From the category archives:

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If I Stay by Gayle Forman

July 20, 2011

If I Stay by Gayle Forman is a young adult fiction novel about a teenage musical prodigy and her family.  She’s got a boyfriend with a band that is just taking off, and she’s under pressure to gain admission to Julliard playing the cello.  Tragedy strikes and changes everything, shaking up her world. Forman’s prose [...]

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Everyone Is Beautiful by Katherine Center

July 1, 2011

Anna (her review) handed me Everyone Is Beautiful by Katherine Center after a conversation we had about marriage and child rearing. She told me that I would enjoy it, and she was right . . . for the most part. Everyone is Beautiful by Katherine Center begins when Lanie Coates and her family move from [...]

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Ordinary Miracles by Erica Jong

June 15, 2011

Ordinary Miracles by Erica Jong begins with an introduction by the poet herself in which she talks about how poems have become “the stepchild of American letters,” especially since the novel has become so popular.  She further goes on to discuss the duality of being a poet and a novelist and how it is often [...]

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Horoscopes for the Dead by Billy Collins

May 31, 2011

Horoscopes for the Dead by Billy Collins, published in 2011 by Random House, is broken into four sections and includes a quote at the beginning from Alan Bennett‘s The Uncommon Reader, “It was the kind of library he had only read about in books.” Collins’ mater-of-fact tone in these poems treats death and loss as [...]

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White Egrets by Derek Walcott

April 19, 2011

White Egrets by Derek Walcott is a collection of deeply suggestive and blatant poems about the natural cycle of birth, life, and death and coming to terms with the later as friends, lovers, and others pass away leaving the narrator behind on the journey of life.  Each poem uses nature imagery to paint a canvas [...]

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Open Slowly by Dayle Furlong

February 3, 2011

Open Slowly by Dayle Furlong begins with poems steeped in Spring imagery and the unfolding blossoms of that season.  For instance, “She Seeks Beauty” is like a flower beginning as a bulb, growing, and releasing the beauty of its petals like a surprise ending. She Seeks Beauty (page 11) She seeks beauty everywhere foraging for [...]

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Lady Susan by Jane Austen

February 1, 2011

Lady Susan by Jane Austen is a short novel written in the form of letters until the conclusion where the author takes over.  Lady Susan is the widow of Mr. Vernon’s brother, and she has a daughter named, Frederica, whom Lady Susan believes needs more schooling and is better off in the care of others.  [...]

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Sanditon by Jane Austen

January 6, 2011

Sanditon, another unfinished novel and the last that she was working on before her death, by Jane Austen begins with the Parkers in search of a surgeon to bring back to the seaside town of Sanditon from Willingden to care for the sick tourists and travelers seeking the medicinal attributes of the small town.  Unfortunately, [...]

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The Watsons by Jane Austen

December 29, 2010

The Watsons by Jane Austen is an unfinished novel, but encompasses many elements from her finished novels, such as Emma and Sense & Sensibility.  Elizabeth and Emma Watson hail from a poorer family than the Osborne or the Edwards families.  Emma had been living with an aunt for many years, only to return home to [...]

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9th Judgment by James Patterson and Maxine Paetro (audio)

December 6, 2010

9th Judgment by James Patterson and Maxine Paetro, and read on audio by Carolyn McCormick, begins with the murders of a mother and her young infant.  It’s clear that Lindsay and the other members of the Women’s Murder Club are in for a rough ride this time around.  McCormick does an excellent job providing different [...]

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Mini Shopaholic by Sophie Kinsella

December 3, 2010

Sophie Kinsella has become a chicklit icon with her shopaholic series, but after five books what could be left to hold readers’ interest?  Rebecca Brandon (nee Bloomwood) is back in Mini Shopaholic, credit cards in hand, and white lies streaming from her lips.  However, instead of simply facing rising debt, she must learn to deal [...]

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The Short Second Life of Bree Tanner by Stephenie Meyer

August 19, 2010

Stephenie Meyer‘s The Short Second Life of Bree Tanner is a short novella that takes a glimpse at the other side of vampirism . . . the darker side.  Written as a companion to the Eclipse novel and the release of the movie, readers will experience what it truly is to be a newborn vampire, [...]

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