book reviews

A collection of 60 posts

bloggers

My Reading Life: Heather B. Armstrong

Recently, I dug out my trusty (and dusty, and dead) Kindle, recharged it, and used it to preview some files I was working on for a client. One of the books languishing on my Kindle’s homepage was The Valedictorian of Being Dead by Heather B. Armstrong. I thought, not

Book Reviews

My Reading Life: The Abortion Books, Part 3 (Novels)

I only read a couple novels on the topic of abortion, and both were from the young adult genre. I know there are probably hundreds of novels out there that deal with this topic, but this was never meant to be an exhaustive project — just a way to prioritize books

authors

Author Biography Book Review: Star Child by Ibi Zoboi

Star Child: A Biographical Constellation of Octavia Estelle Butler by Ibi Zoboi My rating: 4 of 5 stars A very readable and compelling biography of Octavia Butler told in prose and poetry. Written for middle-grade readers, it focuses on the author’s childhood and the historical forces that shaped her

291

Year of Expanded Reading Wrap-Up ... Sort Of

So, 2020 was supposed to be my “Year of Expanded Reading,” a year to focus on reading non-white and/or non-American authors. I came across the challenge to do this year-long project when my first son was under a year old. I remember thinking, “My life feels too chaotic to

Book Reviews

The Line Between: Eliza and Her Monsters by Francesca Zappia

Eliza and Her Monsters by Francesca Zappia My rating: 5 of 5 stars What I loved about this book was the way that it portrayed the creative process. Zappia GETS IT when it comes to the desire to escape into an imaginary world, when it comes to that world feeling

Book Reviews

Fairy Tale Book Review: Once Upon a Dream by Liz Braswell

Once Upon a Dream by Liz Braswell My rating: 3 of 5 stars This book was similar in quality to “A Whole New World,” but because I don’t have the same abiding affection for Sleeping Beauty, it did not get the same (perhaps unwarranted) rating inflation. It reminds me

Book Reviews

Fairy Tale Book Review: Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister by Gregory Maguire

Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister by Gregory Maguire My rating: 4 of 5 stars This is one of the best Maguire books I’ve read, right up there with the first couple Oz retellings (I only read the first two but heard the later ones weren’t as good.) Similar

Arabian Nights

Retelling Book Review: The Wrath and the Dawn by Renee Ahdieh

The Wrath & the Dawn by Renee Ahdieh My rating: 3 of 5 stars This is a first novel, and it feels like one. The prose is overwritten and tends toward the purple, and it resorts to using the same descriptions far too often. Like, we don’t need to

Book Reviews

Retelling Book Review: Call Me Ixchel - Mayan Goddess of the Moon by Jamie Havemeyer

Call Me Ixchel: Mayan Goddess of the Moon by Janie Havemeyer My rating: 3 of 5 stars This book ended up being better than I expected it to be. At first, the book’s tone was really off-putting, trying too hard to be conversational and “modern” in a way that

book reviews

Fairy Tale Book Review: Snow White and the 77 Dwarfs by

Snow White and the 77 Dwarfs by Davide Cali My rating: 3 of 5 stars I’m going to let this conversation with my husband serve as my review: Him: This book is stupid! Me: Why is it stupid? Him: It has no point! There’s no moral. Me: It

Book Reviews

Writing Book Review: Second Sight by Cheryl Klein

Second Sight: An Editor’s Talks on Writing, Revising, and Publishing Books for Children and Young Adults by Cheryl B. Klein My rating: 5 of 5 stars The market is saturated with books about the craft of writing and the nuts and bolts of selling, publishing, and marketing your work.

