Two passionate nonfiction books top our week. Just Mercy is a memoir by Bryan Stevenson, a lawyer and activist, which focuses on his work as a co-founder of the Equal Justice Initiative–”a private, nonprofit 501(c)(3) organization that provides legal representation to indigent defendants and prisoners who have been denied fair and just treatment in the legal [...]
Need I say more? I’m not sure I need to. We all know that teens love humorous books, and both of these also fall in the category of books that are very fun to browse through. Brief excerpts from Poehler’s book are available from her NPR interview, and NPH’s website offers a nice intro to the [...]
It’s the end of August, and we still have quite a few reviews of summer books to share with you. So don’t let this somewhat clumsy grouping at all diminish your regard for the following three debut novels. I start with 2 A.M. at The Cat’s Pajamas because, well, great title! And it really does [...]
Today we look at two books that take very different looks at the dark secrets we keep. In Bittersweet, Miranda Beverly-Whittemore’s plays up the skeletons in the closets of the wealthy Winslow family for fun and entertainment: as a young college student begins to uncover the secrets of her new roommate’s family, the tone turns [...]
I feel like we’re in the middle of a 6-part series on science fiction here on AB4T, but there really was no intention behind it. These are the books and reviews in front of us! Today I present The Martian. I think Andy Weir and Crown Books must have the luck of the Gods. Thanks to [...]
Two highly recommended historical novels today. I Shall Be Near to You is, at its heart, a compelling love story. It features a strong heroine, so in love with her husband that she disguises herself as a man to accompany him into the horrors of the Civil War. I’m afraid its cover art may limit the [...]
Gah! The end of the year approaches, and we still have several 2013 titles to recommend, so forgive me if today’s novels are a bit less thematically similar than usual. With that said, all three of today’s novels take us to some very dark corners of teen life. In Save Yourself, we are introduced to [...]
Today we review three very different novels about families, none of them easy. The families, that is! Koren Zailckas is well-known for her memoir Smashed: Story of a Drunken Girlhood (Viking, 2005). Mother, Mother is her first novel, and it introduces a doozy of a family dynamic. The story includes elements of suspense, psychological thriller and [...]
Our first review today is an account of the happenings at Memorial Hospital in New Orleans during the five days after Hurricane Katrina. I will let you read the review for the details, but keep in mind that not only is this a compelling survival story, it is also a model of great and exhaustive [...]
I’m very excited to introduce today’s novels, all three centered on emotionally damaged young women, and two of which are debuts that earn starred reviews from us. I read the two debuts–Panopticon and Lotería–in short succession, about a month ago, and I’m hard pressed to say which I’m more excited about–both introduce readers to ferocious new talents [...]
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