Tag Archives: 21st Century

Vacation = Gillian Flynn, The Group, Pretty Is, New Margaret Atwood !!!

American Literature, Canadian Literature July 20, 2015 Superfast Reader

Because my idea of relaxing is reading about women in desperate circumstances driven to make choices that aren’t really choices at all because they are WOMEN. Repressive society, nobody understands their inner life, maybe they don’t even have an inner life, and you have to escape your gallant kidnapper while your friends talk shit behind your back and if you’re lucky you’ll end up competing with a prostibot. Or, as Luscious Jackson put it, “When a man knows where he came from he can tell…

Uglies Trilogy and Detectives in Togas

American Literature July 9, 2015 Superfast Reader

I had mad love for Scott Westerfeld’s Uglies trilogy back when I first read it. Imagine a dystopia where until age 16, you are “ugly.” Then you get a whole bunch of surgery to become beautiful, and then live in paradise until you die. All parties, no war. Everything is beautiful, and Tally Youngblood can’t wait until her birthday–until she meets Shay, who tells her about the world outside, and asks Tally to escape with her. Tally is a great character–I think she’s more awesome…

Judy Blume! Kondo, Primates of Park Ave, Missoula, More True Crime and a Dumb Thriller I Read Anyway

American Literature July 3, 2015 Superfast Reader

I’ve been swimming in the cultural zeitgeist lately, thanks to my wonderful local library which just received much-needed funding to reopen on Saturdays. I was crazy excited to get my hands on Judy Blume’s newest book for adults, In the Unlikely Event, which is set in Elizabeth, NJ in the 1950s, against the backdrop of the actual triad of plane crashes that traumatized the community. Elizabeth is Blume’s hometown, and the book is based on her own emotional memories of living in the shadow of…

Kid Stuff (Not Just for Kids)

American Literature, British Literature June 22, 2015 Superfast Reader

I originally bought Abby Hanlon’s Dory Fantasmagory for my older daughter, who liked it at first then lost interest. My younger daughter (turned 5 today) picked it up and had me read the whole thing to her over 2 reading sessions. It’s an absolutely adorable tale of a little girl with a big imagination, and the illustrations are a lot of fun. She has all these imaginary friends and enemies who tend to take over her life and make her do things that her family…

YA and True Crime Together At Last

American Literature June 8, 2015 Superfast Reader

More like I am indulging in a pet genre while researching books to use in homeschool coop next year. I’ll start with YA, and two by Karen Hesse. Letters from Rifka is about a teenage girl emigrating from Russia to NYC in 1919. Great character, wonderful historical detail, and lots of emotion made it a great read. I’d love to read it with the 4th/5th graders but it’ll have to wait because last year we read When Hitler Stole Pink Rabbit, and there’s too much…

The Silver Chair and Two About Murder

American Literature, British Literature May 24, 2015 Superfast Reader

We finished listening to the audio version of The Silver Chair by CS Lewis this week. I have always loved the humor of this book (particularly Puddleglum), and Jill Pole was the Lewisian girl I most connected with. I got teary-eyed at the end listening to the tender depiction of good King Caspian’s death and resurrection into Aslan’s country. It means more to me now that I’m an adult then it ever could have when I was a child. The title Anne Perry and the…

So You’ve Been Publicly Shamed, Julie of the Wolves, Ann Rule

American Literature May 10, 2015 Superfast Reader

I greatly enjoyed Brian Lehrer’s interview segment with Jon Ronson called “When Social Media Gets Mad,” and was even more delighted with his thoughtful, creative, and meticulously researched book So You’ve Been Publicly Shamed. He does so much more than just remind us of dumb tweets and stupid truth-stretching. Ronson is after understanding the nature of shame and how it operates. I especially loved the section on disgraced Jersey governor Jim McGreevey’s second life as a pioneer in prison reform. I am also very interested…

More Courtney Summers, Crazy Moms

British Literature, Canadian Literature May 3, 2015 Superfast Reader

Just in time for Mother’s Day I finally picked up Her by Harriet Lane, about an exhausted mom of a newborn and a toddler who’s befriended by a chic artist who seems to save the day over and over again. Of course this lady (a perfectly normal seeming woman with a high school age daughter) has an ulterior motive that comes to light in a suspenseful way. It reminded me a lot of Notes on a Scandal. I’m also continuing my Courtney Summers love fest.…

New Favorite Author, More Lloyd Alexander, True Crime, Hatchet

American Literature April 25, 2015 Superfast Reader

I had a great week in reads, after a miserable stretch of books that weren’t worth my time at all. And then I read All The Rage and the world is a better place because Courtney Summers is writing books. My love for Laurie Halse Anderson‘s Speak is epic and legendary, and Summers mines a similar vein (rape victim turned outcast) and makes it completely her own. So of course I completely freaked when I saw that they were interviewed together. YA authors can be…

Laura Lippman, Lauren Oliver, Lloyd Alexander + more

American Literature, British Literature April 12, 2015 Superfast Reader

Oh, I have had so many disappointments lately when trying to read Important Books by Important Authors that I needed to spend my spring break immersed in good genre. And even though not every book I read was entirely successful, my plan worked–consider my palate cleansed and my love for reading restored. The best of them was Hush Hush by Laura Lippman. It’s “A Tess Monaghan Novel” which should put me off, because I generally do not like series fiction with a recurring character. For…

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