Read Game Craft

A Peoples’ History of Heaven by Mathangi Subramanian Release Date: March 19, 2019. Preorder it here. Synopsis : In the tight-knit community known as Heaven, a ramshackle slum hidden between luxury high-rises in Bangalore, India, five girls on the cusp of womanhood forge an unbreakable bond. Muslim, Christian, and Hindu; queer and straight; they are full of life, and they love and accept one another unconditionally. Whatever they have, they share. Marginalized women, they are determined to transcend their surroundings.   When the local government threatens to demolish their tin shacks in order to build a shopping mall, the girls and their mothers refuse to be erased. Together they wage war on the bulldozers sent to bury their homes, and, ultimately, on the city that wishes that families like them would remain hidden forever. Source: Received an egalley from Algonquin A People...

When I first started this blog, my guidelines for the books I would read were that they would be by and about women. Hopefully, I would maximize the amount that the books I read would include and focus on characters who are also otherwise marginalized. Recently I've been thinking about how this limits me, but I'm still not really interested in writing about a bunch of straight, white guys. Luckily, Henry Montague (Monty) is only two of those things and Percy is only one. I've also been thinking about changing the name of my blog, but I have no idea what I would change it to. So if you have any ideas let me know. You can order it from Amazon  here . This book follows Henry Montague and his best friend Percy and Monty's younger sister Felicity as they embark on a Grand Tour of Europe. Along their way, they're supposed to drop Felicity off at finishing school in Marseilles. Their tour is turned on its head when Monty steals something he thinks is just a useless...

Since my list of books I was looking forward to in the Fall was so popular, I thought I'd make a list of books that I'm looking forward to coming out this Spring. Most of these will be coming out in March and April and might give you some ideas for books to read over Spring Break.  Obsidio by Amife Kaufman and Jay Kristoff (Releasing March 13) Obsidio is the third installment in The Illuminae Files.  While you could mostly read the second installment before the first, it seems that the third is best read after the first two. This is not official, but is my opinion based on the synopsis.  Synopsis (May be spoilers for 1&2) Kady, Ezra, Hanna, and Nik narrowly escaped with their lives from the attacks on Heimdall station and now find themselves crammed with 2,000 refugees on the container ship, Mao. With the jump station destroyed and their resources scarce, the only option is to return to Kerenza—but who knows what they’ll find seven months after the invasion?...

I would've preferred to have written this post a earlier in the month instead of almost halfway through, but I also figured that reading stories by and about black people should be limited to just this month. So I'd rather present this month as an opportunity to read and learn some new things and to continue that beyond just this month. If you only read one book off of this list this month you'll have plenty to read later as you go through the rest of the year. I also wanted to make sure I was sharing books by black authors because I and other white people have said enough and I'd rather take this as a chance to point you to the voices that you should lend an ear to. These authors are all doing really amazing things in literature and the world as a whole. I haven't read all of these because this list also serves as a reading list for me to educate myself. Dear Martin by Nic Stone Justyce McAllister is top of his class and set for the Ivy League—but none o...

Publisher: Balzer and Bray Release Date: September 8, 2015  Synopsis: Mira is starting over at Saint Francis Prep. She promised her parents she would at least try to pretend that she could act like a functioning human this time, not a girl who can’t get out of bed for days on end, who only feels awake when she’s with Sebby. Jeremy is the painfully shy art nerd at Saint Francis who’s been in self-imposed isolation after an incident that ruined his last year of school. When he sees Sebby for the first time across the school lawn, it’s as if he’s been expecting this blond, lanky boy with mischief glinting in his eye. Sebby, Mira’s gay best friend, is a boy who seems to carry sunlight around with him. Even as life in his foster home starts to take its toll, Sebby and Mira together craft a world of magic rituals and impromptu road trips, designed to fix the broken parts of their lives. As Jeremy finds himself drawn into Sebby and Mira’s world, he begins to understand the secre...

Synopsis for Six of Crows (because the synopsis of Crooked Kingdom has spoilers for the first book): Ketterdam: a bustling hub of international trade where anything can be had for the right price--and no one knows that better than criminal prodigy Kaz Brekker. Kaz is offered a chance at a deadly heist that could make him rich beyond his wildest dreams. But he can't pull it off alone... A convict with a thirst for revenge. A sharpshooter who can't walk away from a wager. A runaway with a privileged past. A spy known as the Wraith. A Heartrender using her magic to survive the slums. A thief with a gift for unlikely escapes. Six dangerous outcasts. One impossible heist. Kaz's crew is the only thing that might stand between the world and destruction―if they don't kill each other first. I just finished Crooked Kingdom a few minutes ago, and I have so many feelings. First of all, it was wonderful. Second of all, this duology was so stressful to read. I ...

Title: The Sun Is Also A Star  Author: Nicola Yoon Publisher: Delacorte Press Release Date: November 1, 2016 My Rating: 4.5/5 Natasha:  I’m a girl who believes in science and facts. Not fate. Not destiny. Or dreams that will never come true. I’m definitely not the kind of girl who meets a cute boy on a crowded New York City street and falls in love with him. Not when my family is twelve hours away from being deported to Jamaica. Falling in love with him won’t be my story. Daniel:  I’ve always been the good son, the good student, living up to my parents’ high expectations. Never the poet. Or the dreamer. But when I see her, I forget about all that. Something about Natasha makes me think that fate has something much more extraordinary in store—for both of us. The Universe:  Every moment in our lives has brought us to this single moment. A million futures lie before us. Which one will come true?  The main thing I have to say about this book is how absolut...

Title: Lies We Tell Ourselves Author: Robin Talley Publisher: Harlequin Teen Release Date: September 30th 2014 I'd heard about this book online a lot and had wanted to pick it up for a while and finally did once I had enough money.  Synopsis: In 1959 Virginia, the lives of two girls on opposite sides of the battle for civil rights will be changed forever. Sarah Dunbar is one of the first black students to attend the previously all-white Jefferson High School. An honors student at her old school, she is put into remedial classes, spit on and tormented daily. Linda Hairston is the daughter of one of the town's most vocal opponents of school integration. She has been taught all her life that the races should be kept separate but equal. Forced to work together on a school project, Sarah and Linda must confront harsh truths about race, power and how they really feel about one another. Boldly realistic and emotionally compelling, Lies We Tell Ourselves is a brave and stunning ...

Title: Tell Me Again How a Crush Should Feel Author: Sara Farizan Publisher: Algonquin Young Readers Rating: 3/5 Synopsis (taken from Amazon):  High-school junior Leila has made it most of the way through Armstead Academy without having a crush on anyone, which is something of a relief. Her Persian heritage already makes her different from her classmates; if word got out that she liked girls, life would be twice as hard. But when a sophisticated, beautiful new girl, Saskia, shows up, Leila starts to take risks she never thought she would, especially when it looks as if the attraction between them is mutual. Struggling to sort out her growing feelings and Saskia’s confusing signals, Leila confides in her old friend, Lisa, and grows closer to her fellow drama tech-crew members, especially Tomas, whose comments about his own sexuality are frank, funny, wise, and sometimes painful. Gradually, Leila begins to see that almost all her classmates are more complicated than they firs...