4 Stars. I wasn’t quite sure what to expect from this book but I ultimately found it to be a surprisingly touching story of a boy on the cusp of manhood. Robert is fairly innocent in the ways of the world (he thinks that the tiny town of Rutledge, Vermont is almost as big as London). But he also has a practical knowledge of […]
5 Stars. Holy cow. Can I give this book all the stars? Because five doesn’t seem like enough. Written by a Black author and a White author, All American Boys covers all the nuances of a scene that’s shamefully familiar to the American public–a policeman beating and/or killing a Black man. Rashad shows signs of PTSD. His older […]
4 Stars. I liked Callie and her theatre geek crew! (I was a band geek myself.) Callie is outgoing and unashamedly enthusiastic in her passions. She’s a great friend and encourages others at every opportunity. She’s also in 7th grade, at an age when boys and girls are developing school romances. This group of schoolmates sure […]
3 Stars. I’m just not the reader for magical realism in literature. Oh, I do just fine with Sarah Addison Allen’s light touches of fantasy in otherwise contemporary novels. But a huge black beast of an unknown species adopting a family? Spirits wandering the house? Curses? Mermaid girls? All in dark historical fiction? I just […]
4 Stars. The Hildegard in these pages was fascinating. She was a strategist but she also had a heart to care for others. She was “only” a woman but she was a woman with connections and she wasn’t afraid to use them. As she grew older, she called out hypocrisy and inhumane practices. God was always female in her visions. She was […]
5 Stars. As I read this, I periodically thought of that adage stating that to be a writer, “You simply sit down at the typewriter, open your veins, and bleed” (I’m going to attribute this to Walter “Red” Smith, citing Quote Investigator). Ms. Ward’s pain and grief comes through in these pages almost viscerally. Growing up poor […]
4 Stars. I found this book absolutely fascinating. The remarkable thing about Ada’s survival is that she knew very little about surviving Arctic conditions. She was raised in the village of Nome. She’d seen some Inuit (the preferred term now) elders hunting and employing traditional skills when she was very young but she […]
3 Stars. One of my go-to guilty pleasures for years was The Pink Carnation series by Lauren Willig. I’m really not a romance reader, and they are most definitely romances, but the witty dialog, fantastic characters, Napoleonic setting, and light action/suspense kept me going back for all twelve books. I knew they were influenced […]
5 Stars. Oh my goodness! I loved this book! I love the way the illustrations subvert the text. If I were only reading the words, I would expect a stereotypical princess playing tea with her dolls (I love those little girls but that doesn’t reflect every girl’s interests). For example […]
4 Stars. First of all, who can resist that cover? I just love it! This was a fun, quick read. It definitely starts off pretty dark. Morrigan’s father makes it clear that he finds her and her curse to be nuisances at best. Her stepmother couldn’t be less interested in Morrigan. Everyone else is happy to have a scapegoat for their […]
3 Stars. I can see the reason that this book is rated so highly on GoodReads. I understand why the author included some events, but my own history of grief led me to interpret them in a different way than intended. To explain further would give away some major plot points so I’ll have to leave it there. Part of me admires […]