Play Book Tag discussion

When the Moon Was Ours by Anna-Marie McLemore was the winner of the 2016 Winner of the 2016 Tiptree Award!and longlisted for the 2016 National Book Award for Young People's LiteratureStonewall Book Award Honor“ It is the author's second novel. This book is a young adult book in that the characters are high school students who are at that point of becoming more and more sexual people. So this story is about a friendship between a Latino girl and a Pakistani boy. Miel has lost her family and she is afraid of pumpkins and roses grow from her wrists. Samir lives with his mother and he hangs moons.

The author's second book and she based it on a Mexican folklore. She has a author's note that provides additional information about why she wrote this book. The Tiptree is awarded to SF or Fantasy work that explores gender issues. This book does that. It also has sexual contact between teens, swearing so parents need to be aware of that when considering this book.

I felt it was more magical realism than it was fantasy. I am concerned that there is allusions to cutting behavior. There definitely is a lot of teenage angst in the book. I really was not that taken with it and did not feel it was all that unique.

My rating for it is 2.86.

Ack, magical realism. Nooooo. The second you said "roses grow from her wrists", I thought "I'm out."

Curious about your very precise rating. How are you doing it?

I have 7 things I am using and a 5 point Likert Scale. 5 of the points are standard ones; contribution toward literature (legacy), plot, character, readability, achievements and the last two items are some pet peeves that are probably only important to me. I dislike books that seems to be trying to "please all the PC people" and I dislike too much swearing and vulgarity and sex without a significant reason pertinent to the (legacy).

Kristel wrote: "I have 7 things I am using and a 5 point Likert Scale. 5 of the points are standard ones; contribution toward literature (legacy), plot, character, readability, achievements and the last two items ..."

Oh, that's very cool that you put that together. I love that you personalized it to your own needs as well. I'm with you on the "please all the PC people" point I must say. Even though I feel like I read plenty of books in that vein, many of which I seem to have enjoyed, lol.

And I would add, I was finding it frustrating to read so many books that would all be 3, 4 and 5 and yet they really didn't feel like they were equal.

Kristel wrote: "And I would add, I was finding it frustrating to read so many books that would all be 3, 4 and 5 and yet they really didn't feel like they were equal."

I struggle with that a LOT. It does annoy me . . .I have 3's I really have enjoyed and 3's that I wouldn't recommend at all. And now the 3's that I have enjoyed seem to be morphing into 4's. I like the idea of my own rating scale.

Since I have worked out my scale, I can write my reviews easier too. You were the first person to inspire me to create a rating for my books. I then was trying to use Arukiyomi's rating but his was difficult. He uses some system of %. I took some of his ideas as well as ideas on line and created my own. Then I add my 7 points and divide out to get my %.

Love your rating. What do you consider achievements?

Awards, long and short list or lasting the testvof time. Things like that but even, did the author achieve what they set out to do. That would be like a 3 and winning the booker would be a 5

Kristel wrote: "Awards, long and short list or lasting the test of time. Things like that but even, did the author achieve what they set out to do. That would be like a 3 and winning the Booker would be a 5"

Thanks, I always try to consider the quality of the work and use it to make my score, even if I don't particularly like the work, but I have never been very scientific or mathematical about it.

Booknblues wrote: "Kristel wrote: "Awards, long and short list or lasting the test of time. Things like that but even, did the author achieve what they set out to do. That would be like a 3 and winning the Booker wou..."

By using my rubric, it decreases the rating based only on whether I liked it. Readability is the spot where that is taken in to consideration.