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The Star Side of Bird Hill

July 29, 2015

star

  It’s time for summer vacation but rather than spend it at home in Brooklyn Dionne and her sister Phaedra have been shipped off to Barbados, which may sound like paradise to many of us, but not for Dionne. At sixteen this was going to be the summer she broke out of childhood and into the fun life of leading the cool group of girls at her school. Instead, she is stuck ... Read More...

5 Comments
Filed Under: Book Reviews, Fiction Tagged: Barbados, coming-of-age, cultural, debut, Penguin Press

Free-Form Monday

July 27, 2015

free-form Monday

  I’ve been passive-aggressively alluding to the renovation we’ve been living through for the past three months but it’s finally reached the point where our contractor said that even though there is still work to be done (and fixes to be made) we could start unpacking this past weekend. Oh, happy day! What this means is that despite my best efforts, reading in ‘review ... Read More...

9 Comments
Filed Under: Feature, Fiction, Reading

It’s Not You, It’s Me: Mini-Reviews

July 24, 2015

it's

  The “It’s Not You, It’s Me” phrase is more true this month than almost any other. My head space is so messed up by living in a construction zone with the ear-shattering noise, frequent questions, and now, mistakes being made on a renovation that is 20 days behind schedule means my attention span is shot to hell. The only place I’m finding mental peace these days is ... Read More...

12 Comments
Filed Under: Book Reviews, Fiction Tagged: lists, mini-reviews

Dietland: A Novel

July 22, 2015

dietland

  Once I had a taste of real food, I always wanted more. I spent my days tiptoeing around food, the way one might tiptoe into a baby’s room while it’s sleeping. One wrong move and the baby wakes up and screams. That’s how it was with hunger, too. Once it awakes, it screams and screams and there’s only one way to quiet it.  First of all, I promise to restrain myself from ... Read More...

5 Comments
Filed Under: Book Reviews, Fiction Tagged: contemporary fiction, debut, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

Our Souls at Night

July 20, 2015

souls

I’m talking about getting through the night. And lying warm in bed, companionably. Lying down in bed together and you staying the night. The nights are the worst. Don’t you think? This is the crux of the proposition Addie Moore puts to her neighbor, Louis Waters, in Our Souls at Night by Kent Haruf. Both are in their seventies and widowed and Addie is lonely enough that she ... Read More...

5 Comments
Filed Under: Book Reviews, Fiction Tagged: American life, book clubs, Knopf, literary

The Stager by Susan Coll

July 17, 2015

stager

Given that we're still in the midst of our home remodel I thought it appropriate to re-publish this review The Stager, a book I loved from 2014. It's just been released in paperback and is a hilarious satire about the world of home staging and so much more. This time last year we were still looking for a house in Seattle so this novel gave me much needed laughs. Now that we're ... Read More...

1 Comment
Filed Under: Book Reviews, Fiction Tagged: book clubs, contemporary life, family, humor, satire

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