Skater Boy by Anthony Nerada

Saturday, Mar. 8, 2025--San Antonio 

Skater Boy by Anthony Nerada is, I believe, the first book that I have ever read within 24 hours.  But after about 7 books in a row that didn't excite me much (even though some were well written), it was such a joy to be reading a book that kept me wanting to stay with it page-after-page that I even changed my daily routine to keep going until the end.  It was identified as one of the top novels for young adults from last year (although it likely will be banned from many school libraries because of its subject matter).  It's a coming-of-age novel about the lives of various misfits in their senior year of high school--the tough guys who are considered delinquents, the school nerds, those becoming aware of sexuality issues, etc.  The central character is one of the tough guys in a group of three who call themselves The Triads.  He has been rebelling because of events in his earlier life.  His father was an alcoholic and an abuser until he and his mother finally decided to try to escape.   But a tragic event occurred and they have been afraid of being found by the father for 9 years.  They live a lower-class life in a small apartment above a business.  He works at a local pizza place owned by the father of one of his friends in the Triads to help his mother with the expenses.  He cuts classes, gets into trouble often, and is in danger of failing and having to repeat his senior year.   He is also discovering that he is apparently gay and is afraid to come out to his friends or his mother.  But he has seen and met a ballet dancer who is the best friend of the daughter of his mother's boyfriend's boss when the "family" (mother, son, mother's boyfriend, and boyfriend's daughter) make their annual trip to the local theater during the Christmas season to see a performance of The Nutcracker.  That sets the stage for the coming-of-age events within the lives of multiple people during the final semester of their senior year.  Bad behaviors are analyzed and changed,  enemies come to understand they have more in common than they realized, and adolescents begin to mature and to make amends for the past.  I gave the book 4 1/2 stars out of 5.

Liars by Sarah Manguso

Friday, Mar. 7, 2025--San Antonio

Liars by Sarah Manguso is a book that took me some time to become invested in it.  It begins with tales of how horrible a marriage is.  The central character is the wife who is being mentally abused by her husband--a man who does nothing to help around the house or with their child, who is a frustrated because of being unsuccessful both as an artist and as a failed (3 times) tech entrepreneur, who is envious of his wife's successful writing career, who constantly manipulates her to feel like she is a failure (in all possible ways), and who regularly implies to friends that she is crazy by emphasizing that she received psychological treatment years before they were married and exaggerating the story as if she had been confined to a mental hospital.  At the same time, the woman keeps downplaying/overlooking/excusing the severity of the abuse while it continues to happen regularly.  I wanted to yell at her.  By the last third of the book, I realized that I had needed to go through all the first 2/3 to understand the situation better and to observe the slow evolution that was occurring in their relationship. I didn't want to put the book down during that last third of it.  I gave the book 4 stars out of 5.

Poor Dear by Claire Oshetsky

Monday, Mar. 3, 2025--San Antonio

Poor Dear by Claire Oshetsky has lots of good reviews.  I read it because of one on NPR.  But it was slow reading for me, especially in the beginning.  I spent the whole time I was reading the book trying to figure out exactly what was happening.  Margaret seems to be autistic with indications of high intelligence.  She teaches herself to read by looking at the books as someone reads to her.  She creates her own form of script to write the stories that appear in her mind.   She has a vocabulary that is far above what is expected of a child her age.  But at age 4, a tragedy occurs.  Her best friend is a bit of a wild child--always seeking adventure in dangerous ways.  While playing a game in an unused shed, the friend suggests a game and hides in an old ice chest that locks automatically when she closes the lid.  Margaret can hear her friend panicking and trying to get out of the chest, but Margaret cannot figure out how to operate the latch to free her.  She spends her whole life feeling guilt from that day with the entire town believing that the death of her friend was her fault.  Margaret's conscience seems to take the form of an imaginary animal called Poor Dear which is almost always around needling her about what happened and what she needs to do to atone for the death of her friend.  As the story progresses, there are good and bad experiences in Margaret's life, but the mental illness she is developing keeps interfering.  It's an open-ended book where the reader must decide what Margaret eventually does.  I gave the book 3 1/2 stars out of 5.

