I, like everyone I know, think of summer as slow and relaxing. It’s a time of gathering and connections for me—and also the scurrying around to make ready for those gatherings. It’s beautiful and the living is episodically easy. In a few days, some of my oldest friends will come to stay with me and that will be relaxing. So I’m scurrying to write and record this post early since I’ll be busy all weekend. Sibling LossMy family just had its most important gathering of this year, the celebration of my brother John's life. He was complicated, as people are. I recently wrote an essay about him for an anthology on sibling loss. When I’d’ finished, I wondered whether the essay would fit with the other work. Everyone else wrote about a sibling who died as a child (read: innocent) or the writer was a child when the older sibling passed away. John was 62 when he died of complications of kidney cancer. He’d been a drug and alcohol user from about age 10. But he pulled his life together, was kind and generous, a valued employee. Most importantly, he was much loved and now, much grieved. I told the editor of the sibling loss anthology that she could change her mind about including my piece because of its dark moments. But ultimately, it’s a story of my and my siblings’ love for John, so maybe it will fit.Looking to nature to content with lossAt the same time John was diagnosed with kidney cancer, his wife, Ellen, was diagnosed with acute myeloid leukemia. I wrote an essay about that time that was published in Newfound, which is a journal that centers place. The essay is titled “Silt” after the layers of earth around me as I dealt with layers of grief. It’s about looking to and immersing myself in nature to contend with my losses. Here’s the link to that essay. I’m going to read it, so if you’d like to listen to the audio this week, you’ll hear. Of course, I’m not a professional narrator, so feel free to click the link for your own quiet read. Another broken literary heroMaybe life’s lesson is that we shouldn’t lionize anyone, but the news of Alice Munro’s behavior leaves me sad. Perhaps to be a truly great (famous) literary figure, you have to be the kind of narcissist that pushes everyone else to the curb. In an essay published in the Toronto Star last Sunday, Andrea Robin Skinner, daughter of Alice Munro, writes that her stepfather sexually abused her, and that Munro stayed with him after learning about it.(P.S.—Prendergast writes wonderful YA books. If you’re looking for a sci-fi teen read, Zero Repeat Forever is a good choice. I interviewed Prendergast a while back.)The article (Skinner’s essay) in the Toronto Star is paywalled, but I do have this one from the Washington. Post —I include a ‘gift link,’ so you should be able to read it in its entirety.Daughter of writer Alice Munro reveals family secret of sexual abuseI saw someone mention that it reminded them of Marion Zimmer Bradley. SFF community reeling after Marion Zimmer Bradley's daughter accuses her of abuse(This article is more than 10 years old.)Moira Greyland's claims that she was molested by the late fantasy author have horrified readers and writers who had been inspired by her work.Library and book challenge/ban newsU.S. appeals court will review its prior order in a Texas county’s library book ban caseProfessor Details Florida's State-Directed Changes in Science TextbooksMiller, the co-author of several biology textbooks with Joseph Levine, told the Orlando Sentinel in article published Friday that his publisher received phone calls last month from state officials informing them of state-directed changes. These changes required the removal of some references to "climate change" and the term was removed from middle school science books.A judge rejects shielding for Florida school officials in the fight over a banned bookA federal judge Wednesday rejected arguments that Escambia County School Board members and the superintendent of schools should be shielded from testifying about the removal of a school library book — but said the board can file a revised request. [Tango makes Three is the book.—vw] from WMNF RadioNew Alabama Bill to Criminalize Librarians Filed for 2025 Legislative Session from School Library Journal via the Alabama Political ReporterA bill that could have led to the arrest of librarians narrowly missed becoming law in the last session, but sponsors have already filed a follow-up. The bill is similar to its predecessor but has been streamlined to better detail the procedure for charging librarians with a crime.“Fifty Alabama lawmakers want to throw Alabama librarians in jail for daring to shelve books that challenge their worldviews,” said Read Freely Alabama leadership in a statement. “Ripped straight out of the Project 2025 playbook, HB4 will criminalize librarians for vaguely defined ‘obscene’ literature that targets LGBTQ and racial justice content."Florida School Board Wants 7-Year-Old's Testimony in Book Ban LawsuitA school board in Florida has sparked controversy by attempting to take the deposition of a 7-year-old student as part of its defense strategy in a federal lawsuit over book bans.The lawsuit, filed by a local teacher and PEN America, challenges the board's removal of certain books from school libraries, citing violations of free speech and educational rights, and the Escambia County School Board argues it has the right to question the students directly involved in the lawsuit.I’m saving what I’m reading for next week. I think it might be my main topic. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit victoriawaddle.substack.com

