Tag: social media

How Moon Fuentez Fell in Love with the Universe by Raquel Vasquez Gilliland

- Stephanie Leave a comment

“It’s a whole new beginning, you know? It’s that moment before the universe expanded, when all of matter is the size of a trillionth of a period, all hot and full of nothing but potential. I could be someone who isn’t always and completely eclipsed by my sister and kicked down by my mom. Who could I be? The skyline whips by us, the clouds white. Everything feels new right along with me. Who could I be? I could be anything. No, scratch that. I could be everything.” – How Moon Fuentez Fell in Love with the Universe, Raquel Vasquez Gilliland

If you’re ever not sure to read, ask a librarian for a recommendation. That is how I ended up with my latest five-star read: How Moon Fuentez Fell in Love with the Universe by Raquel Vasquez Gilliland. This young adult novel with a romance twist was beautifully written and full of tiny bits of humor dropped throughout. Moon Fuentez is an adorably lovable, yet incredibly sarcastic Mexican American teen trying to figure out her place in the world and in her family while on a summer road trip across the country with a group of influencers.

As long as she can remember, Moon Fuentez has been the ugly, unwanted sister. Her twin, Star, has reached social media stardom with Moon tagging behind as her sister’s camerawoman and photo editor. When her mom announces that Star and Moon will be spending their summer touring the country as part of a social media tour with dozens of beautiful influencers, Moon is less than thrilled. She will be working as ‘the merch girl’, giving up her entire summer in service to her sister, yet again.

Moon’s fate starts to change as soon as the two arrive to start the tour. Moon accidentally offends Santiago Phillips, her bunkmate and now her nemesis. They work together since he is ‘the merch guy’. Santiago loves to workout, giving him a massive physique and making him the hottest guy Moon has ever seen. Too bad he can’t stand Moon – he is constantly grumpy and combative whenever they have to work together, which is ALL THE TIME. It’s fine though – she hates him as much as he hates her. (You know where this is going, right?) Their forced proximity leads Moon to think about whether or not their mutual dislike is really true or not. This also leads her to think about how she has been living her life and what she really wants her future to look like.

The descriptions are beautifully written, the characters fully developed, and the story is sweet and serious, yet entertaining. The characters also evolve as the story progresses. Their relationships also change, some in positive ways, others negatively. This book is told first-person from Moon’s point of view with glimpses into Moon’s past between chapters. The author doesn’t shy away from talking about hard topics that some young adult books treat with kid gloves. At the core, this is a book about learning to love yourself, knowing your self-worth, and understanding that you are so much more than you (and others) see yourself and give yourself credit for. This is a serious contender for my favorite book of 2023.

This title is also available as a CD audiobook, single book club books, Libby eBook, and Libby eAudiobook.

Want to talk about How Moon Fuentez Fell in Love with the Universe with others? Join See YA! See YA is 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-served basis at the Eastern Avenue library. We meet the first Wednesday of the month at Eastern at 6:30pm.  Our next four months of books are listed below:

September 6th –  How Moon Fuentez Fell in Love with the Universe by Raquel Gilliland Vasquez​​​​​​​

October 4th – Cuban Girl’s Guide to Tea and Tomorrow by Laura Taylor Namey​​​​​​​

November 1st – Firekeeper’s Daughter by Angeline Boulley

Romance Reads: Bellinger Sisters series by Tessa Bailey

- Stephanie Leave a comment

“What she thought was living life to the fullest had actually been living life for other people to watch. To gawk at. She wouldn’t lie to herself and pretend one month had completely cured her of her deeply rooted yen for attention. For praise. For what she’d once interpreted as love. Now though? She is participating in her life. Not just posing and pretending. The world was so much bigger than her, and she was really seeing it now. She was really looking.”
― Tessa Bailey, It Happened One Summer

It Happened One Summer is the first book in the Bellinger Sisters series. This title was also my first read by Tessa Bailey, an author that I’ve seen pop up on TikTok and other social media sites a lot more recently. This novel also reminded me a lot of the television show Schitt’s Creek as I was reading it. Let’s get into the first book!

