Mundie Moms

Saturday, June 25, 2011

Diversify Your Reading Challenge

Have you joined the Diversify Your Summer Reading Challenge yet? This is an awesome challenge that Cindy Pon and Malinda Lo are hosting, that also includes some fabulous prizes. I've quoted the following details from their site, but please go HERE to read ALL the details, sign up for the challenge, and see the huge list of prizes.

Libraries: We invite librarians to incorporate diverse middle grade and young adult novels into your summer reading programs, whether it’s as a book display, a book club event, or a book list you’ve created to share with your patrons. Please take photos or shoot video of your display or event and share them with us!

Readers and Book Bloggers: We invite readers and book bloggers to read diverse MG and YA books throughout the summer (you choose the books!) and write an essay (at least 500 words) about your experience. You can post it on your website, Blogger, LiveJournal, Tumblr, or on Facebook; we only ask that your post be publicly readable.

What to read: You can read whichever diverse books you like! By diverse we mean: (1) main characters or major secondary characters (e.g., a love interest or best friend kind of character) who are of color or are LGBT; or (2) written by a person of color or LGBT author. If you need some suggestions, check out our monthly lists of new books, and these book lists at Black Teens Read.

Book Review & Blog Tour- Luminous

Flowing from the previous stop at Electrifying Reviews, we're the next stop in our Luminous Blog Tour.


Published by Dutton
To Be Released on July 7th, 2011
Source- ARC from publisher to review/blog tour
3 stars- A unique, diverse read

As reality slips and time stands still, Consuela finds herself thrust into the world of the Flow. Removed from all she loves into this shifting world overlapping our own, Consuela quickly discovers she has the power to step out of her earthly skin and cloak herself in new ones-skins made from the world around her, crafted from water, fire, air. She is joined by other teens with extraordinary abilities, bound together to safeguard a world they can affect, but where they no longer belong.

When murder threatens to undo the Flow, the Watcher charges Consuela and elusive, attractive V to stop the killer. But the psychopath who threatens her new world may also hold the only key to Consuela's way home.

With it's unique world, interesting mythology, lore and a cast full of diverse characters who have a wide variety of paranormal abilities, Luminous is unlike any YA book I've read. I liked that Dawn doesn't hold back on her diversity in Luminous from race, to ethnicity, religion, gender, social class, and so on. One of the things I found to be unique with Luminous is the story's theme of perception and I liked how Dawn tied that into the story's rich diversity. I found this theme to be both fascinating and realistic, and she allowed me to see how the characters were perceived in both the real world and in the Flow. For example, Consuela, the story's main character is a beautiful Latina girl who in real world she perceives herself as someone who's different and doesn't feel comfortable in her own skin, but once she enters the Flow she starts to see herself for who she is.

I'll be honest, at first I was both a little creeped out and intrigued by the fact Consuela can literally shed her skin, transforming her skeletal frame into an element around her. I liked that not only does she learn to love who she really is, but he learns to become more comfortable in her own skin, literally. I liked the uniqueness of Consuela and her ability to change into the element to save someone, like transforming her skin into water to save someone from drowning. Along with Consuela is a cast of unusual, intriguing characters who all of a power that they use while in the Flow to save others. Despite that fact I liked reading about each of the characters, I felt like I didn't have any sort of connection with them, and I can't pinpoint why that is. Surprisingly that didn't hinder my ability to like the story. Each character offers a lot to the story itself.

One of the most fascinating aspects of the story is the setting, the Flow. A place set between time or life as we know it, where each character's ability is used. I liked that the character's experiences in life as well as their cultural differences/experiences defined who they are here. In the Flow each character is perceived differently than they were in life, which helped drive the story's theme on perception home. Other elements I liked about the story is Dawn's use of cultural references, and her research with a variety of those cultures, as well as cultural literature really stands out in the book.

Luminous is a very intriguing read and I commend Dawn on incorporating a variety of cultures and diversity in her debut book. I was pleasantly surprised with the flow of the story, and I didn't have a hard time following the plot or what was going on. This is a very diverse, interesting, unique read. I'd definitely recommend this book to teens and older readers who enjoy paranormal books and with a lot of diversity.
____________________________________

This review on our Luminous Blog Tour was brought to you by the letter: Y. Collect all the letters along the blog tour, unscramble the puzzle, and win a secret surprise as well as an extra entry in the Luminous Grand Prize Giveaway, June 30th! Details at www.dawnmetcalf.com.

Save Bookstores! Day


June 25th is Save Bookstores Day! Kelly Sonnack of Andrea Brown Literary Agency started a public page here on facebook for fans of books to support their local book stores by buying at least one book from them today. If you'd like to join this event, please go here and do so. Join us & the other 8,457 others who are all taking part in celebrating our love for books (also called feeding our book addiction) and help support our local books stores.

Labels