Joyful by Robert Hillman

My rating: 3/5 stars

“If one thing is meant to be, then surely all things are meant to be and there is nothing to be done about anything.”

I picked this book out at random. Like, literally walked down one (fiction) aisle of my library, eyes closed, stretched out my hands and decided that whatever book my hand landed on, I would read.

Joyful is a book that is primarily about one man’s struggle in dealing with the loss of his wife. After Tess’s passing, Leon Joyce realizes that there were secrets his wife had kept from him during their marriage: places she had been to, people she had been with. This takes Leon on a journey to his family house in a small town called Yackandandah.

As Leon discovers more about the life his wife actually lived, we are introduced to many secondary characters (almost all of whom had crossed paths with Tess), with stories just as interesting and bizarre.

It did start off slow, and at times it felt like the secondary characters were taken on such huge stories of their own, to the point were it seemed impossible to make a connection back to the story of Tess and Leon.

However, during the last 100 pages or so, everything did start to connect. It was a pretty interesting story. And I think I’ll be picking more books at random every once in a while.

 

Ms. Marvel Volume 2: Civil War by Brian Reed, Roberto de la Torre, Mike Wieringo, and Guiseppe Camuncoli.

My rating: 3/5 stars

It was the weekend after Avengers Infinity War had premiered, when I walked into my local comic book store demanding to know everything about Captain Marvel.

Now, I have always known of Captain Marvel, but I’ve never really known anything about her. In fact, the ‘Captain Marvel’ that I’m actually most familiar with is Shazam from the DC Universe.

Anyways, so I walked in there and asked a ton of questions about Captain Marvel, and the guy working the store that day told me that before Carol Danvers became Captain Marvel, she was actually Ms. Marvel. (Public knowledge, but brand new information to me ha).  He advised me to read the Ms Marvel comics first to get a better understanding of her background.

I normally like to read comic series in order but he said for Captain Marvel’s story it really doesn’t matter that much. So I started from Vol 2 which takes places right after the Civil War story line, a story line I’m already familiar with.

In Captain America: Civil War, we only got to see the tension between select members of the avengers. Vol 2 of Ms Marvel extends upon that. Iron Man has asked Ms Marvel and Wonder Man (yeah I had no idea there was a hero called Wonder Man in the Marvel Universe lol)  to round up any superheroes who are still practicing without being registered under the Act. So pretty much any heroes who were operating as a ‘free agent’, the same way Captain America, Falcon, Hawkeye etc were in the movie.

What also happens in this volume is Carol is paid a visit from a dopple ganger, a Carol from a different earth or universe who is determined to wipe out all the other carols because she views them as weak. This is my first introduction Ms. Marvel’s time travel ability which really got me excited.

Okay this is getting too long for a comic book review but basically, there was quite a lot going on this volume, it seemed a bit all over the place but I’ll keep reading more on Ms. Marvel’s story line.

 

Bookishly Ever After by Isabel Bandeira 

My rating: 2.5/5 stars 

Phoebe is a hardcore bookworm, she always has a book in her hand, prefers the company of fictional characters over the company of real people, goes to book signings, etc. (whispers to myself: omg is this book about me?)

Phoebe realizes that she has a crush on her friend Dev, and her friends are convinced that he has a crush on her too. In order to get his attention, she tries to behave like some of her favourite female characters from her favourite books.

However, as per every great (or mediocre) budding romance, there’s a lot of miscommunication, misinterpretation and uncertainty about feelings.

I read a lot of YA, which means I read a lot of books with characters in a high school setting. But this book in particular felt a bit immature for me.

It was extremely predictable but it was still a fairly cute story.

 

Ms. Marvel, Volume 8: War of the Marvels by Brian Reed, Sana Takeda

My rating: 2/5 stars 

So far all my encounters of Ms. Marvel involve her fighting some alternate version of herself and doing very little “super heroing”.

This story line was a little confusing but the art work was great.

