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Song of a Captive Bird

February 19, 2018

song

Remember its flight, for the bird is mortal.  -Forugh Farrokhzhad I was looking forward to learning about a time and culture, far away from my own, but I never thought I’d be so thoroughly seduced by Jasmin Darznik’s debut novel, Song of a Captive Bird. It is a fictionalized account of Forugh Farrokhzhad, the first woman in Iran to defy her country’s cultural bias and ... Read More...

1 Comment
Filed Under: Book Reviews, Fiction Tagged: Ballantine, book clubs, cultural, debut, historical fiction, Iran, literary, women

The Power by Naomi Alderman

January 29, 2018

power

  It’s not too surprising that there is a flood of fiction hitting the market these days about women and their responses to generations of systemic subjugation and abuse. Maybe it's time for a new genre—vengeance fiction? Whatever the genre, The Power by Naomi Alderman is a fierce and provocative novel about what happens when evolution (possibly aided by manmade ... Read More...

2 Comments
Filed Under: Book Reviews, Fiction Tagged: book clubs, dystopia, Little Brown and Company, science fiction, women

The Immortalists

January 10, 2018

immortalists

Chloe Benjamin swings for the fences with the concept of her new novel: how would you live your life if you knew the date of your death? The Immortalists is about four siblings: Varya, Daniel, Klara, and Simon, who visit a psychic when they are children and are, one by one, in private, told the day they’re going to die. They never share these dates with each other, but the ... Read More...

14 Comments
Filed Under: Book Reviews, Fiction Tagged: 1980s, book clubs, family saga, Putnam

The Hate U Give

January 8, 2018

hate

On the surface Starr Carter is a normal sixteen-year-old girl. But look closely and you’ll see a young woman struggling to make it in two very different worlds. Her home is a poor, largely black neighborhood and both her parents work, but she goes to school at a private school where she is one of only a few black students and she has a white boyfriend. While her neighborhood ... Read More...

4 Comments
Filed Under: Book Reviews, Fiction Tagged: book clubs, coming-of-age, HarperCollins, racism, social issues, young adult

Fates and Traitors

November 29, 2017

fates

Fates and Traitors is a novel about John Wilkes Booth as told from the vantage point of the three women who were most important in his life and one near stranger who let him into her life. There is his mother, Mary Ann Booth; his sister, Asia; and Lucy Hale, his secret fiancé. Mary Surratt is a woman sympathetic to the Confederate cause, who owned the boarding house where he ... Read More...

6 Comments
Filed Under: Book Reviews, Fiction Tagged: book clubs, Civil War, Dutton, historical fiction

Top Ten Books I’m Thankful For

November 22, 2017

thankful

The Broke and Bookish Top Ten meme this week is a perfect one for Thanksgiving—ten books I’m thankful for. No matter how you slice it, it’s hard, because I’m grateful for every single book that takes my mind somewhere else, whether it is invigorating or calming. But just choosing ten?! That’s almost impossible. I’ve read over 1,500 books since I started using Goodreads in 2009 ... Read More...

12 Comments
Filed Under: Feature, Reading Tagged: book clubs, childhood, historical fiction, lists, social issues, women

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