How to Be a Grown-Up is a short book about, well, adulthood, and how it doesn’t always match up with our expectations. Given its title, I was expecting a much younger protagonist and a much easier set of problems, but Rory is 40, turning 41, and still struggling with all of the questions we begin asking ourselves at 18 and sometimes never manage to answer satisfactorily. She’s well painted, though, and believable; she tends to make good decisions and try her best in a way protagonists, particularly […]
Voracious is a book about recipes developed based on favourite works of literature, a premise that appeals to me so thoroughly at this time of year that I was absolutely delighted to pick it up. The beginning of a new year always gets me thinking about my goals, and time after time, they involve reading more (like, say, 52 books this year?) and trying more new recipes. Voracious seemed like a perfect match for these introspective moments. While I did enjoy it, I found it […]
But Where is Red Going?
In a world where people are sorted according to their skin/hair/eye colours (but like, even worse than in ours, obviously), Reds belong to the servant/slave class, forced to work underground to mine gasses needed to terraform the solar system and improve the lot of all the rest of the colours. Disobedience is punished swiftly, as Darrow learns early on, but a terrorist group called the Sons of Ares saves him and transforms him into a Gold, the ruling class, hoping to set the stage for […]
“Don’t be a Copygirl”, or more appropriately, “Don’t Read Copygirl”
Kay is a junior copywriter with New York City’s hippest ad agency who feels oppressed by the boy’s club vibe of the advertising world. She’s also desperately in love with Ben, her partner/roommate/oldest friend. Can Kay break through the glass ceiling and show Ben what he means to her? Maybe Kay would have more success if she could treat anybody she meets like a person instead of a stereotype. She has a negative opinion of every single woman in the book, including her mother, future sister-in-law, […]