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The Falconer: A Novel by Dana Czapnik

October 16, 2019

falconer

I loved this diamond bright, coming-of-age novel about a female athlete so much that when I saw it came out in paperback recently I had to share my thoughts with all of you again. If you haven't read it yet, you need to get it NOW.  On page two of The Falconer, when Lucy Adler says I met that basketball for the first time only thirty minutes ago but I already know I ... Read More...

6 Comments
Filed Under: Book Reviews, Fiction Tagged: coming-of-age, contemporary life, debut, Faber and Faber, literary, New York City

A Door in the Earth

September 20, 2019

door

Parveen is like most young women her age—graduating college, but not sure what she wants to do with her degree in medical anthropology. Until she reads a memoir, written by a man who goes to Afghanistan and after a traumatic incident that left a woman dead from giving birth, founds and funds a women’s health center in a small isolated village. Parveen is Afghan-American and ... Read More...

2 Comments
Filed Under: Book Reviews, Fiction Tagged: coming-of-age, contemporary life, cultural, literary, Little Brown and Company, Middle East, war

August Reading Wrap-Up

September 2, 2019

august

What a month! I hope you all had a more vacation-y time in August than I did. The month wasn’t bad, it was just a time of adjustment—Jed moved to Ann Arbor for his job, I stayed here and began the process of wrapping up our Seattle life, prepping to move, and preparing our house to become a rental property for the next five years. I took the last two weeks off to try and find a ... Read More...

6 Comments
Filed Under: Book Reviews, Feature Tagged: coming-of-age, friendship, literary, mini-reviews, television

gods with a little g

August 16, 2019

gods

On Monday, I reviewed a novel centered around the lives of two ministers, but it was not a book focused on organized religion. Today’s novel, gods with a little g, is the opposite, with religion at the center of everything in Rosary, California. An oil refinery town that has proudly merged church and state, to the point of cutting itself off from the nearest neighboring city, ... Read More...

2 Comments
Filed Under: Book Reviews, Fiction Tagged: California, coming-of-age, contemporary life, Farrar Straus Giroux, literary

Tomato Girl by Jayne Pupek

August 9, 2019

tomato

Ellie’s life has never been what you’d call normal. Her mother is unusually high strung, enough so that having people over to the house or going out as a family is not feasible. But her father is the best father in the world. He works in the general store nearby and 11-year-old Ellie goes by every day after school to help him. When her mother gets pregnant everyone is happy. ... Read More...

Leave a Comment
Filed Under: Book Reviews, Fiction Tagged: Algonquin Books, childhood, coming-of-age, debut, literary, Southern life

The Age of Miracles

August 7, 2019

age

It isn’t noticed at first, but on October 6th in some unspecified year of the not-so-distant future the scientific community notifies the world that Earth’s rotation is slowing and that a day has grown to last almost 25 hours. Panic erupts around the globe as people absurdly believe they can run somewhere where it won’t matter, but for middle-schooler Julia it feels less ... Read More...

6 Comments
Filed Under: Book Reviews, Fiction Tagged: book clubs, coming-of-age, debut, dystopia, literary, Random House

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