The Apocalyptic Era: Teaching & YA Lit Blog

Unabridged Podcast Episode 29: Blake Crouch's DARK MATTER

7/3/2018

Quick Summary: In this episode, we’re discussing Blake Crouch’s Dark Matter. It is a story about Jason Dessen, a physics professor, husband, and father, whose life is turned upside down when he is kidnapped and transported to a different world--one where his wife is not his wife, his son is not there, and he is profoundly successful as a physicist and has accomplished seemingly impossible things. As Jason struggles to figure out what is real, he works to find his way home. The protagonist must face the fragile nature of his reality as he struggles to reunite with his family and his world.

My Take: This was a fast-paced sci-fi book that grabbed me and kept moving. There are parts that were truly mind-blowing. Some of the details of the plot itself left me a bit perplexed, but it was a good read overall.
My verdict: The premise of this captivated me. As things unfolded, I found myself a bit skeptical of some of what came, but it was really enjoyable and fast-moving. 3/5 stars.
Favorite Quotes: There were lots of quotes I enjoyed in this fast-paced novel.

"It occurs to me that if I do survive, I'll carry a new revelation with me for the rest of my days: we leave this life the same way we enter it--totally alone, bereft. I'm afraid, and there is nothing Daniela or Charlie or anyone can do to help me at this moment when I need them more than ever. They don't even know what I'm experiencing." -- This novel really makes you think about what it means to be your true self and what reality really is. There are many moments of isolation and alienation that make the reader ponder existence.
"It's like we get so set in our ways, so entrenched in those grooves, we stop seeing our loved ones for who they are. But tonight, right now, I see you again, like the first time we met, when the sound of your voice and your smell was new country." -- One of the things I loved about this novel is the gratitude that the narrator feels for his life and all of the tiny, simple moments that make reality what it is.

What I added to my TBR list: I'm dying to read Little Fires Everywhere by Celeste Ng that Sara recommended! As I mention on the show, I LOVED Everything I Never Told You so very much, and I look forward to Ng's next novel. That one keeps getting pushed down the pile a little bit because of more pressing reads, but I can't wait to get to it!
Teaching Tips: While I would not teach this whole class, it could work in lit circles. It could also work well in a creative writing class since the narrative structure is fascinating!
Podcast Highlights: I loved/ felt mortified by listening to us try to work through some of the theoretical physics that are completely foreign to us! It's always humbling to discuss something completely outside of one's field of expertise. My cheeks are burning now just thinking about it!

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Making a Podcast Live on iTunes (and elsewhere): Things I Wish I Had Known

6/8/2018

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Getting our Unabridged podcast started has been an amazing adventure, and I've loved being part of the journey as we took something we loved, book discussions, and transformed it into a real recording podcast. We began recording back in June of 2017, but we did not launch our podcast until February of 2018. Here are a few things we learned along the way as we made our podcast live.

iTunes does not determine your release day. We spent a lot of time trying to pace things so that we'd have the best chance of getting a "good" release day for our podcast. While there are no terrible days/ amazing days, it is true that podcasts that release in the middle of the week seem to be statistically better received, whereas podcasts that release on the weekends are not as well received. We wanted a Tuesday/ Wednesday/ Thursday release day. We strategized and plotted and planned to try to achieve this goal, and it turned out (after our podcast was approved with iTunes, which only took a day) that WE push the podcast out whenever we post from our host, Podbean (more about that below)--this happened rather unintentionally the first week (we thought we were supposed to be posting for a Friday release), but we wound up with a Wednesday evening release schedule, which has been great!
You need to choose a host. We work in the tech world, so we were considering hosting it ourselves, but that seemed very complicated and not reliable, so we wound up taking the plunge and paying for a year subscription with Podbean. I did extensive research to try to figure out which platform would be best. I got down to Buzzsprout and Podbean. In the end, a major reason that I chose Podbean, where our Unabridged podcast now lives (see our Podbean link here), is because they offer a crowdfunding service, but we will be using Patreon instead, so that wound up being a moot point. Still, I have been pleased with Podbean. I'm glad we took that route.
Once you have music, a logo, a recording (or two or three), and a host, go ahead and set up your release on iTunes. Once you have the essentials in place and think you can sustain a systematic release (we try to record at least three times each month, and we release every Wednesday), go for it! We released six episodes up front, but I'm not sure it's totally necessary to release extra content. There were a lot of things we couldn't know until our podcast was in action, and we're learning as we go.
Be sure to sign in to iTunes using your podcast login information. You'll upload your podcast on iTunes Connect, but you'll need to use the Apple ID you created for that on your other iTunes app in order to access the full dashboard within iTunes Connect. It's easy to do, but it took me a long time to figure out that was the issue when I was ready to upload our content.

