#The War that Saved My Life

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Summaries under the cut

Heist Society by Ally Carter

When Katarina Bishop was three, her parents took her on a trip to the Louvre…to case it. For her seventh birthday, Katarina and her Uncle Eddie traveled to Austria…to steal the crown jewels. When Kat turned fifteen, she planned a con of her own—scamming her way into the best boarding school in the country, determined to leave the family business behind. Unfortunately, leaving “the life” for a normal life proves harder than she’d expected.

Soon, Kat's friend and former co-conspirator, Hale, appears out of nowhere to bring Kat back into the world she tried so hard to escape. But he has a good reason: a powerful mobster has been robbed of his priceless art collection and wants to retrieve it. Only a master thief could have pulled this job, and Kat's father isn't just on the suspect list, he is the list. Caught between Interpol and a far more deadly enemy, Kat’s dad needs her help.

For Kat, there is only one solution: track down the paintings and steal them back. So what if it's a spectacularly impossible job? She's got two weeks, a teenage crew, and hopefully just enough talent to pull off the biggest heist in her family's history--and, with any luck, steal her life back along the way.

Amulet by Kazu Kibuishi

After the tragic death of their father, Emily and Navin move with their mother to the home of her deceased great-grandfather, but the strange house proves to be dangerous. Before long, a sinister creature lures the kids' mom through a door in the basement. Em and Navin, desperate not to lose her, follow her into an underground world inhabited by demons, robots, and talking animals.

Eventually, they enlist the help of a small mechanical rabbit named Miskit. Together with Miskit, they face the most terrifying monster of all, and Em finally has the chance to save someone she loves.

The War That Saved My Life by Kimberly Brubaker Bradley

Ten-year-old Ada has never left her one-room apartment. Her mother is too humiliated by Ada’s twisted foot to let her outside. So when her little brother Jamie is shipped out of London to escape the war, Ada doesn’t waste a minute—she sneaks out to join him.   So begins a new adventure of Ada, and for Susan Smith, the woman who is forced to take the two kids in. As Ada teaches herself to ride a pony, learns to read, and watches for German spies, she begins to trust Susan—and Susan begins to love Ada and Jamie. But in the end, will their bond be enough to hold them together through wartime? Or will Ada and her brother fall back into the cruel hands of their mother?

Ascendance by Jennifer Nielsen

In a discontent kingdom, civil war is brewing. To unify the divided people, Conner, a nobleman of the court, devises a cunning plan to find an impersonator of the king's long-lost son and install him as a puppet prince. Four orphans are recruited to compete for the role, including a defiant boy named Sage. Sage knows that Conner's motives are more than questionable, yet his life balances on a sword's point—he must be chosen to play the prince or he will certainly be killed. But Sage's rivals have their own agendas as well.

As Sage moves from a rundown orphanage to Conner's sumptuous palace, layer upon layer of treachery and deceit unfold, until finally, a truth is revealed that, in the end, may very well prove more dangerous than all of the lies taken together.

The True Confessions of Charlotte Doyle by Avi

An ocean voyage of unimaginable consequences... Not every thirteen-year-old girl is accused of murder, brought to trial, and found guilty. But I was just such a girl, and my story is worth relating even if it did happen years ago. Be warned, however: If strong ideas and action offend you, read no more. Find another companion to share your idle hours. For my part I intend to tell the truth as I lived it.

The Girl Who Drank the Moon by Kelly Barnhill

Every year, the people of the Protectorate leave a baby as an offering to the witch who lives in the forest. They hope this sacrifice will keep her from terrorizing their town. But the witch in the forest, Xan, is kind and gentle. She shares her home with a wise Swamp Monster named Glerk and a Perfectly Tiny Dragon, Fyrian. Xan rescues the abandoned children and deliver them to welcoming families on the other side of the forest, nourishing the babies with starlight on the journey. 

One year, Xan accidentally feeds a baby moonlight instead of starlight, filling the ordinary child with extraordinary magic. Xan decides she must raise this enmagicked girl, whom she calls Luna, as her own. To keep young Luna safe from her own unwieldy power, Xan locks her magic deep inside her. When Luna approaches her thirteenth birthday, her magic begins to emerge on schedule--but Xan is far away. Meanwhile, a young man from the Protectorate is determined to free his people by killing the witch. Soon, it is up to Luna to protect those who have protected her--even if it means the end of the loving, safe world she’s always known.

Pollyanna by Eleanor H. Porter

When orphaned, eleven-year-old Pollyanna comes to live with austere and wealthy Aunt Polly, her philosophy of gladness brings happiness to her aunt and other unhappy members of the community.

