Review of Knit Your Bit, by Deborah Hopkinson and Steven Guarnaccia

Historical, History, Picture Book Review 0

Knit Your Bit

A World War I Story

by Deborah Hopkinson
illustrated by Steven Guarnaccia

G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 2013. 32 pages.

Knit Your Bit is a historical fiction picture book. It’s based on the effort made by the American Red Cross during World War I to have people across the country “knit your bit” to provide soldiers in the trenches with warm clothes to get through the winter.

The picture book looks at a boy named Mikey and his sister Ellie. Their father has gone to war. Ellie decides right away to learn to knit for Pop, but Mikey thinks knitting is for girls. However, with the announcement of a Knitting Bee in Central Park and the girls saying that the boys are scared to learn, Mikey and two friends form a Boys’ Knitting Brigade to try to beat the girls.

The historical aspect of this picture book makes it extra interesting. I love the photos on the endpapers from actual World War I knitting groups, and the sheep that President Wilson kept on the White House lawn. An Author’s Note at the end gives more details, including a song that ends like this:

We are knitting for the boys over there;
It’s a sock or a sweater, or even better,
To do your bit and knit a square.

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Disclosure: I am an Amazon Affiliate, and will earn a small percentage if you order a book on Amazon after clicking through from my site.

Source: This review is based on a library book from Fairfax County Public Library.

Disclaimer: I am a professional librarian, but I maintain my website and blogs on my own time. The views expressed are solely my own, and in no way represent the official views of my employer or of any committee or group of which I am part.

Review of The Mighty Lalouche, by Matthew Olshan and Sophie Blackall

Historical, Picture Book Review, Starred Review 0

The Mighty Lalouche

by Matthew Olshan
illustrated by Sophie Blackall

Schwartz & Wade Books, 2013. 40 pages.
Starred Review

Magnifique!

One hundred and a few-odd years ago, in Paris, France, there lived a humble postman named Lalouche. He was small, Lalouche, and rather bony, but his hands were nimble, his legs were fast, and his arms were strong.

For company, he kept a finch named Geneviève.

When Lalouche loses his job because the postal service wants to use the new electric cars, he sees an ad for boxers. Lalouche is much smaller than the other boxers, but he overwhelms them with his speed and agility, and wins every time.

There’s a final showdown with The Anaconda, but Lalouche takes up the cry, “For country, mail, and Geneviève!”

However, despite all Lalouche’s surprising success, stationery stores with envelopes and stamps still make him sad. The happy ending turns that all around and makes the reader think about what success really means.

So, it’s all a charming story. There are even photos in the back and an author’s note that French boxing was actually like that – where speed and agility could win out over muscle and bulk.

But what makes this book over-the-top wonderful are the cut-out illustrations by Sophie Blackall. (Well, okay, and the way the story is perfectly paced to match them.) They have amazing attention to detail and wonderfully give the feel of nineteenth-century France. Let me strongly encourage you to check out this book and look at the pictures yourself. I have little doubt you’ll be charmed as well.

I am going to feature this book in a “Family Storytime” at the library. It’s too much fun to keep to myself.

For country, mail, and Geneviève!

matthewolshan.com
sophieblackall.com
randomhouse.com/kids

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Disclosure: I am an Amazon Affiliate, and will earn a small percentage if you order a book on Amazon after clicking through from my site.

Source: This review is based on a library book from Fairfax County Public Library.

Disclaimer: I am a professional librarian, but I maintain my website and blogs on my own time. The views expressed are solely my own, and in no way represent the official views of my employer or of any committee or group of which I am part.

Review of Rose Under Fire, by Elizabeth Wein

Historical, Starred Review, Teen Fiction Review 0

Rose Under Fire

by Elizabeth Wein

Hyperion, New York, September 2013. 346 pages.
Starred Review

Rose Under Fire is one of the Advance Reader Copies I was happiest about snagging at ALA Annual Conference, and one of the first ones I read. Rose Under Fire is listed as a “companion novel” to Code Name Verity, and you don’t have to have read Code Name Verity to enjoy this novel. However, I recommend reading Code Name Verity first, for the simple reason that once you read Rose Under Fire, you’ll know who lives and who dies in the earlier book.

