I have been a Kingsolver devotee since 1988's 'The Bean Trees', have read everything she has published and have attended two book readings. It follows that anytime she publishes a new work I am immediately on it. While she has an incredibly wide-ranging ability to create memorable characters from Taylor Greer to the Poisonwood Bible daughters to Dellarobia Turnbow, this title character is without a doubt the most jarring. Kingsolver is back to her Appalachian roots in this first-person saga of Damon who is a victim of the inept foster system and his own resulting bad choices. I vacillated between heartbreak for the cascading tragedies he suffers and yelling at the page, "What are you doing???" In Kingsolver's talented hands we move back and forth between rooting for this broken child and disliking the person he becomes. I found it to be her grittiest novel and it took me some time to adapt to the language, yet it was completely necessary for Damon to tell his tale. (If you have not read Dickens' David Copperfield take a few minutes to go online for the synopsis and character summaries.) Even as she forced me to step outside my long-standing expectations of her novels, Kingsolver remains my literary hero.

I enjoyed this book a lot. A lot. I saw the movie first. At that time, I didn't even know it was a book. I enjoy this story a lot. I like the time hopping of seaming two different stories that merge into one.

What I loved the most, was how descriptive this book is. Beautifully descriptive.

When I finished the book and I read some of the negative reviews because I wanted to know what people didn't like about the book. While yes, some of the characters don't seem realistic or act overly cheesy, to me, that didn't bother me. I didn't think about those things while listening, because I was so enamored by the story.

I'd highly recommend listening to the book. Cassandra Campbell is a phenomenal voice actor.

There were some parts that were a little triggering (domestic violence and sexual assault), but thankfully I knew they were coming because I saw the movie, and those scenes didn't last long.

Wow. I could not put this book down. It was so action packed, I really enjoyed the character development, the twists. One of those books that leaves your mind spinning and you’re so wrapped up in the world you’re not sure how to move on to another book. I’m surprised all this was able to be done so well in a singular novel. But the pacing felt great and there wasn’t anything I was left wanting from the book. Were there any character flaws or plot holes? I mean sure but nothing that was so noticeable to me that it deterred my enjoyment while reading. Definitely one of my favorite YA novels.

I really enjoyed this read! Going back and forth from when the characters were younger to the present kept my brain working and eager to want to know what was going to happen in each timeline. I definitely cried a few times but the ending was so cute.

I absolutely loved this book! I loved the plot and the way it kept me wanting to know more and more. The characters are high schoolers and it follows them through some parts of their daily life, which I found to be somewhat relatable. One of the characters also struggles with mental health which is an important topic to acknowledge and the book does a wonderful job of carefully shining a light on the topic. Overall, I really enjoyed the storyline and definitely recommend this to anyone looking for something new and easy to read! It’s probably one of my favorites right now.

I love this book! The fault in our stars is a book that really tugs at the reader’s heart strings. The book starts off with a 16 year old named Hazel Grace meets a cancer survivor, Augustus Waters. Hazel and Augustus begin to fall in love, but they don’t want to share their feelings with one another. Throughout the novel, Hazel and Augustus share many similarities (an example being their favorite book and favorite author). This romance story is on another level. It’s heartbreaking and astonishing at the same time. Every time I turned the page, I did not want the story to end. The entire story is so well composed and the writing is absolutely breathtaking. John Green did such and amazing job writing this beautiful tale, you really feel like you’re in the story. The challenges and hardships Hazel and Augustus face lead them to new and better horizons. The Fault in Our Stars is an incredible romance novel that everyone should read one day. From the storyline to the imagery, this story is the best romance novel in my book.

