Right after finishing and loving The Sun is Also a Star, I ran out to the library and got Nicola Yoon’s first novel, Everything, Everything. Though I didn’t love it quite as much as her second book, I thought it was engaging, moving, and well-constructed. I also can see Yoon starting to think through some minor themes that become major themes in The Sun is Also a Star. This novel is a love story, but it’s not your typical teen romance. Madeline Whittier, who is […]
You’ll Be Accepting My Apology For Sucking At Life and Not Posting
So yeah, I’ve been away for a long time. So long in fact that I can’t even remember what review I’m on…but I KNOW that I have to be really close to a Cannonball based on what I’ve read, just not on what I’ve reviewed (edit: I looked back I think my last one was 35…let’s see how much closer I can get to a cannonball). I’m breaking the rules and reviewing all the books that I’ve neglected over the past few months…right now. Who’s […]
Double Cannonball!
My first double cannonball! It only took three years to work myself up to this goal and I can assure you that has everything to do with CBR and sticking it to cancer! The Sun is Also a Star was a wonderful book to hit a milestone with. Nicola Yoon is a new (to me at least) voice in YA fiction that has been racking up awards for her charming books. Natasha is a Jamaican illegal immigrant who is set to be deported after her father got […]
To Make a Thing as Simple as an Apple Pie, You have to Create the Whole, Wide World
During this last post-election month, I feel like my emotions are out of control and too close to the surface. Case in point, I was doing a first listen of my copy of the Hamilton Mix-Tape the other morning while making breakfast and basically was misty eyed during the whole first half. Songs about immigrants and rising up and writing your way out of bad circumstances hit close to home (and I’m a middle-aged white lady so I can only imagine how this CD resonates […]
Maddy was a bubble girl, yet there was no mention of the Moops.
Madeline is 18 years old and lives in a bubble. Literally. She has an auto-immune disease and has spent her entire life in a germ-free environment. Her house has an air lock and a decontamination chamber. She takes classes via Skype and her only companions are her mother and her nurse, Carla. Olly moves in next door and immediately becomes an obsession for Maddy. He’s handsome and full of energy. He’s funny and wants to know more about her, and soon they find themselves chatting […]
“Life is a gift. Don’t forget to live it.”
“Sometimes I reread my favorite books from back to front. I start with the last chapter and read backward until I get to the beginning. When you read this way, characters go from hope to despair, from self-knowledge to doubt. In love stories, couples start out as lovers and end as strangers. Coming-of-age books become stories of losing your way. Your favorite characters come back to life.” Madeline Whittier has grown up in a bubble; she just turned eighteen and has spent the last seventeen […]