If you are new to the thriller genre, like me, and want something that will keep you engaged and thinking, this is the book for you. I had only heard great things about this book and wanted to get into the genre, so I thought, why not let’s give it a go.

The book focuses on our main character Jess who is just a teenager going through the motions of high school and taking care of her sick sister. One day while walking to class, something shiny falls out of her friend’s backpack. It’s a cell phone. But it’s the 90’s. So what is a modern cell phone doing in the ’90s? Her friend brushes it off as if it were nothing but things only get weirder. Suddenly Anna’s on the run and trying to figure out a completely different world from the one she thought she knew. One thing leads to another, and Jess’ world gets flipped on its head.

Anna Carey lets the reader into Jess’ head, hearing her thoughts and worries and not having a single idea about what will happen next. Worried and scared, we walk through Jess’ experiences with her. 

I love this book and read it in two days, not being able to put it down. It was perfectly paced and made it easy to relate to Jess. Not that the average reader has gone through what she goes through in the book, but it is easy to understand her decisions and sympathize with her while gaining the same feelings about the same people.

I was pulled into Jess’ world and was enraptured, wanting to read it all at once, but at the same time loving it so much that I wanted to make it last. Anna Carey also perfectly sets up a sequel, and I hope it will be coming in the near future. 

Happy Reading!

Reviewed by Daniela S. Gram

RESERVE YOUR COPY OF This is not the Jess Show by Anna Carey

The Purple Bears of Berry Forest is a beautiful, and at times quite bittersweet story about the purple bears, who live on the berries they find in their forest. When they lose their home, they must journey to find somewhere new so they can survive. They travel far, meeting many other kinds of bears along the way and learning from them. Will they ever find a new home? 

This book explores the importance of home, and especially the homes of animals and how vital they are to their survival. However, this story is also an interesting starting point for discussions with younger children about climate change consequences, as well as issues about migration, acceptance, and integration. The illustrations throughout the book are truly artistic and wonderful full of detail and in a beautiful water-color style. 

The Last Bear is a whimsical story, perfect for any child who loves adventure and animals. It follows a young animal-loving girl named April, whose scientist father is sent to the Arctic for his job. April tags along and embarks on a journey to save a polar bear who has been separated from his home. This book also explores climate change in a way that is very accessible for younger readers to understand and is a great introduction into understanding climate change and collective responsibility. The language can at times be a bit advanced, but in a way that provides really great learning opportunities to expand comprehension skills and vocabulary. It is a really sweet story about love and respect of all living things, friendship, and courage, and will leave you hopeful and inspired.

Happy reading!

Emma

RESERVE YOUR COPY OF one or both 'bear' books

Imbolo Mbue’s How Beautiful We Were begins in the 1980’s, in a fictional village whose land has been invaded and occupied by an American oil company that plunders the areas resources, leaving the village and it’s children dying from toxic chemicals and poisoned water. 

Every eight weeks, the company representatives host a meeting in the village alongside the corrupt village leader, where concerns are voiced and promises for action are made, but the people have long since believing help will ever come. Their government is in cahoots with the oil company, leaving them to figure out for themselves how they will protect themselves and the future of their children. During the meeting, Konga, the madman of the village, stands and offers the villagers another avenue of action which will change the future of generations to come. 

This story explores the deep-rooted nuances of capitalism, neo-colonialism, power, and corruption, and “charts the ways repression, be it at the hands of a government or a corporation or a society, can turn the most basic human needs into radical and radicalizing acts”. 

Mbue has proved herself a skilled storyteller, whose prose is so vivid and will take you through an unbelievable range of emotion and into the thoughts of the characters. It left me feeling bittersweet, yet hopeful the fight would go on.

Happy reading!

Reviewed by Emma

RESERVE YOUR COPY OF How Beautiful We Were by Imbolo Mbue

The Committed by Viet Thanh Nguyen

The Committed is Viet Thanh Nguyen’s sequel to his 2015 novel The Sympathizer, which explores the ‘two minds’ of a sympathetic half-Vietnamese, half-French communist spy during the Vietnam war. 

We follow our nameless protagonist upon his arrival in Paris as a refugee, after having endured torturous re-education. Here, our narrator becomes involved with a criminal line of work, dealing drugs for a Chinese gangster as an attempt to escape his past and build a new future. 

Being of two minds, the Sympathizer finds himself both seduced and abhorred by the dominant French culture, on the one hand finding the capitalist and intellectual norm attractive, and on the other hand seeing France as a brutal colonizer, ignorant of its racial dominance and discrimination. 

As he grows increasingly plagued by his two minds, sympathizing with any and all sides of a dilemma, he becomes only more confused about who he is and what he believes – perhaps he believes only in nothing. The question he cannot seem to settle is: to what is he committed? 

This novel is full of philosophical reflections on Sartre, Voltaire, Césaire, which our protagonist uses to explore his internal conflicts, sometimes resulting in rants that last an entire page or two. This can at times feel a bit heavy, but it also works to carry the energy of desperation that the Sympathizer struggles to resolve. 

The novel comprehensively explores the contradictions of Western society, and particularly applies this in the context of refugee and immigrant experiences with discrimination and otherness. 

I found it to be a truly fascinating and complex novel and I couldn’t put it down. 

Happy reading!

Reviewed by Emma

RESERVE YOUR COPY OF The Committed by Viet Thanh Nguyen