Fiction

Sense and Sensibility vs. Persuasion

March 23, 2012

Versus is a feature in which two books face-off. Anything goes in the judging, but only one can be the winner. NOTE: As this is a discussion of books by Jane Austen, whose plots most everyone knows, there are some spoilers. I’d read Persuasion before. I liked it. But I was interested to see how [...]

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Shadow Tag, by Louise Erdrich

March 15, 2012

Did you know that it is officially Louise Erdrich month? Emily declared it so, and I jumped on the wagon. I had both Shadow Tag and The Plague of Doves on my shelves and, after a brief perusal of both, I started with Shadow Tag. Gil is a brilliant artist, and his wife, Irene America [...]

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Clair de Lune, by Jetta Carleton

March 13, 2012

Jetta Carleton is the author of a little-known but well-loved novel called The Moonflower Vine. It was, so far as anyone knew, her only book. After her death, her family looked for the manuscript she had been working on but assumed it was lost in a tornado. However, the manuscript was bequeathed to an old [...]

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A Wrinkle in Time; When You Reach Me; First Light

February 28, 2012

I recently was lucky enough to meet Rebecca Stead! I was so excited about this event that I engaged in extensive preparation beforehand. First, I read A Wrinkle in Time, as it’s mentioned throughout Stead’s Newbery-winning When You Reach Me. Then I reread When You Reach Me. And then I read Stead’s first book, First [...]

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I Am Not a Serial Killer, by Dan Wells

February 23, 2012

Dan Wells is a local author. And several of my blogging and IRL friends recommended this series. As an added bonus, every book in the series has already been published. With all of this encouragement, I delved in. John Wayne Cleaver is a sociopath. And a teenager. To keep him from indulging in his psychopathic [...]

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Lizzie Bright and the Buckminster Boy, by Gary D. Schmidt

February 20, 2012

So, I finished this book the other day. And I’m still recovering from the punches in the gut. And yet, I’ve come away with the impression, nay conviction, that this was a beautiful book. Darn that Gary D. Schmidt. Oh yeah. This one won both a Newbery AND a Printz honor. Crazy. So, Turner Ernest [...]

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Mini Reviews

February 15, 2012

Sadly, I fell WAY behind on my 2011 reviews. So, occasionally, I’ll be posting mini reviews to help catch up. This is round two. Check out round one, if you like. Though they all deserve their own posts, this will have to do. Wintergirls, by Laurie Halse Anderson Rating: My third encounter with Laurie Halse [...]

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Paranormalcy, by Kiersten White

February 13, 2012

Oh. I wanted to like this one more than I did. But I still liked this debut from Kiersten White. Evie, child-now-teenaged wonder, can see through the glamours that paranormals put on to appear normal. She is the star of an international treaty and the International Paranormal Containment Agency, which is charged with monitoring and [...]

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