Synopsis:
3 young women meet in the typing pool at Fabian Publishing, 1952, hoping for love and finding that life has more to offer than they ever imagined.
Review:
I haven’t done much rereading since starting this blog, mostly thanks to the TBR tsunami that Bookmooch yielded out of a few boxes of discarded books my mom cleaned [...]

Popularity: 41% [?]

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Synopsis:
When Clay receives a box of cassette tapes recorded by a girl who recently committed suicide, he wonders why he was chosen as one of her thirteen reasons.
Review:
Compelling premise ultimately founders on muddled execution. Asher throws in at least four separate social problems as part of Hannah’s reasons for her suicide, and the construction [...]

Popularity: 45% [?]

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Synopsis:
After a teenage girl’s abusive father is released early from prison, she fears that she will be victimized again.
Review:
I hold Laurie Halse Anderson’s Speak to be the perfect YA “problem novel.” These novels take a teen in jeopardy facing off against a social issue, and show how the protagonist overcomes the situation. In [...]

Popularity: 28% [?]

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Synopsis:
An investigation into cosmetic surgery, mainly in America, with a focus on the extremes to which people have gone.
Popularity: 36% [?]

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Popularity: 36% [?]

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I like to be moved by literature, which is why I don’t go crazy for metafiction or postmodernism or overly intellectual fiction (Don DeLillo, Thomas Pyncheon, etc.). Such was the book I read yesterday for work.
Otter asks,
What are the five books in your library (or memory) that stirred the greatest emotive reaction in [...]

Popularity: 36% [?]

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Synopsis:
In a rotting-down town in nowheresville Maine, a woman with a broken mind haunts the minds of the inhabitants, tormenting their dreams and leading them to make deadly choices.
Review:
I picked The Keeper up after reading about it on SciFi Wire, but I have to say I was disappointed. The writing is assured, and Langan [...]

Popularity: 34% [?]

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Synopsis:
Snapshots in the life of a slightly depressed young woman with low self-esteem.
Review:
I loved Sittenfeld’s debut novel Prep, and had high expectations for this one. I was pretty disappointed. Hannah is passive and largely disinterested in life, and this just doesn’t make for a compelling main character, unless her passivity is what the [...]

Popularity: 29% [?]

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