Today I'd like to talk about a little change that will be happening with how I review books in 2020. A few months ago I read Dear Fahrenheit 451 by Annie Spence, which is a book of letters this librarian wrote to books she read over the years. In the spirit of this book, I wrote my …
THE BIG SHORT by Michael Lewis | Review
As an English major, I’ve never much been a person interested in economics. Economics has always perplexed me as a subject, with its ever-expanding jargon and web of theories (says the current law student…). But at a certain point I acknowledged that I should probably at least have a vague idea of certain economic-related topics …
THE PRINCESS DIARIES by Meg Cabot | Review
It's confession time, folks: I am twenty-two years old and this summer was my first time reading The Princess Diaries by Meg Cabot. Now, some of you may be thinking, Well, Holly, that's not so bad. But it gets worse: before reading this book I had only ever seen the second Princess Diaries movie, not even the first one. *cue gasps …
Continue reading "THE PRINCESS DIARIES by Meg Cabot | Review"
THE SILMARILLION by J.R.R. Tolkien | Review
I did it: after of years of it taunting me from my bookshelf, I finally got around to reading The Silmarillion by J.R.R. Tolkien. I had the pleasure of buddy reading it with Mary Drover, which was a lot of fun. To be honest, I was a little intimidated by this book at first, so reading it alongside another …
Continue reading "THE SILMARILLION by J.R.R. Tolkien | Review"
UNCLE TOM’S CABIN by Harriet Beecher Stowe | Review
"The narrative drive of Stowe's classic novel is often overlooked in the heat of the controversies surrounding its anti-slavery sentiments. In fact, it is a compelling adventure story with richly drawn characters and has earned a place in both literary and American history. Stowe's puritanical religious beliefs show up in the novel's final, overarching theme—the …
Continue reading "UNCLE TOM’S CABIN by Harriet Beecher Stowe | Review"
THE WOMAN IN WHITE by Wilkie Collins | Review
Wilkie Collins is commonly known as a master of Victorian sensationalist fiction whose work has greatly influenced what we now know as detective and mystery genres of literature. The Woman in White was published as a full novel in 1860 after having been an extremely popular serialized publication from November 1859 to August 1860. Collins' clever …
Continue reading "THE WOMAN IN WHITE by Wilkie Collins | Review"
TUCK EVERLASTING by Natalie Babbitt | Review
I never realized how many popular children’s books I neglected to read when I was younger until I started talking about them with my friends one day. This led me to read books like Matilda by Roald Dahl and Flipped by Wendelin Van Draanen in the midst of all my required summer reading to take …
Continue reading "TUCK EVERLASTING by Natalie Babbitt | Review"
MIDDLEMARCH by George Eliot | Review
George Eliot’s classic novel Middlemarch has been on my bibliophilic radar for years, though I never found time to read it until it appeared on one of my required reading lists for Oxford. I once had a professor who described Middlemarch as being a “smarter Pride and Prejudice.” This comment immediately intrigued me. What did …
BLUE LILY, LILY BLUE by Maggie Stiefvater
“Blue was perfectly aware that it was possible to have a friendship that wasn’t all-encompassing, that wasn’t blinding, deafening, maddening, quickening. It was just that now that she’d had this kind, she didn’t want the other.” How Blue feels about her friendships with the Raven Boys is similar to the way I feel about reading …
Continue reading "BLUE LILY, LILY BLUE by Maggie Stiefvater"
THE STARBOARD SEA by Amber Dermont
“Bellingham Academy: everything you always wanted in a prep school and less.” Boarding schools have always been a setting that immediately intrigues and captivates me. Generally, young adult literature is criticized for its lack of adult or parental figures, primarily because it doesn’t accurately reflect life as an adolescent. Sure, teenagers may feel as though …