Hello friends,I had an article published in HuffPost this week and some people who read it kindly signed up for this newsletter. If that is you, welcome! And thank you. Creating titles and CEOI’ve talked about the mystery of coming up with a good title here before. My HuffPost article has me interested in the SEO (search engine optimization) of title making. I really don’t understand SEO. I don’t mean that I don’t know what it is. I mean that I don’t understand what people find most interesting. My original title for my essay was “Sex, Lies, and Birth Control.” This is the kind of thing I’d pick up and read. And the article would deliver on that title. But the editor said her experience showed that lots of people click into articles whose titles say that some secret is revealed in a letter or found in a box. This article has a secret found in a box, so that’s what we went with.The article was picked up by Yahoo News and has found its way to many readers, so the editor was right. I checked in on a few of the many comments. Lots of people have experiences similar to that of me and my sisters, and they appreciated the discussion. However in a smaller women’s Facebook group, it seems the readers were mad because the secret was a common one. Perhaps they expected a murder revelation at the end, something that has nothing to do with the story. At any rate, their expectations were based on the title and they didn’t like it. I think SEO is also the reason for the article’s URL (below), which uses keywords rather than the article title: Catholic, birth control, sin, secret. https://www.huffpost.com/entry/parents-catholic-birth-control-sin-secret_n_664e38cfe4b048d73b55233fI know there’s an SEO lesson in there for me somewhere. Maybe I should use the words ‘secret’ and ‘sin’ in all my fiction since a lot of it is about that. The supernatural and my momThe day after the article was published, I was in the shower and the squeegee kept coming away from the neck of the showerhead and hit the floor, skittering, no matter how carefully I replaced it. When I got out of the shower, I tried to put it back carefully a few more times. It continued to launch itself to the floor. Now, I’m not a big believer in ghosts. Maybe because I’m already haunted enough by reality. I don’t need the supernatural to find life spooky. I do feel the presence of the dead just after they’ve left their bodies. It seems they are having some sort of immediate Bardo experience, but that sense disappears quickly and the connection is broken. And, of course, I’m a believer in science, which tells me that Bardo experiences or any sort of life after death is without evidence. But science is young and consciousness is strange. Because of my experience with the numinous, I do spend more time than I should wondering about consciousness and where it goes. I thought about that a lot during the years my mother was in the deep grip of dementia.I think the thing with the squeegee in the shower was so weird that I started to think maybe my mom is mad that I published an article in HuffPost about what happened with my sisters and me, with the whole purity and chastity issue. So I just said to the universe, “Mom if this is you and you’re mad at me: First of all, the shower is not a good spot to show it. You’re invading my privacy. And second, I’m gonna go with Anne LaMott here and say that if you wanted me to write something else, you should’ve treated me differently. After I said this, I put the squeegee back and it stayed put. Photos and my momThat said, my young life wasn’t a competition in a trauma Olympics. As I told my sister this week, we were ‘medium traumatized.’ And our mother didn’t invent the nonsense she handed down to us. She had plenty of trauma of her own as the first daughter in a stereotypical Irish Catholic family—alcoholic father; long suffering, intensely devout mother. In spite of that, there was much goodness in her, and we loved her and took care of her for the last decade of her life.I’m writing a 100-word ‘tiny love story’ about her that I’m hoping the New York Times will publish. I realize the odds aren’t great. Far less than one percent, I’m told—so if I don’t manage that, I’ll share it here. The trouble I’m having right now is not with the story itself, on which I believe I’ve done a good job. It’s with the accompanying photos, two of which are required. The best sort would have a juvenile me and my mother together. My mother hated having her photo taken. I’m not sure why. She was a very pretty woman and quite slim when she was young. Seeing her wedding photo, in which she was five months pregnant and rail thin, my sister wondered if she was starving herself in order not ‘to show.’ I doubt this because my mother told me that she was always so naturally thin as a child that when she would visit her relatives, they would continually hand her thick slices of homemade bread, slathered in butter. Perhaps that’s not a story to tell a pudgy girl who takes after her father’s family of linebackers. I fantasized about that sort of life, people wanting to feed me delicious things and demanding that I eat. In the only photo I have of me and my mother alone together, she looks like a dying woman because she is, her head hanging. She was unable to lift it. I knelt on the ground next to her wheelchair, a mask over my nose and mouth as required by the nursing care facility during the pandemic. Mom spent the last few weeks of her life there, when we could no longer lift her. I’d had my husband take the photo so I could show my siblings her rapidly deteriorating state. This is something we all did, as if it was impossible to believe. Look! Look! She’s leaving us. And then she was gone. Here’s a photo I took of her five years before she died. Dementia had already wiped quite a bit of her away, but it was her birthday, and I thought it would be fun to make her a special cake because she developed a serious sweet tooth in old age. Food was a way of connecting. So here she is with her apricot ring cake at age 84.The restLast week, I mentioned that I might have won the 100 Rejections Club’s most rejected writer for the month of May with six rejections. I did win! I got a trophy emoji. Just saying. Library and book challenge/ban this week I’m writing this post early this week because I’m headed off to my niece’s wedding. So my week’s book ban news actually ends with Wednesday. Just FYI.Tennessee schools work to adapt as new law bans books with any sexual content, nudity from WCYB NewsSome Tennessee school districts are voicing concerns about a new Tennessee law that bans books that contain any nudity or descriptions of sex, no matter how brief or the context.The law goes into effect in just a few weeks and school libraries are scrambling to comply.The old state law judged books by the entirety of the book, but this new law does not.…Williamson County school board member, Eric Welch, says this new law is going to have a negative impact on education.He says because this forces schools to remove books by Shakespeare, Hemingway, and Steinbeck off school library shelves, including the book “Roots” by Alex Haley.It’s been in our school library for 50 years. We have never received a parent complaint and the Tennessee legislature just recently declared that this book right here is a Tennessee treasure,” Welch emphasized.Welch explains because it’s a book about slavery that includes sexual assault and violence. He emphasizes these are necessary books to prepare students for AP exams, college, ACTs, and SATs.Winning the Culture War Against Queer Kids’ Books from Literary HubMichael Leali Imagines a World Where Queer Kids Have Access to Books That Celebrate Their IdentitiesSchools and libraries have become a battleground for right wing politicians and a small but vocal group of book banners claiming that they want to protect children. Their actions, of course, have nothing to do with protecting children. If people in positions of power wanted to protect children, they would listen to children. In doing so, they would discover possibilities of lived experiences beyond their own.…These bans are taking a massive toll on marginalized authors, me included. Despite awards and critical acclaim, my books have been challenged and banned like so many others. My sales have taken a hit. Don’t be fooled—when a book is banned, sales rarely skyrocket. In fact, sales often decline, and author’s livelihoods are threatened.More important than the impact on sales, these bans mean that young people aren’t getting to read my stories and stories like mine. I am a firm believer that books save lives. They provide a safe space to explore and wonder and dream. They let us try on situations and provide a quiet space to ask our most private questions.ALI VELSHI BANNED BOOK CLUB ON ERASING IMMIGRANT STORIES from the Philadelphia CitizenThe MSNBC host and Citizen board member speaks with Laurence Yep about the immigrant experience in America and how important those stories are to our historyPRIDE MONTH: PUBLIC LIBRARIES IN THE CROSSHAIRS from Southern Poverty Law CenterLibraries are also under siege from legislation. EveryLibrary tracked 124 bills of concern in 30 states during the 2024 legislative sessions. These include criminalizing librarians under obscenity laws, limiting or removing funding based on participation in professional library associations, and establishing book rating systems that would result in certain topics being removed or segregated.Overall, the ALA anticipates that the trends in book banning, in terms of targeted authors and content, will continue throughout 2024, especially in June, which is known as LGBTQ+ Pride month. Given the hyperfocus on LGBTQ+ materials and observations, tensions are high, with expectations and fears of escalated attacks. During a Pride picnic in Prattville last year, members of the white supremacist group Patriot Front appeared alongside others to protest the event.According to Drabinski, “Pride month is a time when queer lives are celebrated, so it should not be surprising that the people who do not want our stories to be told ramp up their efforts to ban those stories at that time.”This article also discusses news related to libraries in Georgia and AlabamaFlorida parents challenge