Disclaimer! I got this from NetGalley in return for a fair and honest review. Samantha Moore has spent most of her life in foster care. Having tried to hold down a job on her own, she reluctantly accepts a scholarship offered by an anonymous benefactor, to Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University. The scholarship will only be available as long as she completes her degree, and writes about her progress to the foundation, care of the CEO, who hides behind the name Mr. Knightley. […]
Growing up is a miracle
The Age of Miracles is a coming of age story against the backdrop of a celestial/environmental disaster. Rather than going into great detail about the science behind the event, the novel focuses on how the seemingly mundane aspects of life are affected by our actions when we no longer can take the stability of the world around us for granted. Goodreads summary: “On a seemingly ordinary Saturday in a California suburb, 11-year-old Julia and her family awake to discover, along with the rest of the […]
Reads like a pipe dream
This may seem like a weird connection to make because of their very different background settings, but I feel like if you liked the movie Boyhood, you would like the novel Arcadia. Both stories have a very loose story structure surrounding the coming of age of a boy, and both prefer to offer seemingly random glimpses of moments, most rather innocuous, rather than focus on the most dramatic possible events in life. As such, depending on your attention span and personal preferences, some might see […]
Nada, a.k.a What Happens when A Family Lives Too Long Together Under One Roof
One of my reading goals for this year is to read one book written in Spanish by an Iberian-American author, for every book I read in English. I’ve been pretty bad at keeping up with reading in Spanish and I figure why not start something new? So where to start? I decided to start with a list of award winners from several of Spain’s publishing firms. I figure why not start with the best? Well due to the limitations of my library system, the newest […]
An uneven, anti-climactic but still thought-provoking read about teenage sexuality and friendship.
This is more like 3.5 stars for me, mostly for the ending, which just fizzled out, after a strong beginning, strong middle, even strong leading up to the end . . . but the end was a nope. Rounding up though, because I’m just magnamimous like that. The Bermudez Triangle (I refuse to ackowledge its new title) follows Nina, Avery, and Mel, who have been best friends since they were small children. In the summer before their senior year, Nina goes away to a college […]
“The town was paper, but the memories were not.”
“There are so many people. It is easy to forget how full the world is of people, full to bursting, and each of them imaginable and consistently misimagined.” I’ve been sitting on this one for about a month and a half now, maybe longer, and I think I’m ready to admit something. I rated The Fault in Our Stars five stars immediately after finishing it, and I only rated Paper Towns four and a half stars . . . and yet, I’m fairly certain I actually like Paper Towns […]