Rose Under Fire doesn’t have a killer plot twist like Code Name Verity. Although some of the characters we love appear, this is a very different book. It’s still about World War II, but this one is a concentration camp book.

Now, I’ve read an awful lot of concentration camp books. (As a child, I read The Hiding Place, by Corrie ten Boom, which Elizabeth Wein said in an interview she also read as a child and got her obsessed with Holocaust stories.) It’s not a cheery topic at all, and just when you think you know the story, this one comes along.

The fact is, Elizabeth Wein is a masterful writer. I love this book because I love the characters, which she makes come to life in her own unique way. This particular concentration camp book focuses on a group of Polish prisoners who underwent experimental surgery the Nazis performed on them and were then held at Ravensbrück.

But we start with a young American girl pilot name Rose Justice. She’s helping out in England, not flying in combat zones, but transporting planes. But then when she gets a chance to take a plane to France, something goes wrong, and she ends up captured by Nazis and sent to Ravensbrück.

Rose is a poet, and her poems are worth bread to her fellow prisoners. And they find out each others’ stories.

Here they are talking about how they came to Ravensbrück:

“I landed my plane in the wrong place,” I said.

Ró?a snickered and leaped into the conversation. “I was arrested for being a Girl Scout. They arrested my whole Girl Scout troop in the summer of 1941. I was fourteen.”

I gaped at her.

“We were delivering plastic explosive for bombs,” she said. “You know, little homemade bombs to sabotage officials’ cars and throw in office windows. Most of us got released, but they kept the oldest — and I didn’t stand a chance, because I’d actually been stopped at a checkpoint and, well, it was pretty obvious I was smuggling explosive. You know how it is when you’re fourteen — you think you’re so much smarter than everybody else and nothing will ever hurt you. . . .” She trailed off, wiping her own bowl with her last crumb of bread, and then said in her offhand way, “They didn’t beat me, but they made me watch while they beat my mother, trying to get me to tell them who I was working for. Lucky for me I didn’t know. Someone always dropped off the stuff in our baskets with a note that said where to take it. They beat the crap out of our Girl Scout leader and then they shot her. So, 51498, what were you doing when you were fourteen?”

I think what made me love this book, once I’d gotten a little way in, was how richly the author draws the characters. They’re distinctive and individual. And they’re holding on to hope that one day they will let the world know what has happened.

elizabethwein.com
un-requiredreading.com

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Disclosure: I am an Amazon Affiliate, and will earn a small percentage if you order a book on Amazon after clicking through from my site.

Source: This review is based on an Advance Reader Copy I got at ALA Annual Conference.

Disclaimer: I am a professional librarian, but I maintain my website and blogs on my own time. The views expressed are solely my own, and in no way represent the official views of my employer or of any committee or group of which I am part.

Please use the comments if you’ve read the book and want to discuss spoilers!

Review of The Fitzosbornes at War, by Michelle Cooper

Historical, Starred Review, Teen Fiction Review 2

The Fitzosbornes at War

by Michelle Cooper

Alfred A. Knopf, New York, 2012. 552 pages.
Starred Review

This is the third and final volume about the royal family from the Island of Montmaray, a fictional island in the ocean between England and Spain. After the Nazis took over their kingdom in Book One, Sophie and her family have been living in exile in England.

Like the second book, The Fitzosbornes in Exile, the third volume is not as action-packed as the first book, A Brief History of Montmaray, when we had the original conflict with the Nazis and life-or-death confrontation. This book is more along the lines of Downton Abbey, only one war later, showing us how things were socially during World War II.

But Sophie and Veronica do have much more freedom than in the second book, when they first came to England. They both get jobs to help with the war effort, and send Sophie’s little sister Henry off to boarding school – if they can find one that will take her. Toby and Simon, of course, end up fighting.

This book covers the entire period of war between England and Germany. Since you know who won World War II, I think it’s safe to tell my readers that they get rid of the Nazis on their island. I won’t say how and when.

