Candy Bunny Reader

    This graphic novel is not what you think (in a good way)! This first volume of Super Boba Cafe by Nidhi Chanani takes place over summer break in San Francisco. It follows 13 year old Aria helping her Nainai (grandmother) at her boba tea shop. The boba tea shop hasn't had a lot of customers lately, but when Nainai's pet cat Bao has kittens, it turns into an unofficial cat cafe, thus attracting more customers. Aria is glad that now her grandmother's boba tea shop is thriving, but Nainai also seems to be keeping a secret from Aria... Meanwhile Aria has trouble befriending a named Jay, who lives next door to her Nainai. Aria is anxious to make new friends because during the school year, she got cyberbullied by someone she thought she could trust. But Jay ends up becoming a big help for Aria and Nainai later on when they find out what Nainai has been hiding from everyone this whole time.  I can't tell you too much because it would get into spoilers, but it involves a lo...

  My first Claire Kann book!  If It Makes You Happy follows 18 year old Winnie, who has her whole summer planned before she starts college in the fall: work at Goldeen's, her grandmother's old fashioned diner, and hang out with her ungirlfriend named Kara.  But then Winnie somehow accidentally becomes part of an annual matchmaking tradition the small town she is staying in has with the next small town over. She gets crowned queen, and a guy she's kind of secretly liked for a long time named Dallas steps up to become her king.  Now all of her plans are thrown out of whack as she and Dallas go around attending town events as Misty Haven's unofficial king and queen. Even worse--Winnie thinks the more she hangs out with Dallas, her queerplatonic relationship with Kara will be ruined. Winnie wonders if there is a way to make everyone happy while also prioritizing her own happiness.  This book got me hooked on from page one! I love the way the author writes, and Win...

  A Banh Mi for Two by Trinity Nguyen follows two girls: Lan and Vivi. Lan spends her days working at her family's banh mi stall, and also has a popular blog. It's all about food and food stalls in Sai Gon, the city where she lives. But she hasn't felt inspired to write anything in a long time. At the same time, Vivi has come to Viet Nam via study abroad with her university. Her main goal is actually to track down her mother's side of the family, whom she's never met and find out why her mother lost contact with them a long time ago. Her only clues are some old photographs of her mother, aunt, and grandmother. Vivi is also a huge fan of Lan's blog.  The two girls meet on accident in a public park. Things start out rocky at first, but when Vivi gushes to Lan about how much she loves her blog, the two become best friends. Vivi convinces Lan to enter a writing contest, and Lan agrees to help Vivi track down her mother's side of the family. The two also gush a ...

  Fun fact: I actually read part of this series way back when I was in middle school, but I never read all of the volumes. Now I'm planning on reading all of them! Yotsuba&! by Kiyohiko Azuma is a cute, chill, slice of life series about a little girl named Yotsuba, her adoptive father, and their new neighbors. Every chapter follows Yotsuba as she goes on little adventures when she becomes fascinated with seemingly everyday items and occurences, from air conditioners to cicadas. The humor in the series often comes from Yotsuba misunderstanding things.  I enjoyed this series when I read part of it as a kid, but I think I love it even more as an adult! I think it's because it's such a sweet and heartwarming series about everyday life with such lovable characters. I definitely needed this book more as an adult especially when life gets so stressful. This first volume got 5 stars from me. Excited to read the rest of the series!

  Have you ever had expectations for a book that were... just a little too high? Fun fact: I originally DNF'd (did not finish) this book a few years ago, but I decided to give it a second chance. Was it good the second time around? Well... The Penderwicks by Jeanne Birdsall is a middle-grade novel about four sisters (oldest to youngest): Rosaline, Jane, Skye, and Batty, and their father, spending the summer in a cottage that is part of the grounds of a huge mansion. They become friends with the landlord's son, named Jeffery. They love each other's company, but Jeffery's mom thinks that the Penderwick sisters are a bad influence on him, and she has other plans for her son that he doesn't like. Along with their adventures with playing in nature, and playing with the pet rabbits of the groundskeeper named Cagney, the Penderwicks try to help Jeffery deal with his overbearing mother. This sounded like something right up my alley, and I enjoyed it for the most part, but ...

