Recitatif by Toni Morrison
Technically, Recitatif is a short story – generously, it could be called a novella – but was released recently (I think) as a full book with an introduction by Zadie Smith, and so I’ll count it as a novel unto itself here. For the unfamiliar, this is a story where race is central to the plot – but never clarified. The story follows two girls, Twyla and Roberta, who were brought to room 406 at a sort of boarding school for children whose parents are unable […]
Cinder by Marissa Meyer
Scarlet by Marissa Meyer
Cress by Marissa Meyer
Winter by Marissa Meyer
I picked up the first book of Marissa Meyer’s Lunar Chronicles, Cinder, after one of my coworkers recommended it by telling me how much her 12-year-old loved the book. I was craving a fast-paced book that would be the right amount of complex to be interesting but still simple enough to follow in audiobook form. Also I figured – if it’s good enough for the 12-year-old, it’s good enough for me! The Lunar Chronicle books absolutely fulfilled my requirements, and after enjoying Cinder I went […]
This Tender Land by William Kent Krueger
I may be the only person on earth that didn’t like this book. I was certainly the only person in my library book club that didn’t. We went around the room giving our ratings out of five, and it was 4s and 5s all around (and one 7!) and me, with my 2. I stand by it. This book was not my jam. The first thing I’ll say in my defense was many of the people that said they loved it also said “but I […]
Dead Wind by Tessa Wegert
One of Us is Lying by Karen M. McManus
Messi vs. Ronaldo: One Rivalry, Two Goats, and the Era That Remade the World's Game by Joshua Robinson and Jonathan Clegg
The Sentence is Death by Anthony Horowitz
The Title: The Story of the First Division by Scott Murray
The Vanishing Stair by Maureen Johnson
Evil Under the Sun by Agatha Christie
The Fiancée by Kate White
The Guns of Heaven by Pete Hamill
Hey on the last day of the month, it finally snowed in New York! Huzzah! Dead Wind**** I can’t talk about why I like this book without even the mildest of spoilers if you’ve been following the series. So I’ll talk about what I appreciate. I’ve been in an on-and-off reading slump the last two months. It’s been hard to finish stuff. Tessa Wegert’s Shana Merchant series really feels like the exception to the rule. I like her writing, her pacing, her protagonist. All good. One […]
Sons from Afar (Tillerman Cycle #6) by Cynthia Voigt
In book six of The Tillerman Cycle, we spend time with James, the Tillerman family’s deepest thinker, and in many respects, its most troubled family member. Sweet Maybeth, though clearly developmentally disabled, has her siblings to look out for her and though academically challenged, is a popular and beloved classmate. Both younger brother Sammy and older sister Dicey are unwilling to bend to social mores and remain fiercely independent despite the pressures of high school. Despite their gruff exteriors and nonchalance, friends seek them out. […]
Pachinko by Min Jin Lee
This historic drama has all the elements I love about a book – great characters and a compelling story that we follow through several generations of the same family, from Korea to Japan and beyond. In the background of Pachinko is Japan’s occupation of Korea and the experience of Koreans in Japan before, during, and after this occupation. We begin in the 1880s in Korea. Hoonie is the son of parents who run a boardinghouse for fisherman. Their lives are meager, but stable. Hoonie eventually […]