But most of the book is about the events of World War II from the ground. Yes, there’s some heartbreak here. And lots of bombing and fighting and danger. And, yes, Sophie’s growing up and ready to find a husband. Which reminds me – don’t leaf to the back of the book if you can resist. There’s a family tree at the back which shows all the marriages and children at the end of the book and gives quite a bit away.

This is a long book, and it moves at a rather leisurely pace. (I actually was spurred on to finish by looking at the family tree.) But I do believe that those who have already come to know and love Sophie and her family will be happy to spend more time seeing the world through Sophie’s eyes. You’ll get a taste of what it must have felt like to live during World War II while you’re at it.

MichelleCooper-Writer.com
randomhouse.com/teens

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Disclosure: I am an Amazon Affiliate, and will earn a small percentage if you order a book on Amazon after clicking through from my site.

Source: This review is based on a library book from Fairfax County Public Library.

Disclaimer: I am a professional librarian, but I maintain my website and blogs on my own time. The views expressed are solely my own, and in no way represent the official views of my employer or of any committee or group of which I am part.

Please use the comments if you’ve read the book and want to discuss spoilers!

Review of Dodger, by Terry Pratchett

Adventure, Historical, Starred Review, Teen Fiction Review 0

Dodger

by Terry Pratchett
read by Stephen Briggs

Dreamscape Media, 2012. 9 compact discs, 10 hours, 32 minutes.
2013 Printz Honor Book
Starred Review

I had planned for quite some time to read this book, but this is one where the audio should not be missed. Dodger is set in Victorian London, and yes, this is the Dodger from Dickens’ books and “Charlie” Dickens is a prominent character. So all the British accents, from the street people to the “nobs” add so much to the book.

Dodger is a “tosher” — someone who goes through the sewers looking for lost treasures like coins or jewelry. Only recently have nobs started dumping their waste in the sewers — originally they were built by the Romans to manage rainwater. And Dodger is good at his job, a veritable king of the toshers.

But one day during a storm, he comes up out of the sewers to see a young lady being beaten and forced back into a carriage. He rescues her, and both their lives will never be the same. That’s also when Dodger meets Charlie, who with his friend gets the girl to safety.

But it turns out that this girl’s fate is tied to international politics. There are powerful people who want her dead, and when Dodger gets on their wrong side, they’d also like Dodger dead. Along the way, Dodger has other notable adventures, such as encountering a villainous barber (Or is he villainous?) named Sweeney Todd.

This audiobook had me mesmerized from the start. In the first place, Terry Pratchett knows how to turn a phrase. (That’s the one problem with audiobooks. I can’t quote choice bits for you.) But as well as that, we’ve got the exotic but completely historical location — the sewers and streets of Victorian London. We’ve got international intrigue. We’ve got assassins after our hero. And we’ve got clever plots and counterplots. And we’ve got a clever, plucky hero who makes good.

Wonderful storytelling! Gripping adventure! Fascinating history! And my favorite: Great British accents! You can’t go wrong with this book.

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Disclosure: I am an Amazon Affiliate, and will earn a small percentage if you order a book on Amazon after clicking through from my site.

Source: This review is based on a library audiobook from Fairfax County Public Library.

Disclaimer: I am a professional librarian, but I maintain my website and blogs on my own time. The views expressed are solely my own, and in no way represent the official views of my employer or of any committee or group of which I am part.

Please use the comments if you’ve read the book and want to discuss spoilers!

Review of Speaking From Among the Bones, by Alan Bradley

Fiction Review, Historical, Mystery, Starred Review 0

Speaking From Among the Bones

by Alan Bradley

Delacorte Press, New York, 2013. 378 pages.
Starred Review

Hooray! Another installment in the detective novels about Flavia de Luce, eleven-year-old genius and poison aficionado.

In this book, the locals are celebrating the quincentennial of the death of Saint Tancred by opening his tomb. Along the way, they find a dead body that is not five hundred years old, but rather that of their missing organist. Naturally, Flavia ends up gathering the clues to find the murderer.

I enjoyed this book immensely. There’s another clever puzzle for Flavia to solve while bicycling around the neighborhood. This time, she and her sisters weren’t nearly as mean to each other, and I enjoyed the respite. It looks like their beloved Buckshaw will have to be sold, which pulled them together. The book did end with a bombshell regarding their family, which stresses that these books should be read in order. Those who have read so far will be delighted as I with the latest installment.

