The Giver (1993) by Lois Lowry is by all accounts an excellent book. It won the Newbery Medal in 1994, and there are many reviews and comments on Cannonball dedicated to singing its praises. Now, I thought this was a good book, but something kept me from really feeling involved with the characters and the story. At first, I thought I’d been reading too many young-adult novels and was getting burned out (which was probably true), but I think there’s more to it. The Giver […]
The Tragedy of Orphans at Any Age
The orphan train movement “transported a reported two hundred thousand children from the East Coast to the Midwest between 1854 and 1929.” (273) Somewhere, at some point, I heard about Orphan Train (2013) by Christina Baker Kline and I apparently decided it should be on my reading list. For reasons I cannot remember, I thought that this book was about shipping children from London to the countryside during World War II. I’m not sure if I’m confusing it with another book, or if I just […]
More drama than one book can handle
I read a quick palette cleanser, The Governess Affair (2013) by Courtney Milan, before getting into the third and final installment of my latest young-adult dystopian trilogy: Champion (2013) by Marie Lu. The Governess Affair was a little short for its own review, but I will allow myself a short diversion for this little novella: I’ve heard only good things about Courtney Milan, but for whatever reason, her stories don’t resonate with me. This one, especially, I didn’t really enjoy. The whole premise revolved around […]
See June Run
There was no question that I would be quickly moving on to the second book of my latest young adult, dystopian trilogy–Prodigy (2013) by Marie Lu. I need to read all three before our book club meeting, and the first one was more interesting than I expected. I wasn’t disappointed in this second book, either. Now, it’s always somewhat challenging to review the second book in a trilogy. You can’t say much of anything about the plot without revealing spoilers from the first book, and […]
As a dating strategy, not recommended
Somewhere, someone linked to a list of books that were being made into movies this year. On that list was Labor Day (2009) by Joyce Maynard. I didn’t know much about it, but I like Josh Brolin and Kate Winslet enough to want to watch it. And If I’m going to watch the movie, I always prefer to read the book first. Continued…
Not Judging the Book by its Author
I wasn’t very excited about reading Ender’s Game (1977) by Orson Scott Card. Nothing in the cover appealed to me. The only thing I knew about it is that it had something to do with turning boys into soldiers and that the author is apparently homophobic. But I’d also heard it was an award-winning classic. The recently released movie and the fact that even my little brother had read it was beginning to make me feel left out. So I decided to check it out […]