new law providing appeals when local school districts retain targeted books from the Florida RecordThree Florida parents have filed a federal lawsuit that challenges a state review process allowing school parents to appeal local school board decisions that decline to ban books and other instructional materials. …“The state’s chancellor of K-12 education has declared that parents must be in the ‘drivers’ seat’ to ensure that concerns about their children’s education are addressed,” the lawsuit states. “Yet when those concerns relate to the availability of books and other material in public schools, Florida’s leaders only welcome input from those parents advocating for removing books from schools.”Oklahoma Watch: Supreme Court rejects education department’s attempt to ban books From the Duncan BannerThe Oklahoma Supreme Court on Tuesday ruled in favor of Edmond Public Schools in a battle over books in its school libraries. The state’s high court in a unanimous decision said Superintendent of Public Instruction Ryan Walters and the state Department of Education overstepped their authority in trying to force Edmond schools to ban two novels. Local school boards retain the discretion to decide which books are in a school’s library based on their community’s standards, the justices wrote. Jeff Bardach, a spokesman for Edmond Public Schools, said the district’s staff is grateful for the decision, which “protects our locally elected school board’s role in creating policies that determine how library materials are selected and reviewed.” The two targeted books are The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini and The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls, both award-winning novels. 10 Banned Books Written by LGBTQ+ Authors You Don’t Want to Miss from Mental FlossThese books include:* All Boys Aren't Blue: A Memoir-Manifesto by George M. Johnson* Gender Queer by Maia Kobabe* Go Tell It on the Mountain by James Baldwin* Last Night at the Telegraph Club by Malinda Lo * The Lesbiana's Guide to Catholic School by Sonora Reyes* Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic by Alison Bechdel* Hijab Butch Blues by Lamya H * Beyond Magenta: Transgender Teens Speak Out by Susan Kuklin* The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky* Sacrificio by Ernesto Mestre-ReedA little fun YouTube clip from the Daily Show a few years ago. I never saw it before this week. Levar Burton attempts to read some banned books. What I’m ReadingDracula by Bram Stoker for my family book club. I read it some years ago. Now I’m listening to an audio version with Alan Cumming and Tim Curry. Very good.Agave Blues by Ruthie Marlenée. Just started! Family + ghosts—it’s what I like! This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit victoriawaddle.substack.com

Unhealthy religious callingsI’m still in the deep dive of ‘exvangelicals,’ ex-Mormons, authoritative strict parenting, etc. I read this week that in San Diego, the Catholic diocese is declaring bankruptcy. That follows Baltimore and San Francisco last year. This while the Catholic bishops are set to apologize for the church’s role in Indian boarding schools. So I guess the idea is to do the wrong thing again and maybe also apologize for that later. Yeah, the church of my youth is by no means getting a pass from me. I’m finding YouTuber ex-Mormons the most interesting in terms of revelations of weird rituals. I started with Alyssa Grenfell who has lots to say and is pretty sparkly. But I’m hooked on Jordan and McKay and the way they play off each other. Unfortunately, I am going to have to stop obsessing over them because my goal is to read more. I did finish reading ’ upcoming memoir A Well-trained Wife (launches early August).A Well-trained WifeA Well-trained Wife details Levings’ descent from strict Baptist to Gothard woman (think the Duggars) to Calvinist following the model of Puritan Jonathan Edwards. Levings quotes “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God,”  a sermon I know because we taught it in high school junior English (American Literature) to give the students a sense of Puritan beliefs. Edwards (1703-1758) was a Great Awakening (1730–1755) minister, so he came after the earliest American Puritans, after the Salem witch trials (1692-3). But his fire and brimstone homilies drove some believers to suicide. It’s hard for a modern secularist to imagine why anyone would find themselves in a position to think this sort of spirituality could be righteous or in any way helpful. Levings’ narrative of her experiences show the reader exactly how this happens. Before I go on, I want to note that I’m adding this book review to my School Library Lady blog as well as to Substack. With all the craziness going on right now in the book challenge/ban arena, there will be those who believe, considering what happens to Levings, that a book like this has no place in a high school library. Clearly I’m not one of them. As I’ve said often, terrible things happen to adolescents and pretending they don’t puts them in danger. Levings was very young when making her life-altering decisions based on her understanding of God and God’s plan for her. Some teens, particularly girls, will see themselves in Levings. So, I’m going there. If we can teach the origins