Hey everyone, it's Jananie and welcome to another episode of #EpicBookRecs.
So for those of you who are new here, this is a monthly series I do here on
the Epic Reads channel where I recommend a bunch of books based on a certain theme.
So this month is April and it is National Poetry Month, so
I thought I would kind of go along with that theme and
recommend a bunch of books that have poetry or are novels in verse.
I also really like this theme this month because I personally love poetry, but
I also feel like poetry is really calming for me, reading poetry,
reading it aloud is a very nice experience.
And all the books that I'm gonna recommend today are just absolutely wonderful.
And I really think that they capture emotion in a very significant way.
And I really think that you will enjoy at least one of them if you decide to
pick them up.
So without further ado, let's just jump into the first book.
So the first book that I'm gonna recommend to you today is by an author that I
absolutely love and I have read all her previous books and
I was just so excited when I found out she had another book coming out.
And that book is, Clap When You Land by Elizabeth Acevedo.
So this is Elizabeth Acevedo's third book.
Her first book was a novel in verse, it was actually one of the first
books that I recommended in this series, it was The Poet X.
And she also wrote the book With the Fire on High.
That was a book written in prose, not in poetry, but
this one kinda returns to Elizabeth Acevedo's original form, a novel in verse.
And this tells the story of two sisters who don't actually know that they
are sisters, they are half siblings.
So there's Yahaira, who lives in New York City and then there's Camino who lives in
Dominican Republic and they both share the same father.
But when their father dies in a plane crash, one that actually happened in real
life, they're both left without a father that they really cherished.
And they learn about the sister that they never knew they had, and
they have to come to terms with that.
I really, really loved this book.
It was just so beautiful and just seeing the two different lives that these
characters are living but the way that their relationship with their dad is very
different but also very similar in some ways was just super, super interesting.
And as always, I loved Elizabeth Acevedo's writing in this book,
I could just feel the words jump off the page.
Another thing that was just really interesting is the way that
the two characters are kind of grappling with their Dominican identity as well cuz
Yahaira is kind of really removed from it, she's never been there.
She's always lived in New York City and her only connection to it was her father
who always goes back there to see his other daughter.
And so the book is kind of told in different parts and stories,
we're seeing each of the sisters and
also kind of flashbacks to when their father was around.
And altogether, it makes for a really interesting and just heartbreaking read.
So I definitely recommend this one if you're looking for something deep and
personal and something really family oriented.
All right, the next book that I wanna recommend to you guys today is,
Three Things I Know Are True by Betty Culley.
So this is a book also written in verse and this is also kind of a story of grief.
So the book is told from the perspective of a young girl named Liv and
she has an older brother named Jonah, who five months ago,
shot himself by accident with the gun of his best friend's father.
His best friend is a boy named Clay, and they were
at Clay's house across the street and they were playing around in the attic and
he got a hold of Clay's father's gun and shot himself by accident.
But Jonah somehow still survives, but
he's living a life very different from the one that he had before.
And Liv is kind of witnessing this, she's become one of his primary caregivers at
home but she's also reeling from the aftermath of this accident.
Her mother is filing a lawsuit against Clay's family and
between the two families who used to be very close, there becomes a giant divide.
But Liv and Clay are in a kind of unique position where they were the closest to
Jonah and they are both experiencing the same kind of grief.
So the two of them are kind of finding comfort in each other.
And this book is just so kind of heartbreaking but
it's also really funny in some ways.
Liv has a very interesting kind of inner monologue and
her perspective is just really interesting.
She has a volunteering at a soup kitchen at some point, and there's those scenes as
well but she's dealing with all this in a very kind of removed way.
She doesn't know how to fully experience all these emotions, and
she keeps herself going through sarcasm and kind of humor.
And it's just really interesting to see that come through in the poetry.
So yeah, I definitely recommend this,
it was just a really interesting look at grief.
It also talks a little about gun control and all around,
this was just a really interesting and thought provoking read.
So I definitely, definitely recommend.
All right,
the next book that I wanna recommend to you guys today is Ronit & Jamil.
So this is another poetry book, a novel in verse and it's by Pamela L Laskin.
And this is kind of a retelling of Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet.
It takes place in the Middle East and
follows a young Israeli girl named Ronit and a young Palestinian boy named Jamil.
And the two of them end up crossing paths when their fathers end up in a begrudging
kind of business deal.
And so Ronit and Jamil end up seeing each other a lot through this business
arrangement that their fathers have, and sort of start falling for
each other even though they know no one would ever approve.
I really, really enjoyed this.
It takes both of the characters perspectives and
you're seeing how although they are like artificially separated and different,
they are very, very similar.
Even though they follow different religions, they are still very,
very similar in their practices and the way they're living their lives and
they are falling for each other and
it was just a really kind of beautiful short little story.
It is very, very small.
I definitely recommend it if you were looking for a retelling to read and
it's also just a really sweet romance as well.
And just seeing the way that they're willing to throw away a lot for
each other was just so beautiful.
I will say that the plot of this is a little bit different from the actual play.