Paddington Bear by Michael Bond

Mr. and Mrs. Brown first met Paddington, a most endearing bear from Darkest Peru on a railway platform in London. A sign hanging around his neck said, "Please look after this bear. Thank you" So that is just what they did.

From the very first night when he attempted his first bath and ended up nearly flooding the house, Paddington was seldom far from imminent disaster. Jonathan and Judy were delighted with this havoc and even Mr. and Mrs. Brown had to admit that life seemed to be more filled with adventure when there was a bear in the house.

Dragon Rider by Cornelia Funke

A dragon. A boy. A journey. Firedrake, a brave young dragon, his loyal brownie friend Sorrel and a lonely boy called Ben are united as if by destiny. Together, they embark on a magical journey to find the legendary place where silver dragons can live in peace for ever. With only a curious map and the whispered memories of an old dragon to guide them, they fly across moonlit lands and seas to reach the highest mountains in the world. Along the way, they discover extraordinary new friends in unlikely places and a courage they never knew they had. Just as well, for the greatest enemy of all is never far behind them - a heartless monster from the past who's been waiting a very long time to destroy the last dragons on earth.

Wings by Aprilynne Pike

Laurel was mesmerized, staring at the pale things with wide eyes. They were terrifyingly beautiful—too beautiful for words.

Laurel turned to the mirror again, her eyes on the hovering petals that floated beside her head. They looked almost like wings.

[queer-book-character-tournament]

Book names + authors under the cut

Captain Niccoli Santi/Scholar Christopher Wolfe- The Great Library by Raichel Cain

Eadaz uq-Nāra/Sabran Berethnet- The Priory of the Orange Tree by Samantha Shannon

Susan Smith/Becky- The War that Saved My Life by Kimberly Brubaker Bradley

August Landry/Jane Su- One Last Stop by Casey McQuiston

[carriagelamp]

Read some delightfully impactful books this month, it was a very satisfying assortment of stories! My biggest recommendation is Lula Dean's Little Library of Banned Books, I'm telling everyone I can to read that book. Funny, meaningful, and sort of lights a fire under your ass, makes you want to make the world better.

Doctor Who: Forever Autumn

My obligatory Halloween-y read. Like many Doctor Who books of this particular calibre it was a fine and entirely forgettable read. It was fun to have an autumn-themed setting and villain, and I always love when Martha’s around. They wind up needing to deal with “no no it’s not magic it’s definitely just science we don’t understand for sure for sure” and some pumpkin-headed terrors. It was a pleasant thing to have playing as an audiobook while driving to work amid autumn leaves.

A Lady for a Duke

This had so much potential but honestly failed to live up to it imo. This story is very deliberately tipping its hat to Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night and the initial set up is really promising. Injured and presumed dead during the Battle of Waterloo, transwoman Viola Carroll seizes her chance to remake her life and live the way she wants. She becomes the lady's companion to her brother’s wife (the only two who know that she’s alive) and with their help begins figuring out how to fit into this new life. However when an old childhood friend, the Duke of Gracewood who had fought alongside her in Waterloo, seems to be in a bad state she finds herself being forcefully drawn out of her quiet, secluded life and put at risk of being recognized by someone who had known her before.

Excellent premise! The characters are fun, Viola is an enjoyable protagonist, Gracewood is a decent romantic lead, and Viola’s sister-in-law is easily my favourite character in the book, she’s a DELIGHT, especially when paired with her husband. The first half of the book is also pretty well done, with lots of mistaken identity and pining, very much in the spirit of Twelfth Night. Unfortunate the second half is where it loses all momentum. The dialogue becomes repetitive and the romance rather dull, the B-Plot is really the only thing dragging the plot along at that point. It also loses any real touch with historical attitudes towards queer issues — it was always a light touch, but it quickly becomes everyone repeating All The Right Things to each other ad nauseum, without any real exploration of queer identities in a Regency period. Which, to be fair, is probably what some people want, very low stakes and chill romance, but for me it took the wind out of the book’s sails, I would have loved more discussion. It would have made the sex more interesting at least.

That being said, if you want a soft, pleasant, historical trans romance, I would honestly give it a shot. If nothing else the first half is REALLY quite good, I couldn’t put it down, and the last half isn’t so bad that it damns the whole thing. It’s worth it if this is what you’re keen on.

Lula Dean’s Little Library of Banned Books

Easily my favourite book from October, this book managed to hit on very topical subjects with both tact and humour. In a small town in Georgia, Lula Dean has spearheaded a book banning crusade, managing to get a number of “problematic” books removed from the library and has made a show of setting up a Little Free Library in her yard full of “appropriate” books instead. When Beverly Underwood visits her mother and hears about this she’s so exasperated with it all that she quickly hatches a plan. The night before she leaves for home, she takes the banned library books from where they’re being stored and swaps out their dust jackets with the ones in Lula Dean’s Little Free Library. The rest of the story is about various people in the town who borrow a book from Lula Dean’s library and how the book they got instead ends up impacting not just themselves but their town. The first story involves a penis cake. Can’t recommend it enough, starts out humour and quickly becomes something you want to rally around. 

