Zis book, she is beautiful. No, truly, despite ze cheesy French accent, I’m 100% serious. Sacre Bleu, A Comedy D’Art is funny (Chris Moore’s signature fare), but it’s also sweet, and loving in a way that Moore’s work … isn’t always. I love it. I really, really do. We start with Vincent Van Gogh’s murder. […]
Lyndsay Faye’s book, The Gods of Gotham, is a historical fiction murder mystery. Yeah. You heard me. A Historical Fiction Murder Mystery. Does that not sound like an answered prayer to anyone else? I mean, I’m not usually much for murder mysteries and things (there’s more interesting stuff for me to read, the re-read value […]
There are some books that are plot heavy. You know which ones I mean—the ones that could fuel two seasons worth of soapy opera all by their dark, dramatic, twisted lonesomes. And then there are the books that meander. While the plot-heavy books are racing at breakneck speed to cram everything in, these books give […]
I have mixed feelings about Sam Leith’s novel, The Coincidence Engine. The basic plot is that there’s this genius/madman mathematician named Nicolas Banacharski, who may or may not have started trying to find the mathematical proofs for an “engine” that would make the highly improbable/impossible, possible. Naturally, what exactly has happened to him is shrouded […]
Maybe it’s in the water here. I mean, mostly I’ve read that Los Angeles water is filled with parasites and toxins, but maybe it’s actually filled with a desire to spend one’s life eating strangely colored smoothies based on a vegan, plant-based, raw diet. I don’t know. Anyway, about two months after my move to […]
The Rook is a novel that I FRICKIN’ LOVE!!! (I refuse to apologize for the capslocks. I am not ashamed. This is the strength of my love). It took me 3 days to finish… but only because people insisted that I put it down to do unimportant things like … sleep, and eat, and go […]
Young adult romance is an art form like any other, and despite the lack of respect it often gets from mainstream audiences, it is certainly capable of being just as awesome as any other genre. What I’m saying is that just because it looks like Twilight and kind of smells like Twilight, doesn’t mean it […]
Arcadia is Lauren Groff’s second novel and it’s wonderful. I read Groff’s first novel, The Monster’s of Templeton, years ago, and I liked it quite a bit. But I love Arcadia more. The book’s about Bit—the first-born child of a hippie commune called Arcadia—and his life (in Arcadia and Outside, as a child and an […]
This is one hell of a book. Saleem, the narrator, opens by telling us (in a stuttering, halting way—a stickler for perfect accuracy, that Saleem) when he was born, that he’s 31 now, and that he’s dying. This was the first Rushdie I’d read, so I can’t give you any firsthand information about how it […]
I’m not the biggest history buff in the world (not gonna lie, I rocked the heck out of AP Euro, but that was years ago, and didn’t, you know, cover the history of places that… weren’t Europe), but I deem this book pretty solidly executed. And what’s more, I enjoyed reading it/learning stuff about history/re-learning […]
I Love You, Beth Cooper is Larry Doyle’s first novel (he also wrote Go, Mutants!, the subject of my first review here at My Books). I Love You, Beth Cooper’s about a boy—Denis Cooverman, captain of the debate team and valedictorian of BGHS (Buffalo Grove High School), to be precise—and his ill-advised attempt to make […]
I picked up Joe Bruchac and Will Davis’s graphic novel Dawn Land because (I’m about to get real with you) the cover is frickin’ gorgeous. It’s sunset/sunrise hued watercolors (plus, it’s a graphic novel, so the cover can actually give you some hints about what’s inside/ don’tcallmeshallow/ I’mnotpremptivelydefensiveatall). I figure, it’s a library book—if the […]
Americus is a YA graphic novel by MK Reed and Jonathan Hill, and IT’S FRIGGIN’ WONDERFUL. It has book wars, humorous depictions of various authority figures, unpretentious but nuanced characters, simple but expressive artwork, and a heck of a lot of heart. I love the crap out of this book. I just used all caps—you […]
Nathan Jendrick is a personal trainer who keeps things simple and to-the-point in this do-it-yourself handbook on how to exercise with no fancy or expensive exercise equipment. As someone who has experience and knowledge in the field of nutrition and exercise, I wanted Jendrick to go deeper and give more information, but I’m not the demographic […]
Futureproof is a messy, utterly debauched ride into a 90’s drug-ridden hell. And we’re not talking Baz-Luhrmann-Moulin–Rouge-opulent debauchery. This is grunge flavored—everything is dirty, scummy, gray, wearing ripped black tee shirts and dirty flannel, and sort of feels like a cop-less episode of SVU. In a word: gritty. It’s fast paced, witty, and conversational—the narrator […]
I’ll keep this short. I was not a fan of this book. Obviously, any book that’s going to be about surviving infidelity is probably not going to be a barrel of laughs. And that’s fine. But since we aren’t aiming for entertainment value, the book should attempt, at least, to be useful and informative. Liz […]
This is a weird little book. I picked Squirrel Seeks Chipmunk up on a whim, as I do with most books (I like a little chance involved in my life). Every once in a blue moon, I approach bookstores and libraries with a list, knowing exactly what I’m looking for, but, like, 98% of the […]
Okay, I’m currently binging on books (even for me), so I ran out of books that I hadn’t read in my house (well, that’s a lie… there are medical books from the 70’s and 80’s that I haven’t read, but … I was not about to do that to myself), so I started to […]
In her young adult novel, Haunting Violet, Alyxandra Harvey takes us on a journey to Britain in the latter half of the nineteenth century. It is a world full of rules and rigid roles, but one where a fascination with the supernatural is common. Young Violet Willoughby’s mother is a “Spiritualist Medium”, and enlists her […]
For fans of Jane Austen, like me, the publication of Death Comes to Pemberley was cause for a little celebration. The author, P.D. James, was born in Oxford in 1920, and is an accomplished and well respected writer. In her 92-year-old hands, I felt that this sequel to the classic Pride and Prejudice would be […]
This part is a ramble/rant, but bear with me. Okay, so this may or may not be clear to you already, but just in case you missed it, or are new to my reviews, let me just lay this out for you: I am picky. When I like things, I LOVE them, and when I […]
Evelyn Waugh was a British author best known for such novels as Brideshead Revisited and A Handful of Dust. He died in 1966, so he’s not exactly new news. Also, his books are on a bunch of “100 Best Novels of Blahblahblah” type lists. But I recently read Decline and Fall, Mr. Evelyn Waugh’s first […]
When I picked up this wonderfully researched and evocative novel, my knowledge of Ethiopia was woefully limited. Within a few pages, Abraham Verghese drew me in to a world of struggle and fear, love and compassion. Largely set in a mission hospital in Addis Ababa, the book tells the story of Marion and Shiva Price […]
If you watch NBC’s The Office, you already know Mindy Kaling. Or to be more specific, you know her on-screen counterpart: Kelly Kapur. And maybe you think that Mindy is actually Kelly, and therefore assume that Mindy is obsessed with weight loss, boys, and shopping. But you’d be wrong. Mindy is obsessed with weight loss, […]
I read Matched, the first in the trilogy that includes Crossed, in a sort of breathless blur. Left yearning as I was after finishing The Hunger Games, Matched seemed like its heir apparent. But Crossed actually makes me think retrospectively less of Matched, while still admitting that I’m definitely going to read the third installment […]