I’m mentoring a senior capstone project on this novel, so I figured I’d better read it. For me, it started too slowly. Plot did not “thicken” until around page 80,…
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The Giver
September 21, 2017Rather depressing story about what we might give up if we wanted a perfect world of “Sameness”: colors, music, real feelings, holidays, family bonds. Don’t get attached to the kid…
Emma
August 31, 20172017 is the 200th anniversary of Jane Austen’s death. I’m not sure why that is something to celebrate, but whatever. Austen fans are a peculiar breed. I am not one,…
The Whole Town’s Talking
August 23, 2017This has to be the whitest book I’ve ever read. Flagg’s newest (?) novel chronicles the evolution of Elmwood Springs, MO, from it’s origins as a Swedish immigrant farming settlement…
Princeless
August 10, 2017Last year, I sent a good friend a copy of Bitch Planet vol. 1 because I wanted to share the awesome. This year she returned the favor by sending me the first volume…
Bad Mother
August 3, 2017With this memoir-y collection of essays, published in 2009, Waldman beat Roxane Gay to the titular idea of ideological/institutional failure by five years. And Bad Mother and Bad Feminist do…
Special Topics in Calamity Physics
August 1, 2017At first I was enchanted with this novel, but then I decided it’s bloated. Pessl is definitely a talented writer, and the novel eventually finds a plot, but it took…
State of Wonder
July 26, 2017I always swear that I’ll never teach Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness ever again, because I can’t face the thought of any more partially plagiarized essays about the symbolism of…
The Ocean at the End of the Lane
July 24, 2017This title seemed like it would be a short easy introduction to Neil Gaiman; I’m not sure I’m ready to take on American Gods, in book or TV series form. To…
The Dante Club
July 2, 2017A mildly entertaining literary mystery about a serial killer inspired by Dante’s Inferno to “punish” evil-doers in the period after the Civil War. The unlikely detectives are the members of…