Car Crash – The Bookish Mutant

Happy Sunday, bibliophiles!

As you can see above, the melting emoji represents my slow melting, a la the Wicked Witch of the West, because July in Colorado always threatens to melt me into a slushy puddle. At least we got some rain. (And hail, one time? got enough that it looked like snow in certain parts of the yard…)

GENERAL THOUGHTS:

Hot as it was, I’d say that July was another good month of summer. I’ve had tons more time to read and relax, and even though college is always on my mind nowadays, the time off has been good to collect my thoughts. I’ve gone hiking a few times, seen some fun movies, and tried to exercise a little more.

I got to read tons this month, and although it was generally a mixed bag (a lot more books in the 3-star range than usual), I still found some gems in the mix. For Disability Pride Month, I tried to focus on books with disabled characters, and I’ve found some reads with great disability rep—including the first book I’ve ever read with SPD rep! (Thanks, Carolyn Mackler!!) Camp NanoWriMo is nearly over—it’s had its ups and downs (couldn’t find the stats page for a while and fell behind on my word count, hit command v instead of command b and accidentally pasted the whole Pinnochio trailer into my document), but I’m so close to 45,000 words now!!

Other than that, I’ve just been playing my guitar, recovering from the last two episodes of Stranger Things (OW), seeing Thor: Love and Thunder (pure Taika Waititi fun), drawing, and listening to an excess of Peter Gabriel.

Also, I figured I’d give everybody an update on Ringo, since I haven’t posted about him much since we got him; he’s 7 months old now and even more of a menace to society, but he has the sweetest face…

READING AND BLOGGING:

I read 25 books this month! This is probably gonna be the most books I’ll be able to read in a month, since it’s the middle of summer. It was a mixed bag, as always, but I found a few amazing 5-star reads in the bunch.

1 – 1.75 stars:

Among Thieves (Thieves, #1) – M.J. Kuhn (⭐️.5)

2 – 2.75 stars:

Harrow the Ninth (The Locked Tomb, #2) – Tamsyn Muir (DNF – ⭐️⭐️)
The Blood Trials (The Blood Gift Duology, #1) – N.E. Davenport (⭐️⭐️)
The Circus Infinite – Khan Wong (⭐️⭐️.5)
The Space Between Worlds – Micaiah Johnson (⭐️⭐️.5)
Fortune Favors the Dead (Pentecost and Parker, #1) – Stephen Spotswood (⭐️⭐️.5)

3 – 3.75 stars:

Bluebird – Ciel Pierlot (⭐️⭐️⭐️)
Follow Your Arrow – Jessica Verdi (⭐️⭐️⭐️)
The Ghosts We Keep – Mason Deaver (⭐️⭐️⭐️.5)
On the Edge of Gone – Corinne Duyvis (⭐️⭐️⭐️.5)
The Final Strife – Saara El-Arifi (⭐️⭐️⭐️.5)
Two Girls Staring at the Ceiling – Lucy Frank (⭐️⭐️⭐️.5)
She Who Became the Sun (The Radiant Emperor, #1) – Shelley Parker-Chan (⭐️⭐️⭐️.5)
Ophelia After All – Racquel Marie (⭐️⭐️⭐️.5)
The Sisters of Reckoning (The Good Luck Girls, #2) – Charlotte Nicole Davis (⭐️⭐️⭐️.5)
Meet Me in Outer Space – Melinda Grace (⭐️⭐️⭐️.75)
Mean Little Deaf Queer: A Memoir – Terry Galloway (⭐️⭐️⭐️.75)
Breathe and Count Back from Ten – Natalia Sylvester (⭐️⭐️⭐️.75)

4 – 4.75 stars:

The King and the Corpse – Heinrich Robert Zimmer, edited by Joseph Campbell (⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️)
Man o’ War – Cory McCarthy (⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️)
The Kingdom of Back – Marie Lu (re-read) (⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️.5)
Not If I Can Help It – Carolyn Mackler (⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️.5)

5 stars:

Alone in Space: A Collection – Tillie Walden (⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️)
The Reckless Kind – Carly Heath (⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️)
The Amazing Screw-On Head and Other Curious Objects (20th Anniversary Edition) – Mike Mignola (⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️)

FAVORITE BOOK OF THE MONTH: The Amazing Screw-On Head and Other Curious Objects – 5 stars

POSTS I’M PROUD OF :

July is Disability Pride Month, and I made a post with YA disability recs & talked about my experience with SPD and why representation matters!
I had tons of fun reviewing Among Thieves, The Reckless Kind, Not If I Can Help It, and Follow Your Arrow!
I also made a list of YA recs for Nonbinary Awareness Week!
I reviewed Soccer Mommy’s fantastic new album Sometimes, Forever!
I made a list of my top 10 favorite albums!

