Review of “The Adoration of Jenna Fox” by Mary E. Pearson

Jenna Fox is a seventeen year old who has been in a coma for eighteen months after a terrible car accident. Now she has awakened, but her memory has not: I don’t remember my mother, my father, or Lily. I don’t remember that I once lived in Boston. I don’t remember the accident. I don’t [...]

Review of “Nothing But Ghosts” by Beth Kephart

Katie D’Amore, 16, hasn’t yet adjusted to her mother’s sudden death from cancer eight months earlier. Nor has her father, who won’t sleep in their old bedroom, and still sets a place for three each night at dinner. Katie doesn’t even talk to her best friends anymore, because they remind her of the good times, [...]

Review of The Ask and The Answer by Patrick Ness

This is Book 2 of the Chaos Walking Trilogy, the first volume of which was The Knife of Never Letting Go. Unfortunately it is not possible to discuss the plot of Book 2 without ruining it for those who want to start the series, so if you have not read it yet, skip down to [...]

Review of “The Elegance of the Hedgehog” by Muriel Barbery

Renee Michel is a 54-year-old frumpy concierge at a posh private building divided into eight luxury apartments. She strives to satisfy her rich clients by conforming to the stereotype of a dull, thick-witted caretaker, but at the same time resents it, because in fact, she is an accomplished autodidact who is well-versed in philosophy, music, [...]

Review of “Island of the Blue Dolphins” by Scott O’Dell

The Shelf Discovery Challenge is sponsored by Booking Mama. Participants must select and read at least six books mentioned in Lizzie Skurnick’s SHELF DISCOVERY: THE TEEN CLASSICS WE NEVER STOPPED READING. After each book is read, the participants write a “book report” so they can share their thoughts with others. When I was selecting books [...]

Moby Dick Mondays – Week 11

Ti of the blog Book Chatter is sponsoring a challenge/readalong to read the classic Moby Dick. On Mondays, we’ll be posting about our progress. I am listening to the unabridged audiodisks for this book. In Week 10, Ishmael told us all about the spermaceti oil, the holy grail of whalers. (And yes, both the oil [...]

Sunday Salon – Review of “City of Thieves” by David Benioff

Note: This book is reviewed by my husband Jim. This is not the ultimate coming of age novel, but it is a coming of age story in ultimate circumstances—Leningrad in 1942, under siege by the Nazis, frequent bombardment, little or no food, and under oppressive surveillance by the NKVD. [The NKVD was the name for [...]

Review of “Deeper” by Megan Hart

This book tells a story (defined loosely) about Nick and Bess, and is something called “an erotic novel.” Yes, it is my first erotic novel! Possibly my last erotic novel! What was I doing with it? A fellow blogger asked me if I wanted to join a twitter readalong, and I’m loving doing readalongs so [...]

Review of “Specials” by Scott Westerfeld

This is book 3 of the series Uglies, Pretties, and Specials. For those who want to start this series, any review after Uglies will be a spoiler for the preceding book. Tally Youngblood used to be ugly, like all the other kids who were not yet sixteen, the age at which they are surgically transformed [...]

Review of “Pretties” by Scott Westerfeld

Pretties is Book 2 of the dystopic YA series set three hundred years in the future that begins with Uglies (see my review here). Upon finishing Book 1, I enthusiastically jumped right into Book 2. I think Book 2 would have been very difficult to read, however, without having read Book 1 first. Furthermore, it [...]