So that might entice you to read it.
But yeah, definitely recommend if you're looking for
a little bit of a love story told in poetry form.
All right, the next book that I want to recommend to you today is
When You Ask Me Where I'm Going by Jasmin Kaur.
This is a really lovely poetry collection.
It is not a novel in verse like the previous books were, but this is kind of
a interesting collection of poems, but also some short story as well.
In this collection, Jasmin Kaur brings together a lot of emotions and
feelings about what it means to be a young woman living in North America,
especially when you are a young woman of color.
And there's also a short story in this book that follows a young woman named
Kiran who is an undocumented immigrant who is raising her young daughter.
This is definitely a book that takes on themes of feminism and racism and
immigration and also what it means to be an outsider.
And I actually had the pleasure of going to one of Jasmin Kaur's events where
she read some of her poetry and it was just absolutely wonderful hearing her
speak aloud about her experiences but also sharing her poetry, speaking it aloud.
The spoken word was just so wonderful.
I definitely recommend this, I fell in love with so
many of the poems in this book and they have definitely given me a lot of comfort.
So I definitely think this is a poetry collection that you can find a lot of
comfort in and even if you don't share the same experiences as the author does,
I definitely feel like you will find something to connect to.
All right, and the next book that I want to recommend to you today is one of my
old favorites.
I absolutely love this book and it's by an author that I absolutely adore.
And that is Long Way Down by Jason Reynolds.
This is an amazing novel in verse and
it takes place over a very short amount of time.
It follows this young boy named Will whose older brother Shawn was shot and killed.
Will is devastated by his brother's death, but
his neighborhood has always kind of operated around these three rules and
those three rules are never cry, never snitch and always take revenge.
Will thinks that it's his duty to kind of take revenge for
his older brother Shawn so he steals his brother's gun and leaves his
apartment going into the elevator intending to kill his brother's killer.
But when he gets in the elevator,
time kind of slows down and this book takes place over maybe like
two minutes while he is taking the elevator down his apartment building.
And for every level that he goes down, he meets kind of a ghost or
apparition of someone in his life who has passed away who meant something to him.
And each of those people are giving him their advice and
trying to deter him from this task that he has taken upon himself.
This is honestly such a heartbreaking and intense and emotional book.
But I remember finishing it and
feeling overwhelmed by how powerful this story was.
And I really think it is something that everyone should read because I think you
will gain something out of it.
It just packed such a punch for such a short novel.
And of course, Jason Reynolds' poetry is just amazing in this book and
I actually listened to this on audiobook.
So I was listening to him recite his own poetry and
kinda feeling that emotion come over me and that was just amazing.
So I definitely recommend listening to the audiobook for this and for any of
the other books that I've recommended today because it's just a totally
different experience listening to the author kind of speak their poetry aloud.
All right, and the last book that I want to recommend today is A Time to Dance
by Padma Venkatraman.
So this is another novel in a verse and it follows our young,
main character Veda, who is a classical Indian Bharatanatyam dancer.
Her mother has always wanted her to become an engineer but
Veda has always loved dancing, and that has become her one passion in life.
But when Veda is kind of unexpectedly injured in a bus accident,
she loses her leg and has it amputated from the knee down.
Her dance teacher tells her that she will never dance again, but
Veda has always loved dancing and it has always been her passion and
she's determined to learn dancing again without her leg.
And she's forced to kind of learn from the beginning from the very basics even
though she was such a professional, such a advanced dancer.
And this book was honestly such an inspiring read, seeing Veda go through
these struggles is just so heartbreaking but also so inspiring.
Seeing her kind of go after her dreams regardless of what anyone else was saying
was just so powerful.
I definitely recommend if you wanted to see kind of a more diverse representation
of disability.
And Veda herself is just a compelling character from the beginning.
She just kind of jumped off the page for me.
I also just loved seeing the representation of Bharatanatyam in
this book.
I was a classical Indian dancer when I was younger so I did do this and
a lot of the references were just so amazing to see in this book.
So it was really nice for that representation as well.
But those are all the books that I wanted to recommend to you guys today.
I really hope you enjoyed this video.
I love all the books that I've recommended today.
All of them are just so powerful and tell some really interesting stories.
A lot of them involve grief or a very emotional experience and
I do think that, that comes across very nicely in poetry.
But I also just love these books because the poetry is such a powerful thing.
You can express such emotion with poetry and I also feel like it can be a very
inspirational but also very calming and a soothing form of writing.
But as always, I would love it if you guys would leave your recommendations for
this month's theme in the comments down below.
Let me know what your favorite poetry books are,
your novels in verse that you love.
But I do have one more request for this video.
I would love it if you guys would comment down below of a theme that you would like
to see in future Epic Book Recs videos.
I love choosing themes and kind of finding the books that I love but
I would also love to see what you guys wanna hear from me and
what books you wanna read more of and I can recommend accordingly.
But that's about all I have to say.
So thank you so so much for watching and
I will see you in the next episode of #EpicBookRecs, bye