of American Calvinism in high school English, we can also have a look at how it plays out hundreds of years later. From BaptistLevings grew up in a strict Baptist household, albeit one that was within the norms of conservative evangelism/Christian patriarchy. Not fulfilling for a girl with ambition, but not physically dangerous moment to moment.In her desire to serve God as that mission is granted in Christian patriarchy (subservient wife/dutiful mother), Levings falls further into unhealthy religious views and depends on her (seriously unwell) husband for guidance, ultimately landing in two cults. Out of fear, she looks for a “new mentor to help me solve my personal ambition, before I headed for hell and took my babies with me. I knew I needed more help—books and Bible verses weren’t enough to prevent dents beneath the wallpaper when Allan slammed my head.”To Gothard womanShe finds her first cult through Gothard women at her church, followers of Bill Gothard and the Institute in Basic Life Principles (IBLP) which holds that women should obey men in every way in all of life’s forums: home, school, workplace, and marriage. TV’s “Nineteen Kids and Counting” Duggars are IBLP followers/Gothard folks.“I’d asked Judith if I could sit at her feet and learn, like it said about older women teaching the younger in Titus. I got to join the mother club of Gothard women spreading through First Baptist. We sat together and nursed our babies, discussing Scripture, child training, recipes, and household rules.”Levings learns that the group follows “biblical principles, not instincts.” By this, they mean to have ‘quiverful families’—that is, lots of kids (a quiverful). They don’t use birth control, ever. They practice blanket training, which is basically child abuse of infants. (Putting them on a blanket with a toy out of reach and then hitting them if they try to crawl off the blanket to get it.) Levings is even told that she can’t wear jeans, not only because it's tempting to men, but is even tempting to her two-year-old toddler. When Levings refuses to blanket train her kids, Judith nodded. “‘That’s fine. But setting up your child to be rebellious puts them in danger of hell. Is that what you want?’ Hot acid rose in my throat, triggering an old and familiar stomachache. What if my children were left behind? What if they burned in hell, and it was my fault? What if Y2K came and the clocks never rolled over and everything exploded, and we died? Was I being the kind of mother who could bring her children to salvation? Maybe I should try one more time.’”Levings has babies in rapid succession, with one particularly tragic result. To Calvinist Levings’ husband isn’t satisfied with their relationship and seems to need to degrade his wife further. He loses jobs through his temper, removes the family from support systems, and physically abuses Levings. He decides to become a Calvinist.”Our new pastor explained. Humans are depraved worms in need of a savior but we’re such filthy sinners—insects, really—that we don’t deserve to be saved. Thankfully, a limited few are elected for heaven. Christ and His grace are irresistible to the chosen—we’re unable to say no to God. Even if we try, it’s only a matter of time and suffering until we’re broken and returned to Him. This is why Christianity hurts. Suffering aligns us with Christ, and it’s a good thing when love hurts—that’s how you know it’s real.”At this point, the abusive relationship becomes bizarre, unthinkable. Allan has determined that it’s okay for women to have sexual pleasure, so he will command Levings to have orgasms. But women also need direction and that means they need “spankings.” I’m using the quotes because there is serious physical abuse involved. “‘They have threads on what constitutes spankable offenses. How to conduct a spanking, how to use time-outs and the corner, and what happens afterward.’“‘You want to put me in time-out?’“‘It’s often used in conjunction with physical discipline.’ He hurried to his next point. ‘CDD repairs problems in the marriage. And it’s done in love. Every spanking resolves with intercourse.’ “‘So, it’s sexual.’ My stomach clenched. Wife-spanking was kink in church clothes.”Levings believes that a good wife protects the family image more than her own safety. She goes along.To seekerThe reader wonders how Levings will find her way out of this. She quotes Fred Rogers on looking for the helpers. But Rogers was quoting his mother telling him what to do in scary situations. Normal scary situations, where there would be helpers in the environment. As we know, the helpers don’t come from inside the cult. The abused have to look outside. Levings is able to do this online, through a community called Trapdoor. “The topics we studied there taught me women supporting women led to ideas. To underground networks and whispers that led to freedom and change.”Levings starts to have two lives and her husband doesn’t know about her experiments with freedom. She marvels at the hypocrisy of her church fellows during the aughts.