4 Stars. What an inspirational story! William and his family have almost nothing by Western standards but they do have each other and William has dreams and the willingness to teach himself and try. That takes him farther than he could even dream of. The part describing the famine was extremely difficult to read. People starve […]
4.5 Stars. I’ve read mixed reviews of this book but I personally enjoyed the heck out of it. I would catch myself relating the events from each chapter to my husband until I finally decided that he needs to read it for himself and stopped talking. Now I’m bursting at the seams with the need to discuss it with someone! The beginning was not […]
4 Stars. The Fountains of Silence does a wonderful job of presenting the dichotomy of the face that Spain presented to the world and the underlying darkness of the 1950s. Daniel is a wealthy Texas oil baron’s son staying in the American hotel that literally used to be a castle. By starting from his point of view, Sepetys begins with the […]
5 Stars. So, this is not the cleanest edit and it’s not Literature, but I grinned from ear-to-ear the entire time I was reading. I couldn’t wait to see how it ended but at the same time, I didn’t want it to end. It’s an adorable retelling of Cinderella set in the geeky fandom world, and I loved every minute of it […]
3 Stars. Eh. Axel was a whiny wimp who complained endlessly about having to go on the trip. The minute his uncle, Professor Liedenbrock, started to get the least bit angry with him over his dithering, Axel would cave and blithely go along with whatever ridiculous plan the professor has in mind. Axel was generally the one with […]
3 Stars. I’m about to write a huge sweeping statement that I really shouldn’t but here goes. I just don’t do well with South American authors. That’s not fair. I’ve only read three or four, I think. But I never have a clue what’s actually going on. What’s real, what’s not, what the “not real” things are supposed to […]
3 Stars. I’m so torn. I adore A Northern Light by Jennifer Donnelly. Like, top-five-books-ever adore it. So I know she can write. But this is her debut novel and it shows. It also got laughably melodramatic. There’s a better word to describe this book but it’s escaping me. Dickensian? Maybe. Fiona’s tragedies just pile one on […]
4 Stars. As I write this, it’s been a year and a half since I listened to The Golem and the Jinni and I still think about how good it was. Then I feel a pang of guilt that I haven’t reviewed it and spread the love. So here we go. Details have faded a bit but I do remember that I loved innocent Chava and jaded Ahmad. Chava was […]
4 Stars. I liked this a lot more than I expected to. That description makes the book sound like something it isn’t. It isn’t about the politics of the country or anything like that; it’s about the people and the possibilities within them. There isn’t much action but there is a lot of character development and relationship […]
3.5 Stars. I’ve never read any of Elly Griffiths’ other mysteries but this one was good. I had a vague guess as to “whodunnit” but I didn’t really know why or how. There was a more personal twist at the end that did surprise me quite a bit. I like surprises. But somehow the whole novel felt a bit gray. DI Stephens seems to have […]
3.5 Stars. It’s been so long since I read Garden Spells that I felt just a bit lost as I started this. The outlines settled in quickly for me though. My favorite chapters were the ones about Bay. That nameless longing for something, knowing it’s out there, just not being able to reach it–I think we all felt something like this as teenager […]