Here are a few fun sections:

Ordinarily, anyone who made such a remark to my face would go to the top of my short list for strychnine. A few grains in the victim’s lunch pail — probably mixed with the mustard in his Spam sandwich, which would neatly hide both the taste and the texture . . .

It wasn’t until I was nearly home — not, in fact, until I was sweeping past the great stone griffins that guarded the Mulford Gates — that I realized I had overlooked two very important things. The first was that business of the bat, and how it had managed to get into the church. The second was this: If the tomb in the crypt was occupied by the remains of Mr. Collicutt, where on earth, then, were the bones of Saint Tancred?

Whenever I’m a little blue I think about cyanide, whose color so perfectly reflects my mood. It is pleasant to think that the manioc plant, which grows in Brazil, contains enormous quantities of the stuff in its thirty-pound roots, all of which, unfortunately, is washed away before the residue is used to make our daily tapioca.

I knew that the instant life ends, the human body begins to consume itself in a most efficient manner. Our own bacteria transform us with remarkable swiftness into gas bags containing methane, carbon dioxide, hydrogen sulfide, and mercaptan, to name just a few. Although I had for some time been making notes toward a future work to be called De Luce on Decomposition, I had not had until that moment any real, so to speak, firsthand experience.

There you have it: An old-fashioned cozy mystery with a precocious and delightfully bloodthirsty sleuth in postwar England. Tremendous fun!

flaviadeluce.com
bantamdell.com

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Disclosure: I am an Amazon Affiliate, and will earn a small percentage if you order a book on Amazon after clicking through from my site.

Source: This review is based on a library book from Fairfax County Public Library.

Disclaimer: I am a professional librarian, but I maintain my website and blogs on my own time. The views expressed are solely my own, and in no way represent the official views of my employer or of any committee or group of which I am part.

Please use the comments if you’ve read the book and want to discuss spoilers!

Review of Imperial Purple, by Gillian Bradshaw

Fiction Review, Historical, Old Favorites, Starred Review 0

Imperial Purple

by Gillian Bradshaw

Houghton Mifflin Company, Boston, 1988. 324 pages.
Starred Review

Imperial Purple is the first Gillian Bradshaw book I ever read, a gift from my sister Becky many, many years ago. The book is wonderful, and is the one that started me on one of my favorite authors.

Gillian Bradshaw is fabulous at Historical Fiction. She studied classics at Cambridge and must have done vast amounts of research. Imperial Purple is set in the fifth century A.D. Demetrias is a skilled weaver in Tyre, and her husband Symeon is a purple-fisher. There in Tyre they make purple cloth that only royalty can wear.

And then Demetrias is called to the procurator and given an assignment for a purple cloak with two tapestry panels. But it is specified to be the wrong length for the emperor. And she is told to do it in complete secrecy. She knows someone is plotting treason. But what can she do about it? She is a slave of the state, and so is her husband. The prefect is clearly in on the plot. If anyone in power finds out, they won’t hesitate to torture Demetrias to find out what she knows.

Demetrias plans to finish as quickly as possible and get rid of the thing. Her husband Symeon wants to find someone powerful to entrust with the secret. But when their fears are realized, they end up thrust on their own resources.

Woven into the political intrigue and the fascinating historical details is a beautiful love story between a husband and a wife. They both face a long journey and great danger, and you will delight in the twists and turns of the tale. I love the way Gillian Bradshaw’s Author’s Note at the end explains that these events actually could have taken place. Not much is known about the time, but the main historical figures mentioned all existed and went in and out of power as in the story.

I think this is about the third time I’ve read Imperial Purple, and I fondly hope it won’t be the last.

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Disclosure: I am an Amazon Affiliate, and will earn a small percentage if you order a book on Amazon after clicking through from my site.

Source: This review is based on my own copy, a gift from my sister Becky.

Disclaimer: I am a professional librarian, but I maintain my website and blogs on my own time. The views expressed are solely my own, and in no way represent the official views of my employer or of any committee or group of which I am part.

