I went into Shadow and Bone with very high expectations. Written after Leigh Bardugo’s Six of Crows series but meant to be a prequel of sorts (though including none of the same characters), I figured this would be at least as good as Six of Crows and Crooked Kingdom (the duology). I was a little…
Never Let Me Go is science fiction, British, and YA (even though it is frequently also read and enjoyed by grow-ups). It is also written by a widely lauded author (Kazuo Ishiguro) and seems to always be around, “your next read.” But while I expected to like this book as much as, say, The Perks…
A Monster Calls (2011) by Patrick Ness is a sad, somewhat difficult YA book that borders on a novella and, in the end, is rewarding. It is also magical, but avoids the obnoxiousness of overly-fable-y books to drive home some very real points about coming of age, death, and guilt, while the backstory about this…
I have decided that from now on, I am going to give a brief synopsis of my review right off the bat, then a synopsis of the book. Only then will I take forever telling you about it. Good idea? To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before (2014) by Jenny Han is YA to the…
(This is like the longest book review I’ve ever written. If you want the short of it, you could just read the first and last sections.) Finding information about Maggie Stiefvater is not as straight-forward as I would have expected in this day and age of digital TMI. But she seems to keep a pretty…
And another book that I added to my TBR because it came up under “NDE”s but has nothing to do with NDEs. Not its fault. It ended up being Printz-award-winning YA, so I can learn from this reading experience while writing YA myself. I could also have just enjoyed it. But did I? We Are…
Here’s the thing: in the spirit of no spoilers, I fear the marketing and reviews of The Loneliest Girl in the Universe by Lauren James are so cautious that they don’t adequately warn a reader what they are getting into. This is not a romance. This is not a light-hearted coming-of-age story. The blips out…
I know I read a lot. I still get intimidated by big books. Funnily enough, Six of Crows by Leigh Bardugo is not even 500 pages (similar to the second book, Crooked Kingdom), but the book itself—perhaps because of paper type?—feels bigger than that. And, honestly, I wasn’t that into if for the first quarter…
If you have not read this novel (and/or seen the movie), perhaps you are a little out of the loop or a little old? It is a modern manifesto of the teen life, since the late 90s but still extremely loved and adopted by each decade of teens since. The Perks of Being a Wallflower…
Another month, another book that I am reviewing because I taught it to my ninth grade(ish) co-op students. I can’t remember how I found this poetry anthology last summer, but I am sure glad that I did. Rather than have to pull poems from the whole world of poetry or require the students to purchase…
Now it begins. Besides reading the couple books that I am reading for book club this summer, I am going to spend the next few weeks (at least) reading for the co-op classes I’m teaching this year. I have to be ready by August, and I already am supposed to have decided on most of…
Okay, whatever you do, do not read this book and then watch the book trailer. It will make you so very sad that since its crazy popularity in 2014 and its release to be adapted, there has not been a movie made. The book trailer is so good. It doesn’t help that I love that…
Perhaps this is a crazy undertaking for me as a blogger, since it would be a little crazy for you as a reader to attempt what it will imply: reading a book a week for the year. I don’t know what’s wrong with me—or with other people, for that matter—that lists and attempts like this…
I would say that my reading of Hunger Games started on a high. I was forehead-deep in a number of nonfiction and bleak reading (mostly about social issues), and I was just going to tape the corners of book one (that’s a thing I always do) when I just peeked at the first chapter… and…
I am not going to review the whole series. Why? Because I read the first book and have decided that this series is really not meant for me. It is meant for someone, but it is not me, and I have so many other books that I am itching to read right now, but not…
Well, this is embarrassing. I guess if I’m going to do the crime, I’ll have to do the time. Just kidding, sort of. The truth is this: one of those little library boxes appeared in my neighborhood last year, which made me very happy. I wander by it frequently, depositing and taking books, although mostly…
Um. I read this book some time in 2017. It has sat on the list of reviews to write since then. The problem is, it is a fairly forgettable read. I mean, it accomplishes what it is, I think, but I am no teenage girl. Tell Me, written by Joan Bauer of young adult literary…
As mentioned before, I grabbed a few graphic novels from the library to add to the Book-a-Days, but they are not necessarily the ones from the TBR. Then again, I was bound to eventually read this Raina Telgemeier as well as the other review you have coming, Anne of Green Gables: a Graphic Novel. I…
I’ve been meaning to read this one for the past few months, since my daughter had to read it for school, but I have been unable to keep up with her reading (as her speed has increased and my duty as a reading mother has gotten a little out of hand). When we chatted about…
I bumped the Miss Peregrine series up on my TBR for two very good reasons. First, Tim Burton was working on the movie. I lurve Tim Burton and I see all the movies he makes. Second, I have a friend who was high school buddies with Ransom Riggs and who recommended that I read the…
the starving artist 