The Degenerates

Rose, her sister Maxine and Alice have lived at the Massachusetts School for the Feeble-Minded most of their lives. It is an institution for any girls or women deemed other or who had nowhere else to go or were unwanted by their families (poor, marginalized or disabled girls). The place is full of bullies, vicious attendants, and very little happiness. But the three girls have worked out a life that works for them.

Maxine does everything she can to protect her sister Rose who is likely on the Autism spectrum. Alice is her best friend who was given up because she was born with a clubbed foot.

London is in foster care. She lives with an old woman who spends her days yelling insults and profanity out of her window. When London is taken away and sent to the school, she vows to escape.

Told through four voices The Degenerates is an historical novel that looks at the harsh life that was true of many, many people. Mann has written it with sensitivity and hope, turning it into a beautiful telling of an awful situation.

Mann, J. Albert. (2020). The Degenerates. New York: Atheneum.

Yerba Buena

Yerba Buena by Nina LaCour is about two people who each is trying to make it in the Los Angeles food scene. 

Sara Foster and Emilie Dubois arrived in LA in two very different ways, but they meet at the restaurant Yerba Buena - a place where Emilie grew up going on special occasions with her family and is her dream job, and Sara is starting as head bartender after fighting her way up from a rough start.

Emilie's family moved to Southern California after WWII, when many Black and Creole families left the south. 

Sara grew up in Northern California and took care of her brother after their mother died. Her father is in and out of jail. Which is way she chose to go to LA with a virtual stranger instead of staying at home.

LaCour is one of my favorite storytellers. Ever since I read her book Everything Leads to You I was hooked! Read this author!

LaCour, Nina. (2022). Yerba Buena. New York: Flatiron Books.

The Stone Sky (Broken Earth Trilogy #3)

The Stone Sky is the final book in NK Jemisin's amazing Broken Earth trilogy.

There are two factions who don't know they are about to meet at the battle for the Earth - either to save it from the instability it has been experiencing or to end it for good.

Essun is traveling north, the opposite direction from where her daughter Nassun was taken. She has been fighting to catch up since the Season started. Things keep getting in the way. Not that travel of any kind is easy during a Season.

Nassun isn't where her mother thinks she is anymore anyway. She is on her way to the place where she can use her newly controlled magic to change the world that thinks she is evil for having magic at all. 

In this explosive finally, Jemisin reminds us that she is not only an amazing writer, but a vastly creative mind. Read this series. Read everything N.K. Jemison ever writes!

Jemisin, N.K. (2017). The Stone Sky. New York: Orbit.