Most Ardently by Gabe Cole Novoa

Thursday, Feb. 20, 2025--San Antonio

Most Ardently by Gabe Cole Novoa was listed as a top book of 2024 by NPR and others.  It is a part of the "Remix" series where classic novels are reinterpreted by authors from marginalized backgrounds.  In this case, the original novel was Pride and Prejudice, and the character Elizabeth is written to be frustrated because "he" (who associates himself with the chosen name of Oliver) has always felt that he is a boy and hates being in dresses, does not ever want to get married, and, thanks to his older sister and two friends who know how he feels, is able to sneak out into society dressing and passing as a man.  (I assume the author is a transgender man and used his experience to reinterpret the character.)  Furthermore, the "awkward with women" character Darcy is reinterpreted as being attracted only to boys.  The story essentially follows the story of book that is being reinterpreted.  The aggressive mother is worried that her 5 daughters must find suitable men to marry because the family home/estate will be inherited by a distance male cousin as the closest male heir.  The father is still rather meek yet understanding (and in this version is coming to realize that his second daughter is more like a son than a daughter even though he does not completely understand the situation yet).  The character Wickham is still conniving to solve his money woes by marrying in a way that will solve those problems.  Etc.  It's an interesting concept.  To make the story work, the author has to overlook the general circumstances of the time for LGBTQ persons, but there is an addendum where he explains that there is historical evidence to support what he has written--evidence of the "male" member of a married couple being discovered as having female genitals upon death, for instance--and pointing out that there were no birth certificates at the time of the novel's setting so that a person could live as the opposite sex with no official records indicating that that he/she wasn't.  It is an easy read and is well written.  I gave the book 4 stars out of 5.  I probably will not read any others in this remix series, however.

Our Evenings by Alan Hollinghurst

Thursday, Feb. 13, 2025--San Antonio

Our Evenings by Alan Hollinghurst is on the "best list" of multiple publications for 2025.  I found the first half of it to be fantastic.  It was well written, gripping, and seemed very authentic for the experiences and thoughts of a young minority scholarship student attending an elite school.  I was ready to recommend it to everybody.  But the 3rd quarter of the book became a bland telling of event after event with gaps of time between them.  Maybe this was on purpose because one learns that the protagonist wrote much of the novel, then his husband wrote the rest from journal entries.  The final quarter of the book was a bit better, but the excitement for reading it never returned to that I enjoyed with the first half.  If the whole book was like the first half, I would have given it 5 stars.  However, my overall opinion now is that it should be rated 3 1/2 stars out of 5.

Woo Woo by Ella Baxter

Monday, Jan. 20, 2025--San Antonio

I did not find Woo Woo by Ella Baxter to be an enjoyable novel to read.  It took me 2 weeks to get through about 225 pages!  Some aspects of it were interesting to consider.  Some were very confusing.  The central character is a performance artist.  She creates life-size puppet characters using silicone, fur, bones, fabric, etc., which she wears for live performances, for taking photographs, etc.  She also specializes in nude performances which are presented live in person or online and from which photographs are made to sell in the gallery that represents her art.  She has followers who wait for her next broadcast and comment online as the performance is occurring.  She suffers greatly from anxiety as scheduled shows at galleries approach.  The book covers a few weeks before her biggest gallery opening so far.  The stress and worry of this approaching event is depicted.  She "sees and communicates" with a fellow artist who is deceased.  She procrastinates as the gallery owner asks her to write the blurb to be put into the program describing her works to be exhibited.  There is a stalker outside the house--standing in the garden, passing notes under the door, etc.  But is he real or imaginary?  She expects more attention from her unbelievably tolerant husband, a chef working long hours in his highly rated restaurant, than he can possibly provide.  She worries constantly that the show will not be a success.  She enters periods of excessively wild online performances creating havoc and messes.  She needs constant assurance from others that she is a good artist.  And when the owner of the gallery that represents her gives her the big show she needs and wants, she wants to make the decisions about how to present the show rather than leaving them to the owner.  I am sure there are artists like this woman.  How people in her life put up with her for very long, I don't understand.  I would be running away from any kind of relationship with her.  She is too needy, too self-centered, too anxious, etc.  I gave the book 3 stars out of 5 because I am sure it is a fairly well written description of what some artists are like.

There Is a Rio Grande in Heaven by Ruben Reyes, Jr.

Sunday, Jan. 5, 2025--San Antonio

There Is a Rio Grande in Heaven by Ruben Reyes, Jr., is a collection of short stories.  The stories are related to the experiences of Central American immigrants who came to the United States.  Some are science fiction set in the future (involving Central American immigrants).  Some have a gay male Central American immigrant as the protagonist.  The final story is written in a style of giving the reader options of what he wants to happen from one stage of the story to the next and provides the opportunity for going back and making different decisions at different points.  (This choice technique worked particularly well when reading on a Kindle.)  The stories were interesting, but I did not find myself dwelling on them after they were read.  In fact, as I progressed through the book, I had difficulty remembering stories I had already finished.  I can recommend the book for being interesting, but not for being great.  I gave the book 3 1/2 stars out of 5.