March - 2021

Mar 31

Review of One Day in December by Josie Silver

Silver offers a story with a missed-chances premise in which romance, drama, and an unwavering hope in fated love are the linchpins. One Day in December offers a missed-chances setup with enormous repercussions. Laurie spies a man out her bus window standing in the December snow. Their eyes meet, and she can't explain it, except to feel that this is what people mean when they say "love at first sight." The bus pulls away before she can speak to the man or even find out his na

Mar 30

Review of She's Too Pretty to Burn by Wendy Heard

Heard's young adult thriller was a lightning-fast read, and there's a yearning for connection between the two main protagonists that feels real and true. Heard's young adult thriller follows the twists and turns at the intersection of three volatile young people--bored photographer Veronica; her best friend, mischievous performance art rebel Nico; and their new friend, Mick, who hasn't quite found her place in the world outside of being a competitive swimmer. Mick, whose moth

Mar 29

Three Books I'm Reading Now, 3/29/21 Edition

The Books I'm Reading Now I'm reading three books that are about to be published: Cory Anderson's debut, a dark young adult novel about young brothers desperately trying to stay together and stay alive in rural Idaho; Wendy Heard's fast-paced California-set thriller about an infatuation between two young women, dangerous risks, and a web of lies that may get them both killed; and Jennifer McMahon's dive into a family's haunting history that has mysterious, powerful present-da

Mar 26

Six Wonderfully Witchy Stories to Charm You

Do you love witchy books like I do? I love a good witch-focused book, and I've been wanting to put together a Greedy Reading List on this theme for a while, but ultimately I was too greedy even for myself and I couldn't decide which titles to include. It was paralyzing. I also have a handful of witchy books here waiting to be read (specifically A Witch in Time, The Witch's Heart, and the upcoming Hour of the Witch and The Nature of Witches), not to mention other witchy books

Mar 25

Review of Finlay Donovan Is Killing It by Elle Cosimano

Cosimano's mystery has a wonderfully quirky setup and campy tone, and Finlay's missteps add to the darkly playful feeling of the book. Finlay Donovan is an author and a recently single mom, divorced from a cheating man (side note: he and his gloating fiancé are both in need of a major reckoning). She's struggling both emotionally and financially as she tries to support her two young children. The morning has been a disaster. Her daughter cut her own hair (and bloodied her sca

Mar 24

Three Books I'm Reading Now, 3/24/21 Edition

The Books I'm Reading Now I'm reading the newest book from Elle Cosimano, in which a misunderstanding has potentially enormous life-and-death repercussions for a young author; the final book in Megan Whalen Turner's Queen's Thief series, in which the impetuous Gen must learn to do what he hates: lead and be responsible in order to keep his people safe; and the gloriously angsty, romantic, missed-chances story from Josie Silver. I'd love to hear: which books are you reading an

Mar 23

Review of The Queen of Nothing by Holly Black

In this satisfying final book in the trilogy, Black's characters show darkly funny humor and trade biting remarks, and creatures of all types jostle for power, snipe, battle, and fall in love. The Queen of Nothing is the final book in Black's Folk of the Air trilogy (I mentioned the series in the Greedy Reading List Six Royally Magical Young Adult Series). Jude is the exiled Queen of Faerie, scrambling to make a living in the human world by freelancing, carrying out petty job

Mar 22

Review of The Arsonists' City by Hala Alyan

Characters cope with lost dreams and find ways to (often clumsily) come together through their shared pain. The vibrancy of Beirut is celebrated throughout. As we say in Arabic, Time doesn't change; time reveals. In the novel The Arsonists' City, Hala Alyan presents a complicated situation for an extended family in which a Syrian mother, a Lebanese father, and three first-generation American children with an ancestral home in Beirut come to terms with deep loss. They return t

Mar 19

Six Fantastic Stand-Alone Young Adult Books

Aren't young adult books just the best? Young adult is one of my favorite genres to read for fun and to edit. The main protagonists are often figuring out the world, their place in it, and who they are and want to be. They're making mistakes and realizing where they draw their own lines in the sand. Things are big, and young people's feelings about all of it understandably vacillate between joy, dread, confusion, and wonder. I could have listed so many fantastic young adult t

Mar 18

Review of Serpent & Dove by Shelby Mahurin

The first book in Mahurin's young adult fantasy trilogy was unabashedly dramatic and angsty, and I was smiling at all of it in delight. Serpent & Dove is Shelby Mahurin's first book in the young adult trilogy of the same name (Blood & Honey is the second book, with the third and final book, Gods & Monsters, set for publication this summer). Louise is a thief who keeps the company of prostitutes and lawbreakers. She's a witch who has sworn off magic; she fled her powerful moth

