There was a span of time in the early to mid-aughts where I would buy every man I was romantically interested in a copy of An Invisible Sign of My Own by Aimee Bender. I…
Posts tagged 2011 Books
Something in red
Hilary Jordan’s novel When She Woke is a modern day mashup of The Scarlet Letter and The Handmaid’s Tale. In this futuristic United States abortion has been banned because some weird STD called The Scourge…
My Favorite Reads of 2011
Just like many pop culture nerds, I too like to impost arbitrary rules on any list I make. I think it imbibes the list with some significance, importance, or something else that lists of crap…
Nobody sees the negative stereotypes
It’s ironic that a book about bullying can be so full of cruel, negative stereotypes that it verges on bullying itself. Lucky Linderman, the teenage protagonist of A.S. King’s young adult novel Everybody Sees the…
They just seem a little weird
After reading The Family Fang by Kevin Wilson I have come to the conclusion that I enjoy reading novels about art and artists entirely more than I enjoy art. To back up my argument I’d…
My American Uneasiness
Why are you unhappy? That’s the question thirty-something midwestern Zeke Pappas asks his subjects. He’s gathering answers for his magnum opus, a study of American Unhappiness. When the novel opens we’re nearly finished with the…
The naysayer
If you want to read another glowing review about the majesty and mystery of Craig Thompson’s much-awaited, much-ballyhooed new graphic novel Habibi, you should probably just skip this one. Before I get too far in…
The snooze
A few weeks ago I was having a discussion with Christa where I posited that big New York Publishers like books about New York where characters just wander around in their New Yorkness being all…
Humungous fungus among us
Hey, locals with kids (or fans of middle-grade books), Kurtis is going to be reading at the Wild Rumpus tomorrow at 1 p.m. You should go! What I like so much about reading Kurtis Scaletta’s…