You're on the Graduation Party Circuit
Love a museum or have a favorite Disney Channel Original Movie
Hi friends,
As you may have seen, the Chicago Sun-Times and The Philadelphia Inquirer ran an AI-generated summer reading guide last week featuring non-existent titles from famous authors.
All I will say in response is that your friendly neighborhood bookstacker only highlights real books.
And, now, what to read if …
You’re Knee Deep in Graduation Season
I Kissed Shara Wheeler by Casey McQuiston
Mid-May through the end of June brings graduations and lots of them. Congrats to any of you who are graduating this spring or celebrating a graduate. Casey McQuiston nails the unique combination of anxiety, excitement, fear and joy that come with a graduation in her YA novel I Kissed Shara Wheeler.
Chloe Green has spent the past four years at her evangelical high school with one mission in mind: graduating as valedictorian. It’s how she’ll prove that everyone in her conservative community was wrong about her, a bisexual theater kid. Everything changes, though, when Shara Wheeler — prom queen, the principal’s golden daughter and her rival for valedictorian — kisses Chloe and then disappears. Shara leaves behind three note cards, one for Chloe, one her all-American boyfriend, Smith, and one for her next-door neighbor, Rory. The three begrudgingly team up to decode the messages Shara left for them and find the missing girl.
There are a lot of things to love about I Kissed Shara Wheeler. The teens feel like real teens, which, surprisingly, isn’t always the case in YA and the side characters are fully fleshed out. I still remember them clearly after reading this a few years back. But, my favorite aspect is the way McQuiston carefully builds up tropes from John Green novels and ‘90s teen movies only to completely dismantle them. Shara Wheeler is, so far, McQuiston’s only YA novel, but I’m hoping we see more soon.
You Dream of Spending the Night at a Museum
The Museum Detective by Maha Khan Phillips
When a phone call from the police wakes Dr. Gul Delani in the middle of the night, she thinks it might be the phone call she’s been dreaming of since her teenage niece disappeared three years earlier. Instead, Gul, a curator at the Museum of Heritage and History in Karachi, is summoned to a remote desert region in western Pakistan where police found a seemingly authentic mummy during a routine drug bust. It would be the find of a lifetime — if it’s real.
Gul doesn’t trust the authorities — in government, the police and even some of her colleagues at the museum — to assess the mummy accurately or keep it safe. After bringing together a few trusted coworkers to study the archeological discovery, Gul is attacked multiple times and realizes that someone definitely doesn’t want the truth of the mummy to be exposed. As she digs deeper (pun very much intended), Gul uncovers a conspiracy that could explain her niece’s disappearance.
The first in a new series, The Museum Detective is loosely based on a real-life antiquities scandal in Pakistan. Phillips really brings the setting to life; I felt like I was in the museum lab with Gul and her colleagues. As Hank Phillipi Ryan said, “Clever and smart, with irresistible research and deep characterization—Sue Grafton fans will swoon!—The Museum Detective is entertaining, propulsive, and, like the precious artifacts involved, an absolute treasure. I adore Dr. Gul Delani, and cannot wait for her next adventure.”
You’re a Little Worried About Justin Bieber
Disney High by Ashley Spencer
Justin Bieber is, to put it mildly, having a tough time, with headlines highlighting potential mental health struggles and money problems. A new documentary, released on Hulu last week, examines “Bieber’s rumored drug use, his rocky marriage to Hailey [Bieber], a financial collapse, and his deep ties to a controversial church.” WheneverI see a story or a post about Bieber’s troubles, I think of former Nickelodeon star Jennette McCurdy’s memoir I’m Glad My Mom Died and Ashley Spencer’s examination of the Disney Channel in the early 2000s, Disney High.
Disney High tracks the hey-day of the channel, spanning from the “Lizzie Maguire” premiere to the Selena Gomez vehicle “Wizards of Waverly Place,” with a chapter devoted to select shows and Disney Channel Original Movies (or DCOMS to those in the know.) In between sharing behind-the-scenes nuggets (at the filming of a music video, minders had to keep Gomez, Demi Lovato, Miley Cyrus and the Jonas Brothers — who were in an elaborate love hexagon — separate), Spencer documents how creativity blossomed in Disney’s strict corporate shelter.
Most interestingly, Spencer attempts to understand why some of the channel’s child stars, notably Gomez, turned out remarkably successful and well-adjusted, while others, such as Demi Lovato and Miley Cyrus struggled before finding their footing. For as long as children appear on TV shows — or now as influencers — it’ll be a relevant question.
Anyone who still knows the words to “Stick to the Status Quo,” will want to read this one.
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