So we've arrived at the penultimate volume of one of the most hair-raising manga series I've ever read – because a resemblance to reality is always more disturbing that any dystopic sci-fi for sure! Bullying, domestic abuse, high school caste systems, the careless power of popularity...
When our son broke his little toddler wrist (one of those moments parents will always remember in slow motion), he was so attached to his truck-of-the-moment that his chubby fingers never let go of this mini-vehicle even during his x-ray. Now that he's almost ready...
In the second installment of Tana French’s Dublin Murder Squad series, Cassie Maddox hasn't quite recovered from Operation Vestal of In the Woods, the series' debut. While she gained a caring, supportive, all-around good guy lover, she lost her partner who was also her very...
You might choose to read Ruth Ozeki's latest novel as another engrossing, original story – because it clearly is. And if you decide to stick the novel in your ears, you'll be thrilled and grateful to know that Ozeki herself reads to you – her...
To get to know our time-traveling bather, start with Volume I. When in Thermae Romae, you need to do as this Roman does and find out how he journeys back and forth between far-spanning centuries and cultures with one thing in common – an obsession with the...
Parents with young children: please take caution in sharing this book with your youngest readers. Although the narrator is "only a 10-year-old boy," what he witnesses, endures, and survives during the titular 'three years and eight months' of the Japanese occupation of Hong Kong during...
Allow me to start with the simple end: Ru Freeman's On Sal Mal Lane is stupendous. I'll even embellish that verdict and add that it is actually fan-huththa-tastic...
To find out what prompts this eponymous ‘search,’ you’ll need to read the three-part Promise – which reveals how Aang and Zuko are actually family (surprise!), and why family matters so much. “Family is in essence a small nation, and the nation a large family … in...
Okay, since this is the third and last part of this specific Avatar series, let's go back and catch up here ...
First things first: make sure to go backwards to catch up with the opening three volumes; this is definitely a series that needs to be read in order. Parents, be warned: these kids are going to scare you to distraction. Younger readers, take heed: don't...
Hapa Jordanian American Diana Abu-Jaber established herself with her first three titles – novels Arabian Jazz and Crescent, and memoir The Language of Baklava – as a lauded, award-winning Arab American literary voice. She leaves her own origins off the page in this chilling psychological thriller – her first, but most likely not her last....
Okay, so Tana French’s website says that she won the coveted Oscar-for-mysteries Edgar Award for Best First Novel in 2007, but if you check the actual Edgars site (which has an 'I've never seen this anywhere else, but every award site should have one!'-database), that...
Having discovered manga/manwha on the verge of being old, I often have these delicious moments of 'gaaaah'-wonder at coming across something original in the graphic industry. So here's a not-quite-three-years-old publishing niche I recently learned about – I know! What took me so long?! Meet GEN...
"All of us have all kinds of friends," author Norma Simon writes. We have friends at school, in our family, friends we see all the time, and friends we can only see once in a while. You can have old friends and new friends who...
Some years back, during a discussion about what was then the latest tragic news coming out of the Middle East, a friend's mother softly remarked about the Israeli/Palestinian conflict, "The absolute worst arguments happen among families." She (the widow of conservative rabbi) was referring specifically...
Here's the seemingly simple story: When her grandmother falls ill, 13-year-old Hayaat decides that a jarful of her ancestral soil – a mere six miles away – will be the very thing that will make her grandmother well, so Hayaat grabs her best friend and goes off...
Ben Bright – popular senior, lead in the school musical opposite both his girlfriend Ariela and best friend Niko, the older son in a warmly bonded family of four – has a secret. Without telling his family and friends, he's bypassed college and chosen the U.S. Army....
It began with a story. I know, I know, that's what they all say. But Jessica Soffer's debut novel, Tomorrow There Will Be Apricots, really did begin with a short story she wrote in 2009 for a graduate school assignment. In sharp contrast to the novel's...
So why is it that all good things are supposed to come to an end? I’d be perfectly happy with another 20 more volumes. Really, is that too much to ask? With an enormously huffy sigh of resignation, I moaningly offer a final post for Naoki...
This might be a spoiler of sorts: The advance galley is printed with a March 12, 2013 pub date, but when I went searching for an image of the book's cover to load here, online bookstores list a May date. Hmmm ...
