365 Days of Books

Alphabet of Dreams by Susan Fletcher - Mitra and her little brother are refugees hiding from the King. Their crime is that their father plotted against the King. They huddle in caves by night and beg or steal in the city during the day. Mitra is shocked to find that her brother can dream truth for people if he sleeps with an item of theirs against his body. With the help of another beggar, she finds a way to make some money out of the talent. Things seem to be looking up as Mitra and Babak have enough to eat and are able to start some savings but trouble comes when not only do the King's officers come close to finding them but their beggar aide sells Babak to a magi. Mitra sets out to find Babak; she disguises herself as a boy since both her people and the Magi have gender taboos.

There are many adventures, friendship, bad choices, and worry as Mitra and the Magi follow the bright star in the sky.

Night Fisher - R. Kikuo Johnson is a graphic novel set on Maui. Loren and his dentist father moved into paradise but have found the flaws. Their struggle to keep the jungle of weeds off their lawn mirrors their ongoing struggle to keep paradise working. Loren's father works more and more hours but is unable to keep up with the bills and house while Loren is losing his best friend and feels that his image and self need a maturity upgrade. Loren follows his best friend into crystal meth and stealing from construction sites only to reel as his friend flips back to a "good boy" leaving Loren wallowed in the mess.

In A Life in Smoke: A Memoir Julie Hansen details her life around smokers and as a smoker. She examines what it means to be addicted and the pain deep inside that calls for the soothing that smoking can give her. Rather drastically, in order to quit smoking, she has herself chained to the radiator with a long chain for a week. Every morning her husband locks her to the long chain and leaves her alone with her thoughts, household chores, and daytime tv.

It's a hard, desperate story.

Valiant, like Tithe is set in a world where fairies are not benevolent pretty things but rather both the Light and Dark Courts are horrifyingly beautiful and dismissive of the value of non-magical creatures.

Valerie Russel is betrayed by her mother and leaves her home in NJ for New York City. She changes her appearance and meets up with some other teens who are living in a subway tunnel and running errands for magical creatures. There is sex, drugs, magic, trolls, kidnapping, and a realization that the eye of the beholder is easier tricked than the heart of the beholder.

What I liked about Sagramanda were the tech ideas and the story idea. Alan Dean Foster chose a future India that still has many of the old ways and smells but with advancements that increase the split between the haves and havenots. What I didn't like was that it sometimes felt formulaic...like the old-time Bollywood films where you know they aren't going to kiss no matter how close and wet and romantic they seem to be getting. I might not know exactly what was going to happen but I knew what wasn't going to happen.

Strangers in Paradise #6 High School. Sixth in the series is probably not the best place to pick up this graphic novel series but I was seduced by Xena motif.

#6 High School did not inspire me to look for other books in the series.