Maria In In itibaren Dubki, Belarus
I'm on a Levithan kick at the moment - can you tell? Like John Irving, Levithan includes a few common ingredients into most of his works. But instead of Austria and bears and incest, it's Jewishness, queerness, music, lust, and love. Levithan is a 'true' YA writer, even in short stories managing to show us those moments of transition when a young character's world expands, when change is imminent. He captures adolescent moments of missed connections and almost-missed connections so vividly that you can feel the characters' butterflies and breath-catching. He weaves tales of connections made that are intense and all-encompassing in the moment, and no less important for their evanescence. Levithan speaks to anyone who has ever felt like every song on the radio is about them, and like a single night is the entire world.
** spoiler alert ** I've never been interested in Spanish history before but then I heard about C.W. Gortner's book about Juana la Loca and I felt I need some simple back story and was lucky enough to have this book in my library. I didn't realize how long Spain was at war with itself. The strife lasted for quite some time so to think about Isabel and her husband Fernando bringing both Castilla and Aragon together, despite what happens during the Inquisition, is really amazing. This book focused on Isabel from 1466 to 1468. A couple years prior to her rise to the thrown. She is used much like a pawn in chess between her brothers and then again between her brother Enrique and the rebel faction that wanted him off the thrown. If Isabel hadn't been so headstrong she probably wouldn't have ended up with Fernando and wouldn't have gotten out from under King Enrique's thumb. It was also nice to read about the relationship between Isabel and her ladies. They were so loyal to her, in a time when that was quite uncommon.