Tag: review

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Review: How to Read Now by Elaine Castillo

A square crop of the front cover of How to Read Now by Elaine Castillo.

The problem is, if we need fiction to teach us empathy, we don’t really have empathy, because empathy is not a one-stop destination; it’s a practice, ongoing, which requires work from us in our daily lives–not just when we’re confronted with the visibly and legibly Other. Not just when a particularly gifted author has managed to make a community’s story come alive for the reader who’s come for a quick zoo visit, always remaining on her side of the cage.

page 30, How to Read Now by Elaine Castillo
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Review: Red City by Marie Lu

A square crop of the front cover of Red City by Marie Lu.

They say that trees that grow against cliffsides are tortured, seeds brought there on a wayward breeze and forced to put down roots into stone and salt. They must twist their trunks up at an unnatural angle to accommodate the doomed circumstances they’d been given at birth. Yet they still fight to survive, contort themselves to stretch their branches up to the sun. They grow and grow sideways like this until the day a storm finally tears their bodies apart. And yet, hadn’t they lived wild and free? Weren’t they happy, when they were here? ​

Can’t we be? ​
Are we still two kids who need each other? ​
All I think about is you. ​You are my beginning and end.

page 418, Red City by Marie Lu
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Review: Alchemy of Secrets by Stephanie Garber

“By now, I’m sure many of you have tried to find the devil at a hotel bar, and I probably should have said this before: Be very careful. Hollywood was not built on dreams, it was built on favors from the devil, and the devil does not handle it well when those favors aren’t paid back.”

page 36, Alchemy of Secrets by Stephanie Garber
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Review: The God of the Woods by Liz Moore

A square crop of the front cover of The God of the Woods by Liz Moore.

There was a particular brand of humor employed by twelve and thirteen-year-old girls, especially when they weren’t in the presence of boys: it was at once disgusting and innocent, bawdy and naive. When it wasn’t being used for ill–when no one was its target–this type of humor delighted Louise. From the wall, she watched them quietly, fondly, recalling what it was like to be in this moment of life that was like a breath before speech, a last sweet pause before some great unveiling.

Part 1: Barbara, The God of the Woods by Liz Moore
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