Author: lajenna

Maid of the Kings Court

One main characters Eliza must marry a man of wealth and title. It’s the only fate for her, but things take a surprising turn. She becomes Maid of Honor to Anne of Cleves. Eliza is welcomed into the hard and struggling life of Henry the Eighth. Eliza try’s to follow her heart in a world ruled by powerful men. Many people make it challenging for Eliza like her cousin Katherine Howard, an ally in this place. Eliza transforms from a naïve girl who describes the king as having “exchanged” Anne Boleyn for a new wife to one intimately involved in the machinations of the court.

Reading this book It wasn’t one of my favorites i’ve read but it was a nice read and out of my comfort zones for books. This book is an older book based around the  Renaissance. It’s filled with romance, and history. I prefer books with emotion and teens not so much kings and queens. For being out of my comfort zone it showed me what I like and don’t prefer to read.

I recommend this book to anyone who likes Romance and history books. This book is around 1500 and filled with lots of History about life in the Renaissance times. This book also has some challenging battles like Elizas lifestyle changing. Although I didn’t prefer this type of novel I think a lot of people would love to read this it was a good read for being filled with history and kings and queens.

What I Carry

What I carry is a book about a girl named Muir who grows up in foster homes. Always jumping house to house she’s learned to pack things light. She doesn’t get emotionally attached to anyone because she knows she could leave foster home anytime. Muir has one whole year before she ages out of foster care, before she’s free and on her own, and one year to avoid everything and everyone. All of this thought changes when she stays with a  single woman on a small island off the coast of Seattle. Muir starts to break her own rules and makes close friendships, falls in love, and stand up to bullying. She learns that she doesn’t have to focus on “survival” all the time.

I recommend this book to people who like to read Realistic fiction. This book is based on real-life situations that happen to people. Being in a foster home can be scary and overwhelming, but Muir manages to make rules to help herself feel comfortable. It takes years and years but soon Muir felt comfortable to keep close friendships and feel like she’s truly home.

I truly enjoyed reading this book. It was such a good read and hard to put down. I personally tend to read books based on real-life situations because I like to be able to really connect. The only thing I could connect well is jumping house to house since my parents are split. It’s for sure easier to pack light because it’s less bags to move and unpack. This book I could picture Muirs emotions and feel them myself. I think this is an amazing read and more people should read this book.

A Death Struck Year

The Spanish Influenza is taking over the east coast. For 17yr old Cleo, it’s far away for Portland Oregon to catch it. As the Flu gets worse and worse it starts moving and soon schools, churches, and theaters are shut down and everyone is in panic. Cleo attends a boarding school and is told to stay put and quarantined. Cleo is determined to fight this pandemic in her own home. The red cross asks for volunteers and this is cleo’s opportunity to escape the boarding school. Cleo starts to care for strangers around her like a handsome medical student. As bodies pile up Cleo can only think about when her time is near.

Reading this book it’s almost like Covid. quarantine isn’t fun and you just want to see your friends or go places. No one knew how fast covid would spread when it first hit just like this book, so when it came we all started to worry. I related to this book very well just by everything that happens with covid. Many people wonder if they will end up getting covid, but we also think about our families and other people around us about spreading the virus.

I recommend this book to people who like reading about real-life situations, Survival, and illness. This is a book based on a true event in the 19 century. Survival is tied in this book because People need to survive from getting sick. This pandemic talked about in this book is devastating and makes the book suspenseful.

Everything Everything

Everything Everything is a book about a girl who cant leave her house or interact with other people until they’re sanitized. The main character Maddy has spent her whole life indoors due to SCID. Basically she’s allergic to everything and going outside puts her to risk of infection or allergic reactions. A new family moves next door who happens to have a boy, that Maddy catches her eye on. The boy Olly and Maddy start a friendship online over email. it’s hard for them to have a relationship when they both love each other because of Maddy’s condition. Maddy books a flight to Hawaii with Olly and becomes sick soon her health takes a turn and she learns to focus on her health.

