Category: Staff Picks

Prez, Vol. 1: Corndog-In-Chief by Marl Russell

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prezIn a world where corporations have the power to rule the world, where social media has infiltrated presidential elections, and when the age restriction on who can run for president has been abolished, you know things are bound to get interesting really quick. Prez, Vol. 1: Corndog-In-Chief tells the tale of this messed-up world and all the deals happening behind the scenes.

In the not so distant future, 2036 to be exact, the world is topsy-turvy. People vote for elections via Twitter, corporations have the ability to run for President, and a strain of cat flu has infested the world, one that costs millions of dollars to cure and that is infecting people worldwide. One of the people infected and dying is Beth Ross’ father. Beth becomes viral-video famous, an internet celebrity named Corndog Girl, after an unfortunate incident at the fast food restaurant where she works.

The country is in the midst of a presidential election, one that is being controlled behind the scenes by a few major corporations. Two candidates have been presented, but a famous video blogger has chosen to endorse Corndog Girl for President instead! She’s eligible to become president, something the corporations never believe would happen, so they write her off. Joke’s on them! She becomes president and soon finds herself thrown into a messed-up world of politics and corporate power grabs. Beth is left to fill her cabinet with people she can trust and all the while try to figure out how if she has the power to take back control of this upside-down world. This graphic novel is full of snark, witty social media commentary, and a glimpse into what our lives could possibly be like if corporations are given more control over our way of life.

Low, Volume 1: The Delirium of Hope by Rick Remender

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low v1Low, Volume 1: The Delirium of Hope by Rick Remender blew all of my science fiction/fantasy/graphic novel expectations out of the water. Even though the woman on the cover, Stel Caine, the matriarch of the Caine family, is wearing heels, she is an incredibly strong and powerful leader who leads her family and community through despair. Her belief that human consciousness can change your reality pushes her through dark times, leading her to believe deeply that hope can change anything, no matter what the people around her may say or do or what her current circumstances are.

In this first volume, Low begins by introducing you to the Caine family, mom Stel, dad Johl, and their three kids. Many millennia in the future, humanity was forced to abandon the earth’s surface and take refuge underwater because of the sun’s intense radiation. They knew that living underwater would only prove to be a temporary solution as the sun’s radiation would reach them eventually. As a result, the first batch of mankind to live under the waves sent probes into the galaxy to look for inhabitable worlds, knowing their great-great grandchildren would be the only ones who would benefit from the results. Generations later, the Caine family is in control, fighting off invaders and trying to keep their lives together. A great disaster alters their family forever and the Caines are forced to reach deep within themselves to try to find the strength to survive. Grief cannot be given control leading Stel to work to find a solution to both the loss of her family and the necessity of finding a new inhabitable world quickly.

Tocchini’s artwork grew on me. His work is sketch-like with colors that are rich, but also at the same time, muted. His style of drawing really leads you into the different scenes and the different places underwater that the characters find themselves traveling to. I recommend you check this out! (I’m currently deep in the second volume, so stay tuned for a review of that one!)

Bizarro by Heath Corson

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bizarro

Everyone loves a good superhero, right? They swoop in and save the day, leaving the public stunned at their magnificent feats of strength and good will. Not all superheroes are worshipped though. Enter in Bizarro. Bizarro is Superman’s opposite in every way. From the way he speaks to the way he flies, Bizarro is truly Superman’s mirror opposite.

In this first volume of Bizarro by Heath Corson, Jimmy Olsen, one of Superman’s friends, finds himself on a roadtrip with Bizarro from Metropolis to Bizarro America, aka Canada. Jimmy has an ulterior motive: he wants to create a coffee table book of their adventures, something that will hopefully make him lots of money. Road-tripping with Bizarro turns a little crazy when he introduces Jimmy to Colin, his pet chupacabra, and when Bizarro takes the two of them off on strange and funny adventures. This graphic novel allows readers to follow Bizarro’s mixed-up life and the messes both Jimmy and Bizarro inevitably end up entangled in. I hope future volumes will give readers more of a look into Bizarro’s back story.