Book Reviews

Fairy Tale Retelling Book Review: Cress by Marissa Meyer

Cress by Marissa Meyer My rating: 4 of 5 stars I deprived myself of this book for far too long because I didn’t want to read any Rapunzel retellings while I was working on the second draft of my own. But this one was worth the wait. I loved

Book Reviews

Retelling Book Review: Fairest by Marissa Meyer

Fairest by Marissa Meyer My rating: 3 of 5 stars 3.5 Although I didn’t rate this book as highly in the others in this series, some parts of it really impressed me. In a lot of media, villains are treated in one of two ways: as exclusively evil

book reviews

Published Journal Book Review: Let Me Stand Alone by Rachel Corrie

Let Me Stand Alone: The Journals of Rachel Corrie by Rachel Corrie My rating: 4 of 5 stars I listened to this audiobook mostly while I was biking with my dog, so now I find that I “miss” Rachel Corrie when I go biking with a different audiobook. This makes

book reviews

Fairy Tale Retelling Book Review: The Rose Bride by Nancy Holder

The Rose Bride: A Retelling of “The White Bride and the Black Bride” by Nancy Holder My rating: 3 of 5 stars This was an interesting reading experience because I was not familiar with the source material for this book, the fairy tale “The White Bride and the Black Bride.

Book Reviews

Retelling Book Review: Bound by Donna Jo Napoli

Bound by Donna Jo Napoli My rating: 4 of 5 stars It’s been so many years since I’ve read anything by Donna Jo Napoli — I think more than a decade — so I was pleased to find that she still “held up” after all this time, especially since I

book reviews

Retelling Book Review: The Snow Child by Eowyn Ivey

The Snow Child by Eowyn Ivey My rating: 4 of 5 stars This book was not what I expected it to be. It was lighter on magic, heavier on Alaskan frontier hardship, but once I adjusted my expectations, I ended up enjoying the book a lot. It is one of

book reviews

Retelling Book Review: Tiger Lily by Jodi Lynn Anderson

Tiger Lily by Jodi Lynn Anderson My rating: 3 of 5 stars I wanted to read this book for a long time — so long that, after I started it and a friend told me it wasn’t worth my time, I insisted that I soldier on, anyway. I don’t

book reviews

Fairy Tale/Retelling Book Review: The Bloody Chamber by Angela Carter

The Bloody Chamber and Other Stories by Angela Carter My rating: 4 of 5 stars This is a collection of fairy tale retellings that, while written in 20th Century, read like classic literature, with long, winding sentences, reflective narrators, and lush descriptions. What doesn’t read so much like classic

book reviews

Fairy Tale Book Review: Sleeping Cinderella & Other Princess Mix-ups

Sleeping Cinderella and Other Princess Mix-ups by Stephanie Clarkson My rating: 3 of 5 stars This was a cute book — I liked the illustrations and the way it played with the tropes of Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty, Rapunzel, and Snow White’s fairy tales, imagining what might happen if they could

authors

Writing Book Review: How to Write Science Fiction & Fantasy by Orson Scott Card

How to Write Science Fiction & Fantasy by Orson Scott Card My rating: 3 of 5 stars There are so few books that specialize in writing science fiction & fantasy that I try to read the few that exist. I admire OSC’s storytelling even if I disagree with his

authors

Writer Biography Book Review: Shaggy Muses - The Dogs Who Inspired Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Emily Bronte, Emily Dickinson, Edith Wharton, and Virgi

Oh, how I yearn for those 10 degrees (F) and above days during which I could walk my dog!   Shaggy Muses: The Dogs Who Inspired Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Emily Bronte, Emily Dickinson, Edith Wharton, and Virginia Woolf by Maureen Adams My rating: 4 of 5 stars This book was comprised

blogging

2015: A Good Year For Writing

Ever since I was a teenager, I’ve made writing resolutions for New Year’s. I do not take resolutions lightly, as my “finisher” personality type usually means I won’t easily let them go. In the past couple years, I’ve expanded the types of writing I’m doing

A Year in the Life

2014: My Writing Year in Review

It’s easy for me to get discouraged with how long some of my writing projects take. I will be finishing up my second year of revising my Rapunzel retelling in 2015, and I always want to be writing more than I actually am. But when I paused to take

Book Reviews

Writing Related Book Review: Belzhar by Meg Wolitzer

Belzhar by Meg Wolitzer My rating: 3 of 5 stars I’ve long believed that through writing, we have the power to transform ourselves and our experiences. It’s why I journal every morning, even when there are a million other things waiting to get done; it’s why I’