I normally don’t like short stories. With the exception of horror stories, which don’t really require it, I dislike them because there’s so little characterization. You get a few pages to learn all you can about a person, and then it just cuts off. I want miles and miles of information about a person; their thoughts and habits and dreams and flaws and all the good stuff that makes me want to read a story. Margaret Atwood is such a talented writer that she creates […]
Admission by Jean Hanff Korelitz
“And then she occurred to her that she was the ghost in her story. She had spent years haunting her own life, without ever noticing.” The romantic comedy starring Tina Fey and Paul Rudd based on Jean Hanff Korelitz’s book was very different from the source material. I enjoyed the movie, as I would probably anything starring Fey and/or Rudd. But while the movie was a fun romcom about an unhappy admissions officer finding love and family, the book is much more serious and in my […]
In The Shadow Of The Reich by Niklas Frank
I have a coworker who is borderline obsessed with the Holocaust — she’s still in college and wants to make it her main focus of study. I was a history major as well — although I focused mainly on the Civil Rights Movement and the Vietnam War — so we discuss her classes and what she’s learning (both in class and on her own) often at work. She knows I’m a big reader, so when she heard of Niklas Frank’s biography of his father, Hans […]
The Golden Compass by Philip Pullman
“We are all subject to the fates. But we must act as if we are not, or die of despair.” I have heard SO MUCH about this book and its two sequels that initially I was disappointed when I started it because it didn’t really live up to my expectations right away. It takes a while to get going. By halfway through, however, I was hooked on Lyra and Iorek, an armored bear. Here’s a hint: if your story features armored bears, introduce them ASAP. […]
Agorafabulous! by Sara Benincasa
I’d never heard of Sara Benincasa before my sister lent me this book, but apparently she does stand up comedy. A lot of her act revolves around her struggles with anxiety, which is also the focus of this book. She attacks the subject with humor and frankness, and the result is an interesting, enlightening read. Benincasa started having anxiety attacks around the age of 10. The first really severe one occurred in a bathroom in Italy when she was in high school. This evolved into a […]
Hallways in the Night by R.C. O’Leary
I was one of the first three people to respond to mswas’s email and win a free copy of Hallways in the Night. I’m interested to read the reviews of this book by the other two winners because I thought it was terrible. The story itself was not…horrible. It’s primarily a legal “thriller” — an undercover police officer shoots a man in self defense and is put on trial for it. The man he shot was a big-time local baseball player and the city wants the cop’s […]
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