 

Beautiful Boy: A Father’s Journey Through His Son’s Addiction by David Sheff

My rating: 5/5 stars

“Addiction is an equal-opportunity affliction – affecting people without regard to their economic circumstance, their education, their race, their geography, their IQ or any other factor. Probably a confluence of factors – a potent but unknowable combination of nature and nurture – may or may not lead to addiction.”

Beautiful Boy was birthed from an article Sheff had initially written for the NY times called “My Addicted Son’’. This article apparently won him an award from the American Psychological Association for “Outstanding Contribution to Advancing the Understanding of Addiction”, and based on his detailed recountment in Beautiful Boy, I can see why. I came out of this book with not only a whole new understanding of addiction but also with tremendous respect for the families dealing with its effect.

Sheff tells the story of his son Nic. His transformation from a ‘beautiful boy” – smart, funny, bright future ahead of him to a lying, stealing, selfish, troubling young man due to drug addiction. Sheff constantly struggles with how to help his son throughout every stage of his life. He extensively tries to figure out how it all started, where he went wrong, how he could have prevented it, if he could have prevented it, the benefits and complexity of rehabilitation programs and more.

Reading this book is an extremely frustrating process, and I think that is part of what makes it so real. I became so invested in the Sheff family, in Nic’s progress, in the well being of the other children (Daisy and Jasper), the endurance of his wife/Nic’s step mom (Karen).

Every time Nic would relapse or compromise his sobriety I would get angry. I couldn’t understand how he could not see that he was ruining his life, I couldn’t understand how David Sheff was not going insane.

At some point it starts to sound repetitive, like a never ending cycle but that is the reality of addiction for many.

Addiction. Rehabilitation. Relapse.
Addiction. Rehabilitation. Relapse.
Addiction. Rehabilitation. Relapse.
Addiction. Rehabilitation. Relapse.

“It is still so easy to forget that addiction is not curable. It is a life long disease that can go into remission, that is manageable if the one who is stricken does the hard, hard, work, but it is incurable.”

While this was an incredibly insightful read, I realize that Nic had the support of a loving and somewhat wealthy family. Rehabilitation programs were always a viable option for him.

Now that Sheff has piqued my interest in the topic of Addiction, I’d also be interested in reading about it from the perspective of someone with less access to helpful resources and with less of a support system.

 

Let’s Get Lost by Adi Alsaid

My rating: 2/5 stars 

Leila is on a solo road trip across the country to see the northern lights.

At different points in this journey she crosses paths with 4 other teenagers. The first is Hudson, then Bree, then Elliot and then Sonia.

When Leila’s car is in need of a quick fix up she is lucky enough to bump into Hudson. Insta love ensues and they have a night of exploring his town, swimming across lakes, gazing at stars. You know how this goes.

While on the road, Leila picks up a hitch hiker, Bree. Bree is a runaway, determined to live only in the moment, seeker of adventure. Together they manage to steal snacks from a convenience store, ‘borrow’ an expensive car from a valet, end up in jail and released a few hours later.

Continuing her journey up north, she nearly runs over a boy in the middle of the road at night. Elliot. Drunk and heart broken over his best friend he stumbles onto the road hoping to get hit by a car. Leila only clips his hand and after driving him to the hospital, she makes it her mission to help him confess his love to his best friend Maribel.

Leila meets Sonia at a gas station. A sobbing Sonia, still upset over a fight with her boyfriend gets in a car with Leila to “anywhere’. Soon they realize they have crossed the Canadian border and Sonia has forgotten her passport at the gas station. Somehow, they attempt to sneak back in through the border, are caught and let go. And then smuggle back in via the trunk of a car and bribe the border patrol officers with Tim Horton’s donuts. Yes, really.

All of these interactions with the people she meets last barely 24 hours. But somehow in that time she has helped each person realize the most important thing in their life. *rolls eyes*

I totally get the concept Alsaid was going for but this was 359 pages of painfully cliched characters and completely unrealistic storylines.