Candy Bunny Reader

  Yay for another book tag! I saw this tag once again over at the YouTube channel of Angela from Literature Science Alliance (her video here ). It looked like a lot of fun. Feel free to do this tag if you see it! 1. In fall, the air is crisp and clear: name a book with a vivid setting. Anything by Kelly Barnhill! As of writing this, I have read from her The Girl who Drank the Moon and The Ogress and the Orphans. I am currently reading The Witch's Boy and is also has a very vivid setting. 2. Nature is beautiful, but also dying: name a book that is beautifully written, but also deals with a heavy topic like loss or grief. Three that come to mind are: We Are Okay by Nina LaCour, Sweet Bean Paste by Durian Sukegawa, and Chasing Redbird by Sharon Creech. 3. Fall is back to school season: share a non-fiction book that taught you something new. Word by Word by Kory Stamper. It's a nonfiction book about how dictionaries are made, specifically the Merriam-Webster English Dictionary...

  I also happened to read and finish We Are Okay by Nina LaCour this past week. It's a YA Contemporary novel exploring grief and loneliness.  The main character, Marin, a college freshman living in New York, gets special permission to stay at her dorm room over winter break while everyone else is gone, the only other person in the building being the housekeeper, Tommy. Marin does not want to go back to visit her home in San Francisco for some reason. Marin is forced to face her past when her best friend (and ex-girlfriend) Mabel comes to visit. Mabel wants to know why Marin has avoided her since they graduated high school, to the point of moving across the country and avoiding her texts and calls. Over the course of the book we learn what happened to Marin and the big turning point that made her want to leave everything behind.  The book is written with chapters alternating from the present day to flashbacks of Marin's life in San Francisco. We learn that she was raised ...