Turtles All the Way Down is my first experience with John Green and it left me mostly with…nothing. On the one hand, I applaud him for writing such an unsympathetic character, but on the other, I didn’t want to read about her. Her is Aza, a teenager with severe OCD. She has a loving and supportive mother, a good psychiatrist, and a drug that helps her—when she feels ... Read More...
5 Star Week: The Takedown
This doesn't happen very often, OK, never now that I think about it, but this week I have not one, not two, but three 5 star books that make me all evangelical. Only today's is a new release, but beyond that all three cover a diverse range of reading that will bring on the book love! But I did always say there were only two ways to emerge from high school. ... Read More...
Bellweather Rhapsody
Remember the movie The Shining? If so, forget what you thought about it in relation to Stephen King’s book and just recall its many amazing visuals. Now, turn it into a campy musical, turn it back into a novel and you have Kate Racculia’s Bellweather Rhapsody. Set in the Catskills in early November with a grand old hotel about to be the scene, once again, for a huge ... Read More...
High School Trauma and Drama: Mini-Reviews
There are few people who look back on high school as the best years of their life and, quite frankly, I don’t trust them. These two novels encapsulate what may or may not be the truth of high school life in America today. Is it accurate? Dear God, I hope not, but I’m so far removed from that time that all I can do is share my thoughts on them as novels. Mostly, they made me ... Read More...
How to Set a Fire and Why
You may be wondering why I am giving you this account. Well, I don’t know really. A bunch of things happened and I’m just putting them in order. I’m doing it for myself. You are just a construction—you’re helping me to put things in order. You are my fictional audience and as such, I appreciate you very much. I figure when I finish, I will throw this out. Lucia Stanford ... Read More...
How to Build a Girl
I want to be a self-made woman. I want to conjure myself out of every sparkling, fast-moving thing I can see. I want to be the creator of me. I’m gonna begat myself. Caitlin Moran’s How to Build a Girl is the hell-bent lovechild of Angela’s Ashes and Almost Famous—overlarge, impoverished family with a drunken non-working father and a teen daughter with a love of music and ... Read More...