I loved this book I highly recommend it! it had such a lovely meaning and story. I thought it was unique how the book had photos in the reading which helped tell the story. This book spreads awareness and is a wonderful book for teenagers. If you like reading books about awareness, struggles, and romance this is a great pick.

After reading this book it made me thing about how blessed I am to even wake up and go to school or hang with friends. I could never imagine being in Maddy’s shoes stuck in her house and cant even go out to the mall or anything for fun. Life throws battles at people and you have to learn to overcome battles and work around them. Maddy worked around her condition to show her love to Olly.

Ya Fatphobia

Books are filled with variety of topics. When you look at characters in books they tend to be skinny models. Many writers include fat characters to provide instruction about bullying or to show weight loss journey. This article focuses and dives deep into Fat shaming.

This article focuses on how books with heavier bodies as characters are story tellers on weight loss or bullied. These characters tell their stories and end up being happy and loving their body or are miserable. Writers use unkind words to describe characters who have a heavier body. Unkind words encourage others to say these harsh things. It’s not just the writing that is fat phobia, covers of books can also be disrespectful. Covers tend to have “skinny” models who have the “perfect body” this is offensive to people who don’t fit the standards of the cover. The article mentions it is hard to find vocal advocates for fat acceptance books. This article dives into how being fat isn’t about eating habits there is genetics that play effect.

It is sad to see these struggles. It is really unfortunate that young readers have to go through these struggles in books. Kids need to learn about the genetics that play effect in weight. You can be really thin or have a heavier body and be very healthy. Diversity is lacking books about these things. I really liked how this article made so many good points about their reasoning to fatphobia in novels. I also enjoyed how they educated people about genetics and how wrong it is to shame people.

Works Cited:

Nolfi, Kathryn L. “YA Fatphobia.” The Horn Book Magazine, vol. 87, no. 1, Jan. 2011, p. 55. EBSCOhost, discovery.ebsco.com/linkprocessor/plink?id=fcc11ea5-9a81-3629-a539-e62827fdc466.

Second Chance Summer

This book by Morgan Matson is a story about friendship and love. It specifically focuses on times when its rough. Main character Taylor has a hard time facing hardship and tends to run away when things get hard. Taylor learns that taking the easy way out of things are not always good as she visits her lake home. Taylor feels as if she runs away she stands out more. Her father receives unexpected news thats devastated which has the family go on a last minute vacation to their lake home. while at the lake home Taylor meets up with people she thought she left behind 2 years ago like her old best friend. As days go on Taylor is surrounded by memories she wants to leave in the past, but this time she cant run away. As time goes on Taylor starts to see she has a second chance at all these memories.

I enjoyed reading this book. it was a good read and had a good storyline to it. I liked how it turned out to be a good lesson on Taylor learning to see the good in challenging things. Even though she wanted to run away she learned how to overcome the challenge.

I recommend this book to anyone who enjoys books about friendship, love, and also challenges/hardships. The storyline to this book is wonderful and it shows goals and lessons. Even when Taylor thought her summer was ruined challenges turned into an awesome lesson.

Five Feet Apart

“If I’m going to die, I’d like to actually live first. And then I’ll die.”

Five Feet Apart is a book about two teens dealing with cystic fibrosis (CF). Stella and Will the main characters basically live at the hospital. All they dream about is being able to live a normal life. With all the health issues they miss out on school trips, traveling, and hanging out with friends and family. Having CF they become good friends helping each other out with treatments, but with cystic fibrosis they have to stay 5 feet away from each other so they don’t cross contaminate. This is challenging for the two as they fall in love with one another. Stella has her life all together and organized she even made an app to help with timing for her medicine. On the other hand Will doesn’t take his treatments seriously but Stella changes him for the better and he starts doing treatments.

This book is an amazing read and has readers understand why life is worth living. if you like books about life changing obstacles and love triangles such as two people not being able to be together I’d recommend this read. as I read this book personally I felt trapped in the reading and did not want to put the book down. A neat thing in the book was every chapter was switched between Will or Stella with their story. I liked how it swapped roles each chapter instead of one person sharing someone else’s story.