What we're reading
- Eldest by Christoipher Paolini
- Genre: fantasy
- Summary: After successfully evading an Urgals ambush, Eragon is adopted into the Ingeitum clan and sent to finish his training so he can further help the Varden in their struggle against the Empire.
- series starts with Eragon
- Author biography; he was 15 years old when he wrote the first draft of Eragon
- The Cousins by Karen M. McManus
- Genre: mystery
- Summary: After receiving an invitation to spend the summer with their estranged grandmother, the Story cousins arrive at her house only to discover that she is not there, and the longer they stay on the island, the more they realize their mysterious family history has some deadly secrets.
- "Estranged family on an island" theme reminds us of We Were Liars by E. Lockhart
- The Rithmatist by Brandon Sanderson
- Genre: fantasy
- Summary: As Wild Chalklings threaten the American Isles and Rithmatists are humanity's only defense, Joel can only watch as Rithmatist students learn the magical art that he would do anything to practice.
- We Ride Upon Sticks by Quan Barry
- Genre: supernatural, also sports
- Summary: Set in the coastal town of Danvers, Massachusetts, where the accusations began that led to the 1692 witch trials ... follows the 1989 Danvers High School Falcons field hockey team, who will do anything to make it to the state finals-even if it means tapping into some devilishly dark powers.
- Here was the convo:
- Silvia: "One of them makes a deal with a devil."
- Group: WHOA!
- Rhiannon: "I do that weekly."
- Notes from a Young Black Chef by Kwame Onwuachi
- Genre: non-fiction, Lives
- Summary: By the time he was twenty-seven, Kwame Onwuachi had competed on Top Chef, cooked at the White House, and opened and closed one of the most talked about restaurants in America. In this inspiring memoir, he shares the remarkable story of his culinary coming-of-age.
- Hunter says the author also includes recipes
- Circe by Madeline Miller
- Genre: fantasy
- Summary: Follows Circe, the banished witch daughter of Helios, as she hones her powers and interacts with famous mythological beings before a conflict with one of the most vengeful Olympians forces her to choose between the worlds of the gods and mortals.
- Stepsister by Jennifer Donnelly
- Genre: fantasy
- Summary: Isabelle should be blissfully happy – she’s about to win the handsome prince. Except Isabelle isn’t the beautiful girl who lost the glass slipper and captured the prince’s heart. She’s the ugly stepsister who’s cut off her toes to fit into Cinderella’s shoe ... which is now filling with blood. When the prince discovers Isabelle’s deception, she is turned away in shame. It’s no more than she deserves: she is a plain girl in a world that values beauty; a feisty girl in a world that wants her to be pliant. Isabelle has tried to fit in. To live up to her mother’s expectations. To be like her stepsister. To be sweet. To be pretty. One by one, she has cut away pieces of herself in order to survive a world that doesn’t appreciate a girl like her. And that has made her mean, jealous, and hollow. Until she gets a chance to alter her destiny and prove what ugly stepsisters have always known: it takes more than heartache to break a girl.
- nominated for the 2022 Illinois Teen Choice Award
- Hunter: "I am never going to read any of the Grimm Brother's fairy tale versions because it will ruin my childhood."
- Etiquette & Espionage by Gail Carriger
- Genre: science fiction
- Summary: In an alternate England of 1851, spirited fourteen-year-old Sophronia is enrolled in a finishing school where, she is surprised to learn, lessons include not only the fine arts of dance, dress, and etiquette, but also diversion, deceit, and espionage.
- LMC will get book 2 because Yona asked. Just ask if you want to keep reading a series. As suggested at Book Club, "Have you ever heard of a thing called Amazon?"
- "Rick Riordan Presents" series
- books eries based on international myths
- Ananya recommends Aru Shah and the End of Time by Roshani Chokshi
- Genre: science fiction
- Summary: Twelve-year-old Aru Shah has a tendency to stretch the truth in order to fit in at school. While her classmates are jetting off to family vacations in exotic locales, she'll be spending her autumn break at home, in the Museum of Ancient Indian Art and Culture, waiting for her mom to return from her latest archeological trip. Is it any wonder that Aru makes up stories about being royalty, traveling to Paris, and having a chauffeur? One day, three schoolmates show up at Aru's doorstep to catch her in a lie. They don't believe her claim that the museum's Lamp of Bharata is cursed, and they dare Aru to prove it. Just a quick light, Aru thinks. Then she can get herself out of this mess and never ever fib again. But lighting the lamp has dire consequences. She unwittingly frees the Sleeper, an ancient demon whose duty it is to awaken the God of Destruction. Her classmates and beloved mother are frozen in time, and it's up to Aru to save them. The only way to stop the demon is to find the reincarnations of the five legendary Pandava brothers, protagonists of the Hindu epic poem, the Mahabharata, and journey through the Kingdom of Death. But how is one girl in Spider-Man pajamas supposed to do all that
- Educated by Tara Westover
- Genre: non-fiction, Lives
- Summary: Born to survivalists in the mountains of Idaho, Tara Westover was seventeen the first time she set foot in a classroom. Her family was so isolated from mainstream society that there was no one to ensure the children received an education, and no one to intervene when one of Tara’s older brothers became violent. When another brother got himself into college, Tara decided to try a new kind of life. Her quest for knowledge transformed her, taking her over oceans and across continents, to Harvard and to Cambridge University. Only then would she wonder if she’d traveled too far, if there was still a way home.
- A New History of the Future in 100 Objects by Adrian Hon
- Genre: science fiction
- Summary: Imagining the history of the twenty-first century through its artifacts, from silent messaging systems to artificial worlds on asteroids.In the year 2082, a curator looks back at the twenty-first century, offering a history of the era through a series of objects and artifacts. He reminisces about the power of connectivity, which was reinforced by such technologies as silent messaging--wearable computers that relay subvocal communication; recalls the Fourth Great Awakening, when a regimen of pills could make someone virtuous; and notes disapprovingly the use of locked interrogation, which delivers "enhanced interrogation" simulations via virtual reality. The unnamed curator quotes from a self-help guide to making friends with "posthumans," describes the establishment of artificial worlds on asteroids, and recounts pro-democracy movements in epistocratic states. In A New History of the Future in 100 Objects, Adrian Hon constructs a possible future by imagining the things it might leave in its wake.