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Tag: Bloomsbury POSTS
Community and Poverty
We review two books today, both set in very specific communities overshadowed by poverty and tragedy. Let’s start with Men We Reaped, a memoir by Jesmyn Ward. Ward’s fierce, poetic debut novel, Salvage the Bones, won the National Book Award and a 2012 Alex Award. It follows a pregnant teenage girl and her family through […]
Weekly Reviews: The Ones that Got Away
You know what’s hard about managing a book review blog? Mailing away those books that you know you would love — if you only had the time. So today’s theme is books I wish I had kept for myself to review. (I’m only half joking!) First up, The Fort of Nine Towers. This book is a […]
Weekly Reviews: Postmodernism
Today we look at two examples of the postmodern novel. Postmodernism has gotten a bad rap–almost from the beginning–for being purposefully obscure, denying the existence of meaning, and encouraging moral relativism. But, while I concede that many postmodern works of art can be infuriatingly vague, for me at least the best postmodern novels (like the […]
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Weekly Reviews: Speculative Fiction
Today we review three thrillingly original works of speculative fiction. Let’s start with a post-apocalyptic, dystopian debut novel. The Office of Mercy is being marketed as a Hunger Games readalike. (I’ve also seen comparisons to recent Alex Award winner, Pure). However, debut author Djanikian is more concerned with ethical questions than fast-paced action. The Alphas had good intentions […]
Weekly Reviews: Crime
In this week’s reviews, we delve into three takes on the everlasting American obsession with crime and criminals. We start with Rob Deborde’s Portlandtown, which injects its paranormal underpinnings (and just “what is it with all this paranormal activity occurring in the Pacific Northwest?” asks reviewer Carla Riemer) with classic tropes from Western and Crime fiction […]
Midnight in Austenland
Shannon Hale’s first adult novel, Austenland (Bloomsbury, 2007) is a fast, fun romantic comedy, well-reviewed in SLJ’s Adult Books for High School Students column. In the sequel, we’re back in Pembrook Park resort with a new heroine, hoping for romance Darcy-style. Shannon Hale is well-known by younger readers for The Goose Girl, Princess Academy, and Book […]
Salvage the Bones
Mere days after Hurricane Irene swept up the east coast, Jesmyn Ward takes us back to Hurricane Katrina. The Paris Review published an interview with the author earlier this week, covering everything from the author’s experiences during Katrina, which impelled her to write Salvage the Bones, the novel’s links to mythology and poetry, and current […]
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