Borderline Mishell Baker Saga Press Release Date: March 1, 2016 ISBN 978-1-4814-5306-6 How to write a kick ass novel: 1) Create a main character that is flawed but grudgingly admirable; maybe have her be a double amputee due to a botched suicide attempt that puts her in a psychiatric center. Give her a diagnosed borderline [….]
LitStack Review: Everything I Never Told You by Celeste Ng
Published on :Everything I Never Told You Celeste Ng The Penguin Press Release Date: June 26, 2014 ISBN 978-1-59420-571-2 It absolutely slays me when debut novels are this good. Everything I Never Told You is the story of a family dealing with a tragic loss. It’s 1977 in Middlewood, Ohio, and Lydia Lee – the bright, outwardly [….]
LitStack Review: Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage by Haruki Murakami
Published on :Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage Haruki Murakami Translated by Philip Gabriel Alfred A. Knopf Publication Date: August 12, 2014 ISBN 978-0-385-35210-9 Once upon a time, there were five very close friends who attended public high school in Nagoya, Japan – three boys and two girls. They did everything together: volunteer work at [….]
LitStack Review: Little Wolves by Thomas Maltman
Published on :Little Wolves Thomas Maltman Soho Press, Inc. Release Date: January 8, 2013 ISBN 978-1-61695-190-0 You read it in the headlines for a few days; it crops up on the newsfeeds. A troubled youngster with a checkered past snaps, killing someone else and then himself and it’s so sad, so sad. When it happens in a [….]
LitStack Review: A Tale for the Time Being by Ruth Ozeki
Published on :A Tale for the Time Being Ruth Ozeki Penguin Books Release Date: December 31, 2013 ISBN: 978-0-670-02663-0 It’s both easy and difficult to describe Ruth Ozeki’s contemporary novel, A Tale for the Time Being. It’s easy to give a simple synopsis: when a tin lunchbox containing a Japanese schoolgirl’s diary from years earlier washes up [….]
LitStack Review: Oddly Normal by John Schwartz
Published on :Oddly Normal: One Family’s Struggle to Help Their Teenage Son Come to Terms with His Sexuality John Schwartz Penguin Group (USA) LLC Release Date: November 8, 2012 ISBN: 978-15-924-0728-6 John Schwartz, national correspondent for The New York Times, is also the father of three children. His youngest, Joseph, was intelligent with an amazing grasp of [….]
LitStack Review: The Cuckoo’s Calling by Robert Galbraith (J.K. Rowling)
Published on :The Cuckoo’s Calling Robert Galbraith Mulholland Books Release Date: April 30, 2013 ISBN 978-0-316-20684-6 I’ll admit it – I’m one of those superficial ne’r-do-wells who would not have read The Cuckoo’s Calling if word hadn’t gotten out that author Robert Galbraith was really J.K. Rowling (of the “Harry Potter” books franchise) using a pseudonym. Due [….]
Gimbling in the Wabe – Kurt Vonnegut and Other Little Streams of Consciousness
Published on :A poster has adorned a room in my house ever since it first served as a nursery for my newborn son. Printed over a picture of a gaggle of babies is this Kurt Vonnegut quote from God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater: Hello, babies. Welcome to Earth. It’s hot in the summer and cold in the [….]
Ordinary Grace by William Kent Krueger
Published on :Ordinary Grace William Kent Krueger Atria Books Publication Date: March 26, 2013 ISBN 978-1-4516-4582-8 I have a confession to make. I had ulterior motives when reading William Kent Krueger‘s novel, Ordinary Grace. I felt compelled to read this book, and share it if it bore out being as good as I assumed it would be. [….]
LitStack Review: Butter by Anne Panning
Published on :Butter Anne Panning Switchgrass Books First Edition: October 15, 2012 ISBN 978-0-87580-681-5 We usually think of nostalgia as a sentimental warm fuzzy feeling, a wistful desire to return back to what was, when – true or not – things seemed to have been simpler, and “better.” What is so marvelous with Anne Panning’s novel, Butter, [….]