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The Bone Season

August 30, 2013

Boene Season

The last time I read a YA book, I was a young adult. OK, not true, I read Hunger Games, but who didn’t? I saw The Bone Season at Book Expo America and thought I’d give it a try, partly because it sounded interesting and partly because it was the first in a seven part series which means, if I like it, I’m assured of future reading (running out of books is a very real book-aholic ... Read More...

2 Comments
Filed Under: Book Reviews, Fiction Tagged: Bloomsbury, debut, dystopia, fantasy, London, science fiction, young adult

Shorecliff: A Novel

July 31, 2013

Shorecliff

  The present then is so thrilling that it is impossible to reflect on it; one can only wait, panting, for the future to unfold. Like almost any child, Richard is looking forward to summer, but as an only child, three months spent with ten cousins is almost too much excitement to bear. It’s 1928 and for the first time in years the entire Hatfield family will be gathering ... Read More...

2 Comments
Filed Under: Book Reviews, Fiction Tagged: 1920s, coming-of-age, debut, historical fiction, Little Brown and Company, New England

The Never List

July 17, 2013

The Never List

The Never List is the debut novel from Koethi Zan. It is also the name of the list best friends Jennifer and Sarah keep after they are in an accident where Jennifer’s mother is killed. Their obsession with what can go wrong in the world, and how to prevent it, fills notebooks and follows them to college. No walking home from bars or parties, no riding with strangers, no getting ... Read More...

6 Comments
Filed Under: Book Reviews, Fiction Tagged: book clubs, debut, mystery, suspense

Note to Self

June 28, 2013

Note to Self

While it seems to be a contradiction in terms to describe a novel as both sharp and sluggish, it applies (in the best way) to Alina Simone’s debut, Note to Self. She melds the jagged edge anxiety of an unemployed woman in NYC with the ennui that means getting out of bed is a Herculean task. She woke up in the mornings already exhausted by the possibilities.   The woman is ... Read More...

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Filed Under: Book Reviews, Fiction Tagged: book clubs, contemporary life, debut, Faber and Faber, unemployment, women

The First Rule of Swimming

June 19, 2013

The First Rule of Swimming

  It did not help that on Rosmarina there was no such thing as privacy, one house so near to the next that a man could hear his neighbor’s toilet flush. Grudges went back generations and children were judged by things their parents had done, sometimes years before their birth. Magdalena and her younger sister Jadranka live on the island of Rosmarina with their ... Read More...

1 Comment
Filed Under: Book Reviews, Fiction Tagged: book clubs, cultural, debut, Eastern Europe, Little Brown and Company

Crazy Rich Asians

June 12, 2013

Crazy Rich Asians

  “I don’t think she cares how fat her ankles get. Do you know how much she inherited when her father died? I heard she and her five brothers got seven hundred million each." When a novel begins with a woman and her children being turned away from a fancy hotel and she’s so upset her husband buys the hotel that same night, you can count me in. Kevin Kwan doesn’t miss ... Read More...

4 Comments
Filed Under: Book Reviews, Fiction Tagged: China, contemporary life, cultural, debut, Doubleday, satire, wealth

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