POSTS FROM OTHER WONDERFUL PEOPLE THAT I ENJOYED:

I wish I could put this one in flashing neon letters or skywriting or something, because my awesome brother has a blog too!!! he writes tons of short stories, poetry, and music/movie reviews, so go follow him!!!
Maddie made a great list of 85+ (!!!) books with disability rep for disability pride month!
Hundreds & Thousands of Books hit 500 followers!! Congratulations!!
Ahaana @ Windows to Worlds shares her goals for the summer (and some SUPER CUTE pictures of her puppies)

SONGS/ALBUMS THAT I ENJOYED:

yeah spoiler alert I did listen to more Peter Gabriel

Kate Bush is hit or miss for me but when she hits it for me she HITS it

going through an 80’s period this month I guess??

HOOOOOOOOOOOWEE time go to back to my sad girl roots

I haven’t listened to much Japanese Breakfast but I fell in love with this one INSTANTLY

MORE PETER GABRIEL BC I LOVED SO

I really need to listen to more IDLES bc I’ve loved every song I’ve heard of theirs

DID I FOLLOW THROUGH ON MY JULY GOALS?

Read at least 20 books: 25!
Get through Camp NaNoWriMo: We’ll see about that later tonight…

GOALS FOR AUGUST:

Get through the first few weeks of college (AAAAAA)
Enjoy my birthday (which also happens to be on the first day of classes…yeehaw😀)

Today’s song:

That’s it for this month in blogging! Have a wonderful rest of your day, and take care of yourselves!

Happy Tuesday, bibliophiles!

Ever since I realized that literature has been something I could see myself in, I’ve been looking high and low for books with SPD representation. For years, all I managed to find were help books for parents SPD children (again—not diminishing their value, I was just looking for something else) and hardly any fiction in sight. By some miracle, I ended up coming across this book recently, and I was elated to find a book that finally reflected my disability! I set my expectations hesitantly high, but I ended up adoring Not If I Can Help It; I wish I had it when I was Willa’s age.

Enjoy this week’s review!

Not If I Can Help It – Carolyn Mackler

Willa has Sensory Processing Disorder—she hates the texture of certain foods, tags and seams on clothes irritate her to no end, and she gets overwhelmed easily. With her occupational therapist, she’s been able to manage it—and keep it a secret from her 5th-grade class. But when her dad breaks the news that he’s engaged to her best friend’s mom, she struggles to handle the change—she loves her best friend Ruby, but being her sister would be another situation entirely. As 5th grade draws to a close, can she and Ruby work things out—as best friends, and as sisters?

TW/CW: sensory overload, bullying

I’m going to go so far as to say that Not If I Can Help It is a fairly monumental book for me. It’s the first book I’ve ever read with a protagonist who has SPD, and as somebody with SPD, it fills my heart to see myself in a book like this. I’m so, so, so glad this book exists.

I’ve been trying to find any kind of SPD fiction for years, and Not If I Can Help It surprised me with how realistically and respectfully SPD was handled. I related so much to Willa—even though our specific brands of SPD differed (Willa’s seems to be more tactile, whereas mine are mainly auditory), I related so much to Willa’s experience, from her experience with handling change to the everyday things she does with her parents to cope with her SPD. (I JUST GOT MY OWN BODY SOCK TOO??? we love the body sock in this house) I’ve been going back to OT in preparation for college lately, and I also loved the scenes with Willa and her therapist in the sensory gym—again, so respectfully written and authentic! Mackler mentions in the acknowledgments that Not If I Can Help It was partially based off of her experience with one of her sons, who has SPD, and this is bound to be a book that so many of us with SPD will relate to—I certainly did.

It’s been a while since I’ve read any middle grade, but the gap was a lot easier to bridge than I thought it would be. Mackler’s writing, along with our shared experience, made me instantly feel for Willa. She’s such a unique, determined character, so full of life and spirit. I loved her individual quirks, and her growth over the novel made me wish that I had this kind of book when I was her age—I could’ve used a Willa when I was going into middle school. (Also, kudos to Willa for managing her SPD on top of living in MANHATTAN, wow…)

The story was additionally a super sweet one. I completely related to Willa’s reticence to having change, and all of the changes she experiences (her dad getting married to her best friend’s mom, going to middle school, and her longtime babysitter moving, to name a few) served to help her grow so much as a character. All of the supporting characters were wonderfully unique in their own ways, adding not only to the story, but helping to emphasize the point, to paraphrase Ruby’s mom, that we all have our “things” going on—not everybody is as normal as you may think they are, and that there will be all kinds of people to support you along your journey.

All in all, a book that I sorely wished that I’d been able to read when I was younger, but one that I’m so glad I got to read here and now. This is the first book with SPD rep that I’ve read, and given how authentically it was represented, it will always have a special place in my heart. Thanks so much to Carolyn Mackler and Willa. 💗 4.5 stars!

Not If I Can Help It is a standalone, but Carolyn Mackler is also the author of several middle grade and YA books, including Tangled, Infinite In Between, Love and Other Four-Letter Words, and The Earth, My Butt, and Other Big Round Things.

Today’s song: