I am concerned that I am becoming a reading cynic. But not that concerned. I think if you like every book you read, then you are probably just really good at picking books to match your tastes. I think it’s okay to acknowledge that although I love books, and YA and children’s books especially, and [...]
Archive of posts filed under the book reviews category.
The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks by E. Lockhart
Have I ever told you about this book? One of my all-time favorite books? This book I once tried to read while driving 70 mph up US-127 North? No? Yes? Either way, consider this an ode to The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks by E. Lockhart. Frankie is a sophomore at an academically elite boarding [...]
Salt Sugar Fat: How the Food Giants Hooked Us by Michael Moss
Michael Moss’s Sugar Fat Salt: How the Food Giants Hooked Us is an important book. A really important book. Keeping my ranting and ramblings down to a readable word count is going to be a Herculean task, so I will attempt to focus myself as such. Part 1: The book as a book Part 2: [...]
reading for fun
I have had some trouble figuring out what to write about here: what do I want to write, like to write, what should I be writing, what should I not be writing, etc. Just another regularly scheduled what-am-i-doing-with-my-life-what-does-it-all-mean?? crisis, I won’t bore you with the details. But as I gazed vacantly into yet another empty [...]
Ask the Passengers by A.S. King
Astrid Jones is a lot of things. She is a senior in high school. She is a New Yorker whose parents moved her to Small Town Hell. She is the daughter less favored by a perfectionist mother. She is no longer interested in learning trigonometry, but philosophy lights up something inside of her. She is [...]
Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe by Benjamin Alire Saenz
I have mentioned this book about a dozen times in the past year, so now that I have finally read it, I should probably write up a proper review. Except for the part where I don’t think I can. Call it what you will: unwillingness to approach a book with an analytical, professional perspective, unwillingness [...]
Seraphina by Rachel Hartman
As I think more about The Books That People Really Love, I keep thinking about fantasy. [Insert a few witty sentences about how I don't really read fantasy here]. Not liking fantasy never felt like a strange thing until, of all places, grad school. My program was a haven for lovers of Tamora Pearce, Madeleine [...]
Eleanor & Park by Rainbow Rowell
I am still working on Project Five Romances, if you can call reading five measly books a project. I read the Jennifer Smith, the Sarah Dessen, the Stephanie Perkins, and then hit a bottleneck of Waiting for Library Reserves to Come In. So I charged up my borrowed Nook and started reading my first Netgalley [...]
Tiny Beautiful Things by Cheryl Strayed
If you are a human, you should probably read this book. Once upon a time, some writer-types started a website called The Rumpus. Steve Almond wrote the advice column, Dear Sugar, but handed over the duties to some new blood. That new blood was Cheryl Strayed – you might remember the name, maybe Oprah introduced [...]
TFiOS
After John Green’s The Fault in Our Stars swept through the the winter Best of 2012 Lists, I planned a little post to think about how this particular YA book caught the world’s attention. As a YA “insider,” a fan of John Green since the beginning, a person who watched John and Hank’s videos back [...]
