Books I've Read in 2020: 31-35

1,032 words

8 minute read

31.

Genre:  Dystopia

Disability Representation:  Yes (trauma mainly, but also communication disorders)

Rating: 2/4 Wheels (Liked it)

Excerpt of GoodReads Summary:  Against all odds, Katniss has won the Hunger Games. She and fellow District 12 tribute Peeta Mellark are miraculously still alive. Katniss should be relieved, happy even. After all, she has returned to her family and her longtime friend, Gale. Yet nothing is the way Katniss wishes it to be. Gale holds her at an icy distance. Peeta has turned his back on her completely. And there are whispers of a rebellion against the Capitol - a rebellion that Katniss and Peeta may have helped create.

What I Thought:  This is a book I reread often, and I find myself with different perspectives on it each time.  This time I liked it.  I didn't love it, like last year.  While I understood the need to do a lot of planning and seed-planting regarding the uprising, I also felt like there was a lot of lead up to the Quarter Quell and not a lot of the quell itself.

I did, however, find myself really liking Mags and Wiress (and their disability representation.)  While it would have been more satisfying to see anything from their perspectives, I found myself appreciating how Wiress and Beetee communicated best as a team.  And I found myself super curious about Mags, at 80 years old, could potentially remember a time without the Games, which started when she was 6 years old.  She would have won the 7th - 13th Hunger Games.  I found myself wondering how did she do it?  What was her personality like as a young girl?

Likewise, I wondered about the other victors.  Wiress, especially, and Haymitch, too.  This book made me long for a series of backstories.  For Mags.  For Wiress.  For Finnick.  For Annie.  For Peeta.  For Johanna.  For Rue.  For Thresh.

Wouldn't that be something?

To learn how all these victors and kids were before they were tributes?

***

32.

Genre:  Children's

Disability Representation:  No.

Rating: 4/4 Wheels (LOVED it!)

Excerpt of GoodReads Summary:  Tulip...deals with the birthday wishes of all the nine-year-olds in North America. Somewhat reminiscent of the Disney film Prep & Landing, THE ADVENTURES OF TULIP, BIRTHDAY WISH FAIRY gives an inside look into what exactly happens to all those wishes, what Wish Fairies eat for lunch, and what kinds of tools they're issued...

What I Thought:  I love this book.  It's so compassionate and sweet.  The illustrations are fun and the characters feel safe and warm.  So wonderful!

***

33.

Genre:  Dystopia

Disability Representation:  Yes, but horrifying.

Rating: 0/4 Wheels (Never again)

Excerpt of GoodReads Summary:  The Second Civil War was fought over reproductive rights. The chilling resolution: Life is inviolable from the moment of conception until age thirteen. Between the ages of thirteen and eighteen, however, parents can have their child "unwound," whereby all of the child's organs are transplanted into different donors, so life doesn't technically end. Connor is too difficult for his parents to control. Risa, a ward of the state, is not enough to be kept alive. And Lev is a tithe, a child conceived and raised to be unwound. Together, they may have a chance to escape and to survive.

What I Thought:  I read this for the first time around ten years ago, and was curious to see what I'd think if I reread it.  Needless to say, it is not a book I'll ever read again.  The one character who remained compelling to me was Cyrus Finch.  I would have loved to read an entire book focused on him.

As it stood, though, the end did not justify the means...or something.  The plot is horrifying...and remains horrifying.  No matter what is tried to function and regain autonomy within this broken system is..still broken.  The chapter that details the actual unwinding of a child is one I (a survivor of medical trauma) could not read.

I found it exploitative this type of suffering.  Disability representation was problematic, as unwinds who become disabled (and choose disability) cannot be unwound.  But those who (consentually or not) get an unwound child's parts to "cure" them, are still eligible for unwinding.

So problematic.

***

34.

Genre: Fantasy

Disability Representation: Yes (trauma)

Rating: 3 Wheels (Really liked it)

Excerpt of Goodreads Summary: Harry Potter's life is miserable. His parents are dead and he's stuck with his heartless relatives, who force him to live in a tiny closet under the stairs. But his fortune changes when he receives a letter that tells him the truth about himself: he's a wizard. A mysterious visitor rescues him from his relatives and takes him to his new home, Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.

What I Thought: It's been a couple years since I've read this one and it was still enjoyable.  One of my favorite aspects of the Harry Potter universe is still the food.  I love the celebratory aspect of the end, and I noticed that, having read it before, the magical aspects made more sense to me.

***

35.

Genre:  Nonfiction

Disability Representation:  Yes (pretty good, too!)

Rating: 3/4 Wheels (Really good)

Excerpt of GoodReads Summary:  Waking Up White is the book Irving wishes someone had handed her decades ago. By sharing her sometimes cringe-worthy struggle to understand racism and racial tensions, she offers a fresh perspective on bias, stereotypes, manners, and tolerance...

What I Thought:  In the aftermath of George Floyd's murder, I felt moved to do something more.  As a white disabled woman living in the middle of the pandemic, I don't have a lot financially, but I do have white privilege and I can learn about my part in that, especially, by making the point to read a book I already owned.

This did what it set out to do, opening my eyes to the fact that as a white person I do have a race.  It urged me to look twice at beliefs my family held and just how many of them had more to do with being white than I realized.

I'm not finished learning, but this was a good place to start.

***

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