The Colony by Audrey Magee My rating: 5 of 5 stars This book was so wonderfully written. Magee’s style of dialogue somehow emphasizes the lilt of this Irish dialect and the tension between the characters. Other critiques have said it’s about art and war but I think it’s about voice — young James and the […]

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Coming Họmẹ by Tu Vuong My rating: 4 of 5 stars When I read poetry, I try to let it sort of wash over me like rain, because to capture all of the nuance in meaning at once isn’t possible at the first read. I admire Tu’s ambition of trying to create an arc to […]

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The Design of Everyday Things by Donald A. Norman My rating: 4 of 5 stars It’s dry — but if you let ideas percolate, rather than racing to finish it, I think almost everyone would find the intersections of engineering and design really useful to their work. Things I will take away: the product needs […]

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The Centaur’s Wife by Amanda Leduc My rating: 4 of 5 stars This book must have been like a difficult birth as it was so ethereally emotional for me to read, that I can’t begin to understand what it would have been like to write. I find it really hard to read anything dystopian in […]

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The Wild by Owen Laukkanen My rating: 4 of 5 stars There’s something about this book that makes me think I’ve read it before. We don’t get deep into main character Dawn’s history before she’s thrown into The Wild, a camp to rehabilitate young people into conforming with society’s standards. Dawn’s story is a familiar […]

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Zara Hossain Is Here by Sabina Khan My rating: 4 of 5 stars I really liked this book. I found that Zara’s story was compelling as it was told in first person (without any competing voices) and it flowed through to its conclusion in a present tense, chronological order. I think it would be a […]

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Don’t Breathe a Word by Jordyn Taylor My rating: 5 of 5 stars I really enjoyed this book! The pace was fine at the beginning, but when Erik entered Eva’s story, I couldn’t put it down. It reads like a grown-up Trixie Belden — sneaking around a private school, having teen morals tested in two […]

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Blood Like Magic by Liselle Sambury My rating: 5 of 5 stars Having read some really strong female BIPOC fantasy lately, Tomi Adeyemi Cherie Dimaline Jael Richardson I was immediately skeptical about how much I would enjoy this, but I loved it. It was filled with diverse characters and real settings in Toronto without being […]

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The Forest of Stolen Girls by June Hur My rating: 5 of 5 stars After reading June Hur’s The Silence of Bones last year, I was eager to see what her newest novel would bring. Hur has a way of embedding the reader into her setting that allows you to fully immerse yourself in the […]

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A History of What Comes Next by Sylvain Neuvel My rating: 5 of 5 stars A revisionist historical fiction with a scifi twist…I’m worried about giving away spoilers before you’ve read it. Let’s just say that Sylvain Neuvel handles multiple time periods, and voices, with panache, in a way I’ve rarely seen before. At first […]

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Apocalypse Kitchen by Jen Mt. Pleasant My rating: 4 of 5 stars I can’t wait to try out the recipes! Jen has some whacky treasures of how to save and preserve food for an apocalypse. I particularly enjoyed the section on proteins. She also has a taste for spicier stuff than I usually go for. […]

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He Must Like You by Danielle Younge-Ullman My rating: 3 of 5 stars Caution spoilers ahead! I realize that last year’s Danielle Younge-Ullman book Everything Beautiful Is Not Ruined was stellar….like I gave it 10 out of 10 and it was in my top 3 of the year. So I had high hopes for He […]

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Rescue Me by Anne Shillolo My rating: 5 of 5 stars Shillolo manages to develop her 3 main characters really well in just 150 pages. Rescue Me is a great title for the ‘me’ refers to each of the narrating voices, and also the polar bears that they seek to save through their protest actions […]

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