This book (mine was an early review copy via LibraryThing) was inspired by Atul Gawande’s “Being Mortal”, and since both physicians have worked at the same Boston hospital, I was interested in reading this take on how doctors deal with terminal patients. It’s pretty much of a memoir of how Zitter came to be a doctor and learned to overcome her training to become more of a patient focussed healthcare provider. She’s worked in ICUs around North America and shares deidentified stories about how people […]
A Palate Cleanser
I read Charlotte’s Web a few weeks ago, just for fun. I wasn’t going to review it, but this week I felt like writing a review of something. . . just nice. Charlotte’s Web is just about the nicest book in the world. If you’ve never read it, it’s the story of a pig, Wilbur, the runt of the litter. He’s saved by the farmer’s daughter, Fern, and eventually goes to live on the farm of her uncle, Homer Zuckerman. There, he meets the spider […]
The Hidden Chamber
I got on the library queue for this book because I knew that it contains “The Monarch of the Glen,” which is the novella follow-up to American Gods. I am committed to my American Gods love, and wanted to complete my library of knowledge of all things Shadow. But this book, oh, this wonderful book. It’s a collection of some of the most beautiful poetry and short stories, in perfect Gaiman-ian language, set in dark landscapes that are undeniably his. I could pick these works […]
Never Rate a Book By Your Professor
Being objective is much harder when you know the author and she happens to be your professor. I decided to read Rene Steinke’s book as part of a ‘teaching early composition’ class I’m taking over the summer since “Friendswood” has been adopted as our official ‘college book’ for the year. It was good. There were even parts that made me feel things, and that’s really the whole goal of any book; to stir the emotions enough to make the reader feel something. But this wasn’t […]
This book brought to you by a bunch of flimsy plot devices.
A smart, motivated, well liked high school good girl (Amelia) jumps or is pushed from the roof of her private school. Her single mom (Kate), a high powered attorney who’s extremely insecure about being a single mom, starts nosing around Amelia’s life to try to understand what happened. She’s totally bewildered and never saw it coming at all, and some circumstances surrounding her death don’t make sense (mainly that she jumped/was pushed immediately after being accused of plagiarizing a paper, which such a smart motivated […]
Journal of Meh
Sarah Gladstone knew a bad storm was coming and so she goes to stay with her mother in the small town of Sunbury. The storm turned out to be worse than expected and the town is cut off from the outside world with floods, downed trees, no electricity or cell towers. This is key because during the clean up, they learn that someone has broken into the priest’s home, tossed the place and the priest is nowhere to be found. However, journals–tons of them are […]