Let's start with the bottom line: read this. [Or listen – narrator Adenrele Ojo is superb.] I guarantee this stupendously epic, unforgettably affecting story of Aminata Diallo will haunt you long after you finish. Born in 1745, Aminata is 11 when she's violently abducted from her...
Claire Danes, interestingly enough, narrates 1999 Pulitzer Prize-winning Michael Cunningham’s latest novel. The choice seems a bit odd as most of the narrative is from the point of view of two brothers. Still, Danes is good enough, if a little on the flat side. Perhaps...
Without a doubt, Kimberly McCreight's bestselling debut contains every parent's every nightmare, beginning with the absolute worst at the end of the first full chapter: "I'm sorry, Mrs. Baron. But your daughter, Amelia, is dead." Her 15-year-old body lies broken on the grounds of her posh private school...
Get ready: E. Lockhart's latest is apparently the young adult read of the summer. That John Green cover endorsement alone should sell endless copies. So when everyone is chattering about what happened, you're going to want to join in. An aging, wealthy, widowed patriarch spends his summers on a private...
As epigraphs go, Chris Bohjalian couldn't have chosen better (as if we would expect any less), not only for the words, but for the poet who originated the verses: "Before you know what kindness really is / you must lose things, / feel the future...
When her father dies, a girl and her mother's futures are forever altered. As a 14-year-old living in a 17th-century Persian village, she expected to be contentedly married, looking forward to starting her own family, not unlike her best friend who is already heavy with...
After years of keeping secrets, Rakhee Singh's "demons" have finally "clawed their way free." Without confronting what happened to her family that summer in India when she turned 11, she finds herself unable to embrace her future – her impending architecture degree, her promising design job, and most importantly,...
Okay, I confess the cover put me off from opening the book for months (well, actually, years); I recently compromised by choosing to go aural and was surprisingly delighted to spend almost eight hours with narrators Laural Merlington and Emily Durante (who take turns reading as mother and...
I really, really don't want to tell you what this book is about because I don't want to ruin your delight of discovery. I knew nothing at all of its premise ...
So much happens in the first few pages, you might need to re-read them a few times before moving on. Blanche is covered in blood, while Jenny lies dead. "Not quite a month ago," Blanche was again screaming because of Jenny, this time having just been thrown to the...
As sensational as Hollow City is, Ransom Riggs' latest novel most definitely is not a standalone. Take that "The second novel of ...
Laila, 15, is newly arrived from an unnamed Middle East country. She's living in a modest apartment in the suburbs of Washington, DC, with her mother and younger brother. She's at a new school with new friends, and she's doing her best to adjust to her...
While production doesn't seem to have started just yet, news that Marie Lu's bestselling dystopic trilogy is coming to a theater near you keeps resurfacing since CBS Films bought rights to Legend in 2011. That Lu has a much-hyped new series, The Young Elites, hitting shelves this fall, will surely add pressure to...
Regardless of how many more books I might read this year, Bich Minh Nguyen's second novel (and third title) will undoubtedly remain one of my top three for 2014. So engrossing is this Girl, that even Bernadette Dunne's occasionally faltering narration (oh, those fake Asian accents!) couldn't put me...
Okay, so let's start with the first line (which, I admit, was almost the last line for me): "The year I turned ninety, I wanted to give myself the gift of a night of wild love with an adolescent virgin." Given my other life involved...
Sometimes my timing is so serendipitous, I wonder if I have a book angel whispering to me in my sleep. Somehow, I hit 'play' on this irreverent, potty-mouthed, guffaw-inducing, jaw-dropping memoir last week, only to see it pop up this week in my virtual world...
The timing is horrifyingly surreal: capital punishment emerged as a major topic this week, from the tragically innocent, to the mistreated guilty – and somehow, unrelatedly, I managed to choose this title. Once begun, I couldn't stop until the final page. "In this world, you are either good...
You might consider duct-taping your jaw shut because Manhattan-based Singaporean author Kevin Kwan insists on the veracity of the excesses in his outrageous, hilarious, train-wreck tragic debut novel: "So many aspects of and stories in the book I actually had to tone down!" he told...
The title here is your first warning: Oxford Dictionaries describes 'double bind' as "[a] situation in which a person is confronted with two irreconcilable demands or a choice between two undesirable courses of action." Think on that, then brace yourself as you open the cover...
In the small town of Caledonia, Iowa, Jewel stands out: she's "'half-Jamaican, a quarter white, and a quarter Mexican.'" As if to provide a physical embodiment of Jewel's hapa background, the audible producers cast Amandla Stenberg, who played the heartbreaking role of young Rue in the film version of The...
