2014 Book #30: The Giver
I had two distinct reactions to finishing The Giver: 1) How have I not read this book before? and 2) DAMN, that’s depressing. I had no idea what I was in for with this one even though almost everyone I know has read it. I took one of those stupid Facebook quizzes a month or two […]
2014 Book #29: Stranger Things Happen
Reading Things is so hard right now. Every time I sit down with a book, I hear a whine or feel needle-sharp puppy teeth playfully tugging on my jeans or, sometimes, on my skin. I’m having a hard time keeping interest throughout a whole novel because they’re taking me so long to read. I have […]
2014 Book #28: The Financial Lives of the Poets
I’m glad it has been long enough since I’ve read Jess Walter’s most recent book, Beautiful Ruins, that I’d forgotten what I said in my review because I probably wouldn’t have read The Financial Lives of the Poets solely based on The Type of Author Jess Walter Appears to Be. Though don’t get me wrong: The Financial Lives of the […]
2014 Book #27: The Torrents of Spring
What a bizarre little novella! I was expecting a run-of-the-mill (short) Hemingway novel, and I got…birds living in shirts? The Torrents of Spring is so un-Hemingway-like that I stopped several times and just stared at the pages, thinking, What am I reading, exactly? Hemingway, young then, is making fun of the literary establishment in a parody […]
2014 Book #26: The Penelopiad – and PUPPY!!! and Oyster
I’ve been In the Middle of David Copperfield for a couple of weeks now, so I decided to take a break and read The Penelopiad, which I’ve been meaning to reread for a couple of years now. At some point, I owned a copy, but I guess it made it into a discard pile because I disliked it […]
2014 Book #25: Not a Drop to Drink
Not a Drop to Drink is an exception to my general rules in a couple of ways: It's YA that I really enjoy (like Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children, which I also read recently) and I listened to a huge chunk of the audiobook while I was driving to Dallas and still liked it. […]
On Not Finishing Books (and sometimes finishing them when I know I shouldn’t). Also: 2014 Book #24: The Shadow of the Wind and Fail Pile #3: Noggin
I knew what I was getting into when I finally picked up The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafón, but Goodreads had it lingering on my recommendations page, and I was seeing it everywhere. Tumblr, mostly, which is usually bad news because quotes usually come from books I abhor like The Unbearable Lightness of Being […]
2014 Book #23: Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children
Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children has been on my tbr list for a while now – for long enough that I put it in my Official 2014 TBR Pile Challenge. I’m not sure of how I heard about it in the first place, but the idea was intriguing. I don’t know why it sat […]
2014 Book #22: A Tale Dark and Grimm
I’m really disappointed that I didn’t like A Tale Dark and Grimm. It’s a retelling of various Grimm’s Fairy Tales for kids with lots of the gore left in. I’ve read some brilliant kids’ books in the past few months, and I was expecting something similar. That’s not what I got. Adam Gidwitz‘s writing lacks the […]
2014 Book #21: The Magicians
I’d seen The Magicians around the internet, marketed as a sort of Harry Potter for adults. It’s the first of yet another wizardy series, and despite my best judgment (and having read all of the Game of Thrones books available), I checked it out from the library. Here’s what happens: Harry Potter goes to Hogwarts, […]