Tiny Pretty Things surrounds an exclusive ballet school in Manhattan, where three prima ballerinas struggle for the top. There's Bette, whos been the star of the studio ever since one of her competitors had a mysterious fall. There's June, a half-Korean dancer that struggles to keep her weight down and head high as her mother threatens to pull her out of the studio. And finally, there's Gigi, a newcomer and the only black dancer in her level. When Gigi lands the star role, the jealousies and insecurities of these girls will pull them deeper and deeper into corruption and rage, until one of them crosses a line they can't return from.
The writing of this book is really what propels it to the top. I have never had that much passion or interest for ballet, but this book seems to seep love for it. The description of dancing from many of the girls make it seem as though they are dancing in your room. You can almost feel the lightness of the steps, the satisfaction in perfect movements. The prose makes you feel as if you are flying alongside the dancers. However, it isn't a blind adoration, which only makes the book more interesting. The girls are told to keep their weight up but pressured by their instructor to stay as low as possible. They are sexualized by the people around them and by themselves in attempts to be the perfectly beautiful ballerina. There are racial stigmas, as the book describes how ballet adores the completely white stage, "ballet blanc", which includes the dancers themselves. The Asian girls are often shoved into roles that are "Oriental," and Gigi worries about how she stands out on the stage. In short, the story shows all the beauty of ballet, while acknowledging the harmful obsession with beauty and whiteness that has plagued ballet for centuries. The characters of the book are also fantastic. I love how so many of them are deeply unlikeable, but we get to see the reasons that they fight so hard for ballet. No one is completely perfect. Absolutely no one is blameless. Their actions impact each other in so many different directions, and the levels of miscommunication and tragedy make the drama nearly Shakespearean. In particular, I love the attention given to June, and how she was allowed to devolve despite sympathetic beginnings. Over and over the reader believes that she is going to be redeemed, but she just gets worst, and it tears you apart. I also enjoyed how the author went in-depth to the imposter syndrome that June experiences as a mixed Asian, which is very accurate.
However, this book does have a lot of problems. For one, the girls in this book are sixteen. That doesn't come through at all. I could see how the book is trying to show how ballet's sexualization and pressure causes these girls to mature before their time, but its just really weird reading about kids that are younger than me going clubbing and sleeping around and trying to destroy each other via psychological warfare. Again, this might be intentional, but it makes these girls seem like even worse people. I could see adults in careers doing this, but I don't thing juniors in high school would go this insane over one role. Furthermore, while the main three get excellent backstory and reflection, a lot of the other kids do not. One girls whole motivation for hating and horrifically bullying another girl is that the bully tried to kiss the girl once and now the bully is worried that the other girl will out her. This is stupid for a lot of reasons, mostly because I don't know why someone would antagonize someone that has potential black mail on them. A lot of the margin characters in this book are pretty underdeveloped and have bad motivations for doing pretty horrible things, which makes them look pretty stupid at best and plain cruel at worst. Finally, I wish Gigi had been a bit of a worse person. It would've rounded out the three girls as all being flawed people, and it would've given catharsis for a lot of the horrible things Gigi endures because of the other girls. Instead, she doesn't do anything wrong, and I spend the entire book being so mad at what was happening to her to the point where I lost a lot of sympathy for the other girls and their problems. I think it would've been amazing if Gigi had been allowed to become more corrupted by all the jealousy and cruelties around her, and had to fight her way back to the good person that she's always been. Instead, she barely changes besides becoming more and more beaten down by the things that are done to her, which gets frustrating.
All in all, this was a very well written book with a tight plot and great characters. It just had problems with the side characters and some overwrought drama. I would recommend this book to anyone who is interested in ballet, revenge, tragedy, and some excellent twists!
Reviewer Grade: 12

Until this book, I had not read anything that had impacted me this much. It was an absolutely heart wrenching book that was so beautifully written and was overall amazing. I love books that touch on the dark and uncomfortable parts of life and the human experience that aren't talked about very often and this is one of those types of books (check the trigger warnings before reading it because there are a lot of tough subjects in it).
A Little Life follows a man named Jude throughout his whole life. It focuses mainly on him and his friends when they met in college and follows them beyond, well into adulthood. It has flashbacks to Jude's childhood and the trauma he went through and how he coped with that trauma and how his relationships were affected. It has a strong message about friendship and has underlying themes of dealing with grief and abuse along with other tough subjects. This is hands down the best book I have read in a long time. The characters were incredibly developed and they felt real, it was one of those types of books that took me a long time to recover from after I finished it because I felt so close to the characters and the story. Even though some of the topics covered in this book are tough and uncomfortable, they are important to talk about and I recommend this book to anyone who enjoys raw and slightly gut wrenching books.
Reviewer Grade: 11