Piper Bellinger is a Hollywood ‘It Girl’, well at least she was until she threw a spectacularly outrageous and out-of-control rooftop party that left the influential wild child cut off from her wealthy family and sent to a small Pacific Northwest town. Piper’s stepfather has decided that it’s time for Piper to learn some responsibility. He sends both Piper and her sister to Washington to run their late father’s dive bar.

Piper is shocked that her stepfather would even consider sending her away, let alone cutting her off. With her sister’s support, the two arrive in Westport to hopefully make the next three months fly by so they can head back to LA. As soon as Piper steps foot outside her late father’s bar, she meets Brendan, a big, burly, bearded sea captain who has nothing nice to say to her. He doesn’t think that Piper will last a night in Westport, especially when she sees the state of the apartment where the two women will be staying. Fed up with everyone, men especially, expecting little from her, Piper is determined to show the town of Westport that she’s more than just a pretty face. After all, this is her late father’s town and he is a legend. She has big shoes to fill.

As soon as Piper decides to show up Brendan, she of course starts running into him everywhere (mostly due to Westport being such a small town – but let’s be honest the two have an undeniable chemistry). Piper is bubbly, while Brendan is gruff and set in his ways. Although the two couldn’t be more opposite, there’s a simmering tension and attraction between the two. Piper does not want anything to do with Brendan, especially since she plans to head back to LA as soon as possible. The more time she spends reconnecting to her Westport past and getting to know the area, the more Piper starts to wonder if she really wants to go back home where no one really knows her. Where does her heart want to be?

This book is also available in the following formats:

Bellinger Sisters series:

  1. It Happened One Summer (2021)
  2. Hook, Line, and Sinker (2022)

A Burning by Megha Majumdar

- Stephanie Leave a comment

Not every book has a happy ending: A Burning by Megha Majumdar is one of those books. Going into Majumdar’s debut with your eyes wide open will allow you to fully appreciate the beautiful story she has weaved. A Burning is the story of three people who desperately want more: power, opportunity, class, love. It’s a novel of fate, the juxtaposition of betrayal and love, of innocence and guilt, and how the truth may be twisted by the media into a falsehood that others believe to be true.

Terrorists have attacked Jivan’s hometown. This attack on a train has left 104 people dead and the nation is clamoring for someone to be held responsible. Jivan is a bright young woman, trying to get out of poverty and the slums. After making a careless comment on Facebook, Jivan is wrongly accused of planning the attack and is hauled into the police station.

PT Sir is a gym teacher from Jivan’s former school. He used to care highly for Jivan until she disappeared from school one day and never came back. He can’t understand why she could be so ungrateful and why she never thanked him for all he did for her. One day, PT Sir discovers a rally in a field for the right-wing political party. He becomes enraptured with what they have to say. He decides that the only way to improve his circumstances is to become a part of that party’s power. PT Sir soon finds that the price of his ascent is Jivan taking the fall.

Lovely is an outcast. She has dealt with hatred and disgust from the public her entire life, but that hasn’t stopped her from dreaming big. She wants fame, she wants glory, but most of all she wants to be the leading lady in a movie. Society isn’t quite so sure that she is what they want. Lovely also holds Jivan’s alibi and freedom in her hands. By speaking up and setting Jivan free, Lovely will have to say goodbye to everything that she desires and holds close.

The fates of these three people are so closely woven together that their slightest action ripples consequences to the others. It’s a short read, but its shortness packs a lot of complexness.

This book is also available in the following formats:

Fear of Missing Out by Patrick McGinnis

- Callen Leave a comment

Fear of Missing Out by Patrick McGinnis is a book I’ve always needed – and most likely, you do too. In it, he describes the concepts of FOMO (Fear of Missing Out), FOBO (Fear of a Better Option) and their evil combined force, FODA (Fear of Doing Anything), as well as how to combat them in your own life to be more decisive and independent of social manipulation.

McGinnis first identified FOMO and FOBO back in the early 2000s (though they date back to the earliest days of human history), but he since observed them turning into an epidemic as social media and internet technology became widespread. The wealth of options and opportunities that we see every day on our phone screens can be paralyzing, leading us to feel left out, run ourselves ragged trying not to miss anything, and to constantly seek that ‘perfect’ choice. With this detailed examination of the phenomena, their underlying causes, and the tools at our disposal, he seeks to give the reader back the power to make choices that actually reflect their values and desires instead of reflecting what they’ve been told to want (or what others want).

