Every once in a while I like a good psychological thriller. And, well what season is better than now? The light is turning that haloed orange, there is a hint of bitter chill in the evening air, and the night is getting darker, spookier....but I digress. If you liked Gillian Flynn's Gone Girl, then this is your jam. It is slow moving at first, and spins a pyschological drama so solid, you get sucked into a reality in which you can't tell truth from fiction. A very classic thriller with a Hitchcock-like ending that leaves you satisfied and feeling kind of old-fashioned. Guaranteed to keep you reading late into the Autmnal darkness.
-Ms. Carlile The Woman in the Window by A.J. Finn William Morrow, 2018
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This incredible book is both a documentary style narrative and graphic novel in one. It details the fight of the San Carlos Apache Tribe to save their sacred site Oak Flat from destruction by a private company called Resolution Copper that wants to build a copper mine. The author Lauren Redniss details this fight through focusing on one Apache family involved in the fight and most intimately on the young 16 year old daughter of this family who eloquently and passionately speaks out to save this place that has been a part of her people's cultural and religious practices for generations. She parallels the history and voices of a white local pro-mine family. The result is a dispassionate comparison of the devastation wrought on both parties by the previous mines revealed not through the author's morality but by the words of the people who have experienced it. It is up to the reader to decide where she stands. The author's voice is expressed silently through her vivid and ethereal drawings that are heavily interspersed throughout the book. Poetic, tragic, and thought-provoking. Highly recommend.
-Ms. Carlile Oak Flat: A Fight for Sacred Land in the American West By Lauren Redniss Random House, NY 2020 I went into this thinking--really another book on the Civil War? What is there new to say? I've even read books on a single month of the war, but i was happily surprised that I trusted my gift giver and read this book. This book is a great example of "tell me something I know, but in a better way". Sketches of Grant, Lee, Sherman in just a few pages, bring them to life in a way that I will think about them forever after. there is a momentum and excitement to what will happen next, even though I know the ending already. The author does kind of make a huge deal about the stakes of Lincoln's re-election for about 150 pages and then wraps it up in two paragraphs, so that was kind of weird, and it gets kind of rushed at the end, but my guess is any Civil War history rookie or veteran is going to be as glad as I was to spend time in very sure hands.
-Kibby Kleiman Hymns of the Republic By S.C. Gwynne Scribner, 2019 The Subtle Knife is a sequel to The Golden Compass. It is about Lyra and her new friends Will and their journey in between the worlds. This book blew me away. It was so cool how Philip Pullman was able to create multiple worlds and have his characters travel through them in different parts of the book and have me not be confused at all. It was also very cool to see how different this book was in comparison to the first book. At times they can feel like completely different stories, but they blend together very nicely.
-Mikayla The Subtle Knife by Philip Pullman Knopff Books, 1997 The Golden Compass is about a girl named Lyra and how she discovers the world is not what she was raised to think it is. After the kidnapping of her friend, Lyra begins her journey where she learns just how manipulative and cruel the world can be. This book was really cool. Philip Pullman is very good at making what seems like a simple plot so enticing to read. The development of the world and all of the characters was absolutely amazing.
-Mikayla The Golden Compass by Philip Pullman Knoppf Books, 1996 Caraval is about a girl named Scarlett who goes to a magical performance called Caraval with her sister Tella. It's all fun and games until her sister is kidnapped by the organizer of Caraval. I really enjoyed this book. It is probably one of my favorite books that I have read in awhile. There were lots of twists and turns that I didn't expect. Overall, it was an absolutely insane journey.
-Mikayla Caraval by Stephanie Garber Flatiron Books, 2017 This book is gut tearing and beautiful. It is written in the form of a letter to the author's mother even though she can't read in English. It is hard to say what the genre is, it is a cross between memoir and poetry. Vuong tells of his life as the son of a survivor of generational trauma from the war in Vietnam, as a gay man coming into his identity and the pain and longing of his first relationship. He tells of growing up in a world where hostility is the norm and his mother works herself to the bone. This is a love story and a survival story. Vuong's writing is incredible beauty at it's most dark and vunerable. Highly recommended.
-Ms. Carlile On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous By Ocean Vuong Penguin press, 2019 The Help is a fascinating novel based on three women in the 1960s experiencing different challenges and opportunities. I love this book because I learned what maids had to face and how they overcame the barriers. It is very realistic and I loved imagining the scenes.
-Maricela The Help by Kathryn Stockett Aimy Einhorn Books, 2009 The Perks of Being a Wallflower is a coming-of-age story about a high school freshman named Charlie who's trying very hard to keep it together in the new world he's found himself in. This book takes the form of letters written to a stranger at different points in Charlie's freshman year. The problems addressed in the book come from a very legitimately teenage perspective, devoid of adult judgement or censorship. Charlie speaks honestly about how he views any given situation and how new experiences overwhelm and excite him, especially the adventures he finds himself going on with a group of seniors who become his closest friends. Despite Charlie often not understanding things and seemingly being much more innocent than his friends, it is not met with ridicule, but with celebration. He is deemed a "wallflower", but is in truth a deeply complex character who aches to understand his own mind and connect with others. Charlie's strange thoughts, inner turmoil, and fierce love of his friends are things that teenagers can easily connect to and which form a strong base for the story that the reader is led through.
- Lily J. The Perks of Being a Wallflower By: Stephen Chbosky Pocket Books, 1999 This is the incredible story of Doaa Al Zamel, a Syrian refugee who survived for four days floating on the Mediterranean sea atop an inner tube with two babies clutched to her chest. I loved how this book tells about her life before the war: who she was, what her life was like as a young woman living in Aleppo, what her dreams and hopes were. It then details her perilous journey she made aboard a smugglers boat that sinks, killing all but ten people. It made me really picture how a war can disrupt normal life and it gave a human face and story to the suffering of the Syrian people. It's easy to ignore other peoples suffering if we don't see the personal side. -Ms. Carlile A Hope More Powerful Than the Sea By: Doaa Al Zamel as told to Melissa Fleming 2017, Flatiron Books |
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October 2021
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