Category: Reviews

The Night Country by Melissa Albert

Posted May 27, 2022 in Reviews // 0 Comments

The Night Country was the dark fairytale I needed in my life right now. I’m a big fan of fairytale retellings, but Melissa Albert’s Hazel Wood universe is beyond a retelling. It’s her own collection of original Brother’s Grimm-worthy twisted fairytales and it is so good. It’s been a few years since I read The Hazel Wood and I had forgotten the chills from her world and the beauty of her writing and this novel was such a treat. Although The Night Country is advertised as a companion novel and not a sequel, it still features Alice as our protagonist. […]

Reading Lolita in Tehran: A Memoir in Books by Azar Nafisi

Posted May 16, 2022 in Reviews // 0 Comments

Reading Lolita in Tehran is a lot of different things. It is a memoir, it is a loose biography of the lives of several young women living in Iran during the Islamic republic. It is also a love letter to the author Henry James, as well as reflection on how fiction is a refuge in times of struggle. It took me a while to figure out what I wanted to get out of Reading Lolita in Tehran. As a memoir, I feel obliged to bear witness to the Nafisi’s experience as well as the realities of the world she lived […]

The Midnight Girls by Alicia Jasinska

Posted May 9, 2022 in Reviews // 0 Comments

I really, really wanted to like The Midnight Girls because I thought the magic/monster-driven concept at its center was wonderful. There are edges of fairytale to the story – the kind of fairytales that evoke gruesome images, not princesses and pumpkins. It’s not gory, but it is dark, and the trio of competing young women was compelling. Especially when we speak of stealing princes’s hearts… and not in the way you may think. That said, it felt Jasińska wasn’t quite sure what she wanted to do with the story at times – some scenes are powerfully written, but the threads […]

So Much to Do and So Little Time – My April 2022 Wrap Up

Posted May 2, 2022 in Reviews // 0 Comments

Good morning everyone! April went by so fast. Just me? I feel like I entered this month with so many plots and plans and suddenly it was April 29th and I was building my monthly touch base agendas for the month and now I’m writing this wrap up. When I really think about it, I believe April was more just busy than it was short (because, you know, all months are the same length give or take a couple days). If I didn’t have something going on over the weekend, it was a work event or dramatics during the week. […]

This is My America by Kim Johnson

Posted April 30, 2022 in Reviews // 0 Comments

This must have been such a challenging book for Johnson to write. There’s so much pain in it. Tracy is persistent, always has hope, but her story is a scenario filled with some good luck, people with a conscience, and the right people in the right places. Through This is My America, I kept thinking about how if even just one of these pieces slid out of place, things would have gone much differently. I suppose I should mention the foundation fundamentals of the book. This is My America creates a sympathetic cast of characters. Johnson’s writing keeps just on […]