“The Christians we knew were angry about the burkas we saw on the news. It was un-Christian, they said, to force women to be invisible and uniform. But I silently laughed at that. American Christians had burkas too. I wore one. The denim jumper was the American burka.”Even religious instruction is out of bounds if it is conducted by women. “Leah shared she also wanted a woman’s Bible study or book group, but she’d been cautioned to stop asking. ‘The elders feel that women getting together is dangerous, because of our propensity to stray from spiritual topics into gossip when unattended by a head of household.’”Levings reminds the reader that patriarchy isn’t actually good for many men. (My feeling is that it generally exists to feed one ego, that of the ‘prophet,’ church leader, etc.) “Winning didn’t feel like having won. At the end of his religious quest for covenantal belonging, Allan appeared more whipped and exhausted than triumphant patriarch, without spark or fight, without spirit or zeal. His shoulders bent with burden and regret, like an ox caught belly-deep in mud.”To finder (of the helpers!)Levings finally comes to the most important questions about her cult.“What was I getting from this faith? Peace, love, joy? No—that’s not how I felt at church. Reassurance of eternal security? No—I still begged God to save me anytime the intersection of death felt close. A sense of belonging with Special Christians doing life right? I belonged, alright. I belonged too much. But what if we weren’t ‘doing it right’?”Levings does step outside the cult on a very dangerous night when it appears her husband is about to kill her. She finds the helpers.“Every day it was as if the more I made choices that saved me, the more others showed up to help save me too. The world, actually, was beautiful.”And that is an excellent lesson for teens to learn. Library and book challenge/ban news: what I found interesting this weekWhat’s a book ban anyway? Depends on who you ask from NPRHere are a handful of definitions from people entrenched in the issue.Book about book bans banned by Florida school board from The GuardianA book about book bans has been banned in a Florida school district.Ban This Book, a children’s book written by Alan Gratz, will no longer be available in the Indian River county school district since the school board voted to remove the book last month.Gratz’s book, which came out in 2017, follows fourth-grader Amy Anne Ollinger as she tries to check out her favorite book. Ollinger is told by the librarian she cannot, because it was banned after a classmate’s parent thought it was inappropriate. She then creates a secret banned-books library, entering into “an unexpected battle over book banning, censorship, and who has the right to decide what she and her fellow students can read”, according to the book’s description on Gratz’s website.In a peculiar case of life imitating art, Jennifer Pippin, a parent in the coastal community, challenged the book.… Pippin is also the chair of the local Moms for Liberty chapter, … Besides Pippin, two of the school board members who voted in favor of banning the book, Jacqueline Rosario and Gene Posca, had support from Moms for Liberty during their campaigns.Book ban lawsuits one step closer to Supreme Court from K12dive.comSome lawsuits challenging the bans have reached the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, while others remain in the district court system.Protecting pages: The culture war on literature and fighting for literary freedom from the LA TimesThis LA Times High School Insider article from Corona Del Mar High School doesn’t have new information, but is a nice overview that can be shared with students. The author also discusses their reading of Looking for Alaska by John Green, an often challenged and removed (banned) book.How Alabama Library Supporters Took Action and You Can, Too from Book RiotThe work is long. It is tiring. It is at a high personal cost. We’ve got enough awareness campaigns and resources. We know that in the last four years, how to fight book bans and challenges hasn’t changed — you need to vote, you need to show up to board meetings (and/or be involved on the board if possible), you have to get into your elected officials’ ears, you need to stay on top of the news, and then, choose one more thing if time and energy permit. One of those choice things might be getting involved with groups who can collaborate on a bigger mission than can be accomplished by an individual alone.That way forward is most likely through legal and legislative actions.What I’m ReadingAlthough I haven’t read Looking for Alaska by John Green in a looong time, it’s the often challenged book discussed in the high school article above, so here’s the link from the review I wrote back in the day. I had many copies and book-talked Alaska regularly. It was super popular with students. For many, it was their introduction to the author. They became fans. When The Fault in Our Stars, also by Green, came out, I got a grant to buy fifty copies for my two libraries (hello, budget cuts, double that job!). We had a poster contest. It was so much fun. The Alternatives by Caoilinn Hughes Four Irish sisters are left to struggle as teens when their parents die tragically. The novel is about how that pulls them together and apart, and—hopefully—together again. A bit of philosophy. A lot of sisterhood.A Well-trained Wife by Tia Levings (reviewed above).  This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit victoriawaddle.substack.com