  Another perfect Sapphic romance book! If You Still Recognize Me by Cynthia So is about Elsie--an 18 year old young woman who gets the most unexpected summer of her life before college. She has a crush on a friend  that she met online  who is a fanfiction writer of her favorite comic series--Eden Recoiling. The friend's name is Ada, and Elsie wants to confess her feelings for her, but she doesn't know how.  Ada also tells Elsie a story of a woman named Theresa Bennett that her (Ada's) grandmother named Rebecca knew when she still lived in the UK. Apparently, the two women were really close friends, and Rebecca developed some romantic feelings for her, but then Rebecca moved to the US after getting married to Ada's grandfather. The two women still communicated through letters, but one day, the letters stopped coming. Rebecca still thinks about Theresa from time to time, and would like to reunite with her. Ada sends Elsie Rebecca's letters from Theresa, and decides ...

(Pic was found on Google Images) The Vanishing Half by Brit Bennett is an adult historical fiction literary novel about the Vignes twins--Desiree and Stella, and their families. The Vignes family is black and they are light-skinned black people. They lived in a town called Mallard, in Lousiana, which was a town with mostly light skinned people. As they were growing up, the sisters were inseparable. Life wasn't always easy, but they had each other. But when they moved to New Orleans to get jobs, Stella decided to pass as a white woman in order to get a job as a secretary. Then she fell in love with her boss, a white man named Blake, and they moved to Los Angeles and had a daughter named Kennedy. Stella decided to lie about her true heritage and family.  The other sister, Desiree, got in a relationship with a black man named Sam, and had a daughter with him named Jude. Desiree got a divorce from Sam because he treated her poorly, and so she and Jude moved back to Mallard to care for...

  I can't delve too deep into them since they are the 2nd and 3rd book of the series, but I will tell you right now that I loved them and I gave them both 5 stars! They are just as heartwarming, whimsical, magical, and sweet as the first one, and have both great LGBT and disability rep. I will tell you the 2nd book is a prequel to the first one. And in the third book the characters from both the 1st and 2nd book all come together for a perfect conclusion.  The Tea Dragon Society series is now an all-time favorite graphic novel series for me. It literally had everything I love in fictional storytelling. Thank you Kay O'Neill for your creation!

TW: Discussions of death Yes, another great book by Sharon Creech . She is a favorite author of mine now.  Chasing Redbird follows 13-year old Zinnia Taylor, or Zinny as she is nicknamed. She lives with her large family on a farm in Bybanks, Kentucky (not a real place in Kentucky, by the way). Living next door to them is her widower Uncle Nate. She was very close with her uncle, aunt, and cousin, as she would sometimes go over to their house to escape her noisy big house. But her aunt Jessie and her cousin Rose died a few years earlier, and Zinny feels guilty because she thought that she was responsible for their deaths (she was sick then her cousin Rose got infected and died, and aunt Jessie happen to die shortly after one day Zinny showed her a snake, which aunt Jessie was horribly afraid of). Even after everyone in her family told her it was never her fault.  Well, one day Zinny discovers that the small stone-paved trail behind her house that she sometimes walked with her...

(Pic was found on Google Images) Yes, another book I read months ago that I couldn't review because of the HarperCollins strike. But here we are now! Ruby Holler by Sharon Creech is about two 13 year old orphans named Dallas and Florida. They've never had a trusted adult in their lives that they felt safe around, because they are usually taken in by a foster family that get sick of them after a while, and then return them to the run-down orphanage they grew up in, run by a mean couple named Mr. and Mrs.  Trepid. Dallas and Florida constantly dream of becoming runaways by sneaking onto the train that sometimes runs through the town. Not far from the small town they live in, there is a farm called Ruby Holler where an elderly couple named Tiller and Sairy live. They decide to go on two separate trips (a canoeing trip for Tiller and a camping trip for Sairy) and also decide to take in Dallas and Florida and invite them on their trips (Florida will go with Tiller, Dallas wil...

(Pic was found on Google Images) Okay, here's the thing, I actually read this book several months ago, but I couldn't talk about it because the HarperCollin's strike was going on (this book was published by HarperCollins). But since the strike ended a few months ago, it's about time I talk about it! This is the second book I've read by Sharon Creech so far in my lifetime. The first one I read was Absolutely Normal Chaos when I was in middle school. I remember loving that book and I decided to read more from her. Since this was one of her more popular books, I thought it was about time I read it.  Walk Two Moons by Sharon Creech is about 13 year old Sal Hiddle, who goes on a cross country road trip with her grandparents to find her mother. About a year before the story, Sal's mother left her and her father, and Sal wants to find her and understand why. She and her family were also living in Kentucky, but moved and lived in Ohio shortly after Sal's mother le...