Tag: Contemporary

Swap’d by Tamara Ireland Stone

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Swap’d

Author: Tamara Ireland Stone
Series: CodeGirls#2
Reviewer: Renee

Summary

After her Click’d catastrophe, Allie Navarro is determined to redeem herself. So when the class gets an assignment to create a mobile game from recycled code, Allie pairs up with Courtney, her best friend from CodeGirls camp, to create the perfect app: Swap’d.

Kids buy, sell, and trade stuff at school all the time. Candy. Clothes. Video games. Slime. Why not make a fiercely competitive, totally anonymous, beat-the-clock game out of it?

Once Swap’d is in full-swing, Allie is certain that it’s the answer to all her problems. She’s making quick cash to help Courtney buy that really expensive plane ticket to come visit her. It’s giving her an excuse to have an actual conversation with her super-secret crush. And it looks like she might finally beat her archenemy-turned-friend, Nathan. She’s thought of everything. Or… has she?

The second book in the Click’d series by New York Times best-selling author Tamara Ireland Stone weaves together middle school friendship, first crushes, and serious coding skills in another fun, fast-paced, and empowering novel that will have readers cheering Allie on from the first page to the last. 

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Review

Rating: 5 out of 5 stars

I actually enjoyed this more than Click’d. This story picks up after Click’d with Allie deciding if she wants to go to the same summer camp as last summer or to a new summer program at a high-profile company. She wants to do both, but she can’t. She hesitates sending her application for the summer program and doubts whether she would even be accepted. She’s afraid to tell her best friend since they were planning on going to CodeGirls together again.

Allie mentions she’s going to a game convention as part of the reward she got for being in the competition with Click’d. Her friend loves games and wants to go with her. They look up prices and their parents say it’s too expensive.

In school, Allie’s class is given an assignment to reuse code in a short amount of time. Allie needs a solution to get enough money to help her best friend from CodeGirls to visit for the game convention. She combines her two goals – the class assignment will be one that can raise enough money to purchase plane tickets. The two work together to build an app, reusing code from their summer projects. It seems like they’re going to do it, until Allie’s teacher informs her of something and Allie has to choose to ignore it, or continue and get the money. They are so close!

I love how this dilemma reminds Allie of what happened with Click’d and she has to make that tough decision again: does she move forward and get the money to bring Courtney there, or does she shut it all down and tell Courtney they don’t have the money? I like how this series handles these ethical issues that many coders have had to deal with in their careers. Sometimes it’s hard to look the other way.

Books in this series

Click’d by Tamara Ireland Stone

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Click’d

Author: Tamara Ireland Stone
Series: CodeGirls#1
Reviewer: Renee

Summary

Allie Navarro can’t wait to show her best friends the app she built at CodeGirls summer camp. Click’d pairs users based on common interests and sends them on a fun (and occasionally rule-breaking) scavenger hunt to find each other. And it’s a hit. By the second day of school, everyone is talking about Click’d.

 Watching her app go viral is amazing. Leaderboards are filling up! Everyone’s making new friends. And with all the data Allie is collecting, she has an even better shot at beating her archenemy, Nathan, at the upcoming youth coding competition. But when Allie discovers a glitch that threatens to expose everyone’s secrets, she has to figure out how to make things right, even if that means sharing the computer lab with Nathan. Can Allie fix her app, stop it from doing any more damage, and win back the friends it hurt-all before she steps on stage to present Click’d to the judges?

 New York Times best-selling author Tamara Ireland Stone combines friendship, coding, and lots of popcorn in her fun and empowering middle-grade debut.

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Review

Rating: 4 out of 5 stars

Click’d is a great MG story about a girl who writes code and struggles with doing what’s right vs winning a competition. It’s the kind of story I wish I had when I was younger.

Allie loves writing code and she’s one of the best in her class. She’s always competing with Nathan, another top student who always seems to just barely beat her. Their teacher sponsors them both in an important contest that can get them and their app a lot of publicity. The problem? Allie gets a little competitive and releases her app to her school the week before the competition.

She watches the data as more people join and she’s exciting seeing her classmates using the app at school. Everybody loves it! However, one of her friends shows her a bug and she only has days to fix it before the competition. She tries to hide this from her teacher/sponsor and Nathan. She can’t let Nathan know there’s something wrong with her app and she definitely can’t tell her teacher in case she decides to pull Allie from the competition. As her app becomes more popular, the chances of the bug happening increases. Her friends encourage her to disable the app but if she does that, she can’t be in the competition. She promises her friend she’ll solve it before anybody finds out.

Nathan and Allie spend their lunches in the computer lab working on their projects. Neither admits they have a problem. Even though they’ve known each other a long time, they start opening up the more time they spend together. Eventually they each admit they have a problem in their app. They work together to try to fix both apps before the competition.

Allie had to face some tough decisions around her app: does she keep it live knowing it has a bug that sometimes shows personal information? Should she ask for help? Who should she ask for help? How does she explain what she did to her friend who was hurt by the bug?

I didn’t expect the ending but I appreciated it. As a coder, I related to Allie’s challenges and enjoyed watching her learn from her mistakes. She had to make a lot of decisions throughout the story and accepted that she made mistakes by the end.

