49. Wild Bird by Wendelin Van Draanan

read on my iPhone
2017 Knopf
320 pgs.
YA CRF/Survival
Finished  June 6, 2018
Goodreads rating:  4.22 - 966 ratings
My rating: 5
Setting: Contemporary southern Utah desert

First line/s:  " 'Wren...'
     My name is floating around me.  Bounding on the clouds in my mind.
     'Wren, wake up Wren.....'
     Everything's cocoony.  Drifty.  The clouds are so soft."

My comments:  What a story!

I can’t decide what the best part of this book was, but I know I really enjoyed all its “layers,” the way it unfolded, how the past was revealed in bits and pieces.  And it was a truly believable story, both the bad stuff and the good stuff.  Setting and description – wonderful. Characterization – also wonderful, getting to know the protagonist and all the side characters was pitch perfect. Plot – mesmerizing.And as much as I would love to know exactly what happens next, I’m pretty sure it’s already accurately represented in my mind. There should be more books like this. And lastly, I’m really, really grateful that this book had a FEMALE protagonist.

Goodreads synopsis: 3:47 a.m. That's when they come for Wren Clemens. She's hustled out of her house and into a waiting car, then a plane, and then taken on a forced march into the desert. This is what happens to kids who've gone so far off the rails, their parents don't know what to do with them any more. This is wilderness therapy camp. 
          The Wren who arrives in the Utah desert is angry and bitter, and blaming everyone but herself. But angry can't put up a tent. And bitter won't start a fire. Wren's going to have to admit she needs help if she's going to survive.
          In her most incisive and insightful book yet, beloved author Wendelin Van Draanen's offers a remarkable portrait of a girl who too a wrong turn and got lost--but who may be able to find her way back again in the vast, harsh desert. 

18. American Street by Ibi Zoboi

read on my iPhone
20117, Balzer & Bray
336 pgs.
YA CRF
Finished 3/25/17
Goodreads rating: 4.14 (601 ratings)
My rating: 2 and 4
Setting: Contemporary inner city Detroit

First line/s: "If only I could break the glass between me and Manman with my thoughts alone."

My comments: I have no clue how or what to rate this book.  It took me to a place that I don't know.  At all.  What happens when a smart immigrant girl from Haiti is thrust directly into the midst of the toughest streets of contemporary Detroit without the mother who has always nurtured and guided her and with only her voodoo spirit guides and street-savvy cousins?  Will that girl do anything - anything - to get her imprisoned mother back?  I don't know what it's like to be a black American or a black immigrant, I don't know what it's like to live in the inner-city with its full share of violence and drugs.  I don't know anything about Haiti, or voodoo.  And a much as I try to empathize, all I know is what I hear on the news.  This book takes you much closer than the news.  Much.  Closer.  And it's heartbreaking.

Goodreads synopsis:  The rock in the water does not know the pain of the rock in the sun.
          On the corner of American Street and Joy Road, Fabiola Toussaint thought she would finally find une belle vie—a good life.
          But after they leave Port-au-Prince, Haiti, Fabiola’s mother is detained by U.S. immigration, leaving Fabiola to navigate her loud American cousins, Chantal, Donna, and Princess; the grittiness of Detroit’s west side; a new school; and a surprising romance, all on her own.
          Just as she finds her footing in this strange new world, a dangerous proposition presents itself, and Fabiola soon realizes that freedom comes at a cost. Trapped at the crossroads of an impossible choice, will she pay the price for the American dream?

12. The Buried Book by D. M. Pulley

listened on Audible
read by Luke Daniels
2016 Lake Union Publishing
412 pgs.
Adult Historical Fiction/Mystery
Finished 2/28/17
Goodreads rating: 3.99 (3,515 ratings)
My rating: 4.5
Setting:1952 Michigan farm country just outside of Detroit

First line/s:  "Jasper."
"Mmmm," he mumbled.
"Jasper, wake up."

My comments:  Although this book was somewhat slow-going at times, I couldn't wait to find out what was going to happen next.  There were many things to like about the book:  the storyline, the setting, the point of view, and the characters.  Set in 1952, mostly in the rural farmland of Michigan, the story is told through the eyes of a nine-year-old boy, a nine-year-old who is trying to make sense of his very complicated world.  The world of 65 years ago is very different from the world of today...but it is also very similar.  Corruption, drugs, moonshine, degenerate (in this case) males taking advantage of young females, horrible treatment of Native Americans, poverty, dishonest cops, holier-than-though Christians....oh my, there were some very bleak parts.  But well worth the read.  All in all a very well told story that I will not easily forget.

Goodreads synopsis:  When Althea Leary abandons her nine-year-old son, Jasper, he’s left on his uncle’s farm with nothing but a change of clothes and a Bible.
          It’s 1952, and Jasper isn’t allowed to ask questions or make a fuss. He’s lucky to even have a home and must keep his mouth shut and his ears open to stay in his uncle’s good graces. No one knows where his mother went or whether she’s coming back. Desperate to see her again, he must take matters into his own hands. From the farm, he embarks on a treacherous search that will take him to the squalid hideaways of Detroit and back again, through tawdry taverns, peep shows, and gambling houses.
          As he’s drawn deeper into an adult world of corruption, scandal, and murder, Jasper uncovers the shocking past still chasing his mother—and now it’s chasing him too.

MOVIE - Moonlight

R (1:50)

Limited release 10/21/16

Viewed 11/29/16 at the Loft with Sheila

RT Critic: 98   Audience:  91
Critic's Consensus:   Moonlightuses one man's story to offer a remarkable and brilliantly crafted look at lives too rarely seen in cinema.

Cag: 4.5 - for the most part, I liked this movie a whole lot

Directed by Barry Jenkins (who also wrote it)

Plan B Entertainment

My comments:  I loved parts one and two.  A lot. But part three threw me off a bit.  The physical change in the main character is too extreme.  He was intensely skinny in the first two parts, and even though he'd bulked up incredibly, he didn't have the leanness that I felt he still would have had.  So it was hard to relate to him as the same character.  And this third part went at what seemed to me like a slower pace.  The story, as a whole, was so sad and so well told - my heart breaks for kids who are brought up in drug-addicted households and poverty, and for kids who have to deal with intense bullying, mentally and physically.  Our world.....or at least some parts of it.  Horrible.

RT/ IMDb Summary:  The tender, heartbreaking story of a young man's struggle to find himself, told across three defining chapters in his life as he experiences the ecstasy, pain, and beauty of falling in love, while grappling with his own sexuality.