Monthly Archives: July 2015

Candace Bushnell and Stephen King Together at Last, Laurie Halse Anderson

American Literature

Because this week I read Killing Monica by Candace Bushnell and Finders Keepers by Stephen King. The former could’ve used more scary parts, and the latter needed a lot more sex appeal. And it’s pretty clear to me that a mashup of these two authors would make for a pretty fabulous book. On their own? Two pretty mediocre reading experiences. In Killing Monica, a bestselling author decides the only way to self-actualize is to kill off her most famous creation. Or at least that’s the…

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The Queen’s Thief Series by Megan Whalen Turner

On Reading

What a delicious series! I was hooked from the very beginning of The Thief, when we meet Gen, a thief hired by a magus to steal a precious gem. The tightness of the POV clued me in that I was in for a surprise, but kept me so well-controlled that I didn’t guess the secret at all. The next two books, The Queen of Attolia and The King of Attolia do a masterful job at world-building and character development while not getting too bogged down…

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

American Literature, Canadian Literature

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…

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Uglies Trilogy and Detectives in Togas

American Literature

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…

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

American Literature

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…

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