What makes Groskop’s memoir so solidly readable is the finesse with which she interweaves the histories, with the novels, with her life and experiences both in Russia and out of Russia. The memoir will make you want visit a country-side dacha, brew some chay, and chat with your babushka about who you are and the history of your people. Zamechatel'na!
To get the full value of joy, you should have someone to divide it with. ~ Mark Twain
Teddy must learn who she can trust; can she trust herself and her abilities? what about the rest of the Misfits? her teachers? It’s also darker, having graduated from the young adult feel of Harry Potter to the decidedly troubled times in which many middle-twenty-somethings find themselves.
Some stories are more like vignettes - short, succinct, to the point - while others develop into longer tellings. Both types - the vignettes and the longer stories - follow characters who seem at their most bleak. But Johnson does more than let them wallow; he explores the depth of the bleakness, the weight of it, and the heft it takes to get out.
Amy Bloom's first foray into creative historical nonfiction with White Houses is nicely done. With an intimate look into the lives of Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt, Bloom manages to build a story about the things that were often left unsaid through her narrator Lorena Hickok.
Holly Black has done an exceptional job with world building, taking standard tropes in faerie tales and putting her particular spin on things with "The Cruel Prince," the first in a new series from Black, who is a seasoned writer of lore. I stayed intrigued by the story, compelled to continue reading how a mundane-born... Continue Reading →
shelly. walston. writes. 