Legendborn by Tracy Deonn: A Young Adult Novel

Author: Tracy Deonn 
Title: Legendborn 
Genre: Young Adult, Fantasy 
Publication Date: 2020
Length: 506 pages, 18 hours & 54 minutes audio
Series: The Legendborn Cycle, Book #1
Geographical Setting: University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, North Carolina
Time Period: Present Day

Plot Summary: 16-year-old Bree Matthews is attending the University of North Carolina's Early College program to escape the memories of her mother's death. On her first night in Chapel Hill, she witnesses a magical attack and meets another teenager calling himself a "Merlin" who attempts to wipe her memories of the attack. Bree quickly discovers she could break the memory magic and accidentally unlocks a memory from the night of her mother's death  - recognizing that someone else tried to wipe her memory that night, too.  She soon meets Nick, a Legendborn who wants nothing to do with it, Bree throws herself into his world to search for answers about how her mother really died. She soon realizes that Legendborns, and the mysterious "Merlin," are descendants of the famous mythological figures King Arthur, the Knights of the Round Table, and the wizard Merlin. And they are all trying to stop a vicious, magical war against the Shadowborn demons that is looming over them. Bree has to decide how far she's willing to go to find the answers she seeks about her mother and her heritage and if she's willing to help the new Legendborn friends she's made in the oncoming deadly war, all while trying to navigate the grief over her mother, the casual (and intentional) racism she encounters daily, and the generational trauma she begins to understand she inherited. 

Content Warnings: car accident, death of a parent, depictions of grief, mentions and minor depictions of slavery and rape, mild gore, mind control/memory manipulation, racism (both micro- and macro-aggressions), violence

Week Twelve Prompt Response - Non-Fiction RA Matrix

Best Wishes, Warmest Regards: The Story of Schitt's Creek by Daniel Levy and Eugene Levy 

• Where is the book on the narrative continuum?
• Highly narrative (reads like fiction)
• What is the subject of the book?
• The making of the television show, Schitt’s Creek.
• What type of book is it? 
• Memoir told from multiple points of view

Week Eleven Prompt Response - Appeal Factors: Audiobooks and eBooks

Audiobooks

I am a big lover of audiobooks - especially when I'm at work doing a task that does not require a whole lot of brain power. I've discovered that I do excellent at listening to audiobooks of books I have already read, when I'm doing things that may require me to think a little bit more because I already know what is going to happen. Cahill and Moore (2017) mention a quote from Neil Gaiman where he describes the power of listening to a book in a way the author meant it, creating a more intimate experience for the reader. I have experienced this in so many ways. Libba Bray's Beauty Queens is a YA audiobook that is read by the author, and I wouldn't have it any other way. Bray is able to read the story in such a way that captivates the listener in precisely the way she intended when she wrote the book - the tone, the characterization, the pacing, the storyline, etc. are all affected by the way she read the book. The way she reads the story makes it infinitely more hilarious and captivating (it's kind of Lord of the Flies meets Miss Congeniality meets Lost meets every television teen soap opera drama from the mid- to late-2000s. It is absolutely amazing, please listen to it). 

Tress of the Emerald Sea by Brandon Sanderson: A Fantasy

Author: Brandon Sanderson

Title: Tress of the Emerald Sea

Genre: Landscape - Fantasy - Epic Fantasy

Publication Date: 2023

Length: 369 pages, 12 hours & 26 minute  audio

Series: Cosmere - The Secret Projects

Geographical Setting: The sometimes deadly spore seas of a planet in the Cosmere. 

Time Period: Unspecified 

Plot Summary: Tress has spent her whole life on the Rock in the middle of the Emerald Sea. She spends her days collecting and admiring cups delivered by sailors traveling the world and spending time with her friend, Charlie. One day, Charlie gets whisked away by his father, The Rock's Lord, on a quest to find him a bride. While waiting for her Charlie's promised return as an unmarried man, his father returns with a new heir - Charlie's cousin. Tress learns Charlie sailed the deadly Midnight Sea to avoid marriage, getting captured and held for ransom by the Sorceress. On her own quest to save Charlie, Tress becomes a stowaway on a merchant shop which soon gets destroyed by pirates. Tress quickly adapts to the pirate life, finding friends and allies in pirates and talking rats amongst the dangerous, deadly spores as she learns that she is more than just a girl from a small island in the middle of a sea. 

Content Warnings: death, kidnapping, violence, body horror

A Book Club Experience with the New York Public Library

I digitally attended the New York Public Library's book club - Open Book Hour: What have you been reading?  The next one will be March 19 at 4pm. 

This book club is one of the new book club formats as discussed by Hoffert (2019). Rather than have a specific book everyone reads followed by the discussion, this book club provided the opportunity for attendees to share what they've been reading and get recommendations from one another. The facilitator, a NYPL librarian, explained that each participant will discuss two books they have read in the past two months (since the last meeting of this book club was in December). The discussion was to include a little summary, any thoughts about the book, and whether they would recommend the book.

I was one of 5 attendees to this book club, not including the facilitating librarian. It was quickly evident the attendees were regulars; everyone was chatting with one another and addressing each other with familiarity. This was exemplified by the facilitator who had clearly built relationships with her participants, addressing everyone by name - including me once I had the chance to introduce myself - to create a better book club experience. Once everyone had arrived and introduced themselves (namely me, as I was the newcomer and they were all very excited to learn about me being in an MLIS program and learning what working in an archive is like), the librarian explained the format of the book club both as a reminder to previous attendees and for newcomers (again, me). As participants went around and did so, the librarian did an excellent job at being the facilitator, while still participating when possible.