Jan 21
Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi Pantheon Books, 2003 I finally got around to reading Marjane Satrapi’s graphic novel Persepolis which served as the graphic novel for this year’s reading challenge. It retread a lot of the ground I had just visited when I read Reading Lolita in Tehran, but I loved it nonetheless. There’s a sequel …
Jan 21
Children of Virtue and Vengeance by Tomi Adeyemi Henry Holt and Co., 2019 I was impressed by Tomi Adeyemi’s Children of Blood and Bone when it came out in 2018. It was something different, an African-based culture handled in a Western fantasy way. There’s a monarchy, magic-users who are persecuted, swords and armor, and exotic …
Apr 24
Author Madeleine L’Engle wrote a heckuvalotta novels. In addition to the Wrinkle in Time (or the Kairos series as she called it) books pictured above, she also wrote a second generation series about the same family, plus the Chronos series about the Austin family, the Katherine Forrester series, and the Camilla Dickinson series. One thing …
Apr 23
A Swiftly Tilting Planet by Madeleine L’Engle Dell Yearling, 1978 [Challenge # 4: A children’s book, middle grade or younger.] A Swiftly Turning Planet is a hot mess of a book, but not without its rewards. The third installment of the Murry family saga that began with A Wrinkle in Time, it features the insufferable …
Nov 28
Why write a whole YA book when you can query by title alone? Feel free to nab any of these. Evocative YA Titles The First and Darkest Throne Above Clouds of Illusion A Pure Sea of Dragons Haunted Breath Godsmoke Unlike Promises of Glass The Fangling Starflame A Mortal Yet Heavenly Prince Among the …
Nov 04
Every Heart a Doorway by Seanan McGuire Tor Books, 2016 Every Heart a Doorway is a book that spans genres. It’s part YA, part horror, part old-timey Portal fantasy, and part magical boarding school fantasy, with a dollop of LGBTQ. It’s disturbing, in ways both unintentional and obvious. It won a Nebula award, yet could …
Oct 31
The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie Little, Brown & Co., 2017 (10th Anniversary Edition) [Challenge # 5: A book by a local author.] The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian is a semi-mythic coming of age story of a Native American boy’s freshman year. Arnold Spirit Jr. lives on …
Oct 22
The following book review is condensed from and elaborated on from an earlier post. by Victoria Aveyard HarperTeen, 2015 Red Queen, by Victoria Aveyard, is one of those dystopias that appears to take its high concept to the max. Mare, a teenage girl on the cusp of turning 18 and being drafted into the army, …
