Book review: My Dark Vanessa

My Dark Vanessa by Kate Elizabeth Russell From Goodreads 2000. Bright, ambitious, and yearning for adulthood, fifteen-year-old Vanessa Wye becomes entangled in an affair with Jacob Strane, her magnetic and guileful forty-two-year-old English teacher. 2017. Amid the rising wave of allegations against powerful men, a reckoning is coming due. Strane has been accused of sexual …

Book review: Conversations with Friends

Conversations with Friends by Sally Rooney From Goodreads Frances is twenty-one years old, cool-headed, and darkly observant. A college student and aspiring writer, she devotes herself to a life of the mind--and to the beautiful and endlessly self-possessed Bobbi, her best friend and comrade-in-arms. Lovers at school, the two young women now perform spoken-word poetry …

Book review: Columbine

Columbine by Dave Cullen From Goodreads What really happened April 20, 1999? The horror left an indelible stamp on the American psyche, but most of what we "know" is wrong. It wasn't about jocks, Goths, or the Trench Coat Mafia. Dave Cullen was one of the first reporters on scene, and spent ten years on …

Series review: The Raven Cycle

The Raven Cycle by Maggie Stiefvater Synopsis for the first book, from Goodreads It is freezing in the churchyard, even before the dead arrive. Every year, Blue Sargent stands next to her clairvoyant mother as the soon-to-be dead walk past. Blue herself never sees them—not until this year, when a boy emerges from the dark …

Book review: The Most Dangerous Place on Earth

The Most Dangerous Place on Earth by Lindsey Lee Johnson From Goodreads In an idyllic community of wealthy California families, new teacher Molly Nicoll becomes intrigued by the hidden lives of her privileged students. Unknown to Molly, a middle school tragedy in which they were all complicit continues to reverberate for her kids: Nick, the …

Book review: Every Heart a Doorway

Every Heart a Doorway by Seanan McGuire From Goodreads Eleanor West’s Home for Wayward Children No Solicitations No Visitors No Quests Children have always disappeared under the right conditions; slipping through the shadows under a bed or at the back of a wardrobe, tumbling down rabbit holes and into old wells, and emerging somewhere... else. …

Mini review: Unwind

Unwind by Neal Shusterman From Goodreads Connor, Risa, and Lev are running for their lives. The Second Civil War was fought over reproductive rights. The chilling resolution: Life is inviolable from the moment of conception until age thirteen. Between the ages of thirteen and eighteen, however, parents can have their child "unwound," whereby all of …

Book review: the Butterfly Garden

The Butterfly Garden by Dot Hutchinson From Goodreads Near an isolated mansion lies a beautiful garden. In this garden grow luscious flowers, shady trees…and a collection of precious “butterflies”—young women who have been kidnapped and intricately tattooed to resemble their namesakes. Overseeing it all is the Gardener, a brutal, twisted man obsessed with capturing and …

2018 backlog mini reviews

So in 2018 I got pretty behind on writing reviews for some of the books I read. I just never wrote a review, and the book has just been sitting on my review list since I read it. So today I thought I'd post some mini reviews for some of those books. Behind the Beautiful …

Discussion: can a book be a favourite and not a five-star read?

So I had this discussion in the back of my mind for a while and finally decided to write my thoughts down. Can a book be a favourite and not a five-star read, and can a five-star read not be a favourite? I feel like, generally, most people rate their favourite books as five stars …

Book review: Hunger

Hunger by Lan Samantha Chang Paraphrased from Goodreads These stories reveal the lives of immigrant families haunted by lost loves: a ghost seduces a young girl into a flooded river; a mother commands a daughter to avenge her father's death; and a woman speaks from beyond the grave about her tragic marriage to a man …

Mini review: the Measure of My Powers

The Measure of My Power: A Memoir of Food, Misery and Paris by Jackie Kai Ellis Paraphrased from GoodreadsA story about one woman's search for self-love, experienced through food and travel. On the surface, Jackie Kai Ellis's life was the one that every woman, herself included, wanted: she was in her late twenties and married to …