This book is festival of horrors. If I could give it negative five stars I would. If for some terrible reason you want to read it don’t read this there will be spoilers. It’s a YA novel and as such there is a certain amount of teenage angst that has to be begrudgingly accepted. I understand that there is a formula to YA novels I have read quite a few myself, but I had just read two pretty lengthy nonfiction books, 100 pages of microbiology, […]
One Sees Clearly Only with the Heart
Right after finishing and loving The Sun is Also a Star, I ran out to the library and got Nicola Yoon’s first novel, Everything, Everything. Though I didn’t love it quite as much as her second book, I thought it was engaging, moving, and well-constructed. I also can see Yoon starting to think through some minor themes that become major themes in The Sun is Also a Star. This novel is a love story, but it’s not your typical teen romance. Madeline Whittier, who is […]
Pardon Me, My Curmudgeon is Showing
Arghhh. If this book hadn’t been on my I-pad, I would have thrown it across the room as I read the last line. I know that I’ve said this before, but I’m really getting tired of YA books that simply stop mid-storyline—to be continued. It feels alternately like a money grab (instead of giving you one longer book, we’re going to split this puppy into three parts—otherwise known as The Hobbit effect) or simply lazy storytelling. I want to simply say, “Go watch the first […]
Holly Black Gives Stephenie Meyer The Bird
I apologize in advance for those of you who are fond of sparkly vampires, but one of the biggest problems I had with the whole Twilight series was the sheer passivity of Bella and the fact that when she actually became a vampire, she wasn’t a monster struggling with blood thirst but simply a stronger, more sparkly version of herself. My favorite vampires (Angel, the heroine of Sunglasses After Dark whose name escapes me, Nick Knight, etc.) all struggled with the weight of the killing […]