Beanie the Bansheenie by Eoin Colfer
The online reader site I use had a new listing of titles up. I saw the cover of Beanie the Bansheenie by Eoin Colfer and illustrator Steve McCarthy and said, sorry, not now. But I would go back to it. Okay, let’s read the description… banshee, a little girl, death. Nope, not right now. Then went back a third time. Still a no. It would be several looks later that I said I would read it. I still wasn’t sure if I should read, as […]
The Book of Love by Kelly Link
Absolutely perfect. No one can harness both the magic and ennui of being a teenager like Kelly Link. People will be handing this down to younger siblings for generations. Susannah and Laura are sisters. They are also band mates. The third member of their band, Daniel is their best friend and next-door neighbor. Oh, and Susannah’s friend-with-benefits. On the night of Daniel’s birthday, at a wild dive bar with a real carousel on stage, something happens: Susannah kisses Laura’s crush. Laura kisses Daniel. Susannah’s best […]
The Happy Shop by Brittany Long Olsen
The Happy Shop by Brittany Long Olsen was a book I had on my TBR for awhile now. I didn’t know what to expect, except it was a graphic novel and would have some type of magic in it. And in the short run, that is what it is all about: A girl finds a magical shop, magical things happen, she makes magical friends. Yet, there is a bit more. It is about how and why the girl is in need of a magical shop. […]
On Beauty by Zadie Smith
Howard Belsey is a white Englishman married to a Black American woman. He teaches art history at a fancy pants liberal arts college in Massachusetts and has been readying his Rembrandt book for publication for years with little progress. He and his wife, Kiki, have three children. Jerome, a recent convert to Christianity, is a student at Brown. His sister, Zora, is a self-serious academic type who takes after her father and is enrolled at the school were he teaches. Youngest child Levi is a […]
Americanah by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
Adichie is coming out with a new novel next March, and I’m excited to read it (and attend a reading). Before we do that, let’s revisit one of my original five star reviews, a book that I frequently cite as one of my favorites, and definitely home of one of my favorite quotes which I recite quite often: With him, she was at ease; her skin felt as though it was her right size. But then I recommended it to someone recently, and while they […]
Remarkably Bright Creatures by Shelby Van Pelt
This book was EVERYWHERE for a bit, wasn’t it–“the octopus book”. I tried, I really did, but reading this was like pulling teeth. Everything about it felt so aggressively predictable. It’s like the author learnt some cool facts about octopuses, had an idea for a book with a sassy main character with hidden depths, and dreamt this neat DRAMATIC CONNECTIVE TWIST…but then they got thrown into a blender, and the result was a book that’s painfully over-foreshadowed, like it’s just begging you to race to […]
