No, no animals die during this really adorable YA novel that I sort of checked out by accident but really ended up loving. So put your mind at ease and enjoy The Wild Place. Robin’s mother dies when she is 12, and shortly after, her veterinarian father uproots them all (teen queen Ari, brainy Robin and little brother “Squirm”) and moves to a small town so they can live with their grandmother. The grandmother, who I loved, helps Robin grieve for her mother and get over some […]
Perfect Beach Read
Only my great love for the Fug Girls would lead me to pick up a book with this kind of plot, but it’s a love greatly deserved and justified. This book is silly fluff, but it’s fun and I just loved the characters. And who am I to judge, really — I owned all the Clueless book when I was in middle school. So the first book in the series — Spoiled — is all about Molly, who finds out as her mother is dying that her real […]
Speaker Andrew
In his introduction to Speaker for the Dead, Orson Scott Card explains that THIS was the book he wanted to write all along, and while he’s very pleased that Ender’s Game has done so well, that he really just intended it as an introduction to Speaker for the Dead. I remember being really confused by that as a kid, because while I liked Speaker for the Dead and Xenocide just fine, I didn’t think they were as good as my beloved Ender’s Game. As I’ve gotten older and reread the […]
Odd Thomas is aiming to be Pithy Thomas — and failing
Oh, Dean Koontz. I might be just about at the end of my rope with you… “Every failure hollows out my heart a little further, and no success is able to refill any of that emptiness.” Okay, so this is the fifth Odd Thomas book. Up to now, besides the first one which was pretty good, they’ve been a little disappointing — particularly in terms of plot. Still, Odd’s own little way of viewing the world keeps the books moving and keeps me (vaguely) interested. But with Odd […]