Books in this series

Mr. Penumbra’s 24 Hour Bookstore by Robin Sloan

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Mr. Penumbra’s 24 Hour Bookstore

Author: Robin Sloan
Reviewer: Leslie

Summary

The Great Recession has shuffled Clay Jannon away from life as a San Francisco web-design drone and into the aisles of Mr. Penumbra’s 24-Hour Bookstore, but after a few days on the job, Clay discovers that the store is more curious than either its name or its gnomic owner might suggest. The customers are few, and they never seem to buy anything; instead, they “check out” large, obscure volumes from strange corners of the store. Suspicious, Clay engineers an analysis of the clientele’s behavior, seeking help from his variously talented friends, but when they bring their findings to Mr. Penumbra, they discover the bookstore’s secrets extend far beyond its walls.

View this book on Goodreads.

Review

Rating: 3 out of 5 stars

I’ve had this book on my shelf for a long time. With a title about a 24-hour bookstore and a back cover hinting at a mystery and assembly of characters, I couldn’t resist. However, I was fairly disappointed in how it ended up. 

I enjoyed the witty way that our main character, Clay, describes the world and other people, and also the themes that were broached throughout. One of the larger themes that I picked out was the way that advancements, like technology, might allow us to get things faster, isn’t part of the adventure the tediousness of the journey? Along with that, there’s a mystery, a secret society, some fancy detective work, and more.

However, the actual execution of everything didn’t really excite me. I was hoping that at some point, the action would pick up, or the tension would increase, but there weren’t enough negative side effects to really ramp it up. What I mean by this is that although there are some tense conflicts and situations, very, very few of them actually ended in any sort of consequences, leaving me with a sense that nothing could go wrong, so why worry?

I gave this a three out of five because I liked the style and language enough to finish, but put it down not feeling like I had really connected to anyone or anything in it. Even in writing this review, I almost forgot that I had even read it.

The Love and Lies of Rukhsana Ali by Sabina Khan

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The Love and Lies of Rukhsana Ali

Author: Sabina Khan
Reviewer: Renee

Content warnings

rape (including with a minor), domestic violence, homophobia, exorcism, forced marriage, drugging

Summary

Seventeen-year-old Rukhsana Ali tries her hardest to live up to her conservative Muslim parents’ expectations, but lately she’s finding that harder and harder to do. She rolls her eyes instead of screaming when they blatantly favor her brother and she dresses conservatively at home, saving her crop tops and makeup for parties her parents don’t know about. Luckily, only a few more months stand between her carefully monitored life in Seattle and her new life at Caltech, where she can pursue her dream of becoming an engineer.

But when her parents catch her kissing her girlfriend Ariana, all of Rukhsana’s plans fall apart. Her parents are devastated; being gay may as well be a death sentence in the Bengali community. They immediately whisk Rukhsana off to Bangladesh, where she is thrown headfirst into a world of arranged marriages and tradition. Only through reading her grandmother’s old diary is Rukhsana able to gain some much needed perspective.

Rukhsana realizes she must find the courage to fight for her love, but can she do so without losing everyone and everything in her life?

View this book on Goodreads.

Review

Rating: 4,5 out of 5 stars

I cannot recommend this book enough. There are many themes that are so important not just for those who directly relate to Rukhsana but also for others who can learn and help those who do.

I couldn’t put this book down because Rukhsana always seemed to be at risk and I wanted her to have the safety and freedom to just exist and be happy. I found the dialog funny, especially Rukhsana’s thoughts when talking with a character who had much more conservative views than herself. The beginning has many lighthearted moments but it gets heavier as the book goes on. Many people can benefit from reading this story and will be able to relate to one or more themes.

I do think the end wrapped up a bit too quickly. More time could have been spent showing that things won’t be perfect after a few weeks of talking or trying to change.

Disclaimer: While I love the themes discussed in this book, I do not have any real-life experience with most of them. I do not come from a family who forced their beliefs on me and have been privileged to have freedom when it comes to deciding what to do with my life (though my mom is anxiously awaiting the prospect grandkids…)

Rukhsana struggles constantly to keep her two lives separate – the good conservative Muslim daughter at home and the “normal” American when out with her friends. She loves both her worlds, but finds herself constantly hiding or defending one over the other.

I love how Khan not only shows Rukhsana’s struggle, but also points out how difficult it is for her friends to understand what she’s going through. Rukhsana is constantly trying to explain to her friends how she can’t just tell her parents “no” or “escape.” They keep thinking she’s overreacting, even the friends she’s known for years and are familiar with her family.

One of my favorite parts is when Rukhsana has had enough and ends up telling everybody that she understands things are difficult for them but she’s tired of always being told she needs to understand what everybody else is going through when nobody has considered what she has gone through or what she feels. I felt this was a very strong moment in the story because it’s when Rukhsana decided to stop trying to explain herself to people who just didn’t get it and put it on others to consider how she feels.

Hopefully those who do read this book come away with learning to show more compassion and empathy for people who have different perspectives. Too many people brush aside the feelings/opinions of others simply because they are unwilling to try to understand why somebody feels/thinks the way they do. Again, while most of this book doesn’t directly relate to my real life, this message resonates strongly with me. I see and experience people viewing things through their blinders without considering why anybody would have a different perspective. It usually turns into being told “I don’t see why you don’t just agree with me” instead of “can you explain what you mean because I don’t understand.”

I also liked how forgiveness wasn’t just given. It had to be earned. Some characters lost Rukhsana’s trust and had to earn it back. She wasn’t going to just give it to them for a happy ending. She was upset and let them know how much they hurt her and she couldn’t just forgive them even if they regretted their actions because it was too late. The reverse was also true; Rukhsana lost trust with some people she cared about and had to earn it back.

I don’t usually do warm and happy feelings but this book thawed my heart a little.