Jennette McCurdy’s debut novel might best be described as coming of age in reverse. It follows Waldo, a teenager who’s had to grow up too fast, as she navigates high school and life in general.
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Intermezzo
Honestly, it’s hard to know what this book is about. At least at first glance. Unlike The Queen’s Gambit and The Last Checkmate, chess isn’t the main focus of the book, but one of the main characters, Ivan Koubek, is a competitive chess player. The book is really about Ivan and his older brother, Peter, dealing with the loss of their father. And how everyone copes, grieves, differently.
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The Last Checkmate
In Gabriella Saab’s debut novel, Maria Florkowska, a young woman working for the Polish resistance effort alongside her parents during World War II, has her world turned upside down when she’s sent to Auschwitz.
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Sunrise on the Reaping
The book got a little beat up while on vacation. Sorry Suzanne! Sunrise on the Reaping takes place 40 years after the events of The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes. It’s now the fiftieth anniversary of The Hunger Games, the first Quarter Quell, and a young Haymitch Abernathy is reaped on what happens to be his birthday. Such a nice birthday present, right? And because a Quarter Quell is when things get interesting, twice as many tributes get reaped as usual, which means Haymitch has 47 opponents. Loyal readers might remember how the story ends, but that’s just the beginning.
This was a really fun who’s who of The Hunger Games universe. The main character, of course is Haymitch, who just so happens to be friends with Katniss’s dad, Burdock Everdeen. Katniss definitely got her bow-and-arrow skills from him. There’s also Effie Trinket, Plutarch Havensbee, Mags, Wiress, and Beetee.
Beetee isn’t in a wheelchair at this point – was that just a thing in the Catching Fire movie? However, he does have a plan up his sleeve, a plan that involves Haymitch and his own son, Ampert. Not only is Ampert adorable, he has a really fitting name for someone from District 3.
There’s also more to Plutarch Havensbee than is seen as first glance, but knowing that he eventually becomes Head Gamemaker, it’s not clear if he’s a good guy or not.
Effie actually comes to District 12’s wardrobe rescue, because their assigned stylist, Magno Stift, is too busy getting high on whatever he can get his hands on to actually take the time to dress his tributes in anything other than what they’ve been wearing for the last half century – black overalls and miners’ hats. Sure, District 12 ends up getting hand-me-downs from the Trinket family, but that’s better than nothing.
The end of this book was absolutely brutal. Haymitch may have survived, but that doesn’t mean he catches any kind of breaks. Does Suzanne Collins get off on ripping out her readers’ hearts and feeding them into a wood chipper? Because sometimes it seems like she does.
The Reviewing Fangirl 