Book Review: The Most Dangerous Place on Earth by Lindsey Lee Johnson
Lindsey Lee Johnson takes readers deep inside the high school ecosystem in The Most Dangerous Place on Earth. Actually, the first chapter occurs in eighth grade, but the remainder are during high school. Her main characters are students, and one first-year...Book Review: Grief is a Thing with Feathers by Max Porter
Max Porter takes grief and gives it the face of a crow in Grief is a Thing with Feathers. You think I mean figuratively. But no, in this prose poem slash novel, there is literally a Crow character. The less fantastical characters are a dad with two sons, whose mom and...Book Review: Pickle’s Progress by Marcia Butler
Pickle’s Progress is a quintessential modern New York City novel. In it, Marcia Butler gives us identical twin brothers and the women in their lives. But it’s much more dysfunctional and convoluted than that. Fundamentally, that’s a good thing. Butler’s taut...Book Review: There There by Tommy Orange
There There by Tommy Orange wasn’t the book I’d hoped it would be. Where Heart Berries was a deep dive in one woman’s psyche, There There is a shallow dip into the lives of many, many characters. That they both center on the varied experiences of Native Americans in...Book Review: We Love Anderson Cooper by R.L. Maizes
R.L. Maizes tells stories of discovery, haunting, and the everyday rhythms of life. Her writing is by turns eloquent, poignant, and groaningly funny. And her characters are as unique as you’ll find in contemporary short stories.Maizes’ tales feature teenagers, grown...Book Review: The Exile by Gregory Erich Phillips
Gregory Erich Phillips takes on a main character very different from himself in The Exile. First, Leila del Sol is a woman. Second, she’s a Colombian immigrant living and working in Phoenix, Arizona. But they both work in the chaotic bubble-bursting mortgage loan...Book Review: Daisy Jones & The Six by Taylor Jenkins Reid
Taylor Jenkins Reid creates an iconic—and entirely fictional—band in Daisy Jones & The Six. It’s set in the wild and wooly 1970s in California. Daisy is everybody’s spoiled little sister, and a singer songwriter. The band is six musicians trying to collectively...Book Review: Bel Canto by Ann Patchett
Bel Canto, published in 2001 by Ann Patchett, is a melodic story of an extreme case of Stockholm Syndrome. It’s an elegant and meaningful exposition of kidnapping, but also of love. A group of businessmen, diplomats, and important people gather in an unnamed...Book Review: Unsheltered by Barbara Kingsolver
In Unsheltered, Barbara Kingsolver mixes two story lines chapter by chapter. The first focuses on Willa Knox and her present-day family. The second focuses on Thatcher Greenwood, who lived in the same neighborhood as Willa in the 1870s. Both are faced with...Book Review: Paris Time Capsule by Ella Carey
Like imaginative authors everywhere, Ella Carey based Paris Time Capsule on a real-life occurrence. In late 2010, a Paris apartment that had been uninhabited for 70 years was opened after its owner’s death. She had left Paris during World War II and never returned....Book Review: The Great Believers by Rebecca Makkai
Rebecca Makkai tells two intertwined stories in The Great Believers. One starts in 1980s Chicago, the other in 2015 Paris. Held within are the lives of two friends, Yale and Fiona, along with many others. In the mid-1980s, the world was just beginning to understand...Book Review: Sourdough by Robin Sloan
Robin Sloan creates a story of the intersection of capitalism, science, and magic in Sourdough. And there’s a little romance too. But certainly not in a traditional sense. Lois is a computer programmer. When she decides to leave her comfortable Midwest life for a...Book Review: Beach Town by Mary Kay Andrews
Mary Kay Andrews offers us a pleasurable trip to Beach Town in this romancey, character-driven read. I’m not much of a “chick lit” or romance reader. But our #Booked2018 challenge includes a “beach read” prompt. So I decided to go literal and pick a book with “beach”...Book Review: Anything is Possible by Elizabeth Strout
Elizabeth Strout invites us to visit small-town Illinois in Anything is Possible. It’s like being the new guest at your sister-in-law’s summer picnic. You meet one person, and spend a little time together. When they’re done telling you a story, you’re spun among the...Book Review: A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara
With her novel, A Little Life, Hanya Yanagihara makes a beautiful piece of pottery. Then she drops it on the floor, where it shatters into pieces. Yet before the book finishes, Yanagihara has created what the Japanese call kintsugi. Kintsugi is the art of taking...Bookshop.Org Affiliate
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