Mar 17

Three Books I'm Reading Now, 3/17/21 Edition

What I'm Reading Now: Three Fun Fantasy Stories I'm reading the newest book from Naomi Novik, which showcases excellent dark humor within a deadly magical school; the final book in Holly Black's Folk of the Air trilogy, which offers great banter and an appealingly antagonistic/lovey-dovey relationship between frenemies; and the gloriously dramatic young adult debut from Shelby Mahurin (with a second in the series already published and a third coming out this year). I'd love t

Mar 16

Review of Body of Stars by Laura Maylene Walter

I wished that the book had more fully explored the cycle of prediction and realization that lies at the heart of its premise. In the world of Laura Maylene Walter's just-published young adult novel Body of Stars, the patterns of freckles, moles, and birthmarks on women’s bodies serve to predict their future—their career, the number of children they'll have, important aspects of their family members' lives--everything significant that lies ahead. I had some trouble getting on

Mar 15

Review of I Am, I Am, I Am: Seventeen Brushes with Death by Maggie O'Farrell

A book I loved, in case you missed it! O’Farrell’s meditations on the precious nature of life felt new, honest, raw, and fascinating. We are never closer to life than when we brush up against the possibility of death. I Am, I Am, I Am is Maggie O'Farrell's memoir of pivotal near-death experiences that shaped her life and affected the way she considers her existence. Her recollections include a childhood illness that left her bedridden for a year, an encounter with a potentia

Mar 12

Six Books about Brave Female Spies

Tough women, secrets and smarts, and sneaky spying! I love a peek at a secret world, and each of these books offers that very thing. Only one title on this list is nonfiction, but I'm reading another one at the moment that's great so far (Agent Sonya: Moscow's Most Daring Wartime Spy by Ben Macintyre, who also wrote the excellent book The Spy and the Traitor). I'll report back after I'm finished. A Woman of No Importance is a nonfiction book that also looks wonderful. Because

Mar 11

Review of Outlawed by Anna North

North provides intrigue, an exploration of gender and power roles, tales of unconventional friendship, and enough shoot-outs and danger to make this a feminist Western I couldn't stop reading. In the year of our Lord 1894, I became an outlaw. It's 1894, and seventeen-year-old Ada is a newlywed, following contentedly the path set out for her as a young married woman in her small town. She assists her mother with her midwifery, loves her younger sisters, and adjusts to life wit

Mar 10

Three Books I'm Reading Now, 3/10/21 Edition

What I'm Reading Now The books I've got on my nightstand and on my Kindle at the moment: a turn-of-the century story about outlaws, finding identity, eschewing societal fears and superstition, and belonging; a mystery novel about a brave young woman shaped by her Native American heritage; and a young adult book set in an alternate world where women hold the clues to the future but are subsumed into a male-dominated society as tools to be owned and controlled. Clicking on the

Mar 9

Review of The Office of Historical Corrections by Danielle Evans

There is so much to unpack here; Evans's story themes are often haunting, always powerful, and wonderfully nuanced. She thought the insistence on victims without wrongdoers was at the base of the whole American problem, the lie that supported all the others. In The Office of Historical Corrections, Evans offers short stories centering around themes of race, relationships, identity, the fallibility of those shaping historical "fact," grief, and loss. She beautifully and powerf

Mar 8

Review of Two White Queens and the One-Eyed Jack by Heidi von Palleske

The book introduces some fascinating detail and interesting themes, but the story frequently feels choppy and unfinished. In von Palleske's novel, two young boys share the experience of a tragic accident. When the friends later encounter a set of identical twins with albinism, the life paths of the boys and girls become intertwined as it winds along the shores of Lake Ontario and into gritty Berlin from the 1960s to 1980s. The book started off a little disjointed for me. I fo

Mar 5

Six Illuminating Memoirs to Dive Into

Do you love memoirs like I do? I love digging into the story of someone's life--notable because of chance, circumstance, or choice--and escaping into an eye-opening and fascinating memoir. If you love memoirs, you might also like the books I listed on the Greedy Reading List Six Illuminating Memoirs I've Read This Year (last year). A few other recent-ish memoirs on my to-read list that I'm particularly excited about are: Reasons to Stay Alive by Matt Haig (author of The Midni

Mar 4

Review of The Midnight Library by Matt Haig

Each life Nora tries on changes her in some way, whether by erasing her regrets about a path not taken, showing her that she's capable of bravery and discovery or commitment, or by emphasizing that the flip side of joy in any life will always be sadness. Humans are fundamentally limited, generalising creatures, living on auto-pilot, who straighten out curved streets in their minds, which explains why they get lost all the time. Nora Seed feels like she can't go on. Life is to