Last year, I read and reviewed the first four novels in The Patrick Melrose series, and it was, without a doubt, some of the most eye-opening books I read last year. At Last is the final book of the series, and finishing it makes me so sad. My friend who introduced these books to me once said, “I am so jealous that you are getting to read these for the first time,” and I understand now what she means because I feel so sad that […]
A Story About Chinese Americans (No Concubines!)
The Year She Left Us is a first-rate novel from a first-time novelist. Using the western adoption of Chinese girls as a plot device, it examines issues of abandonment, adoption and assimilation; the relationships among mothers, daughters, and sisters; and, like Mary Karr’s memoir, the impact of “lies of omission” on a family. The Year She Left Us is the story of Ari, her mother Charlie, her aunt Les and her Gran — the Kong women. Gran was born and raised in China, coming to […]
A Series of Cool Stories That Somehow Fit Together
The title of this review explains a lot about the book. A boy’s parents were killed by a man named Jack. The boy wanders to a graveyard, then he gets taken in by the spirits. They don’t know what to do with him and then a Lady in Grey comes and tells them to take him in. He doesn’t know his own name cause he’s only a little boy so they call him Nobody. His guardian is not necessarily human, but as soon as you […]
Unreliable narrators for the win
I think I have written before about how when I was growing up, YA wasn’t really a big deal, and I honestly can’t recall reading books aimed specifically at my age group when I was fifteen. This is why I read lots of Stephen King and the like when I was growing up and probably accounts a lot for my warped world view. As much as I loathe Stephenie Meyer and every book she’s ever published, there’s no denying that Twilight finished what Harry Potter started and […]