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Month in review

Reviews
All the Birds in the Sky by Charlie Jane Anders
Ascender, Volume 1: The Haunted Galaxy by Jeff Lemire and Dustin Nguyen
Dear Martin by Nic Stone Death by Tea by Alex Erickson
Dragon Hoops by Gene Luen Yang
The Electric Heir by Victoria Lee
The Empress of Salt and Fortune by Nghi Vo
The Faceless Old Woman Who Secretly Lives In Your Home by Joseph Fink and Jeffrey Cranor
Ghost Squad by Claribel A. Ortega
If da Vinci Painted a Dinosaur by Amy Newbold
Go to Sleep (I Miss You) by Lucy Knisley
Gone with the Whisker by Laurie Cass
The Haunting of Vancouver Island by Shanon Sinn
The Haunting on Heliotrope Lane by Carolyn Keene
He Loves Me, He Loves Me Not by Robin Mayhall
Heartwood Hotel: Home Again by Kallie George
The Legend of Korra: Ruins of the Empire Part Three by Michael Dante DiMartino
The Loveliest Chocolate Shop in Paris by Jenny Colgan
Lyle and the Birthday Party by Bernard Waber
Mimi Lee Gets a Clue by Jennifer J. Chow
Nate Expectations by Tim Federle
No Mallets Intended by Victoria Hamilton
Shadow of the Batgirl by Sarah Kuhn and Nicole Goux
Stand Up, Yumi Chung! by Jessica Kim
This is Rome by Miroslav Sasek
The Unbinding of Mary Reade by Miriam McNamara
The Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead
Verse and Vengeance by Amanda Flower
We Are the Wildcats by Siobhan Vivian
When Katie Met Cassidy by Camille Perri

Miscellaneous
March 2020 Sources
March 2020 Summary

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3 stars: Average
2 stars: OK
1 star: Did not finish

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Dear Martin: 04/20/20

Dear Martin

Dear Martin by Nic Stone is about Justyce McAllister, months away from being Ivy League bound. Things start to go bad for him when he's arrested for assaulting a drunk white woman. The reality, though, is she's his girl friend and dangerously drunk. He was trying to stop her from driving her car. Racial profiling, though, makes reading a situation impossible.

Justyce vents about his situation through letters to Dr. Martin Luther King. He's the Martin in the title. Much of the plot progression happens in these letters. Frankly the entire book would have been stronger as an epistolary novel.

Then there are extended passages of dialog involving white boys at his high school. These are rendered as screenplay dialogue. With three competing forms of narration I found myself distracted even though the narrative was raw and rage inducing.

The sequel Dear Justyce is scheduled for release on October 6, 2020. I am planning on reading it.

Three stars

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