Perhaps the most important insight McGinnis shares into FOMO and FOBO is their roots in narcissism and their poisonous effects on our relationships with others. When we constantly strive to keep our options open, running after the imaginary ‘perfect’ choice and scrambling not to miss out on cultural trends, we not only do ourselves no favors, but we don’t show much respect for the people around us. Our friends, family, potential employers and more are left hanging as we procrastinate making decisions until we’re sure it’s the ‘right’ choice. This part struck home for me, as someone who’s made many a lunch companion die of boredom while I struggle to decide what to order. Importantly, he urges readers not to waste time on unimportant decisions like a lunch order, because there are no bad options. Careful decision-making processes must be reserved for high-stakes decisions only, where the outcome is very important to your life.

For the most part, I found this book helpful and interesting, though his focus on corporate entities and professional corporate life wasn’t relevant or interesting to me. Luckily, most of his strategies remain relevant outside corporate life as well. If you want to work on being decisive and/or less addicted to social media validation and guilt, I recommend giving this book a try.

Pretty Things by Janelle Brown

- Stephanie Leave a comment

Did you know that Investigation Discovery has a book club? Working with Random House, the ID Book Club was formed as a way for fans of Investigation Discovery to read more about crime and justice. To see a list of past book club selections, check out their website!

Pretty Things by Janelle Brown was one of the ID Book club’s selections and my introduction to the club. This mystery novel weave together the stories of two very different women. Although they grew up in wildly different circumstances, their life decisions lead back to a handful of similar life-forming moments that they both shared.

All Nina ever hoped for was a decent childhood and to live a life that was different than her mom’s. Nina’s mother is a con artist who hustled throughout Nina’s entire childhood in order to hopefully give her daughter a better life. Moving constantly and trying to make new friends was hard for Nina until Nina and her mom ended up in Lake Tahoe. That year living in Lake Tahoe changed Nina’s life forever, introducing her to her closest friend and first love. That year of tranquility came crashing down around them and ended with Nina and her mom running from the town in a cloud of shame. Nina worked hard and went to college, graduating with a liberal arts degree that she hoped would lead her to a legitimate career. When she gets a call saying that her mom is sick and needs her help, Nina leaves everything behind and rushes home to help her. She ends up putting her life on the line and starts pulling scams with her Irish boyfriend, Lachlan. Nina promised herself she wouldn’t turn into her mom, but what did she expect: she learned from the best and to deny the tricks she grew up learning from her mother doesn’t make sense anymore.

Vanessa is privileged. A young heiress who has had anything and everything in life handed to her, Vanessa wants to leave her mark in the world. She wants to do better than her parents. When her plans don’t turn out quite like she hoped, Vanessa becomes an Instagram influencer. Traveling around the globe, posing for pictures in exotic locations, and being showered in free clothes and products as long as she posts pictures of herself using them has become Vanessa’s life. Being an Instagram influencer quickly overtakes and becomes her entire life. Based on her Instagram, it looks like Vanessa leads a perfect and immensely covetable life. She shouldn’t be wanting for anything. Behind that facade however, Vanessa’s life is full of tragedy. The catalyst proves to be a broken engagement, which sends Vanessa, in desperate search of solitude, to her family’s estate, Stonehaven. This sprawling mansion on Lake Tahoe is full of dark secrets that haunt Vanessa and her family.

Lake Tahoe and Stonehaven sing a siren call to Vanessa and Nina, luring both women back to the site where their lives intertwine even tighter, leading to a twisting confrontation full of revenge, deceit, duplicity, and destruction.

This book is also available in the following formats:

Jenna Bush Hager JUNE Celebrity Book Club Pick

- Stephanie Leave a comment

Have you joined our Best Sellers Club yet? We have started a new club for Davenport Public Library patrons that allow you to have automatic holds put on new releases from your favorite authors, stay current with three different celebrity book clubs, or receive nonfiction picks chosen by our librarians four times a year.