Corson is giving new life to Bizarro in this first volume, highlighting all the differences between Superman and Bizarro and even giving the superstars of Metropolis multiple cameos in this book, a shout-out fans of Superman are sure to enjoy. This addition of familiar people to Bizarro’s world helped me ground and better understand this book. (The way Bizarro speaks may push you out of this book, but I encourage you to stick with it and just remember that he always means the opposite of what he is actually saying.) Happy reading!

All the Bright Places by Jennifer Niven

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all the bright placesAll the Bright Places by Jennifer Niven handles difficult topics for teens, from emotional problems and mental illness to death and suicide, but in such a way that everything is written eloquently and seriously, showing the consequences of all actions, no matter how big or small. Niven’s characters are beautifully written. The story really captures the heartbreaking yearning for everything to end up alright by showcasing a compelling search for hope when all seems lost.

All the Bright Places is told from the points of view of two high school students, Theodore Finch and Violet Markey. Theodore and Violet meet on the ledge of the bell tower at their school. Finch is fascinated with death, chronicling ways to kill himself. Something good stops him from hurting himself every time. Violet has a countdown until graduation, when she can finally leave Indiana and start a new life away from the aftermath of her older sister’s death.

That first meeting is the start of a very unlikely relationship between the freak, outcast boy, Finch, and the popular, yet damaged girl, Violet. This book weaves an exhilarating and  charming, yet simultaneously heartbreaking, love story between the two that immediately draws you in. When Violet and Finch then pair up on a class project to discover the natural wonders of their state, they learn more about each other than they initially thought. Death-fascinated Finch and future-focused Violet find hope and help by working with each other. Their lives will be forever changed.

This book is also available as an audiobook. If you use RiverShare OverDrive, our e-book and audiobook service, you can check out All the Bright Places as an e-book, as well as an audiobook.

Faker by Mike Carey

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fakerWhat if you woke up one day and no one recognized who you were? What would you do? Would you think it’s a practical joke? Would you think something was seriously wrong?

What if you had lived your whole life hiding from memories of your past; terrible, horrible memories that you’d blocked from your mind? What if you had secrets you wanted no one else to know, be they good or bad?

What if all of a sudden someone else knew all your secrets, all your previous actions, and thought those memories were actually theirs? What would you do?

All of the above scenarios happen in Mike Carey’s graphic novel, Faker. In Faker, readers follow the lives of five college students: Yvonne, Marky, Sack, Jessie, and Nick. Jessie shows up a few days before the semester begins to meet with teachers and get everything sorted before the semester begins. After all of her friends show up and the house has been reunited, they decide to head out and party. Yvonne, Marky, Sack, and Jessie end up drinking in one of the science labs in the college with Marky mixing up drinks for them. Soon they all end up violently ill, throwing up everywhere, and passing out until morning when Nick finds them all incoherent on the floor. Thinking they are just hung over, all four go on with their lives.

Things quickly start to escalate out of control when people start not to recognize Nick. People that knew Nick from last year, people he worked with, people he even hooked up with have no clue who he is. Nick also seems to have access to memories that aren’t actually his. Everyone in the group starts throwing around ideas about what could actually be wrong with Nick, while some decide to do their own investigations. This graphic novel is a psychological horror story involving memory drugs, pharmaceutical labs, government conspiracies, and the strength of friendship as all hell breaks loose when no one knows what the truth really is. The beginning of Faker had a bit of a slow start for me, but toward the middle and definitely at the end, I was thoroughly hooked in the story and the conspiracy that was threaded through everything.