Please use the comments if you’ve read the book and want to discuss spoilers!

Review of The Wolves of Willoughby Chase, by Joan Aiken, read by Lizza Aiken

Alternate History, Audiobooks, Children's Fiction Review, Historical, Starred Review 0

The Wolves of Willoughby Chase

by Joan Aiken
read by Lizza Aiken

Listening Library, 2012. The book was written in 1962. 5 hours on 4 compact discs.
Starred Review

Why had I never read The Wolves of Willoughby Chase before? I remember seeing it as a child, and I think I may have even checked it out once, but it looked far too dark for me. (I never have really liked dark books.) This time reading it, I was completely enchanted. Yes, the girls triumph over adversity, but I wouldn’t even call this book “dark” now that I’m an adult. I guess the Edward Gorey illustrations were too much for me.

And this 50th anniversary production is especially delightful in that it’s read by the author’s daughter. And she talks at the beginning about the writing of the book and the adversity her mother faced in her own life. Her mother had a gap of ten years in writing, and read the chapters to her children when she finally took it up again. For me, this inside information made me enjoy the story all the more.

The story is wonderful. As they point out in the introduction, we’ve got orphan girls with everyone set against them. They must figure out a way to escape and somehow set things to rights, and they do so on their own power. The sinister wolves add atmosphere and drama and probably too much darkness for the little girl I once was. But this audio production would make marvelous family listening. (If it gets too scary, you can comfort any little ones listening.)

The story is old-fashioned and melodramatic, but there’s so much to love. This classic was #57 in Betsy Bird’s Top 100 Children’s Novels Poll. I’m so glad I’ve finally read it.

listeninglibrary.com

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Disclosure: I am an Amazon Affiliate, and will earn a small percentage if you order a book on Amazon after clicking through from my site.

Source: This review is based on a library audiobook from Fairfax County Public Library.

Disclaimer: I am a professional librarian, but I maintain my website and blogs on my own time. The views expressed are solely my own, and in no way represent the official views of my employer or of any committee or group of which I am part.

Please use the comments if you’ve read the book and want to discuss spoilers!

Review of P.S. Be Eleven, by Rita Williams-Garcia

Children's Fiction Review, Historical 0

P.S. Be Eleven

by Rita Williams-Garcia

Amistad (HarperCollins), 2013. 274 pages.

P.S. Be Eleven is a sequel to the brilliant, multiple-award-winning One Crazy Summer. We get to see Delphine and her two younger sisters when they go home to their Pa and their grandmother, Big Ma.

They write to their mother, whom they left back in Oakland. The title comes from her letters to Delphine, the tag on the end. I commented in my review of the earlier book, “It wrenches my heart to hear of kids being forced to take on the responsibilities of a parent when they should just be a kid.” Cecile (their mother) is a fine one to tell Delphine to “be eleven,” since it was pretty much her fault Delphine was forced to mother her younger siblings all summer. Though I can’t help but be glad someone’s telling her to.

In this book, she deals with more ordinary, though interesting, eleven-year-old things. School friendships and rivalries. A new teacher, on an exchange program from Zambia. Trying to earn money to go to a Jackson Five concert. The sixth-grade dance. Their Pa is thinking about marrying and giving them a stepmother. Their Uncle Darnell is coming back from Vietnam.

I came to love these three girls in the first book, so I was glad to read on. But I have to admit this book doesn’t feel nearly as momentous and important as One Crazy Summer. There, they were taken up with big events, getting involved with good work the Black Panthers were doing. In P.S. Be Eleven, the events are more ordinary slice-of-life. That’s good for our characters, because we want Delphine to get to be a kid, but it doesn’t make for as dramatic a book.

And the plot did take some turns I didn’t like. Which isn’t necessarily a weakness. I’m just saying it’s not as happy a story as I might have hoped. I didn’t get some of the actions the adults took. Why did Pa react to their disappointment in the way he did? Why did Big Ma suddenly make a big change? And the story involving Uncle Darnell is just plain sad.

The book isn’t as unified as the first, taking place over half a school year instead of a summer. The events don’t all flow together as well.