My Neighbour Totoro

This was an enjoyable read just because I like Totoro in general, but it was not the best novelization I’ve ever read. Honestly I think it mostly suffers from a less-than-ideal translation… the whole thing comes across as quite stilted and I have a feeling the language was prioritised over the flow and intention. It was fine, cosy to sit and read, gives a couple scenes that aren’t in the movie that were interesting, but overall it won’t deliver anything the movie doesn’t do better.

Ogres

Absolutely fascinating novella, and a very rare example of a story told absolutely perfectly in second-person. If you’re looking for something a bit different and thought-provoking, this was a good read.

Ogres rule this world. They’re bigger than you. Stronger than you. Have magics you could never comprehend. The natural order of the world is for humans to serve ogres. However you, as the son of the village headman, live an idyllic sort of life… until the ogre landlords come to call and everything begins to go wrong and you're facing realities and secrets you never could have imagined.

The One and Only Family

I read this one mostly because I wanted to finish off the series. The One and Only Ivan is a fantastic novel that is a fictionalised account of a real silverback gorilla that was poached and brought back to the United States to live in a small cage in a roadside mall. The first story is about him, his friends Bob and Ruby, and his life in captivity. The second and third book are about Bob the dog and Ruby the elephant respectively, and this last book focuses back on Ivan, his new life in a zoo, and his growing family. Honestly all the other books in this series were fine for kids, had some good ideas behind them, but were otherwise somewhat bland. I’m glad I finished the series but they don’t hold a candle to the first book.

The Pushcart War

Now this was a fun children’s novel, recommended to me by my New York girlfriend who says it’s a staple in New York classrooms — and I can see why, it’s an incredibly fun read. A prime example of a well-done under-dog story, very satisfying! The book is a “historical account” of the “New York City Pushcart War”, in which the city streets are hopelessly congested and everyone is suffering. The worst offenders are the big trucks which just seem to get bigger and bigger, and pushier and pushier. The trucking companies hatch a plan on how to gradually push out all other competition: they’ll start with the little, old-fashion pushcarts, try to villainize them until they’re entirely removed from New York City... and if no one speaks up for them, then how hard will it be to push out the taxis next? Or the automobiles? However, the scrappy little push-cart owners fight back. It’s very much written to be an allegory for actual wars, played on a smaller scale which some delightful wit and an interesting narrative voice.

Series of Unfortunate Events 4-10

I continue to read A Series of Unfortunate Events. As a child I had only ever read up to The Carnivorous Carnival so it’s exciting to strike into new territory with The Slippery Slope. I really enjoy the slippery slope you see the Baudelaires beginning to get caught in as the series progresses, how they have to start making concessions and doing things they wouldn't have considered doing at the beginning, and how their views of the world is beginning to evolve. Austere Academy, Ersatz Elevator, and The Vile Village are my favourite of this set.

The Scum Villain's Self-Saving System v3

I finished the main series of The Scum Villain’s Self-Saving System and I’m not ready for it to be over ;^; I’m in the process of reading the last book of bonus stories and trying to savour it. I was hugely judgemental about this series and was tempted to skip it entirely, but I’m so glad I actually sat down to read it. Out of all of MXTX’s series, this one has, in my opinion, the least palatable main relationship and I say that with deep and profound affection. It's passionate and complicated and slightly horrifying but I don't think you could write it any other way. Every single thing about this story is messy and I think that really works in its favour. 

Shen Qingqiu is an incredibly biased narrator, and it’s really interesting to read a story in which the main character tends to think of those around him more as characters in a book than as genuine people. You get to see how him viewing himself as a passive observer instead of an actual person with agency who can have an impact on others continuously trips him up, and how his actions have far reaching consequences that he fails to recognize. It makes this entire series a very meta exploration of storytelling and the impact people's personal narratives have on themselves and others. It really consistently shows how cruelty begets cruelty... but also how the choice to step away from easy resentment can break endless cycles. That's a common theme across her works, but the way its handled in this book particularly struck me.

Over all, it’s a fun, silly story with way more heart than I anticipated -- this last book really made me cry! I was so unprepared for the series to be over that I had to stare at the ceiling for a while to try to digest it all. If you were feeling debating whether or not to try this series, I’d honestly give it a shot because it brings way more to the table than the surface level plot would suggest.

