10 Things I Can See From Here

10 Things I Can See From Here

by Carrie Mac

Publication Date: February 28, 2017

Maeve deals with extreme anxiety, and it doesn't help that her mom is traveling to Haiti and sending Maeve to live with her father for six months. Her father who is a recovering alcoholic, and whose wife is seven months pregnant and planning a home birth - Maeve can't even begin to list all of the possible problems with that situation! Maeve's life seems to be spiraling out of control little by little, getting derailed by things that might not necessarily throw anyone else off track.

When Maeve meets Salix, she's nervous, but ready for her first real relationship with a girl. But then again, Salix is another person for Maeve for worry about while she struggles to balance her family's other problems.

This book was very engaging and easy to read - I finished it in two sitings because I couldn't put it down. Even now, the characters keep popping into my mind. They are all very realistic and well-rounded. No one is "good"" or "bad" - everyone is flawed, and Mac addresses this wonderfully. I especially loved that Maeve's family is supportive of her orientation, which is nice (and unfortunately rare) to see represented in young adult fiction. 

My only problem with this book is something of a backhanded compliment - it ended too soon. I would have loved to see more of the characters, but also I feel like the serious, important part of the story is yet to come. It is said over and over that Maeve is only staying with her father for six months, but she is embarking on her first serious relationship and growing closer to her family and neighbors, especially when compared with the isolated life she and her mother seemed to lead in another town. I think this novel had great character development, but they weren't necessarily thrown into the fire as I would have liked to see.

Some Writer!: The Story of E.B. White

Some Writer!: The Story of E.B. White

by Melissa Sweet

I've read a lot of E.B. White's work, but I didn't know much about him. This book was an incredibly enjoyable way to learn about him, and is probably my favorite biography read so far.

I loved this book because it really pulls the reader in. It goes beyond words on a page; it is presented as a scrapbook of E.B. White's life. Snippets of letters and White's early work are beautifully laid out on the pages. Sweet adds a lot of color and character with bright illustrations, giving readers visual insight into the author's life.

Some quotes I could especially relate to:

- "'There is a secret joy in discovering a blunder in the public prints,' Andy wrote. 'Almost every person has a little proofreader in him'" (44).

- "To a writer, a child is an alibi. If I should never write anything worth reading, I can always explain that by pointing to my child" (50).

- "A sentence should contain no unnecessary words, a paragraph no unnecessary sentences, for the same reason that a drawing should have no unnecessary lines and a machine no unnecessary parts. This requires not that the writer make all his sentences short, or that he avoid all detail and treat his subjects only in outline, but that every word tell" (102, also from The Elements of Style).