I read this with my mentor for our Advanced Fiction course, and it’s definitely far outside my wheelhouse in both content and structure. Johnson’s story follows an unnamed addict through a series of short snippets told out of order chronicling his cycle of addiction and rehabilitation. Johnson’s choice to tell this story out of order worked very well, as we get to see all the different facets of the narrator regardless of where he is in his habits, or what he’s doing. All the narration […]
“I Won’t Think About It Today, I’ll Think About It Tomorrow”
I watched “Gone With the Wind” when I was thirteen and came out distinctly disappointed at the end of the interminable film. At thirteen, I couldn’t put into words what was so disappointing about it, the costumes had been beautiful, the sets glorious. There was a love story, and the plot was easy to follow. But it left me wanting. As an adult, I know that it was Scarlett who disappointed me. I had never yet in my young life come across a main character […]
It Did Its Job
I totally stepped out of the comfort zone for this one. It was both a romance (which I never read) and a story taking place in my least favorite decade (1980s), but in the spirit of CBR Bingo I went full speed ahead. Our New Jersey native, Stephanie Plum, is down on her luck, recently laid off from her job as a lingerie buyer, and the creditors are calling. She needs some fast cash, and because this is New Jersey, her cousin Vinnie is a […]
Here, There Be a Lot of Info Dump
One of my students suggested this book to me last year, and I finally got around to getting it from the library. If I was twelve years old again, I would have absolutely loved this book and been hooked for the duration of the series. It was fanciful, had a cute ending, and hit all the correct markers for decent kids’ fantasy, but the older I get, the harder a time I have sinking into YA fantasies, and this book was no exception. Our three […]