Book Review: Suggested Reading by Dave Connis

I'm realizing I'm kind of a tough customer these days when it comes to books. Maybe it's time for me to switch up my normal genres. The last couple of years for me have been full of mediocre books. And that's pretty much how I feel about this book. I didn't really get any "feels" from it. It was okay and I don't regret that I read it, but it wasn't as good as I wanted it to be. I'm giving this book 3/5 stars on GoodReads. If I could give half stars, I would give this book a 2.5/5. I'm just gonna jump right in with some of the things I liked and didn't like.

One thing that I think is interesting is that not much of a physical description was given for any of the characters. I believe that gender was basically as much of a physical description that we get. I do think that's pretty unique. It allows it to be relatable to a broad spectrum of people. I like to be able to see myself as the main character. I think that's when I can really delve into the story, by imagining myself living it. I think this was one of my problems with the last book I read (You Asked For Perfect by Laura Silverman- I have a review posted on my blog. Go check that out if you're interested). The main character was relatable in the sense of his academics and perfectionism, but he was very unrelatable to my own life experiences. The main character was a Jewish, bisexual teen. And those facets of him are something that I can't relate to at all. And they were very big parts of the plot and dialogue. So back to this book, the fact that there wasn't much of a physical description makes them a vessel for the reader to project whatever they want them to be. But also at the same time by not committing to these physical markers, you're also alienating everyone because no one will have anything to latch on to. It's also interesting that very little of the personal life was told. The focus of the story pretty much lived within the walls of Lupton Academy.

In the beginning, I really liked Clara's character. I liked that she was strong, determined and what some may consider stubborn about what she believes in. But I didn't really like where her character was taken by the end. I will talk more about this transformation in the spoiler section of this discussion.

A big focus of the book is Clara's obsession with fictional author Lukas Gebhardt, especially his more recent book Don't Tread On Me. It was hard to understand the quotes relayed from this fictional book without knowing the context of having read the book itself. For example, Clara's mantra was "panem et circenses" throughout the book. This is translated to bread and circuses, but no context is given for what that means. So everytime Clara brings up "panem et circenses" as some profound commentary on what's happening in her life, I have no idea what she is talking about.

There were also some situations in this book that were pretty unrealistic to me. I had to suspend my disbelief to be able to continue with the story. Like no way I would believe that that many high school kids would be interested in reading books for fun. I'm sorry, but there probably would have been 5 kids max that would be interested in that underground library.

A lot of the big, profound revelations came off as cringey and try-hard to me. Either that or they were just confusing.

• "We all pretended we were above a good train wreck, but most of us would derail a train with our own hands if it'd help us forget, even for a minute, that we were still sore from walking away from our own wreckage."

What does that even mean??? This happened so many times throughout the book that I just ended up skimming moments like these because I would read them over and over again but they just wouldn't make sense to me. It wasn't just quotes like this that didn't make sense. It was also random bits of dialogue. I won't be including those here though. See the spoiler section below for more of a discussion regarding this.

I honestly didn't really understand a lot of the messages and lessons that were trying to be portrayed in the story. I did relate to the message of not starting with hate--not hating someone before you've given them a chance and before you know their situation and know what they have to say. That is definitely something I'm guilty of and something that I need to work on. All other messages though just went right over my head. I could feel them being forced on me and over-explained, but the dialogue just didn't click in my head.

The friendships also didn't really make sense or feel fleshed out enough for me to care. I understand the message that anyone can be friends, but that doesn't mean that everyone will be friends or should be friends. There wasn't any indication to me of why these people would become friends. The friendships that developed were just completely unbelievable to me.

There were a few quotes that I really liked and related to. Here's one:

"The prospect of having so many copies of Don't Tread on Me out in the world felt strange. I think because it was a weird thing to realize, you know? The communal aspect of books. They became so close to you, so ingrained in your blood, that it was like they became unpublished. The bar code, along with the memory of buying it along with five other duplicate copies, disappeared. And somewhere between the covers you'd start to think you were the only one who'd ever set eyes on the words, that there couldn't possibly have been another person that book spoke to as much as you."

This is all I have to say for the non-spoiler section. Continue on to the spoiler section below for a full discussion including spoilers.

