Because I read this book a month ago, and the plot is somewhat convoluted, I am resorting to the plot summary from Goodreads to help me explain what the book is about: Bernadette Fox is notorious. To her Microsoft-guru husband, she’s a fiercely opinionated partner; to fellow private-school mothers in Seattle, she’s a disgrace, to design mavens, she’s a revolutionary architect, and to 15-year-old Bee, she’s a best friend, and simply, Mom. Then Bernadette disappears. It began when Bee aced her report card and claimed […]
The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows
I saw The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society on a hundred best-of lists when it first came out, and after I finally got around to reading it, I was pleased that it lived up to the hype. It’s really a great story. In 1946, author Juliet Ashton is surrounded by the damage of the war in London, and is looking for inspiration for a new book. She stumbles across a group of friends in Guernsey (an island in the English Channel), that formed a […]
Holes by Louis Sachar
I haven’t read Holes since probably sixth grade, but when I saw it for a dollar at a big library book sale, I couldn’t pass it up (I got a really cool edition, too–the cover is full of holes). I was surprised and pleased to find that it held up quite well to my memory of it. In case you’re unfamiliar with the plot, Holes stars an unlucky young man named Stanley Yelnats (Yelnats = Stanley in reverse), who descends from a long line of unlucky Stanley […]
The Cotton Queen by Pamela Morsi
A cute, fluffy little story that came as a breath of fresh air after the weighty (but still excellent) Allende book I read just before it. The Cotton Queen, which takes place in McKinney, Texas (about 10 minutes from where I was born, raised and living still!) is a story told primarily as a flashback. When Laney Hoffman’s daughter comes home as that year’s Cotton Queen and wants her mother to ride in the parade, Laney reflects on her relationship with her mother, the Cotton Queen […]