Whether you are considering podcasting as a hobby or as a way to promote ideas from an organization or school, it's definitely doable, and it's a lot of fun. Contact me on the contact page if you have questions, and I'll do my best to help.

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Unabridged Episode 21: Laurie Frankel's This is How it Always is

5/23/2018

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Quick Summary: This episode is about This Is How It Always Is by Laurie Frankel. Parents Rosie and Penn struggle with balancing the needs of their five children, navigating their inclination both to support and to protect their youngest child who is exploring gender identity. This is the story of a family who is doing their best, despite all of the uncertainty, to help themselves navigate their way in the world.

My Take: I absolutely loved this tender depiction of a family of seven as they worked to navigate their way through the world together. Frankel's depiction of Claude's journey as he transitioned into Poppy was powerful and compassionate, and Frankel never suggested that Rosie and Penn knew the way forward or had all the answers, but she instead revealed the daily pathway they all took toward a better, truer life for themselves and all of their children.
My conclusion: This book was a clear winner for me. While I did not fly through it, the prose was elegant and whimsical, and I was swept away by the characters and their journey. I so appreciated Frankel's portrayal of parenting and how hard it is to know the right thing to do, and I loved her honest, raw depiction of what transitioning can be like for a transgender child who is aware from early childhood that she is a girl. 5/5 stars.
Favorite Quotes:

"You only guess. This is how it always is. You have to make these huge decisions on behalf of your kid, this tiny human whose fate and future is entirely in your hands, who trusts you to know what’s good and right and then to be able to make that happen. You never have enough information. You don’t get to see the future. And if you screw up, if with your incomplete, contradictory information you make the wrong call, well, nothing less than your child’s entire future and happiness is at stake. It’s impossible. It’s heartbreaking. It’s maddening. But there’s no alternative." - This quotation resonated in every part of me. As a mother of young children, I am discovering how fraught daily life is as I constantly make decisions that will alter their lives for better or worse. I love the way Frankel continually shows the perilous situation of parents
[Regarding Claude's transition to Poppy] "The kindergarteners were unfazed. Very little is unalterable as far as five-year-olds are concerned. Very little doesn’t change. One day those squiggly lines in books transmute into words. One day actual pieces of your mouth start falling off. One day your beloved resolves into a kind of ratty stuffed animal, and for the first time in your life, you feel fine about leaving him home. One day, like magic, you can balance on two wheels. That one day you could be a boy and the next become a girl was not out of their dominion." I love the way Frankel highlights the malleability of a child. It truly is remarkable how unsurprising those kinds of things are to children. So often, it's adults who complicate things and make them into issues.

Teaching Tips: This would be a good option for lit circles, but it would be a tough read for a lot of students just because it's long and not fast-paced. However, I just listened to George by Alex Gino, and I LOVED it! It's middle grade and would be a great book for middle school or high school students. It's quick, but it does an amazing job of depicting what transitioning is like and how challenging it can be but also how fulfilling it can be.

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Unabridged Episode 19: Emily X. R. Pan's The Astonishing Color of After

5/10/2018

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The Astonishing Color of After, by Emily X. R. Pan, chronicles the journey of Leigh Chen Sanders as she goes to her mother’s homeland, Taiwan, in order to bring about some resolution for her mother (and herself) after her mother’s suicide. Shortly after her mother’s death, Leigh discovers that her mother has become a beautiful red bird, and she pursues the bird, which takes Leigh on a journey into the collective past of her family.

My Take: This book was stunningly beautiful. I also found it deeply painful to read. For a large portion of the book, I was worried that there was no hope for redemption or peace. The premise makes it clear that there is no hope for Leigh's mom (at least in her bodily form on this earth) as she has already succumbed to suicide as the book opens. However, I was completely captivated, and I found the twists and turns and magical realism that Pan weaves so smoothly into the text to be both compelling and comforting.
My conclusion: This was a stunning novel. Throughout much of the novel, I felt like I couldn't imagine feeling hopeful by the end, but it is remarkably uplifting considering the heavy content and premise. It was captivating, eloquent, and artistic. In short, I loved it. I was teary throughout much of it, but I found it cathartic and hopeful. Well done, Ms. Pan. I look forward to more works by this talented author. 5/5 stars.
Favorite Quotes: The memorable, gorgeous quotes are endless. I was taking photos of pages to capture the passages, and I truly felt that I could have photographed every page. I cannot believe this is Pan's first novel! Here are a few of the ones I loved.

