I was actually a bit disappointed by this book. It had been recommended to me several times by a lot of different people, so I was expecting more from it. But instead it is a perfectly serviceable YA fantasy with an abrupt ending that I wasn't expecting and a almost total lack of love triangles, hallelujah. Also not a lot of worldbuilding, but we' ( Read more... )

It turns out I've actually read two books by this author before, and remember nothing about either of them, which did not bode well. However, it turned out to be pretty okay!... if also fairly forgettable ( Read more... )

The Book: Fallen Angels, by Walter Dean Myers

The Banhammer: From ALA: "offensive language, racism, violence."

My Reaction: This is an incredible book. I mean, I always knew that Walter Dean Myers knew his shit, but there's knowing and there's knowing, reading it and understanding it. Fallen Angels is the story of Richie Perry, a teenager from ( Read more... )

The Plain Janes is a graphic novel that follows a transfer student named Jane as she struggles to reconcile herself with life in suburbia. Her family moved out of the city after a bomb attack nearly killed Jane and left a nearby unidentified man in a coma. Jane has the man's sketchbook, and we get pieces of the sketchbook and her commentary ( Read more... )

The Book: Hush, Jacqueline Woodson.

The Banhammer: I honestly can't find the reasons this was banned. I mean, I've looked, but there's nothing. I'm guessing because it's about a black girl whose family has to deal with racial injustice, and heaven knows we can't have that.

My Reaction: Okay but this is great? I love Hush. I love Jacqueline ( Read more... )

I read A Curse as Dark as Gold, which is a retelling of the Rumpelstiltskin myth, and I loved it, so of course I picked up Bunce's other two books when I got the chance. These two are high fantasy set in an original world, following a thief named Digger as she gets increasingly caught up in the political machinations and developing revolutions of ( Read more... )

Wait For Me is a brief (less than two hundred pages) book about a girl named Mina and her complicated relationship with... everything, but I think primarily truth, and love ( Read more... )

Okay, let me start this review out by saying that technically, this book is really good. Woodson is a master of language; everything of hers I've read has just been so well-written and so beautiful. So when I say that I didn't like this book, you'll understand that I'm speaking purely on content, not skill ( Read more... )

I admit it, I read this because it won the National Book Award. That, and because everyone who did read it absolutely loved it.

Brown Girl Dreaming is Jacqueline Woodson's memoir of her childhood in the 60's and 70's, written in poetry. Normally I really dislike books written in poetry (as opposed to books of poetry) because they feel like the ( Read more... )

Okay so, I love Eva Ibbotson, but for a very long time I didn't realize that she wrote adult romances as well. Then I happened to be visiting a friend in New York, and that friend happened to need to work, which left me with an afternoon in New York City that I started in Barnes and Noble, where I picked up this book and promptly read the entire ( Read more... )