4 Stars. I don’t even know how I first came across this title but I added it to a list of possible books to read for a classics challenge I’m participating in. I had to read Beowulf and The Epic of Gilgamesh in high school so I wanted to read some epics from other cultures. Somehow I found The Ramayana. Then I realized that this version […]
4 Stars. I’m not entirely sure what I expected when I started this book, but it’s not what I got, and that was a pleasant surprise for me. Lady Slane is a delightful creature and I know she and I would be friends if she were real. She’s always been dutiful to her family but she has a rich inner landscape. She draws eccentrics to herself […]
3 Stars. I needed to read a book about climate change for the Nonfiction Reading Challenge hosted by Shelleyrae at Book’d Out. I didn’t want something that was going to depress me so I decided to read a book focused on solutions rather than problems. Drawdown fit the bill but I still got a little depressed. We know what needs to be done […]
4 Stars. I usually like to read “fluffy” books when the weather is warm but somehow I’ve been reading some pretty heavy titles lately. I asked for recommendations and Shelleyrae at Book’d Out suggested Book Lovers. It was just what I needed. I’m not a huge romance reader, but I do enjoy the occasional romantic comedy and this […]
4 Stars. In The Black Friend, Frederick Joseph shares his own experiences with racism, his response in the moment, how he wishes he’d actually responded, and demonstrates ways to be anti-racist. I can’t imagine these stories were easy to share. Some of them were so egregious that my jaw dropped and I was like, “What?!? Someone said […]
4 Stars. Oh my goodness. I think I need to be friends with T. Kingfisher (Ursula Vernon). The book starts out pretty light and fluffy. I laughed quite a bit. Even when things start getting serious, Kara and Simon face their fears with snarky humor. They’re my kind of people. So much so that I suddenly added up a whole bunch of […]
4 Stars. I generally like reading horror. I get spooked, I have fun, I move on. Demons and/or possession are too scary for me and I’m not happy with way over the top, incredibly gory violence, but otherwise I’m good. Hendrix delivers on the “spooking me” front. In the world of this book, six women survived their own real-life […]
4 Stars. I wasn’t quite sure what to expect from this book but I ultimately found it to be a surprisingly touching story of a boy on the cusp of manhood. Robert is fairly innocent in the ways of the world (he thinks that the tiny town of Rutledge, Vermont is almost as big as London). But he also has a practical knowledge of […]
5 Stars. Holy cow. Can I give this book all the stars? Because five doesn’t seem like enough. Written by a Black author and a White author, All American Boys covers all the nuances of a scene that’s shamefully familiar to the American public–a policeman beating and/or killing a Black man. Rashad shows signs of PTSD. His older […]
4 Stars. I liked Callie and her theatre geek crew! (I was a band geek myself.) Callie is outgoing and unashamedly enthusiastic in her passions. She’s a great friend and encourages others at every opportunity. She’s also in 7th grade, at an age when boys and girls are developing school romances. This group of schoolmates sure […]
3 Stars. I’m just not the reader for magical realism in literature. Oh, I do just fine with Sarah Addison Allen’s light touches of fantasy in otherwise contemporary novels. But a huge black beast of an unknown species adopting a family? Spirits wandering the house? Curses? Mermaid girls? All in dark historical fiction? I just […]