This is the mother I want to remember. This joy. The way her glow filled a room. Her playfulness, her love of good food, her bright and bouncing laughter. [...] I stand there with my feet rooted into the carpet of that memory, watching until my ribs crunch together and pulverize my heart and send the heat of my missing everywhere. The grief spills out of me sepia dark. - In one of Pan's many brilliant artistic choices, she makes it possible for Leigh to relive memories, even ones that don't belong to her. Leigh is able to rediscover powerful components of the past that help her better understand the present and future. Pan captures the essence of grief with a clarity that's frighteningly accurate for those who've experienced it firsthand.
I would always remember my fourteenth birthday with perfect clarity, because it was one of the first times I realized that there might be something truly wrong with my mother. She cared that it was my birthday, but it wasn't enough to blow aside the storm. In the shadowy master bedroom, with lights off and curtains drawn, she spiraled all the way down. Her body was silent, but her darkness was louder than anything. Our home shrank to the size of a dollhouse, and the walls pressed up against me so that I couldn't breathe or speak or hear anything but her despair. - Pan depicts the ins and outs of depression and the way it can affect a whole family. She also captures what that experience is like for a teenager only beginning to understand the profound circumference of its shadow.
"They blame me. They think if I never come to America, if I never meet you, Jingling would be alive. Why everything always my fault? Maybe I blame them. They ate lunch with her the day she died. They should see how sick she was. Why everything my fault? Why not their fault? They will never meet Leigh. They will never hurt her like they hurt me." - Through Leigh's journey to Taiwan and the memories that she discovers, she learns about the way that family members can impact each other throughout generations and can shape each other's lives. I so loved Leigh's discovery of Waipo and Waigong and their histories, and I love how that expanded and enriched her view of the world -- even though they were two people who had caused her mother tremendous pain.

What I added to my TBR list: I'd read both of the other recommendations, Toni Morrison's Beloved and Laurie Halse Anderson's The Impossible Knife of Memory, but I love both passionately and wanted to mention here how great both of those reads are.
Teaching Tips: This novel would be a great choice for lit circles, and it would work well with other works about grief, coping with loss, family dynamics, cross-cultural families, and second generation Americans.

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Unabridged Episode 17: Siobhan Fallon's The Confusion of Languages

4/24/2018

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Quick Summary: This novel depicts two women who are army wives stationed in Jordan. The book comes from both of their perspectives, and it revolves around the challenges of dealing with life in a country in which daily life centers on a different culture. Cassie, who has lived in Jordan for years, tries to advise Margaret, a newcomer on how to live successfully. Fallon reveals the truth of their stories through Margaret’s journal and Cassie’s own reflection on their time together.

My Take: Phew, this one was not what I had anticipated. In a lot of ways I wound up feeling disappointed and frustrated, but there were some things I enjoyed -- the language was lovely in places, and the characters' strong personalities really resonated.
My conclusion: While I appreciated some aspects of the novel, and I definitely found myself wanting to find out what was going to happen, I found myself disappointed by the end. I wanted to like both of the main characters a bit more (though I so appreciated something Roxanne Gay says in Bad Feminist -- we shouldn't (I'm paraphrasing here) be reading books to find characters that are likeable! I this that is an excellent point, but I couldn't relate to either of the women in this story enough.) 3/5 stars.
Favorite Quotes:

"We depend on this give-and-take when living abroad. You can’t exile yourself from your homeland and not always feel that tidal pull of return. Those minor details, the commercial jingles and pop songs, the chain restaurants and decade-defining shades of our blue jeans, are details you don’t even think about until you are face-to-face with a society that has very little to do with your own. Suddenly those one-hit wonders become a secret language, the very vestiges of American culture." - I so appreciate the commentary in the novel about being an expat and being in a foreign land. There is a truth to those experiences that the women have that really resonated with me.
"Only a man could separate his life into that sort of divide and choose to put Work in the important category and family in the not. That’s why men rule the world." - The male/female dynamics in the book were fascinating, and it was painful and striking to see how the men in their lives really ruled the choices that both Margaret and Cassie made throughout the novel.

What I added to my TBR list: I've heard so many great things about Unbroken by Lauren Hillenbrand, and I loved what Jenni had to say about it. It's now a definite yes on my (ever-growing!) TBR list.