This is one of my favorite books and I hadn't read it in a few years, so I thought it was time for a reread. This book, which was published in the 40s (and is by the author of 101 Dalmations, holla!) covers six months in the life of 17-year-old Cassandra Mortmain, who lives with her family in a crumbling castle in the English countryside. It. Is. Awesome. I mean, England + 1940s = I am going to love it, but I think the real strength of this book is that Cassandra is a GREAT narrator. She is funny and sassy and makes really awesome observations, and I am always deeply sad to come to the last page of this book. I would read twelve more volumes about her life, because she is an awesome character. Anyway, the whole book is charming and never fails to cheer me up, and I recommend it to people whenever I get the chance, so now I'm recommending it to all of you! Read it.

This is the story of four different couples at different points in their relationships, and it examines the nature of love, marriage, and our national fixation with diamond engagement rings and all they've come to symbolize. It's really interesting to read about these four seemingly unrelated story lines and then slowly come to see how they are all tied together. There's one of the four that I thought seemed a little bit less...resolved, I guess is the word I'm looking for, but overall I think the author did a great job at tying everything together, and also at getting into the heads and presenting the worldviews of some very different characters. It was quite well-written, and I really liked it.

This is another book to sort into the "so famous that I can't believe I somehow didn't read it as a kid" category -- and I have to say, I totally understand why people like this book so much, now that I've read it. For the uninformed, it's based on the true story of an Indian girl who spends 18 years by herself on an island off the coast of California. It seems like nearly two decades of solitude shouldn't make for super exciting reading, and yet I thought this book was great. There was something just quiet and beautiful about the book as you live through those 18 years with Karana, watching her befriend sea otters and wild dogs in lieu of any human companionship. I particularly enjoyed the way that O'Dell marks the passing of time, and yet it takes on the sort of fuzzy quality for the reader that I'd imagine time would actually take on if you really were by yourself for years on end. At some point, you realize Karana's been by herself for a really long time, but you're not at all sure how long it's been. At the end, when - spoiler alert! - she leaves the island at last, you find yourself feeling sad. It's not that I'd want to spend 18 years by myself (I don't do well with even 18 hours by myself) but something about this story makes it seem not so bad, all in all. I completely understand why this book is such a classic.

I kept going back and forth while I was reading about whether I actually liked this book, and yet by the end I found myself enjoying it more than I expected. It's the story of a 12-year-old boy in New Jersey who befriends an immigrant man who does odd jobs around town. Eventually, Andy (the kid) is at the head of a local effort to build the man (Onion John, as he is called, since no one knows his last name since he doesn't speak English) a new house. I was sort of skeptical of the premise when I began, plus I think I'm inherently skeptical of Newbery winners (this won the medal in 1960) because I've disliked so many of the ones I've read so far, but there were elements of this that I really enjoyed. There's this whole underlying story about Andy and his relationship with his dad, and how his dad is projecting his own dreams and ambitions onto Andy, and it ties in well with the main storyline (about building Onion John a house), and Krumgold wraps up both of these interwoven storylines in a nice way. The more I read it, the more I appreciated the story he was telling. I'm still not 100% sure it would appeal to a huge number of children, but I have to say that I thought the book overall was quite well-done.

