Book Reviews

I’m doing this thing where I’m reading debuts. I’m doing it because I’m trying to write my own first novel, and it seems like a good idea to read the first novels of other people. You know, the novels of people …

I’m having a serious like-dislike relationship with Amor Towles’s A Gentleman in Moscow. While I really loved parts of it, there were parts I really disliked too. A Gentleman in Moscow begins in post-WWI Russia. It opens in a courtroom, …

Let me preface this review by saying this: I am not exactly a science fiction girl. That doesn’t mean I dislike it – it’s just not something I read on a regular basis. So, when I saw this book in …

I’ve been meaning to read The Boys in the Boat: Nine Americans and Their Epic Quest for Gold at the 1936 Berlin Olympics by Daniel James Brown since it came out in 2013. My students have been loving both the young …

In a story that’s at once sprawling and hyper-local, Anna Quindlen renders an immensely likable main character. Our narrator is a girl, bound-and-determined to both hold on to the dearest things, and to shake off the oppressive habits of her family’s …

Early in my teaching career, Meg Cabot wrote The Princess Diaries series for tweens and teens. The books are about a New York City teenager with frizzy hair and big feet who’s minding her own business when she learns she’s royalty. …

The Oxford English Dictionary (OED) has long been criticized for being pretentious and elitist with a touch of sexism. But it has also been praised and continues to be praised as one of the most significant publications in history. Dictionaries …

Where to begin?! I absolutely adored this book. It’s full of interesting women, clever observations, and examines important issues regarding women in the 1950s. I had never heard of it before, and read it completely on a whim when it …

I blame Little House on the Prairie for my interest in fiction about settlers and the West. There’s something about that era in American history that I love…something about surviving on the land and caring about things that were truly …

You probably know that Oprah Winfrey picked The Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead for her book club in September. For some readers, Oprah’s attention is a deterrent, but not for me. From Charles Dickens to Jane Hamilton, a lot of my favorites are …