***SPOILER SECTION***

I really don't like where they took Clara's character by the end. I liked that she was stubborn and defiant against Principal Walsh in the beginning. I thought the author did a really good job in the beginning of establishing that Clara was a strong woman and that Principal Walsh was the typical snooty adult that tells kids, "Because I said so!" He was established really quickly to be a realistic villain that I feel like I see in my daily life. But throughout the story, Clara learns that she needs to have a reason to fight. I didn' like her whole existential crisis about whether she started the Unlib for the right reasons. That she shouldn't just fight for the sake of fighting, or rather for the sake of winning. And her whole big revelation is that she started this because she wanted to win. And that wasn't my impression at all. Books are her biggest passion in life! And banning books is censorship and an infringement of free speech. And the school was pretty unreasonable with the books they were banning. They banned Captain Underpants??? That's just ridiculous. And those ridiculous rules should be fought against. You shouldn't just sit by and let them censor your education like that. It wasn't just education, they were also preventing people reading those books in their free time on campus. And it's not like she'd had this grudge against Lupton Academy and was just waiting for a moment to stick it to the man. It wasn't just an act of rebellion. She was fighting for what was right. And then in the end she decides that she was being petty by starting the Unlib for the reasons she did. It was so melodramatic to me when there was no problem in the first place. And same thing as with Clara's character development, Principal Walsh's character development didn't make sense to me. He was evil, and then he wasn't. He was shown to delight in the enforcement taken against the students, and then it's shown in the end that he was just being forced to do everything by the board which just doesn't line up for me.

I don't know if this is really a spoiler, but I don't want to delve too much into plot details in the main review. It wasn't just the "profound" quotes that didn't make sense. It was just some random dialogue that didn't make sense. Here is one:

• "Ashton [7:01 PM] Yeah. Also, is Queso Book Club tomorrow? Me [7:01 PM] Queso too long for you? Yeah. We shoot for every other week. You going to come

What is going on here? Ashton was asking when book club is. Clara then responds is it too long for you? That doesn't make any sense??? What does that have to do with what he just asked? And he hadn't given any indication earlier that he had a problem with the length of book club...

Here is another example:

• "God, it was sad. Questioning everything. All the time. It was exhausting tapping on everything thinking it was solid wood and learning it was veneer. I walked back toward campus, wishing I could cram all the fog in an old shopping bag and toss it in the trash. Fog days were the worst. It was like as soon as I swallowed a pinch of mist I became a broody lump despite any attempt at being anything but."

I feel like I am reading a translation that went wrong. Literally why is she talking about fog and swallowing mist...? What does that have to do with anything? It doesn't make sense.

Here is another quote (forgive, me I don't have access to the exact formatting of the quote, I only have the words):

• Ashton shook his head, then held out his hand. "Hey I'm a fan of your president work. You should for real run. Like, for the USA. I'd vote for you. I'll run your campaign. LiQui's head cocked to the side. A smile, one part astonishment, two parts amused, turned her lips into a crescent O. She looked at me, and I gave her a knowing nod. "Well, aren't you a glass of sweet tea?" she said. "Oh God," Jack replied, and for a minute I thought he was mocking LiQui and I was about to pull out my verbal guns, but then he added, "Don't say shit like that about him. He doesn't need it."

Again let's go through this together. Ashton says LiQui should run for president. LiQui says that he's a glass of sweet tea. Then Jack says don't say that about him. Am I missing something??? She didn't insult him at all... Also why would Clara think that Jack was mocking LiQui just because he said "Oh God?" LiQui didn't say anything mockable, so why would Clara think that Jack would be mocking her.

And here's another one. I didn't realize I had noted so many of these. Do I even have to elaborate further on how these don't make sense to me?

• "The library accumulated slowly. Like a steady snow. I thought it beautiful. How fitting was it that the very things that worked their truth in us over time also took the time to work on themselves."

There were a few quotes that I actually liked. Here is a quote that I did like because of how relatable it was to my life experience.

• "I guessed that was the problem with rarely pushing boundaries. When you did, regardless of what it was, suddenly you were reading The Anarchist Cookbook, getting a face tattoo, and smoking weed in the bathroom. It was frustrating beyond belief. No one was perfect, yet it seemed like I wasn't allowed to have imperfections or bad days. You were either an A student who never got in trouble or you were face-tattoo daughter. When I told my parents it wasn't a big deal, it wasn't that I wanted them to stop asking questions; I wanted them to let me fall in the middle of the two. To not worry that they'd somehow failed in their parenting."

Building onto my suspension of disbelief concern above, I don't believe that she could possibly be as overwhelmed as she said she was. She claimed that this was taking over her life. Other than the first couple of days where she was setting everything up, I don't believe that it would take that much time. The only time that would be occupied with this project would be before and after school, and during passing periods and lunch. This shouldn't really be affecting her home life or her head space during class.

A nitpicky thing- one thing that annoyed me was that both of the books by Lukas Gebhardt were about banned books/censorship/underground library. How on the nose is that. Her favorite books could have been about something else and she could have translated that message into her life and situation with the banned books. I don't know why she had to get her idea directly from a book where they did the exact same thing. It could have been more abstract than that.

One thing I did find interesting is that this book had no romance. That's honestly probably a first for me. That's pretty unique that there was not one hint of romance in this book.

***END OF SPOILER SECTION***

Okay that's the end of my random likes and dislikes. Did you read this book? Let me know your thoughts down below!