There is a halfway decent adventure novel tucked into this patchwork jumble somewhere. I came to this book with glowing recommendations of almost everyone I knew, and the movie trailer looked fun. To say that I was greatly disappointed in this novel does not begin to cover it. The first half of the novel is a mess, to put it politely. Wade Watts is a stereotypical “nice guy,” akin to a Ted Mosby or a Leonard Hofstadter. This is not a compliment. A true nice […]
33: A heartfelt, deeply relevant YA novel
I’m beginning to find that I enjoy realistic YA fiction more than fantasy and high epics or sappy romances. That said, while there is a romance in Love, Hate and Other Filters, it is balanced by the other concerns of the protagonist’s life. I had heard good buzz about this book, and while Goodreads is very mixed, I enjoyed it immensely. Maya Aziz is 17 and a typical American teenager. Or is she? She finds herself at a crossroads with two futures in front of […]
32: A much-hyped book that under-delivered a bit.
I’ve been hearing a TON of press about Children of Blood and Bone from a lot of sources, so I moved it up on my queue immediately. I was intrigued by the afro-futuristic setting, and I also want it to succeed in a YA context. Now that I’ve read the novel, I am much more mixed about it. I’m really not sure how the series is going to play out. Zélie is the daughter of a Reaper, a magical woman who summoned souls. Yet the […]
31: A new look at cities as ecological danger sites
Having done a deep dive on scholarly books about ecology, I was intrigued by Ashley Dawson’s argument in Extreme Cities: cities are a major epicenter of ecological and natural disasters. I had not thought about cityscapes as being susceptible to natural disaster, but Dawes unpacks several interesting instances of disaster to show how cities highlight deep stratifications in our society. Dawes defines extreme cities as those that reveal the greatest disparity in economics and stability, and act as a site of ecological and economic disaster. […]
30: An investigative glimpse at a beloved and endangered natural resource
I’m doing research on dystopian literature right now, and I’ve been trying to collect academic work that deals with climate change and natural disaster. I’m also from the Midwest, so I am familiar with the Great Lakes and the problems that have plagued them in recent years. Dan Egan’s The Death and Life of the Great Lakes is a highly engaging examination of these issues, written in a clear, journalistic style. I knew vaguely of the arrival of the zebra mussels to the Great Lakes, […]
29: An excellent adaptation of a beloved YA novel
When I was a sophomore in high school, I had a student teacher for English II. He read out loud at the beginning of class, which was fun and exciting—the first book he chose was Laurie Halse Anderson’s Speak. It’s been a favorite of mine ever since. Last year, Anderson teamed up with Emily Carroll to transform her groundbreaking novel into a graphic novel. I was not sure how it would turn out, but one of my former professors is a frequent contributor to a […]
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