I love Margaret Atwood. Joe Hill named a boat after her in The Fireman (review forthcoming), and I may have squealed a little in delight when I saw it. I’m still getting through her whole bibliography — I love going to Half Price Books and seeing if they have anything by her that I’ve missed. Her novels and short stories rarely miss the mark for me. Wilderness Tips, a short story collection published in 1991, does not disappoint. “The girls in the stories make such fools of themselves. They are […]
“Everything’s a risk. Not doing anything is a risk. It’s up to you.”
I spent most of this novel enjoying it, but thinking it was pretty routine YA: girl with a secret, and a cute boy next door. But about halfway through, things begin to change in a major way, and I went from liking it to LOVING IT. “Just because you can’t experience everything doesn’t mean you shouldn’t experience anything.” Madeleine has spent her whole life trapped in her house — she has SCID, an immune disorder that renders her allergic to just about everything. She stays in […]
I didn’t like it, and I feel really bad about that
I tried really, really hard to like this book — after all, I sunk 48 hours of my life listening to it. And I’ve loved every other book I’ve read/listened to by Neal Stephenson. But in the end — I just couldn’t get into it. I finished it, but by the end it felt like a chore. “If you can’t test it, it’s not theorics — it’s metatheorics. A branch of philosophy. So, if you want to think of it this way, our test equipment is what […]
That Honey Johnson Moment
My library has done so well recommending new YA recommendations for me on my Overdrive account — this book was no exception! 12 year old Frankie Parsons is a worrier. He lives in constant admiration of his easy-going best friend, Gigs. When a new girl moves into his school, he starts branching out a little bit — despite that nagging “rodent voice” in his head telling him all the ways it could go wrong. The title refers to his habit of going into his mother’s room at 10:00 every night with […]
Horrible people doing horrible things — in new ways!
Full Dark, No Stars consists of three stories that verge on novellas, and one very short short story. I pulled the synopses off Goodreads because I am so very behind on my reviews, and added my thoughts in italics. 1922 The story opens with the confession of Wilfred James to the murder of his wife, Arlette, following their move to Hemingford, Nebraska onto land willed to Arlette by her father. 3 stars: Decent, creepy story with lots of rats, and people who get what’s coming to them. […]
“You know everything you need to know about a person from the answer to the question, What is your favorite book?”
This book was so cute. Another reviewer — I think on CBR, might have been Goodreads — astutely pointed out that the main character would have hated it. Absolutely true, but I’m much less curmudgeonly, and thought it was adorable. “We are not quite novels. We are not quite short stories. In the end, we are collected works.” A.J. Fikrey owns an independent bookstore on tiny Alice Island. Books have always been a major part of his life, but recently his life has been pretty bad: […]
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