When asked at book club if I would read another book by this author, my answer was “No.” However, reading this Christmas cozy really got me wondering about possible (probable?) authors out there who write cozies but with a good (or great?) writing style. Because to tell you the truth, The Book Club Hotel by…
I thought the afterword to Shirley Jackson’s We Have Always Lived in the Castle by Jonathan Letham was rather clever. Among other things, he says, “Jackson is one of American fiction’s impossible presences, too material to be called a phantom …. too in-print to be ‘rediscovered,’ yet hidden in plain sight.” He goes on to…
I am very enthusiastic about Trail of Lightning by Rebecca Roanhorse. I loved this book, and I am going to very soon go on to read the next in the series. But I can’t just leave you at that because this book has some graphic violence including some nasty scenes that involve children and the…
Harold and the Purple Crayon by Crockett Johnson was my dad’s favorite picture book when he was a kid. (Published in 1955.) Which means it is an old picture book. It is also a classic. I was excited to see the movie in theaters this past summer, even though I don’t have kids the right…
I loved reading North Woods. Not everybody at book club did. There were even DNFs. I suppose it’s not an easy book and it is rather literary. But I thought it was exciting, very beautiful in its prose, unique, and well-executed. I will be looking into Daniel Mason’s other books and waiting for the next…
I don’t know if there is any real accounting for how much I liked this classic YA book. The Chocolate War by Robert Cormier just struck me as a very well-written book, nailing the concept and the genre on the head while also feeling fresh, even 50 years after its publication. Even though it’s kinda,…
Baking and fantasy as written by T. Kingfisher? Of course! YA. Fairy tale-style. Funny. Charming. All that. But it is Kingfisher, so there are also dead bodies strewn along the story’s path, and some scary moments, just more funny, coming-of-age things than the bodies and scares. It gets wacky. It gets introspective. And it’s written…
I would recommend that if you haven’t already, don’t read the synopses (at least the one on Goodreads) for Martyr! by Kaveh Akbar. There is just one line of explanation that—if you are very observant and have a good memory—could destroy your experience of the book. Because there is a twist of sorts, and the…
Apparently, one of the book clubs I am a part of reads Shakespeare in August—like for the past 17 years. It’s not the club I would have expected it of, exactly, but I was excited. I am a Shakespeare fan and have been since high school. Another thing: they bring in this Renaissance Literature expert/professor…
I keep coming back in my mind to reading Hamnet in February. I hadn’t read Maggie O’Farrell before, and I was so impressed I was just waiting to come back to her. The Marriage Portrait—her newest book, from 2022—was my chance. While it did not disappoint, I ended up liking Hamnet better, but only because…
After an adulthood avoiding Kurt Vonnegut, I finally read Cat’s Cradle. I immediately wondered what had been wrong with me to avoid Vonnegut. Cat’s Cradle is written in clear, straightforward prose with short, snappy sentences and paragraphs. It’s a little strange and the science fiction part of it is just a little science-y and a…
I have never felt such strong emotion in both of two opposite directions as I did while reading Radiance by Catherynne M. Valente. I am not alone in either hating or strongly admiring this book, and I even found another reader who felt exactly as I did: I hated the book for a good long…
When a vote was taken at my YA-for-adults book club regarding If I See You Again Tomorrow by Robbie Couch, there was not one person who didn’t like it. It was about half-and-half people who liked it and people who found it “middling.” I was probably somewhere between these two positions, but I raised my…
I found Dreadful by Caitlin Rozakis to be a fun, fast, humorous, and charming read. Though charming maybe isn’t quite the word. A fairytale farce novel with the villain-perspective going on and some fun mash-up twists, it still manages to be different from the other villain-y books in its tone and its particular twists. Perhaps…
Here’s the thing: I have an issue with blood. It is a real thing rooted in trauma and it has grown worse with age. Here’s the other thing: Daughter of the Moon Goddess by Sue Lynn Tan very unexpectedly features an awkwardly large number of scenes where the protagonist either bites the inside of her…
I’m going to have to agree with some other readers that Happy Place is not my happy place when it comes to Emily Henry or my vacation reads. But I did enjoy reading it. I still laughed and sighed and felt the sizzle of a romance; this book just had some more issues for me…
I enjoyed reading One of Us Is Lying by Karen M. McManus, as did most of the other people who read it. It’s a little fluffy, but it’s meant to be: a fun, YA thriller that uses both tropes and cliches to go a little deeper, blending inspiration from The Breakfast Club with modern situations…
I had so many conflicted feelings when I finished this book. Then I watched the limited streaming series and had more conflicted feelings, but not the same feelings, exactly. And then the New York Times published their best books of the twenty-first century and then the people’s choice, and there was Normal People again, not…
(Head to the end of the post to see my picks.) Sure, there’s a bunch of political stuff going on, but the book news in the past week or two has also been blowing up, unpredictably so. It all began with a little list that the New York Times put out. They put book lists…
After seeing T. Kingfisher conduct author interviews at my local bookstore, I walked away with the opinion that I would get along with her and also walked away with a copy of her most famous book, Nettle & Bone. A few weeks later I read the book while out of town and was hooked from…
the starving artist 