Bottom line, I was happy to again spend time with these girls. I’m going to continue to strongly recommend One Crazy Summer, and those who want more will, like me, happily take up the next book. I’m glad that Delphine is learning to be a kid, going from Eleven to Twelve.

ritawg.com
harpercollinschildrens.com

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Disclosure: I am an Amazon Affiliate, and will earn a small percentage if you order a book on Amazon after clicking through from my site.

Source: This review is based on a library book from Fairfax County Public Library.

Disclaimer: I am a professional librarian, but I maintain my website and blogs on my own time. The views expressed are solely my own, and in no way represent the official views of my employer or of any committee or group of which I am part.

Please use the comments if you’ve read the book and want to discuss spoilers!

Review of Eleanor & Park, by Rainbow Rowell

Audiobooks, Award Winners, Historical, Romance, Starred Review 0

Eleanor & Park

by Rainbow Rowell

read by Rebecca Lowman and Sunil Malhotra

Listening Library, 2013. 9 hours on 7 compact discs.
Starred Review
2013 Boston Globe-Horn Book Award Winner

Sigh. I didn’t want this book to end. I hated going to work today, having to stop in the middle of the last CD. When I got home, I didn’t even think for a moment of leaving the CD in the car. (And I’d done the same thing on CD 5, finishing it in the house.)

I’ve always liked slow-burn romance, romance that shows the characters, slowly, realistically, falling in love over time, rather than just looking at someone and suddenly falling for them. This book is a realistic, slow, beautiful, exquisite love story.

I loved listening to the story. I liked the way you’d hear what one character was thinking, and then it would jump to the other character’s viewpoint. However, now that I’m writing the review, I wish I had the print book to share good bits with you.

I did *not* like the ending. However, considering that the Eleanor & Park were studying Romeo & Juliet in school (Eleanor being contemptuous that it’s called tragedy), and considering the parallel nature of the title, and that this was also a teenage love story between teens from very different backgrounds — well, it could have ended much worse. I was afraid all along this would end as badly as Romeo & Juliet. This isn’t too big a spoiler: Nobody dies.

But I hated the ambiguity of the very end. And there are many secondary characters whose fates I really want to know about. The author gave us so much detail along the way, is it too much to ask for a little bit of detail at the end? (Apparently it is.) I want to know more!

So you’ve been warned about the ending. But the journey is totally worth it. It starts toward the beginning of the school year when a new girl — Eleanor — gets on the school bus, and no one will let her have a seat. Park finally scoots over and gives her half of his seat, but they don’t even speak to one another for weeks. The back-and-forth narration shows us each one starting to wonder about the silent person on the bus. Then Eleanor starts reading Park’s comics over his shoulder. They still don’t speak.

Meanwhile Eleanor’s dealing with bullying in gym class and an awful situation at home, with four little brothers and sisters to worry about as well. Park’s problems are more along the lines of his Dad making him learn to drive a stick before he’ll let him get his license. As things progress, Eleanor cannot let her family find out about Park.

There were so many little things that rang so true. I liked the way neither would admit they were boyfriend and girlfriend until well after Park had gotten in a fight over something said to Eleanor.

The audio was wonderful and had me driving to and from work almost in a trance. It’s not family listening, though. It’s a love story, and their feelings do grow in passion, which could be quite embarrassing for younger listeners. (I love the way they each marvel separately over how amazing it feels to hold hands. Things do progress from there, but this doesn’t jump straight to making out without giving the small steps along the way their due.) I was listening in the car by myself, so I didn’t have to worry about embarrassment, but the descriptions struck just the right note of wonder and passion, without feeling trite.

If you’re ever in the mood for a love story, I highly recommend this one.

listeninglibrary.com

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Find this review on Sonderbooks at: www.sonderbooks.com/Teens/eleanor_and_park.html

Disclosure: I am an Amazon Affiliate, and will earn a small percentage if you order a book on Amazon after clicking through from my site.

Source: This review is based on a library book from Fairfax County Public Library.

Disclaimer: I am a professional librarian, but I maintain my website and blogs on my own time. The views expressed are solely my own, and in no way represent the official views of my employer or of any committee or group of which I am part.

Please use the comments if you’ve read the book and want to discuss spoilers!