Category Archives: American Literature

Wolves of the Calla by Stephen King (The Dark Tower)

American Literature September 7, 2009 Superfast Reader 1 Comment

Synopsis: Roland and his company prepare to defend a town that sees half of its children kidnapped and “roont” once a generation. Review: Wolves of the Calla is still my favorite of the Dark Tower books. I think it’s because it has the best standalone story of the bunch. Calla Bryn Sturgis, the town, has the feel of the American frontier, and watching Roland, Eddie, Susannah, Jake, and Oy prepare to do battle against the kidnapping Wolves is fraught with suspense, tension, and action. I…

The Final Empire by Brandon Sanderson (Mistborn)

American Literature September 5, 2009 Superfast Reader 2 Comments

Synopsis: A street urchin discovers that she is Mistborn, able to synthesize metals that give her superhuman powers, and falls into a plan to overthrow the seemingly immortal Lord Ruler. Review: I listened to The Final Empire on audiobook, and I have to say I was really impressed by the narrator’s ability to give every character a different voice. It really made the story easy to follow, especially because the characters themselves were not particularly well-drawn. Oops–did I start criticizing already? Well, another reason I…

The Waste Lands by Stephen King (The Dark Tower)

American Literature September 4, 2009 Superfast Reader

Synopsis: On his quest to the Dark Tower, Roland the gunslinger and his companions move through a ghastly post-nuclear landscape in search of a train that is certainly alive and not certainly safe. Review: Whenever I start reading The Waste Lands, my heart aches waiting for Roland and Jake to be reunited. In my opinion, Jake is one of King’s best characters. Of course, he’s twinned with Jack Sawyer from The Talisman, and I think that I can’t help but bring those associations with me…

The Drawing of the Three by Stephen King (The Dark Tower)

American Literature September 3, 2009 Superfast Reader

Synopsis: The gunslinger steps into the lives of three different New Yorkers, and must figure out how they fit into his quest before he dies of an infection. Review: The contrast between The Gunslinger and The Drawing of the Three always astonishes me. As King puts it in his introduction, in book 2 of the Dark Tower series the story really takes off. I always spend the first few chapters mourning the elegiac tone of the first book, but soon am swept away by the…

The Gunslinger by Stephen King (The Dark Tower)

American Literature September 2, 2009 Superfast Reader 3 Comments

Synopsis: The man in black fled across the desert, and the gunslinger followed. Review: I’ve read The Gunslinger about nine or ten times by now, having discovered it when I was still in college and there were only three books in the series. I was instantly captivated by how different the book was from anything else I’d ever read, by King or otherwise. The Gunslinger felt like an open text, fraught with possibilities, and I had no idea where King would take the story. The…

Fade to Blue by Sean Beaudoin

American Literature August 28, 2009 Superfast Reader

Synopsis: Sophie Blue is so goth she’s roadkill, at least in her dreams, as she searches for her lost father and tries to find herself. Review: Fade to Blue is very, very hip and very, very stylish–so much so that it made me feel old because I didn’t really get it. I am kind of old, closer to middle- than teenage, so maybe that’s okay. The writing is fantastic, and the plotting creative, but I just didn’t click with it. I think many teens will,…

Talking to the Dead by Bonnie Grove

American Literature August 27, 2009 Superfast Reader 1 Comment

Synopsis: After the sudden death of her husband, a young widow begins to hear his voice at the same time she experiences a sort of amnesia about their last months. Review: Boy, I was really not expecting Talking to the Dead to be such a page-turner! I thought it was going to be an Anne Tyler-esque meditation on grief, loss, and moving on, and since I feared it might be a little dull, it languished on my TBR stack. The book actually has a solid…

Another Faust by Daniel and Dina Nayeri

American Literature August 25, 2009 Superfast Reader 3 Comments

Synopsis: Five teenagers at an elite Manhattan private school game the system–because they’ve sold their souls to the devil. Review: When I picked up Another Faust, my expectations were low. I figured it was going to be yet another first in a series capitalizing on Gossip Girls and Twilight. Don’t get me wrong–I figured I would like it–but I didn’t expect anything more than light entertainment. So I was thrilled to realize that Another Faust was a spiritual and literary heir to the Gothic tradition…

Ender’s Game by Orson Scott Card

American Literature August 18, 2009 Superfast Reader 4 Comments

Synopsis: A 6-year-old wunderkind enters Battle School to train to defeat the aggressive, invading Buggers. Review: This was actually my first foray into audiobooks on the iPod. I am a huge fan of podcasts, but had yet to tackle a book during the time I spend pushing my stroller and nursing Superfast Toddler to sleep. I figured Ender’s Game was a good entrÃ©e, since I have read it before and it wasn’t terribly long, only 11 hours. Since it only took me 2 or 3…

The Book That Made America by Jerry Newcombe

American Literature August 17, 2009 Superfast Reader

Synopsis: Subtitled: How The Bible Formed Our Nation. Review: In The Book That Made America, author Jerry Newcombe lays out a compelling case for the influence that the Bible and Christianity had over the writing of the Constitution, the Declaration of Independence, and other key documents in the formation of America. It’s worth reading by anyone with an interest in early American history and current politics. However, the book suffers a bit by preaching to the choir. Using Ann Coulter as one of your experts…

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