When Anne finishes her schooling at Redmond, she decides to start a new life away from Green Gables. She finds herself in her tower room at Windy Poplars, befriending two old widows, Aunt Kate and Aunt Chatty. She arrives at Windy Poplars looking for a job. She gets one as the principal of Summerside High School. Anne is then made aware that she was not the person they wanted as the principal, but they couldn’t find anyone better. Over time, Anne also becomes friends with the housekeeper, Rebecca Dew. Anne loves her students, but she greatly misses her lover, Gilbert Blythe, who is currently in medical school. Anne of Windy Poplars is a book in the Anne Of Green Gables series. It was less interesting and active than the other books, but it had a decent plot. I am a person who likes action and drama, but this novel did not satisfy me. Contrasting to the other books in the series, it was very drawn out and not very suspenseful. It left me with the urge to not continue reading. I want a book that makes me want to read more and never stop, but this did not meet those expectations. The only reason I kept reading was to keep the series going. I finally finished the book, and I’m glad I did. The storylines following Anne of Windy Poplars were much more interesting, but the books later on had flashbacks and connections to it.

The Virgin Suicides is the elegy of the Lisbon girls, from the perspectives of the neighbors that are still haunted by them. The Lisbon family lives on a quaint suburban street in the Sun Belt, drenched in sunlight and white-washed shingles. Then one year, every Lisbon girl, starting with Cecilia and ending with Mary, commits suicide. This book is the observations and meditations of the boys across the street, the ones who loved them, who obsessed over them, who objectified them, and who watched them die one by one. The girls are doomed from the opening lines. The only question that remains is why they did it, and why our narrators can't let them go.
I read this book because I was told it was a staple of dark academia. It is not, no one here likes school. In reality, it is a treatise on girlhood, in all its insubstantial suffering. The first thing that struck me was the way the author sets the mood immediately. The entire book is dripping with malaise, the suffocating nature of sisterhood and parenthood on full display whenever the Lisbon house is described. The brief gasps of outside life are bright and crisp, while the references to the current day, middle-age life of the narrators is sad and listless. I wouldn't say this book is pleasant to read, but it is gripping in its complete commitment to its mood and setting. On that note, the choice of the author to tell the story entirely from outside perspectives was fascinating. The narrator is only described as "we", as the group of neighborhood boys who obsess over the girls in both childhood and adulthood. One conflict in the book is wondering if we are meant to sympathize with the boys who are scarred from the suicides, or see them as a commentary on the ways that the world seeks to capture and define teenage girls. I ended up seeing it as the latter, which likely made me view this book in better light than many of my peers. The boys actions always have an air of perversion about them, and at the end they seem to realize that all their breaches of privacy and decency have brought them no closer to understanding the girls. Another thing I liked about this book is the way that the girls are given a kind of privacy of thought from the narrators and the readers. Every attempt at scrutinizing their reasoning or emotions or motivations is always followed by a caveat. Nothing is certain with the Lisbon sisters, just the way nothing is every certain when we view the actions of others. The unknowability of their tight knit group gives them a dignity that their neighbors and community seem to want to violate constantly. This book is also a clear censure of suburbia. The neighbors try to do their best to help when they can, but still grumble amongst themselves about the Lisbon family leaving the leaves in their yard the fall after their youngest commits suicide. The great debutante balls and dances of the south are in full swing, but there is an undercurrent of corruption and distortion to the dancing and dating. The sexualization of the girls is also rampant, which, again, makes the book a lot harder to enjoy if you don't see it as a choice by the author in order to comment on it. In short, the suicide of the girls seems like a catharsis, a response to the disgusting and decaying world around them. Everyone around them represses their emotions, from their parents to the boys enraptured by them to their teachers to their peers. They are the only ones who get to set something free. The juxtaposition of the wailing EMTs to the quaint, straining neighborhood further demonstrates their freedom, even in their death.
This book did have problems. A lot of stuff is uncomfortable to read, even if viewed as a deliberate choice. The story often takes winding tangents that serve little purpose besides demonstrating the boredom and trivialities of suburban life. Still, the book is still a fantastic meditation on what its like to be a teenage girl, in all the wonderful and ghastly ways. I would recommend this book to anyone who is looking for good setting, shocking stories, and a good mystery to carry with them!
Reviewer Grade: 12