One of the celebrities on our Best Sellers Club is Jenna Bush Hager. The Read With Jenna book club picks a new book every month to read.

A Burning by Megha Majumdar is Jenna Bush Hager’s June 2020 pick. Curious what the book is about? Check out the following blurb provided by the publisher:

After a fiery attack on a train leaves 104 people dead, the fates of three people become inextricably entangled. Jivan, a bright, striving woman from the slums looking for a way out of poverty, is wrongly accused of planning the attack because of a careless comment on Facebook. PT Sir, a slippery gym teacher from Jivan’s former high school, has hitched his aspirations to a rising right wing party, and his own ascent becomes increasingly linked to Jivan’s fall. Lovely, a spirited, impoverished, relentlessly optimistic hjira, who harbors dreams of becoming a Bollywood star, can provide the alibi that would set Jivan free–but her appearance in court will have unexpected consequences that will change the course of all of their lives. A novel about fate, power, opportunity, and class; about innocence and guilt, betrayal and love, and the corrosive media cycle that manufactures falsehoods masquerading as truths–A Burning is a debut novel of exceptional power and urgency, haunting and beautiful, brutal, vibrant, impossible to forget.

This book is also available in the following format:

Letterboxd Is What’s Up

- Erin Leave a comment

Film lovers, rejoice! Letterboxd is a super-slick social app for tracking your favorite movies! As a lover of film, I found myself wondering where to locate the “Goodreads of film,” and low-and-behold: I found it. Letterboxd gives users the options of importing data from other social sites that you use (IMDB, Delicious, iCheckMovies, etc) if you don’t want to start from scratch. Personally, I have never tracked my favorite movies despite watching several per week! Up until now, IMDB had been my go-to for online film discussion but I view the discussion component of Letterboxd as more robust (though I’ll still turn turn to it for go-to information on actors/actresses and filmography).

Letterboxd describes itself as follows on it’s “About” page:

Letterboxd is a global social network for grass-roots film discussion and discovery. Use it as a diary to record and share your opinion about films as you watch them, or just to keep track of films you’ve seen in the past. Showcase your favorites on your profile page. Rate, review and tag films as you add them. Find and follow your friends to see what they’re enjoying. Keep a watchlist of films you’d like to see, and create lists/collections on any given topic. We’ve been described as “like GoodReads for movies”.

As you begin to navigate the app or site, you’ll notice

You can browse by:

  • List: browse lists or create your own! Examples include: 2019 Oscars, From Willem Dafoe to Willem Dafriend, Men/Boys Crying, Transgressive/Weird Films, Praise-worthy, beautiful, mesmerizing, deserving, diversity-bred movies that were made by people with lots of talent with a ton of effort solely for the purpose of making something good that were snubbed over movies made by people with no talent, and Recommendations For Everyone Who Wants To Watch More Movies By Female Directors But Doesn’t Know Where to Start.
  • People: Like any other social app, you can browse and track new film by drawing on your network and browsing the lists of other individuals who are using Letterboxd.
  • Year: You guessed it. Explore by decade!
  • Popularity: Browse by weekly, monthly, yearly, and “all-time” popularity ratings (based on user feedback). This week’s most popular films are: Fyre, Favourite, Glass, Bohemian Rhapsody, Roma, Green Book, Spider Man: Into The Spiderverse, A Star Is Born, Black Klansman, Vice, and If Beale Street Could Talk. Keep in mind that the film most likely to be most popular during the week will be the most current titles where-as the “of all time” category lends itself to a larger historical spectrum: La La Land, Get Out, Mad Max, Pulp Fiction, The Dark Knight, Whiplash, Moonlight, Alien, The Shape of Water, Silence of the Lambs, etc.
  • Rating: You’re probably familiar with making decisions based on ratings. I know I am! Browse by Highest & Lowest ratings!In looking at the lowest-rated films listed, I’ve gotta say I’m in agreement with my fellow Letterboxd users as Krampus, for example, was easily among the most terrible movies I’ve ever endured. Definitely don’t recommend.
  • Other: This browsing category includes “Most Anticipated”, “Coming Soon” and an A-Z list (or you conduct a good, old-fashioned title search as well).
  • Genre: Most genres listed are typical and traditional (Action, Adventure, Western, Horror, Romance, Science Fiction Thriller, Fantasy), so if you’re looking for avante guard, weird/transgressive, cult classics, documentaries, or films made by Black directors, specifically, you might want to have a look at some of the lists or create your own!