Alpha Docs: The Making of a Cardiologist by Dan Munoz

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alpha docsAlpha Docs: The Making of a Cardiologist follows Dan Muñoz through his training to become a cardiologist at Johns Hopkins Hospital. This medical nonfiction highlights Muñoz’s first year of his fellowship at Johns Hopkins, a year where he does a rotation through all of the fields of cardiology: preventive care, nuclear medicine, echocardiography, intensive care, heart failure and transplantation, and electrophysiology. He takes the time to explain the workings of each different cardiology field and tries to decide which area he will end up in after his fellowship is over.

Alpha Docs walks readers through complicated procedures, but in layman’s terms, so that they are easily understandable. Throughout this book, Muñoz talks about how this fellowship is allowing him to search, learn, and discover more about his place in medicine. I really enjoyed his breakdown of each profession and how within each rotation, the cardiologists do very different things, but that there is an overarching goal for all: to keep learning and training and practicing medicine to provide better healthcare for patients. This book really showed the different stages that certain doctors go through while trying to find their niche in the world, while also providing an in-depth look into such a highly sought after fellowship at Johns Hopkins.

Quarter Life Poetry: Poems for the Young, Broke and Hangry by Samantha Jayne

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quarter life poetryQuarter Life Poetry: Poems for the Young, Broke and Hangry by Samantha Jayne is a poetry collection for the disheartened, for the hungry, for the post-college 20-somethings who really thought they would have their life completely together by now. In other words, while reading this book, I felt like it was written for me. This is a book of comedic poetry, one that poses short, amusing, and remarkably light-hearted, sarcastic comments about life that we thought we would have figured out by now.

Samantha Jayne is an actress and writer who lives out in Los Angeles. One of the things she has become famous for are her popular Tumblr and Instagram accounts, Quarter Life Poetry, where she posts snappy four-lined poems about her life as a 20-something post-college. She has poems paired with related images on topics ranging from work, money, sex, life, student loans, love, and any/every other challenge that people going through life post-college are faced with on a daily basis.

Jayne’s poetry really captures what it’s like when you find out that yet another one of your friends in pregnant while you’re just trying to keep a plant alive, how you feel trying to pay off your student loans while working a 40 hour a week job that doesn’t allow for much of a social life, and also how it feels to be stuck in a dating scene with what seems like the less than desirables right after college. Jayne perfectly illustrates the fact that students in college think life post-college is glamorous, when in reality, the post-college adults know that being in your 20s is really all about just trying to find yourself amongst piles of student loan debt, cheap take-out, and the more-than-occasional trip to the store to buy more wine. While this book was marketed towards post-college 20-somethings, it is a quick, short read that people of all ages can enjoy as they reminisce on their post-college life.

Futuristic Violence and Fancy Suits by David Wong

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futuristic violence and fancy suitsScience fiction and fantasy are not genres that I normally read, but I decided that I needed to expand outside of my comfort zone and started to look for a book that I would enjoy. On a list of best adult books for young adult readers, I discovered Futuristic Violence and Fancy Suits by David Wong. This book immediately intrigued me based on two parts: the machine gun/cat cover and the fact that the cat is named Stench Machine. (It’s a bit scary just how little it takes to get me interested in a book, isn’t it?) Cracking this book open, I was hooked.

Futuristic Violence and Fancy Suits tells the story of Zoey Ashe, a young girl from a trailer park who lives with her very smelly cat, Stench Machine, and her mother, a waitress at a topless bar. Zoey is living her normal day-to-day life, unaware that a pack of villains from her nightmares that are armed with superhuman enhancements are gunning for her death. Finding herself in a life-and-death situation, Zoey has to decide quickly who she can trust and whether the stories being told to her by “the Suits” are actually the truth.

Traveling to a futuristic city where an all-seeing social network can track your every move, one where there are powerful players controlling everything behind the scenes, Zoey soon realizes that everything outside of her Midwestern trailer park may be more than she can handle. Forced to reconcile her low upbringing with her sudden encampment in her dead father’s mansion, Zoey realizes that she is one of the key players who will decide the future of mankind. Anyone in the world has the ability to get the powers of a god or become as famous as a pop star, thanks to the all-seeing social network and various fantastic and violent elements are popping up all over. Zoey’s fate is entangled in this futuristic city and it’s up to her to figure everything out.

