Tag: domestic fiction

Brighter Than the Sun by Daniel Aleman

- Stephanie Leave a comment

Sixteen-year-old Sol spends her life divided between two countries. She lives in her hometown of Tijuana, Mexico with her family, but makes the trip across the border early every weekday to go to school in the United States. Sol’s dream is to be the first person in her family to go to college, so even though her life is exhausting, she keeps trekking between Mexico and the United States to keep her dream alive.

The family has hit some rough times, throwing Sol’s dreams into question. With her mother’s recent death, Sol and her family are struggling to keep the family restaurant afloat. The restaurant was her mother’s dream, but her father and oldest brother are running into difficulties. Needing a way to add income to the family, Sol picks up a part-time job in San Diego. Doing this means that she has to move in with her friend in the United States, only coming back to Tijuana on the weekends. This new job adds complications to her life. Her schedule becomes more chaotic, her schoolwork suffers, and her relationships deteriorate.

Sol has to decide what she wants out of life. Although she has goals to attend college, she feels a debt to her family that she must repay. Although she is only 17, the pressure she feels to succeed and provide for her family is immense. Her future is in limbo, her present is a mess, and her past continues to haunt her. What is Sol willing to risk to help her family make it through?

Brighter Than the Sun by Daniel Aleman was a heartbreaking and exhausting read. Although this is a young adult book, the story will resonate with people of all ages.

Interested in this book? Brighter Than the Sun is the June 2025 See YA Book Club selection. We will be discussing this book on Wednesday, June 4th at 6:30pm at our Eastern Avenue branch. For more information about future See YA book picks, visit our website.

See YA Book Club

Join our adult book club with a teen book twist. See why so many teen books are being turned into movies and are taking over the best seller lists.

Registration is not required. Books are available on a first-come, first-serve basis at the Eastern Avenue library. We meet the first Wednesday of the month at Eastern at 6:30pm. Stop by the service desk for more information.

June 4 – ‘Brighter than the Sun’ by Daniel Aleman

July 2 – The Cousins by Karen M. McManus

August 6 – Red Rising by Pierce Brown

September 3 – Man O’War by Cory McCarthy

October 1 – A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder by Holly Jackson

November 5 – Rez Ball by Byron Graves

December 3 – Uglies by Scott Westerfeld

The Queen of Dirt Island by Donal Ryan

- Lynn Leave a comment

  The Queen of Dirt Island  by Irish author Donal Ryan is a short novel with even shorter two-page chapters.  The brief chapters allow for quick mood changes – bleakness and sad events are followed by the very dark humor of Nana and her daughter-in-law.

The novel follows several generations of women in a housing estate in rural County Tipperary in the 1990s. Seen through the eyes of Saoirse, we get to know Mary (Nana), Eileen (Saoirse’s mother) and Pearl (Saoirse’s daughter).  They are the focus though there are other richly drawn characters, such as Paudie, Saoirse’s uncle who is in prison for his IRA activities.

The vocabulary and idioms are so very authentically Irish that googling is a must (boreen, busht, and cop on). Eileen and Mary, in particular have a very clear-eyed view of the Catholic church – abiding by its traditions but also uncowed by the local clergy. The irreverence of these two women is a very major part of the charm of this book. They squabble with large amounts of profanity but are devoted to each other.

The title refers to a childhood idyll, an island that was part of the farm where Mary grew up and she ultimately inherits it even though her family has disowned her. The untraditional group of women are the objects of gossip but Eileen is fierce and will physically fight anyone who disrespects the little family. The women rely on each other to survive after the men die, are absent, or who have used their power to withhold property and inheritance.

The Vanishing Half by Brit Bennett

- Stephanie Leave a comment

Family and relationships are a major deciding factor in how a person turns out. Our past influences our desires and the decisions we will make in the future. Brit Bennett discusses how we choose our own fate and how that fate may be different than the ones our families had previously thought we would take.

The Vanishing Half  by Brit Bennett tells the story of the Vignes twin sisters. Growing up, the two were inseparable and identical. People in the community found it hard to tell the two apart, but knew that wherever they saw one, the other was not far behind. Living in a small, southern black community with rigid ideals, the Vignes sisters run away at age sixteen to escape the less than perfect notions the community had about who they should be. Struggling to make out a new life for themselves, one twin makes the difficult decision to leave the other behind. Her decision sets the family on a rocky path that none of them could have predicted.

The Vignes sisters’ life decisions at the age of sixteen shape their daily lives for years. As adults, their lives couldn’t be more different. Their families, their racial identities, and their communities know them as separate individuals with vastly different pasts.

Fast forward many years and one of the sisters has come back to her hometown with her daughter. Separated by states, the other sister has been secretly passing as white for many years and her white husband doesn’t know anything about her past. Even though the twins are living vastly different lives, their fates are still intricately connected.

This novel follows the Vignes twin sisters from the 1950s to the 1990s, spanning many areas across the country from the Deep South to California. As the twins grow, many generations of the Vignes family come alive to tell their tales. Both the older generation and the younger generation work to create lives that they can be proud of with the sisters sandwiched in between. When the twins’ daughters grow up, their lives are bound to cross. The delicate life balance full of truth and lies the sisters have created is destined to come crashing down at some point. It’s only a matter of time.

This book is also available in the following formats: