I’m embarking on a Madeleine L’Engle re-read. Glorious, I know. I’ve read through the Time Quintet and A Ring of Endless Light, but I’ve not read her sequence involving the Murrys, O’Keefes, and Austins, so I’m looking forward to all the books. Because I’m a completionist, I’m starting from the beginning. Part of my library stack-beast is comprised of L’Engle series books that I don’t already own, so I thought starting from the beginning would be best. Oh, and what a beginning it is.
Heavy YA 2.0: Harry-Potter-at-the-Dursleys + The Secret Garden = Me depressed.
In my Barnes and Noble spree, I saw a children’s/young adult novel that had an intriguing title and a lot of awards affixed to it. I had not heard of The War that Saved My Life, but the premise sounded interesting. After all, children’s and YA books about World War II greatly interest me (The Book Thief, anyone?). I was not prepared for how heavy this book was. It sounds like a negative endorsement, and I promise you it’s not, but damn. There is a […]
A lovely, heavy, and poignant young adult novel
When The Chancellor and I go on semi-monthly outings to Barnes and Noble, we really like to scope the place out to build our TBR lists. We do a lot of Goodreads uploading and an occasional library loan requesting. Last Saturday night, we had a grand old time at B&N, and I might have gone overboard on my ILL requests. A HUGE stack came in for me a few days later. And then another small stack added to the pile. Oops. I have been temporarily […]
Reading a high school fixture for the first time
I’ve heard A Separate Peace batted around many English education-oriented classes and in high school classrooms, but I’d never read it. I didn’t teach it to high school students, because my semester of student teaching focused on freshmen and sophomores (and To Kill a Mockingbird is always the favorite in that part of the curriculum), but I found a discounted copy at a book sale. And now, many years later, I got around to reading it. Spoiler alert from the full review: I wasn’t an […]
If by “Legend” you mean “won’t be remembered next week,” sure.
There were two big problems with my experience reading Legend: first, I should have read it five years ago; second, I listened to the audiobook, which was so perfunctorily narrated that the cheesy-ness of the line reading just emphasized how pedestrian the prose and dialogue are. I don’t listen to a lot of audiobooks, but I had hoped to make more of a habit of it since my current job is well-suited for listening to them while I work. Unfortunately, I think there is something […]
I really don’t care where the sky is at this point.
I just came back from a long vacation in northern Washington. Lots of outdoor activities, which means no cell phone, no internet, no cable or tv at all. But lots of reading. And I read a few really good ones that I liked a lot. But I also read this one. And I hated it so much. Last year, I adored Jandy Nelson’s second book, I’ll Give You the Sun. I loved it so much, I went and downloaded her first book, The Sky is Everywhere, […]
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