Fun and sweet coming of age at college kind of thing, a younger writer's book than One Day, but still very charming and touching and kind of squirm-worthy, Hornby-ish bits.
Tuesday, February 22, 2011
A Question of Attraction, by David Nicholls
Fun and sweet coming of age at college kind of thing, a younger writer's book than One Day, but still very charming and touching and kind of squirm-worthy, Hornby-ish bits.
Cinderella Ate My Daughter: Dispatches from the Front Lines of the New Girlie-Girl Culture, by Peggy Orenstein
Other good books, though, on the same topic:
Packaging Girlhood: Rescuing Our Daughters from Marketers' Schemes, by Sharon Lamb
So Sexy So Soon: The New Sexualized Childhood and What Parents Can Do to Protect Their Kids by Diane E. Levin and Jean Kilbourn
The Lolita Effect: The Media Sexualization of Young Girls and What We Can Do About It, by M. Gigi Durham
Born to Buy, by Juliet Schor
The Lover's Dictionary, by David Levithan
Wonderful, poignant experimental fiction. Each word entry paints a vivid and fully realized scene from a relationship, the story of which gets told though the alphabetized entries- and the novel format only adds to the strength of what could have been a very familiar plot. Phenomenal, just so well done. I would show this along with Leanne Shapton's Important Artifacts and Personal Property from the Collection of Lenore Doolan and Harold Morris, Including Books, Street Fashion, and Jewelry to show anyone the strength of nontraditional narratives.
Trapped, by Michael Northrop
Very quick, well done YA about a blizzard that strands 7 students in a high school for days. While snow piles up around, and the school building gradually succumbs to the elements, the tension is nicely balanced by the realistic interplay between the students and really gave a great sense of claustrophobia.
Everything is Going to Be Great, by Rachel Shukert
Shutout, by Brendan Halpin
Really wonderful, well done YA about girls's sports, friendship, sportsmanship, and so much more. Amanda and Lena have been inseparable friends for years, and partners on the soccer field, but when, as freshmen, Lena is chosen for the varsity team and Amanda feels sidelined onto the junior varsity, their friendship is challenged, and they grow apart. This was just so well written, the characters were real and believable, it was great YA without being manipulative or trauma drama.
Hothouse, by Chris Lynch
Thursday, February 10, 2011
Dark Life, by Kat Falls
Wednesday, February 9, 2011
The Book Stops Here, by Ian Sansom
Side note: 1000th post! woot.
Love Letters, by Katie Fforde
Never Let Me Go
Efrain's Secret, by Sofia Quintero
Girls on the Edge, by Leonard Sax
Interesting look at girlhood now, with what the author sees as four factors causing a new crisis for American girls- early sexualization, the "cyber bubble", obsessions, and environmental toxins leading to early pubescence. Good read- if a little repetitive, but maybe only because I've read it other places as well.
Labels:
Adult,
America,
childhood,
Girls on the Edge,
Non-fiction,
Sax
Rogue Island, by Bruce DeSilva
Labels:
Adult,
DeSilva,
mystery,
Rhode Island,
Rogue Island,
Wonderful
Thursday, February 3, 2011
Mockingbirds, by Daisy Whitney
Plot didn't make a ton of sense, and the rape that was the central issue was so grey it left me very uncomfortable with how things played out.
Bloody Valentine, by Melissa De La Cruz
Sunday, January 30, 2011
Wither, by Lauren DeStefano
This won't be out until late March, but I was lucky enough to get an ARC of this- it was fantastic!!!!!
YA dystopia (surprise), with a polygamous twist. After scientists have used genetic engineering to eliminate cancer and most diseases, the first generation was healthy and long-lived- but after that, males die at 25, and females at 20. Desperate oligarchs have turned to polygamous marriage to try to keep family lines intact, and girls are kidnapped to become brides and childbearers, to widen the gene pool. Rhine, Jenna and Cecily have been brought as brides for Linden, a clueless and ineffectual aristoctrat.
The world-building in this was wonderful, and fully developed characters deepened the high-concept plot. Couldn't put this down, read it in one sitting.
Friday, January 21, 2011
Secrets of My Hollywood Life: Broadway Lights, by Jen Calonita
Kaitlin Burke is starring in a Broadway play after the end of the long running family series that has been her entire life, and facing new challenges in live theater, as well as trying to balance her family life while shuttling between New York and LA. This series is still well done, if a bit saccharine and unrealistic, but fun and quick.
Girl Sleuth: Nancy Drew and the Women Who Created Her, by Melanie Rehak
Fantastic book about Harriet Stratmeyer, the heiress to the Stratemeyer Syndicate, the writing company behind so many of the popular 20th c. children's series, including the Bobbsy Twins, The Dana Girls, The Hardy Boys, and more, and about Mildred Wirt Benson, the woman who wrote most of the "original 56" Nancy Drew books.
This was wonderfully done, and as much as it was biography, it was also social history, looking at how women's changing role through the 20th century was mirrored by the lives of these extraordinary women.
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