Shetland

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shetlandCrime television shows are one of my favorite things to watch, but sometimes they can follow a predictable plot, so predictable in fact that it is easy to guess who the murderer is within the first ten minutes of the show’s beginning. When I stumbled upon Shetland, I was expecting the same predictable plot. Boy, was I wrong!

First of all, this dvd compilation of Shetland gives you the complete first and second seasons. (In case this seems daunting to you, let me ease your fears. Each season is only six episodes long, so in reality you are only watching twelve episodes total in this one case.) This show is the perfect length to get you hooked and invested in the characters without having to spend a lot of time getting through two full-length seasons of the show. Bonus: I wasn’t able to accurately guess who ANY of the murderers were in any of the episodes! Major score!

Shetland is a BBC Scottish crime drama that follows the life of Detective Inspector Jimmy Perez and his various staff members as they solve murders against the backdrop of the breathtaking Shetland Isles. Perez is a single dad raising an almost 16-year-old daughter. DI Perez and his team are responsible for keeping people safe within the community, a task that proves difficult as they are investigating crimes within such a close knit community that is spread across a number of islands within the Shetland Isles. This television show takes place against a gorgeous backdrop of sweeping cliffs, deep blue sea, and skies redolent with cloud cover. With such breathtaking scenery, the stories of crime, murder, mystery, and intrigue are pushed to a higher level, letting the writers, producers, and actors explore issues dealing with family and small communities in deep detail. I highly recommend this show as a way to cleanse your palette of the more traditional crime shows.

raven black

The first two seasons of Shetland are adapted from the book Raven Black by Ann Cleeves. Contact the library to find it today!

The Readers of Broken Wheel Recommend by Katrina Bivald

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readersofbrokenwheelI love reading books that take place in Iowa. I find it interesting to see what authors think of my home state.  The Readers of Broken Wheel Recommend is set in fictional town Broken Wheel, Iowa.  And this book is unique because the author, Katarina Bivald, lives in Sweden. So, if you are curious as to how someone from Europe views life in the state of Iowa, you should definitely pick up this book.

Sara has traveled all the way from Sweden to meet her pen pal Amy, who lives in Broken Wheel, Iowa.  The plan is that Sara will stay with Amy for two months.  But when Sara arrives in Iowa, she learns that Amy has died.  But the townspeople of Broken Wheel knew that she was coming and they all welcome her to the town.  They tell her to stay in Amy’s house because that is what Amy would have wanted. Sara understandably feels strange staying in the house alone and having people give her food and drinks for free.  She tries to pay her own way but everyone refuses her.

Since she no longer has a hostess, Sara needs to find something to do. And, the town council is trying to think of how they can keep Sara entertained.  Sara and Amy bonded over books.  Both women were avid readers and they even exchanged books in the mail. When Sara ventures into Amy’s bedroom, she finds a room filled with books. Shortly after, Sara learns that Amy owned one of the buildings downtown. Sara decides to clean up the unused store and make it into a new bookstore. Many of the townspeople help her clean and repaint the building. Others find bookshelves and furniture. Soon, the tiny town of Broken Wheel has its own bookstore.

Sara enjoys finding books for the townspeople to read. She is able to match up books with the right person to read it. Soon, people from the neighboring town of Hope come to Broken Wheel to check out the new bookstore. Sara is dismayed to learn that people from Hope look down on people from Broken Wheel. So Sara forms a plan to get the people of townspeople reading. This is when she creates the shelf, “The Readers of Broken Wheel Recommend”.

The Readers of Broken Wheel Recommend is a very fun book to read. Plus, it has the added bonus of discussing many different book titles throughout the story. Perhaps you will find your next read in the pages of The Readers of Broken Wheel Recommend.

Note: If you listen to the audiobook version, you will find the Iowan accent to be very interesting.