So this is a series review of sorts. This is the first of Mayberry's just-completed four part Rot & Ruin series, a zombie epic set some 15 years after the dead started chomping. It's the story of teen orphan Benny Imura and his brother Tom living in one of the few remaining towns in California. Outside the frontier town the world is a dangerous place: zoms and crazies and and bounty hunters, and rumors of a place called Gameland, where kids are thrown into zombie pits to fight with zoms. And then one day Benny's friend Nix sees a jet in the sky and wonders if there's more than what they know. There are good people too, but they're less visible, so moral choices abound for Benny et al between personal security and doing good, adventure and safety. The YA zombie field is a busy one but Mayberry is head and shoulders over all others so far. His stories are tightly written and smartly paced, with smart squabbling dialog, sharp conflict and real threat of pain without excess gore. The first two books (Rot & Ruin, Dust & Decay) are violent wanderings through the zombie wilderness with the living just as dangerous. There is some gore, but the fear is more in the description of the grey zombies than in actual bloody attacks. Mayberry often ends a chapter on a cliffhanger zom attack and returns a chapter or two later to see the consequences so he avoids the gore that could push up the age-appeal of the series. The third, though, is probably the most harrowing of the first three, with a death cult running wild throughout the country and more living-on-living violence. He uses cult-like rhetoric to describe the actual attacks and so avoids bloody description but the acts linger. Mayberry is a master at taking violent subject matter and making it work in a YA context, packing in plausible teen concerns (love, identity, family, self) and spreading his interests between male and female characters (more so in books 2 and 3). The last one, Fire & Ash, comes out in a week. If you haven't read him, start with Rot & Ruin. These are G8+ depending on the kid, and probably the parent, but Mayberry's zom books are smarter than most Newberrys and many times more enthralling.

Have you ever stumbled across a book that is so different than what you thought it would be that it’s hard to get into it? I picked The Thinking Woman’s Guide to Real Magic from my TBR pile expecting a story about witches. Seems a reasonable assumption, no?

What I got instead was a fast-paced ride to another dimension where fey, wizards and magic folk of all sorts live. The world itself is a bit like Tolkein’s Middle Earth but without the languages and poetry.


I also feel the need to address the main wizard in the book, Aruendiel. Reading him, he was exactly like Professor Severus Snape to the point of making me wonder if the book had originally been fanfiction (a la The Mortal Instruments and Fifty Shades of Grey). What’s interesting is that the author addresses this similarity. When someone sees Aruendiel for the first time she immediately gasps, “Snape!” I’m not sure how I feel about incorporating characters from other series into a separate book, especially when the inspiration is so obvious. Is this plagiarism? An infringement on intellectual property? Or is it just good fun?

Overall, The Thinking Woman’s Guide to Real Magic as a fun, fast-paced read. The book is closer to Tolkein than it is to A Discovery of Witches so be aware if epic journeys and alternate dimensions aren’t your thing.

I’ve been eagerly waiting for a series that makes me fall in love like Harry Potter. Sure I’ve found great books like A Discovery of Witches, and The Night Circus, but nothing has quite hit the mark. Until now.

The Bone Season is everything that I’ve wanted: action, world-building, unique magic, touches of romance and an underlying British sensibility. Sure, it helps that her whole idea of the future is predicated on the idea of Jack the Ripper (see my obsession here and here), and that a woman younger than me managed to write the book. But honestly, the book is spectacular in its own right. It’s perfect for those who have grown up with Potter but are looking for something with a little more grit.

Unlike many dystopian novels, the future is dictated by a shift in the past. History as we know it stops in 1800s when Jack the Ripper released spirits from the aether, causing clairvoyant tendencies to erupt. These clairvoyant “others” have been shunned by the government for their powers but are prized by another race called the Rephaim.

One part Harry Potter, two parts Hunger Games with just a dash of Lirael, The Bone Season just might make you forget that you wanted another Rowling novel.

The authors of this book run the popular celebrity fashion blog Go Fug Yourself, which is truly hilarious, so I had high hopes for this novel - which weren't disappointed! It's the story of sixteen-year-old Molly Dix, who learns that she is the daughter of famous movie star Brick Berlin. Molly moves to LA to live with Brick and his daughter, Brooke, and the story follows Molly's attempts to adjust to a glamorous life in Hollywood. The book is quite clever and funny, although this is one of those books that I suspect won't have the longest shelf life, since so many of the stars and fads referenced will no doubt be out-of-date within in a few years. The authors poke fun at the superficiality of Los Angeles and its residents without ever being mean-spirited about it, and you really do find yourself rooting for Molly and Brooke to get past their differences to become friends. This book might not appeal to the broadest audience, but it's certainly something that many members of its target audience should enjoy.