Good Reads & Views

You had me at Hola by Alexis Daria
Fiction

What it’s about: Soap opera actress Jasmine Lin has just come out of a messy public breakup. She decides to focus on her career, and staring in “Carmen In Charge” is the way to go. But acting opposite Ashton Suarez is testing her to her limit.

Why you might like it: If you like your romances steamy while still having characters with depth, give this a try. The characters are drawn sympathetically with a dash of humor. The Latinx cast, with just a touch of Spanish language, provide an authentic multicultural experience.

Reviewers say: “This romance by a RITA award-winning writer is a sizzling hot and fun ode to soap operas” (LibraryReads); “Sexy, compelling, and complex—a terrific romance from a rising star of the genre” (Kirkus Reviews).

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The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas
YA Fiction

This sobering and gut-wrenching young adult novel deals with difficult issues—racial profiling, police brutality, bigotry, and the Black Lives Matter movement—with unflinching honesty and realism.  Like many sixteen-year-olds, Starr Carter acts one way at home and another at school, but for Starr the struggle to live in two worlds is amplified—she is one of the very few poor African Americans attending her wealthy upper middle class school. Starr maintains a tenuous equilibrium between the two, aided greatly by her strong family, and her good friends at school. That balance is shattered when Starr and her childhood friend Khalil are pulled over by a white police officer, who shoots and kills the unarmed Khalil. The case soon becomes national news, stirring up emotions in Starr’s neighborhood and at school. When protests become violent and some of her white friends express both overt and covert racism, Starr realizes she must either speak up for change, or remain quiet and keep her family safe. Starr’s character is authentic, and her story is told from a true adolescent perspective. Funny, tender, and sad.

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Into the Beautiful North by Luis Alberto Urrea
Fiction

Inspired by the movie “The Magnificent Seven,” four friends leave their Mexican village in search of seven men who can protect their town from drug-dealing thugs. Idealistic Nayeli, the group’s leader, is only nineteen, but her strong will and determination inspire her friends to follow her on this risky and dangerous quest. Her posse includes Yolo, a liberal thinking intellectual; goth-girl Vampi; and Nayeli’s boss, Tacho, probably the only gay man in their village. Along the way, they encounter a host of inventive and colorful characters who help or hinder them—the heroic warrior of the garbage dump, the young missionary once stationed in the village, the border agent who’s seen it all, and the darkwave metal band guitarist looking for love. This rollicking adventure is peppered with funny but sometimes gritty details that ground the book and make it real. 

A Tale for the Time Being by Ruth Ozeki
Fiction

History, quantum physics, biology, natural history, myth and Japanese culture are all interwoven in parallel stories that take place on opposite sides of the world. Ruth, an author experiencing writer’s block, finds a Hello Kitty lunchbox while walking on the beach. Inside is a packet of letters, an antique watch, and the diary of a teenage Japanese girl. Ruth becomes involved in uncovering the mystery of these documents—the diary recounts the life of 16-year-old Nao, her 104-year-old Zen Buddhist nun great-grandmother, and her suicidal father. As Ruth and her husband read the diary and begin to uncover information about the letters, more questions arise:  Did the package wind up on Vancouver Island as debris from the 2011 tsunami? Did Nao and her family survive the disaster? Why is the Jungle Crow, indigenous to Japan, making a home on the island? How are the letters and watch related to Nao? Beautiful descriptions and fully developed characters are highlights of an intricately plotted and slowly evolving story that will reward the patient reader.