Three generations. One great American love story. You Bring the Distant Near explores sisterhood, first loves, friendship, and the inheritance of culture–for better or worse. Ranee, worried that her children are losing their Indian culture; Sonia, wrapped up in a forbidden biracial love affair; Tara, seeking the limelight to hide her true self; Shanti, desperately trying to make peace in the family; Anna, fighting to preserve Bengal tigers and her Bengali identity–award-winning author Mitali Perkins weaves together a sweeping story of five women at once intimately relatable and yet entirely new.

I really loved this book. It takes place over 2 generations, first through the 70’s then through early 2000’s, with a bit of their mother/grandmother thrown in to break up the two generations. It’s a lovely story about Indian immigrants who move from London to the US. They simply try to survive, but when their father dies, the women of the family break from tradition. Sonia marries an African American that her mother doesn’t approve of while Tara marries the man that her family was trying to arrange a marriage for the two of them, but because she fell for him. Instead of letting male family members honor their father, they do, Sonia cutting off her hair while Tara returns her father’s ashes to where he was born. We then skip to their daughters growing up, Chantel learning what it means to be Bangali and African American and Anna what it means to live in her cousin’s shadow and learning that she can still be American and Bangali. But the biggest growth in this book comes from Ranee Das, the matriarch of the family. She goes from being a negative and racist character to one that accepts anyone that loves her girls to becoming American herself. It’s a lovely transformation that leaves you proud of her and rooting that she gets a happy ending herself.

The writing in this book is lovely. I probably read most of the book in one night because it became near impossible to put it down. The characters are interesting and realistic and completely their own persons. With so many people and so many generations, you might worry they would all start to blend together, but they don’t. The only thing I wish was different is that we got a small window into Tara’s life as an adult like we did Sonia. But Tara’s story stops being about American, where this story focuses on the American side of it.

This story is perfect for today. It talks about issues we’re still facing in 2017 from racism to immigration to trying to find where you are in this world and who you are. There simply was no one better than the Das women to tell this story.

I highly recommend this book. In a time like now, we need stories like this desperately as a reminder what America truly is supposed to be, not what its current state is.

Rating: 5 stars

American Panda

by Gloria Chao

An incisive, laugh-out-loud contemporary debut about a Taiwanese-American teen whose parents want her to be a doctor and marry a Taiwanese Ivy Leaguer despite her germophobia and crush on a Japanese classmate.
At seventeen, Mei should be in high school, but skipping fourth grade was part of her parents’ master plan. Now a freshman at MIT, she is on track to fulfill the rest of this predetermined future: become a doctor, marry a preapproved Taiwanese Ivy Leaguer, produce a litter of babies.
With everything her parents have sacrificed to make her cushy life a reality, Mei can’t bring herself to tell them the truth–that she (1) hates germs, (2) falls asleep in biology lectures, and (3) has a crush on her classmate Darren Takahashi, who is decidedly not Taiwanese.
But when Mei reconnects with her brother, Xing, who is estranged from the family for dating the wrong woman, Mei starts to wonder if all the secrets are truly worth it. Can she find a way to be herself, whoever that is, before her web of lies unravels?

American Panda is about Mei Lu in her first year at MIT, only 17 years old after skipping a year. Living with the weight of her parents planned out future for her, she finds herself confronting hard truths such as the fact due to her germaphobia being a doctor might not be in her future after all and how her parents handle this fact, or really, lack of handling it in the same way they had with her older brother Xing.

American Panda is probably one of my favourite books I’ve read this year (Yeah yeah I know I say that every time, but it’s true!). It handles a lot of difficult issues that aren’t always discussed and does it in a fashion that’s realistic. Some issues including racism within Asian communities, disownment, germaphobia, not living up to parents expectations, and being the person you really are. Mei as a character is shy but extremely sassy when pressed. Honestly, I fell in love with her soon after starting the book and it only grew the more I read about her. She’s brave and brutally honest when she needs to be the most but is also sweet enough to stand up for people, even complete strangers.

Every relationship in this book in all honesty is handled well and with care, even characters that are more off to the side are fleshed out and brought to life. I’m not always the biggest fan of straight relationships, but the one between Mei and Darren is so sweet you will get cavities. It’s done in a way that’s sweet but real, Mei worrying that her family might lead to Darren hurt from everything she had witnessed with Xing and his girlfriend Esther. The relationship with Xing and Mei is the perfect example of siblings with a big age gap between them, something I know well with my older brother being 10 years older then I am. It reminded me of my brother and myself a lot and it hit me with happiness to see our relationship mirrored in this book.

I could go on forever about this book, but I’m gonna keep away from too many spoilers, just the hints of issues that occurred in the book that leads the plot, as mentioned above. All I’ll say is my life mirrored Mei’s in a lot of ways. One event in particular was almost dead on for what happened after I came out with my dad’s side of the family. All I’ll say is, I’m happy Mei went, even if it led to a huge fight with her family, it gave her the chance to grieve properly, which I sadly never got to chance to do myself.

I highly recommend this book. Its the right amount of sweet and adorable with real life issues that happen to people throughout life and it’s handled beautifully. Also, hot chocolate wins every day.

Rating: 5 stars