Additionally, the sorting feature is pretty cool as you can skip quickly to genre ratings sorted from Highest to Lowest. According to the Letterboxd community, the Top 3 Horror films in order are: Get Out, The Shining, and A Quiet Place. Fun fact: A Quiet Place was written by Scott Beck and Bryan Woods, local Quad Cities natives!.

Film lovers and anyone who wants to discover great (or awful) film should definitely check out Letterboxd and start your film diary so you have your newest recommendations and favorite stand-bys at the ready anytime you’re chatting up friends and fellow film buffs! Check out the Official Letterboxd Top 250 List (updated weekly) to get some inspiration!

 

All We Ever Wanted by Emily Giffin

- Stephanie Leave a comment

I’m finding that a lot of the current books I’m reading contain themes that are very relevant in today’s society and culture. Emily Giffin’s newest novel deals with social media and the broader consequences and societal implications that happen when decisions are made without thinking through the possible  repercussions. In this novel, readers follow three different people as they struggle choosing between their family and their values. The core message present throughout this book is incredibly relevant to people in all walks of life: are you willing to compromise your beliefs, and if so, how far would you go?

All We Ever Wanted by Emily Giffin tells a devastating story from the point of view of three different people: Nina, Tom, and Lyla. Nina has married into Nashville’s elite. Her husband’s tech business has rocketed them into wealth. Her son Finch is attending Windsor Academy, a prestigious private school, and has just been accepted into an even more prestigious college. Their lives are perfect.

Tom Volpe is a single dad working multiple jobs to help put his daughter through school. While they may not have everything, the life that they are living is nothing to be scoffed at.

Lyla is Tom’s teenage daughter. Her mother left when she was young, a situation she has to deal with on a daily basis. Wanting to give his daughter a better life, Tom works hard for Lyla to attend Windsor. Lyla finds herself going to school amongst all this wealth and privilege, while she attends the school on scholarship. Lyla doesn’t always fit in, but lucky for her, she has some friends that help her along the way.

Everything seems to be working out for Nina, Tom, and Lyla. Nina is happy with her husband and son, Tom’s businesses are providing him with the income and stability he needs, and Lyla is succeeding in school. Everything comes to a crashing halt with a picture taken at a party. Finch takes the offending picture of Lyla passed out,  captions it with an offensive saying, and sends it out to some of his closest friends. Spreading like wildfire, the picture soon makes it way out to everyone in the community, including Finch’s parents while they are at a dinner party.

The aftermath of this life-changing picture works to divide the Windsor community into two separate camps: those rallying behind Finch and those sympathizing with Lyla. Dealing with scandal, shame, and blame, Lyla, Tom, and Nina all have to decide how far they’re willing to go in two areas: support of family or standing by your beliefs. Nina struggles justifying the actions of her husband and son, while reconciling their behaviors with an event from her past that begins to poke through as her moral compass. Tom’s reaction and Nina’s husband’s reaction are at odds, leaving Nina unsure of who to side with and how she wants the rest of her life to go. Lyla wrestles with teenage hormones, her feelings for Finch, and her understated and sometimes missing outrage at what was done to her. Tom is extremely upset, but finds himself trying to reconcile Lyla’s somewhat bizarre reaction to this incident with his immense desire to seek revenge, sympathy, and what he deems is appropriate recompense for the wrong done to Lyla.

This book is also available in the following formats:

An Absolutely Remarkable Thing by Hank Green

- Stephanie Leave a comment

Have you heard of Hank Green? Hank is the brother of prolific young adult author John Green. Hank is a genius in his own right though: cocreator of Crash Course, Vlogbrothers, and SciShow. Hank has branched out into fiction now! In his debut novel, An Absolutely Remarkable Thing, he has created an intriguing story about a young woman somewhat content in her own peaceful life who becomes an overnight celebrity. Her sudden celebrity is part of a much bigger, stranger, and weirder situation that anyone in the world could possibly comprehend.