This Census-Taker

Fucking weird novella. I grabbed this from the library because I quite enjoyed Railsea so I thought I’d try something else by this author. And I really liked it! But also what the fuck. Still don’t know if I absorbed everything that I was meant to absorb, but it’s obviously a book with a lot to say and did it through the most deranged and intriguing world building. China Miéville is great at creating unique worlds that feel alive and vibrant — this is the sort of world real people could live in, no matter how strange.

Goodread’s summary because gun to my head I’m not sure I’d be able to come up with a more functional explanation: “After witnessing a profoundly traumatic event, a boy is left alone in a remote house on a hilltop with his increasingly deranged parent. When a stranger knocks on his door, the boy senses that his days of isolation are over—but by what authority does this man keep the meticulous records he carries? Is he the boy’s friend? His enemy? Or something altogether other?” This doesn’t even scratch the surface but it does give a functional idea of the surface level plot. If you want something to sink your teeth in to and flex your analytical muscles, this one will do it for you.

The War That Saved My Life // The War I Finally Won

Absolutely stunning YA novel series, can’t recommend it enough. This series is centred on Ada, a girl born in the East End of London to an abusive mother who scorns her for her club foot. Ada is forced to stay in the apartment, is severely neglected and mistreated, and does her best to take care of her younger brother during all this. When news of WWII arrives though and people begin sending their children away from London to live in the country, Ada is determined to run away with her brother and get them both onto one of those trains, to find a better life far from the threatened bombs and their mother. The story followers Ada and Jamie finding a new home and contending with the trauma they’ve lived through during the throes of World War 2.

(* in regards to the queer content of this book: it is entirely subtext however it is such obvious subtext that I feel fine labelling it as queer, it's beautifully done -- very much a "haunting the narrative" sort of plotline)

The Warden

A “cosy fantasy” novel that was a fairly decent attempt at the genre. I find some cosy fantasies fail (for me at least) just because… nothing happens. This novel sort of straddles the line between cosy fantasy and standard fantasy in a way that I found quite satisfying and kept things from getting boring.

Aelis de Lenti is a newly graduated necromancer from the Lyceum who has accepted the position of Warden in the remote village of Lone Pines. Admittedly she had been hoping for a posting in an actual city with actual modern amenities but here she is. Surrounded by sheep shit and villagers who don’t trust her, in a crumbling wizard’s tower. Great. The story is about her gradually finding her space in this community, learning how to handle her position, and generally getting to kick ass and take names. It was a fun read.

[leftycharacters]

Today’s left-handed character is James “Jamie” Smith from The War That Saved My Life

[diaryoftruequotes]

I wanted to say a lot of things, but, as usual, I didn't have the words for the thoughts inside my head.

Kimberly Brubaker Bradley, The War That Saved My Life

[kpopandbookschild]

Book pole round 1 #7

[losingmyselfinsleep]

[Text ID] “When things got really bad I could go away inside my head. I’d always known how to do it. I could be anywhere, on my chair or in the cabinet, and I wouldn’t be able to see anything or hear anything or even feel anything. I would just be gone.”

The War That Saved My Life By Kimberly Brubaker Bradley

[lazydaisydoo]

HAVE YOU READ TWTSML

YESSSSS sorry if it’s weird to go through and like literally all your posts but there’s like two other people on this app who have read it and I FOUND ONE ITS YOU

[flowers-and-pollen]

What books do you like?

Ohh that is a long list. I like mainly fantasy and some chosen scifi, none with romance 'couse it always feels fake.

The Hobbit is pretty high up in the list and one of my hyperfixations, so is Good Omens. i also really like most of Rick Riordan's books, and i liked the Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy series, Aru Shah too. The War That Saved My Life is one of my favorites that isn't fantasy or scifi. The Witch Boy is also really nice, Lore is the only book i like with actual romance as a side plot, Radio Silence is also a very nice non-fantasy book.

[lady-arryn]

PADME AMIDALA costume appreciation: ▶ Attack of the Clones [7/13] (costume design by Trisha Biggar)

[hayden-christensen]

HAYDEN CHRISTENSEN as ANAKIN SKYWALKER/DARTH VADER in STAR WARS

First appearance in: Star Wars: Episode II - Attack of the Clones (2002) Star Wars: Episode VI - Return of the Jedi (1983/2004) Star Wars: Episode III - Revenge of the Sith (2005) Obi-Wan Kenobi (2022) Ahsoka (2023)

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[naboosands]

Every now and then Master Fisto *accidentally* lands on the Vogue Coruscant cover and the rest of the Council lose their minds

Bonus:

[overdeaths]

my KOTOR experience thus far

[omaano]

I didn’t tear up at seeing these three in one scene, not at all 🥹

[peatchoune]

(5/?) I have this one headcanon that xiao has a mechanical left arm 🦾