I’ve recently learned something about my reading taste—which is kind of awesome after seven years of writing reviews. Here it is: I enjoy ambiguity but not in anything purported to have a mystery component. I can be even more specific. If young girls disappearing are the principle premise of the story, then I need to know, for better or worse, what happened to them. Don’t give ... Read More...
A People’s History of Heaven
It’s funny, being a girl. That thing that’s supposed to push you down, defeat you, shove you back, back, and further back still? Turn it the right way, and it’ll push you forward instead. A People’s History of Heaven was one of my winter picks. It’s set in a 30-year-old slum called Heaven in Bangalore, India and centers around the lives of five young girls: Banu, Padma, Joy, ... Read More...
Sugar Run by Mesha Maren
Jodi has dealt with feeling unwanted and out of place for most of her life. As a little girl her parents decided she was best off being raised by her grandmother on a remote farm in the Appalachians of West Virginia. Later, as a teen she fell deeply in love with a woman who had a knack for playing poker and dangerous behavior. There’s passion, but the feeling is never quite ... Read More...
The Current by Tim Johnston
What begins as a novel about a car going into a frigid river and only one of the occupants making it out alive turns into a multi-layered story about a small Minnesota town and how the past doesn’t always stay in the past. Audrey is the girl who survives the crash that killed her friend, but she is still faced with seeing her father in his final days as he’s dying of cancer. A ... Read More...
Descent by Tim Johnston
All her life 18-year-old Caitlin has been a runner. It is who she is and in running she moves in a world of her heart, her blood, her muscles—all working in sync to do what she loves to do. How then could something at the core of her being that brings her such joy lead her into a nightmare? Because if she hadn’t insisted on going running in the early morning in the Rocky ... Read More...
The Collector’s Apprentice: A Novel
Before I share my thoughts on The Collector's Apprentice, B.A. Shapiro's new art world novel, I need to fess up that this books contains two big pieces of literary kryptonite for me. One is kind of obvious—the cover. I love the era of well-dressed, elegant women in pearls, even if I spend 95% of my days in what can only kindly be called athleisure wear (read: really old ... Read More...