April May is stumbling home from work in the wee hours of the morning when she runs into a giant sculpture that seems to have just popped up in the middle of the sidewalk out of nowhere. Delighted – and confused – by this discovery, April does the most logical thing that she can think of: she calls her friend Andy, a local vlogger, and guards this sculpture until he comes with his video equipment. April and Andy decide to make a video with this expertly crafted artwork that she has aptly named Carl. Carl is a glorious piece of craftmanship – a 10-foot-tall Transformer-looking sculpture covered in a suit of samurai armor. After shooting this video, they stumble to their respective homes where Andy uploads the video they shot to YouTube.

Events quickly spiral out of control. The next day April wakes up to a very popular viral video and a rapidly changed life. Andy is understandable overwhelmed as he calls April to report that their Carl isn’t the only Carl. Carls have been discovered in dozens of cities all over the world. They all seemed to have popped up at once with no organization or government claiming ownership of their construction or arrival. April is now considered to be the first person to have had contact with a Carl and thus becomes the center of an immensely intense and ever-growing international media spotlight.

Luckily April has some pretty strong friends and family in her corner. (Whether or not she acknowledges their usefulness is another matter altogether.) These individuals have to fight against April’s growing ego as she believes that she is the only person who could possible figure out the Carl situation. After all, she found the first Carl. April struggles to balance her new fame, old and new relationships, her identity, and concerns over her safety as people quickly realize that the Carls are even more not what the public thinks. April tries to put herself at the forefront of Carl research and becomes even more of the face of the Carl movement as people learn more and more facts about the Carls. People all over the world question the Carls’ existences: why, what, who, etc. April and friends soon realize that the Carls may want something from the people of Earth, but figuring this out may tear them all apart for good.

An Absolutely Remarkable Thing by Hank Green is an impressive and surprisingly relevant read when compared with today’s society. This book takes on issues of social media fame, conversations, and calls to arms. It also talks in great detail about how the world in general, and also people at an individual level, deal with change, fear, and the uncertainty that change can bring. I really enjoyed the way that Green builds April from a nobody to an immensely popular celebrity. That juxtaposition between her former and current selves was fascinating as it really showed the dehumanization and other-worldly qualities the general public thrusts on people in the public eye.

I enjoyed this book! Check it out and let me know what you thought about it in the comments below.

This book is also available in the following format:

Keep track of those books! Try Goodreads

- Rachel Leave a comment

The holiday season is here and you are probably going to be interacting with friends and family at gatherings. A popular topic of conversation is books. Well, books always becomes the topic after I mention that I am a librarian. “Oh, it must be nice to sit around and read all day”. Sadly, we don’t get to sit and read all day either. But I do like talking about books! However, I cannot always remember the author or title of a book that I read that I want to recommend to someone.

So what do I do?

Thankfully, there is an app for that. I like to use Goodreads. And if you don’t like squinting at your phone, check out their website. Goodreads is my favorite app/website. It helps me keep track of what I have read. If I find a new author I like, I can search Goodreads for all of their works. Best of all, while I am searching new titles, I can see what other Goodreads users ranked and reviewed a book. So if I see that a book has a low rating, I might put it in my “To-Read” list on the site instead. While you are comparing books at that holiday gathering, you can add those interesting sounding titles to your “To-Read” list on your phone so you don’t forget them later.

Goodreads is not just a site of lists of books and authors. It is social site that allows you to interact with other people. You can see what your friends have read or want to read. You can compare your lists with their lists, see how your rankings compare and read their reviews. There is a news feed that shows you what your friends just added to their list or what book they just finished. Goodreads now offers a personal reading challenge that keeps track of how many books you have read during the year. Also, Goodreads users vote on their favorite books at the end of the year.

Hopefully I have given you a reason to join Goodreads. It is a fun way to keep track of what you have read and interact with your friends. It is great tool for helping you find new books and authors to read as well. When you are at those family gatherings, it will be much easier to add that recommended book on your Goodreads app then to try to remember the book title (and forget it later).