Required Reading

Earlier this year, I got a friend request on myspace from author Cynthia Leitich Smith, advertising her new YA urban gothic fantasy Tantalize. I made a mental note to check out the book. Then, while flipping through the pages of my sorority magazine, the Adelphean, I saw Cynthia’s name. “Hey,” I thought to myself, “That [...]

Last year, I read and enjoyed Cornelia Funke’s Inkheart. I saw The Thief Lord in a teacher’s classroom last week, and I decided to pick it up. It read very quickly–it’s shorter and less dense than Inkheart–and it was an enjoyable story, but it didn’t nearly captivate me in the way that Inkheart did. The [...]

As you may know, I was very much looking forward to reading Laurie Halse Anderson’s new novel, Twisted. It was worth the wait, and it did not disappoint. I first encountered LHA’s work when I was a student teacher at a Catholic high school. My cooperating teacher had selected Speak as her monthly book club [...]

I read the first two books in the Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants series last year, and enjoyed them more than I thought I would. When I saw that the fourth book was coming out early this year, I realized that I hadn’t read the third…so it was off to the library for me! I [...]

You might want to avoid eating or drinking anything while reading Adam Selzer’s debut novel, so as to avoid spraying food or drink all over the book’s pages. It’s just that funny. Don’t say I didn’t warn you. “How to Get Suspended” is the story of Leon Harris, a “gifted and talented” eighth grader who [...]

The reviews of Daria Snadowsky’s first novel, Anatomy of a Boyfriend, were so overwhelmingly positive that I looked forward to reading it. Reviewers had compared it to Judy Blume’s Forever (a book that I’ve never actually read, but I’m certainly familiar with it) and the author had cited Blume as her inspiration. Here’s a quick [...]

A very enjoyable read in the teen chicklit genre. Apparently, it’s the third in the LBD series. I didn’t suffer for not having read the first two, but I enjoyed the author’s voice enough to be interested in going back and reading the others. One thing I took note of…the author fabricated all pop culture [...]

I wandered into a bookstore over the weekend, and this caught my attention. It’s a YA novel, dealing with the typical high school stuff–popularity and such. And it had an intriguing premise…suggesting that maybe the school’s popular crowd actually gained their popularity through forces not of this world. Unfortunately, the follow-through was disappointing. I didn’t [...]