Akemi Dawn Bowman’s Starfish is the story of Kiko Himura, a young artist living with her mom and two brothers somewhere in Nebraska. Kiko is cripplingly shy and anxious, the result of years of emotional neglect and abuse at the hands of a narcissist mother and creepy uncle. The only thing she has in her life is her art, and her dreams of getting into Prism art school in New York. She used to be a happy enough kid, with a wonderful best friend named […]
Life After Life After Life After Life…
I kept picking up Kate Atkinson’s Life After Life every time I was in a book store for years. I’d seen the BBC adaptation of some of her Jackson Brodie stories at one point and for whatever reason felt like I needed to read those first. I don’t know why, as this novel is wholly separate from that detective series. In any case it showed up as a Kindle Deal of the Day a few months ago and I finally pulled the trigger. I’m so […]
Quentin Coldwater and the Chronicles of Fillory
Lev Grossman’s The Magicians has many elements that I like in a novel – young protagonists, magic, magic schools, etc. In spite of all these things going for it, I had to force myself to finish it, probably won’t seek out the other two novels in the trilogy, and will end up writing more than I should about it here for CBR. I always write more when I dislike something. The Magicians is the story of Quentin Coldwater, a boring young Brooklyn teenager who suddenly […]
Americanah
I have probably mentioned previously that my sister-in-law rating something five stars on Goodreads means I automatically add it to my To Read queue 9/10 times. Such was the case with Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s Americanah. My new book club selected it for this month and so it got bumped to the top. And 477 pages later I am glad I did, though I struggle to think of what to say about it. Americanah is the story of two childhood sweethearts, Ifemelu and Obinze, and how […]
Not non-fiction but sadly it could be
Angie Thomas’ The Hate U Give has made a lot of lists since it was published last year, so it was already on my to read list when the book club I’m trying out picked it for February. We just met last night to talk about it so I admit those discussion points might have muddied the waters for me. The Hate U Give is the story of Starr Carter, a young African-American woman from a town called Garden Heights attending a private school in […]
WWII YA Drama Awesomeness
The YA book club I just joined read Elizabeth Wein’s Code Name Verity this month and though I have read it before, I gave it a fast reread just to refresh everything. Goodreads tells me I read this in 2013, so I honestly don’t remember if I’ve reviewed it for CBR or not. If so, this will probably be a little derivative. Apologies. Verity tells the story of two young women working for the British during WWII. Verity (aka Queenie, aka…) is being held by […]
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