Bayou Bytes Blog

Meddling Kids by Edgar Cantero Cantero's  Meddling Kids  is an obvious but decidedly off brand take on Scooby-Doo. He uses the familiar dynamic of four kids and a dog who fight crime as a foundation for a whole new story. The group spent their childhood summers in Blyton Hills, a sleepy mining town, catching elaborate and incompetent criminals. It was always a man in a ridiculous monster mask. Until it wasn't. Here the similarities to Scooby-Doo end. In the summer of 1977, the kids got in over their heads. They managed to pull a mask off another criminal and send him to jail, but they've suffered severe psychological repercussions from that last fateful case. Now it’s 1990 and the kids are all grown up. Kerri (Velma), got a degree in biology before her anxieties got to her. Now she bartends and is plagued by constant nightmares of that night. Andy is our Daphne, who joined the air force before ending up in and subsequent...

Your Fathers, Where are They?  And the Prophets, Do They Live Forever?  by Dave Eggers Stop me if you've heard this before: a man wakes up in a room he can't leave. How'd he get there? Why is he there? And who put him there? This man is a Kev, a NASA engineer, and he wakes up to find himself chained to a post. Thomas is his captor, but Thomas never wanted to be his captor. Thomas just wants to talk. They share some history, and although Kev doesn't really recall Thomas, Thomas needs Kev to remember. You and I read the same books and hear the same sermons and we come away with different messages. That has to be evidence of some serious problem, right? Dave Eggers's little-known novel (somehow at 225 pages) strips away everything but dialogue: this is a story about communication, and the desperate lengths one man will go in order to understand his place in the world. It's about a breakdown, and it's about breaking down barriers... -so c...

Legendary by Stephanie Garber Legendary is the second installment in the Caraval series. If you plan on reading this book I highly recommend you read the first one (my review on it here). The first book was a delightful glass of something sweet but not quite thirst quenching. This one however, isn’t as enjoyable as the last one was. It takes off where the last book ended, and its time for another game of Caraval. This time it's being hosted in the city of Valenda as a celebration of Elantine's day. This holiday is a celebration of Empress Elantine's birthday, so people from all over are sure to attend the festivities and enjoy the game of Caraval. Scarlett decides once again to join the fray, but this book follows the adventures of Tella instead. I can appreciate the author wanting to focus on another character, but this is one of the reasons I am not such a fan of this book. I relate to Scarlett a lot so maybe I am biased when I say that following he...

Wicked Fox by Kat Cho Every full moon, eighteen year old Gu Miyoung goes hunting. She's a nine-tailed fox, a creature from Korean mythology that preys on humans. But Miyoung refuses to kill just anybody. Like any monster with a soul, she only feeds on criminals. On her first hunt since moving to Seoul, she stumbles upon a young human, Ahn Jihoon, being attack by a goblin and decides to save him. In the midst of the fight, she loses her fox bead, the pearl that holds her lifeforce. When Jihoon picks up the bead, the two of them are inextricably linked. Despite her best efforts to avoid attachments to humans, Miyoung keeps running into Jihoon. But their budding romance is overshadowed by Miyoung's impending death. If she doesn't find a way to restore her fox bead she won't survive much longer. I must admit to a preexisting obsession with nine-tailed foxes that made me latch onto this title. I was especially excited to find it since Korean mythology is ...

...he was collecting wrestlers. We were his newest trophies. If you didn't want to be displayed on his wall, he threatened to ruin you. Foxcatcher: The True Story of My Brother's Murder, John du Pont's Madness, and the Quest for Olympic Gold by Mark Schultz  with David Thomas Mark Schultz is a gifted wrestler, like his amiable brother Dave, but he struggles to find steady financial support-- even as he wins world titles and Olympic gold. Enter John E du Pont, an eccentric Pennsylvania benefactor with a raging inferiority complex. Foxcatcher is part sports-story, part true crime -- the book opens with a killing and closes with trial-- but ultimately, it's an angry, shake-your-fist-at-the-sky, push-your-papers-off-your-desk-and-scream autobiography. Mark Schultz's brother, Dave, is shot and killed by John E du Pont, the mad, rich philanthropic Pennsylvania heir to the du Pont family fortune. To date, he's the wealthiest man ever convicted of m...

The book honestly took me by surprise with the illustration style reflecting the tone of the content. The story The Best We Could Do is about the author/illustrator Thi Bui and her family escaping during the Vietnam War. Her story also illustrates her life moving to California and family struggles across three generations. The Best We Could Do by Thi Bui I truthfully know very little about the Vietnam War without brushing up on my history or doing more in-depth research on the topic, but after reading through Thi Bui’s work I have a better sense of the atrocities inflicted on residents of South Vietnam. I’m most interested in the illustration style of Bui because of the rough, haunting images shown. While the depictions are harsh, there is a grace to the washed-out look giving more character to the family’s trials. At the end of the book, I can see the generational differences between Bui and her parents that leads them down different paths. But it is nice t...

"Remember, it's only a game..." Caraval by Stephanie Garber This is the mantra scrawled on the cover of  Caraval , a book by Stephanie Garber. This book seems to be filled to the brim with wonder, adventure, and magic on every page. I love this book, so much in fact that I have read it multiple times. I could go on and on about how much I adore this book. I could also go on and on about how much I hate it. This book holds promises and offers of something incredible and life changing, yet its delivery is simply lackluster. These statements directly contradict each other so let me explain in what ways this story soars and in which way it sinks. The problem with this book is that, its strengths are also its biggest weakness. The story starts on the Island of Trisda, the home of two sisters, Scarlett and Donatella Dragna. They are the daughters of the island’s governor, a man who is as abusive and vile as he is charming. Think of the s...