Banned Books Recap

Hello, everyone! I apologize for my disappearing act last
week. It was unintentional but life got in the way. My coworker and I started
the 30 Day Shred last week (on a whim, one day we said we should do it and the
next we were on Day 1), I spent an evening at the hair salon, my family threw a
surprise party to celebrate one year with Little One (yes, it’s been a year
already, I can’t believe it either!), friends from out of town stopped by for a night and I spent a night out of town for a funeral.

I’m actually sitting in my hotel room drafting this
post right now because by the time I get home on Monday I’ll have to pick up
Little One, get a workout in and spend the rest of the night with my puppy
because I don’t like leaving her behind, even when I leave her in the capable
hands of my sister (and the loving hands of my niece and nephew). I just love
that little dog!

To start out the week, I want to give a quick recap of the books that I read for Banned Books Week.

1) Eleanor and Park by Rainbow Rowell. As I said last week, I decided it was time to pick up this book because it’s being challenged in a school district in Minnesota right now. The novel is about two teenagers who live in the same neighborhood. Eleanor just moved to the neighborhood and back in with her family after living with family friends for a year when her stepfather kicked her out. When she starts to school, the other students make fun of her because she doesn’t wear nice clothing and she’s heavy. Park has lived in the neighborhood all of his life and though he’s not teased like Eleanor is, he’s definitely not part of the popular crowd. Park doesn’t want to have anything to do Eleanor when he first sees her, but as they ride the bus together they start to bond over a love of music and comics and they start to fall in love. This book has a realistic portrayal of young love, which is something that I think is lacking in a lot of popular novels today. The challenges that the teens faced felt very real and because of that their insecurities were tough to read about, but they only added to the realness of the characters. I feel like these are characters that people can easily connect and relate to and I appreciate that. The ending took me by surprise, but in a very good way. I greatly enjoyed this novel.

2) Crank by Ellen Hopkins. This is a verse novel and, as you may know, I absolutely love them! I felt it was very fitting for this novel as well. Crank is about Kristina, a junior in high school, who is introduced to crystal meth when she visits her father one summer. The book follows her routine to her mother’s house and how her addiction begins to take over her life. This was a whirlwind of a read! Because of it’s format it only takes a few hours to get through and it was a book that I had a hard time putting down because I wanted to know what was going to happen to Kristina. This is by no means an easy book to read. It’s intense and emotional and very difficult to read at times but the format is effective in pulling the reader in and making Kristina’s experience feel real. This is the first novel in a trilogy and I’ve already ordered the next two because I want to know how Kristina’s story ends.

Have you read either of these books or would you consider reading them?