Reluctant readers, this post is not for you. You are the naturals, already well versed in this most precious of skills that we voracious bookworms lack. Not for you the precarious stacks listing on your bedside table, the shelves overflowing (but already two layers deep!) with acquisitions never read, the…
Books YA/MG fiction The Whispering Mountain (**** – liked) Shades of Milk and Honey (**** – liked) The Boneshaker (*** – enjoyed) Ashfall (**** – liked) Adult fiction Heart-Shaped Box (**** – liked) A Single Shot (*** – enjoyed) The Penelopiad: The Myth of Penelope and Odysseus (**** – liked)…
Books MG/YA fiction Akata Witch (**** – liked) The Shadow Guests (***** – loved) The Doom of the Haunted Opera (*** – enjoyed) Liar’s Moon (**** – liked) The December Rose (***** – loved) Graceling (***** – loved) Saranormal: Ghost Town (*** – enjoyed) The Mummy, the Will, and the Crypt (**** –…
(Even you, Elementary. Though I admit your circumstances are slightly different. BUT I WILL *NOT* SPOIL THEM, SO READ ON WITHOUT FEAR!) I love updates of Sherlock Holmes, but I have not yet encountered a single version of Irene Adler who does not make me want to punch the character in…
(Yes, Murder Mystery 2013 was this weekend! That means pics and recaps next week! And also that I’m exhausted. In the meantime…) When it comes to books adapted into TV shows or movies, I often feel as though one can adopt a Pascal’s Wager-style two-by-two outcome grid: Things they changed…
It is a truth universally acknowledged that it is impossible to tell how striking a particular piece of writing is until you’ve read several dozen examples of that genre. This applies to genres of novel as much as it applies to essays and cover letters. Purely in the interests of…
Books MG/YA fiction The Emerald Atlas ( **** – liked) Homeland ( *** – enjoyed) Fiction Body Double (**** – liked) Vanish (**** – liked) Daybreak (**** – liked) The Sisters Brothers (**** – liked) Non-fiction Outliers: The Story of Success (**** – liked) The Honest Truth About Dishonesty: How…
Books YA/MG fiction The Crown of Embers (***** – loved) Glimmer (**** – liked) Hunger: A Gone Novel (*** – enjoyed) Shadowland (*** – enjoyed) Lies: A Gone Novel (*** – enjoyed) Ninth Key (*** – enjoyed) Adult fiction The Tragedy of Arthur (**** – liked) Alif the Unseen (**** – liked) The…
I’m over sacrifice. In fiction, that is. I’m not quite as excited as I used to be about climaxes where Mr. Spock gasps out his last words on the other side of the radioactivity-shielding glass or Harry Potter whips off his Invisibility Cloak in the middle of a Death Eater…
Books YA/MG fiction The Girl of Fire and Thorns (***** – loved) Leverage (***** – loved) Adult fiction Whispers Under Ground (***** – loved) The Last Policeman: A Novel (**** – liked) Redshirts (*** – enjoyed) The Surgeon (**** – liked) Adult non-fiction Twilight of the Elites: America After Meritocracy…