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 [...]
Michael Schofield’s nonfiction account of his daughter’s schizophrenia has similar appeal to titles that have drawn teen readers in the past. Think Girl, Interrupted by Susanna Kaysen, Prozac Nation by Elizabeth Wurtzel, A Beautiful Mind by Sylvia Nasar and perhaps especially Beautiful Boy: A Father’s Journey Through His Son’s Addiction by David Scheff. Next week I will [...]
Bryan Mealer’s exploration of football and poverty in one small Florida town brings to mind other books about high school sports, such as Friday Night Lights and Michael D’Orso’s Eagle Blue. You probably know Mealer’s previous work, even if you don’t recognize the name. He wrote The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind with William Kamkwamba, [...]
Tom Reiss’s childhood fascination with the novels of Alexandre Dumas led him to read Dumas’s memoirs. He was blown away by the superhero-like adventures of Dumas’s father and determined to uncover his larger-than-life story. In an interview with CBS News, Reiss states, “As an equal fan of history, superheroes, and adventure stories, I was enthralled.” Why [...]
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