This was one of the books I received for Jolabokaflod this year from my sister, and it was just the type of novel that I needed to escape to last weekend—an interesting group of friends, an academic setting, and a rather silly plot involving an online dating site. Millie Morris is a professor of criminology, specializing in female serial killers, at UC-Santa Barbara; she has a tightknit but eccentric group of male friends, all academics in different departments and all single. Reid and Ed are […]
Laundry and Ghosts are Currently Tied for First
This was the last book from the pile of books I checked out from my college’s library right before break and it’s fitting that I finished it now—two days before I kick the semester into high gear. My community college library has a fantastic graphic novel collection—thanks to some awesome librarians and one of my fellow English faculty—and this one caught my eye. In Sheets, Brenna Thummler tells the story of two young people having a rough time. One of them is Marjorie Glatt, a […]
Window Books and Mirror Books (or Clear Eyes, Full Hearts, Can’t Lose)
Last February I read Ghost, the first book in Jason Reynold’s middle grade Track series and enjoyed it immensely though I understood I was definitely not the intended audience. I had seen Jason Reynolds on The Daily Show, started following him on Twitter, and all that made me want to read his work—all of his work. He’s a prolific writer, so catching up and keeping up will take some work. Flash forward to mid-December when I discovered a display of the remaining three books in […]
Life is Way Too Short to Spend Another Day at War With Yourself
If your plan was to start 2019 with a blast of body positivity, you might want to avoid this book. Through a series of 13 potentially standalone stories, Mona Awad focuses on Lizzie, self-described fat girl, from her teens to her late twenties. Awad is brutally masterful in her depiction of one young woman’s battle with her body and how that shapes in mostly horrifying ways the relationships she has in her life—with friends, family, and romantic partners. There is something so bleakly realistic about […]