Archive for the ‘fiction’ Category

A Great and Terrible Beauty by Libba Bray

I was a little concerned and uncomfortable throughout most of this book.  The story itself was engaging, but the magical aspect of the story raised some red flags for me. If you’ve read my blog at all, you know that I am not against magic in fiction.  In fact, some of my favorite books are [...]

March 6, 2012  Tags:   Posted in: fantasy, historical fiction, Young Adult  No Comments

Entwined by Heather Dixon

This one was fun!  I guess I would classify it as historical fantasy…definitely has magic, but the setting has a vaguely Victorian feel.  It definitely gets a bit dark (and bloody) at the end, so I would lean towards reserving this for a slightly older crowd.  (I wouldn’t put it on the shelf for my [...]

March 1, 2012   Posted in: fantasy, historical fiction, Young Adult  No Comments

A Tale Dark & Grimm by Adam Gidwitz

Brilliant! Gidwitz retells the Hansel and Gretel story while incorporating many of the lesser known, un-Disney-fied stories.  I love that he has truly held onto the grim aspects of the Grimm versions of these tales; they were not sweet, cute stories with happy endings.  Many of them were grusome and ended with morals and warnings [...]

February 13, 2012  Tags:   Posted in: fantasy  No Comments

Bitter Melon by Cara Chow

I finally got to the point in this book where I couldn’t put it down–about halfway through–and finished it last night.  There’s still something I find unsettling about it, though I can’t decide if it is in a good way or a bad. On the one hand, this story is empowering for young women.  It [...]

February 7, 2012  Tags: ,   Posted in: realistic  No Comments

Graceling by Kristin Cashore

So, I loved this book to start out with.  Strong female character.  A little violent, but not graphically so.  There was a passage in the first half of the book that I absolutely loved.  The main character, Katsa, has been used by her uncle as a thug to keep his kingdom in line.  She is [...]

January 13, 2012  Tags:   Posted in: fantasy, Young Adult  No Comments

Whimpering Again

So, here I am bemoaning yet again how rarely I post updates to this blog.  There’s really very little point to a book review blog if I never get around to actually posting anything more than a list of the books I’ve read. I’m still not willing to completely give up the idea, though. So, [...]

December 7, 2011  Tags: ,   Posted in: historical fiction  One Comment

Dead Reckoning by Charlaine Harris

These books have sort of been my guilty pleasure…not at all the type I usually go for.  They are marketed as mysteries, though very few of them have struck me as truly dealing with solving an actual mystery.  The early books seemed to fit more properly in the Romance genre.  The latter books have leaned more [...]

July 26, 2011   Posted in: fantasy, mystery  No Comments

Burning Bright by Tracy Chevalier

I think what I love about Chevalier’s writing is that she certainly knows how to use metaphors and symbolism.  I read so much fiction aimed at young adults, that I tend to miss the finer points of literature.  But Chevalier’s writing is literary and sophisticated without being pretentious and difficult to follow.  She is not [...]

May 2, 2011   Posted in: historical fiction  No Comments

In Too Deep by Jude Watson

In general, I haven’t been posting about each of The 39 Clues books that I’ve read.  There are just too many of them, and as far as each story story goes, they are a bit ho-hum and only narrowly miss being formulaic. I decided to mention book 6, however, because it is the first one [...]

April 23, 2011   Posted in: mystery  No Comments

We Hear the Dead by Dianne K. Salerni

Salerni teases you along with an intriguing tale until about two thirds of the way through the book when she finally rivets you.  The story is centered around the sisters who are credited with starting the spiritualism movement in the mid-nineteenth century.  (For those who might object to a book about spiritual mediums communicating with [...]

April 5, 2011   Posted in: historical fiction  No Comments