So I've been mulling over this book for a month-plus, and still remain rather conflicted. The one solid conclusion I can offer is this – if I were to rank Susan Choi's titles, my list would read thusly: American Woman, based loosely on the Patty Hearst...
First things first: click here to catch up. You'll be well-rewarded for sure! This latest volume opens with an intriguing graphic of characters captured in a two-page spread of bubbles and dots, labelled "The Wandering Son Board Game": "Don't be so fresh. 1 space back," a...
"They say a person dies twice. / First comes the death of the self. / Then, later, comes the death of being forgotten by friends. / If that is so, / I shall never know that second death. / ...
A couple of months ago, one of my trusty literary friends with whom I often share must-read titles told me about seeing 'everyone' carrying this novel around last fall. So she decided to see for herself what the hubbub was about. Once she started, she...
Let's go back about seven years. So a writer walks into a bar. It's dark, but thankfully not smoky. The majority of the people there are more bookish (including Booker-ish!) than biker brutish. The writer finds a drink, and is standing slightly off the side with...
Shimura Takako, a well-established manga artist recognized for her LGBT focus, continues her gender-bender series with sensitive honesty. That said, don't let the sweet, fuzzy cover fool you: Shimura knows well that protecting her two wide-eyed protagonists from their less-than-understanding peers will become less and...
Only when Louise Erdrich won this year's National Book Award for The Round House, did I learn that House is the middle of a planned trilogy that begins with The Plague of Doves which, most serendipitously, was already loaded on my iPod. A bit of...
As this debut novel is all of 125 pages (in hardcover), you have little excuse not to read it in a single sitting ...
Just so you have a little warning, tomorrow (September 1) is #DRAMADAY. That means veteran comics-maker Raina Telgemeier's latest book hits shelves tomorrow ...
'Gritty' is the first word that comes to mind after finishing this slim young adult novel about a teenage Chinese immigrant's struggles with his conservative father over his sexuality. Ray Liu is new to the West. He's left behind half his family in China, including his...
Sometimes I need three major reminders to get me to open a book I've been anxiously waiting to read. Who knows why, but I admit to being lost and misdirected often! So first the inimitable Mz. Jessica Hagedorn had to tell me (almost a year...
With all that swashbuckling fun, Princess Knight – recently available in full, in English translation, in two volumes – is seemingly one of the godfather of manga's more goofy stories. Up in heaven, God's in the process of deciding gender for each about-to-be-born baby, assigning a girl heart...
Here's a dilemma: If you knew how much a book series might deteriorate by its final title, would you read all the way through to the bitter end? As contrary as I am, I probably would ...
The ongoing gender-bender adventures of Nitori Shuichi – a boy who wants to be a girl – and his best friend Takatsuki Yoshino – a girl who wants to be a boy – open with the beginning of the 6th-grade school year. What commenced as mostly cross-dressing fun in volume...
For those who missed the perennial chart-topper on the list of “Top ten most frequently challenged books of 2010” during the recent Banned Books Week 2011, feel free to click here. That's your eyebrow-raised warning right up front that even though these two delightful protagonists both have families, one...
In case you needed another reminder, Banned Books Week continues for a couple more days ...
Welcome to Banned Books Week 2011, which begins today and ends October 1. Leading the "Top ten most frequently challenged books of 2010" – at the top for the fifth year in a row, with a respite at #2 in 2009! – is little Tango. Reasons cited: "homosexuality, religious viewpoint,...
Eight years have passed since Jeffrey Eugenides won the 2003 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction (as well as too many other accolades to list) for this, his second novel, and nine years since it was first published. Nine years later (pattern forming here? – his debut The Virgin Suicides and Middlesex are also...
This was my last of the Julia Glass novels, having read them out of published order. Glass' first title, Three Junes, and her latest, The Widower's Tale, undoubtedly make up the better half of her oeuvre. I See You Everywhere and Whole World land on...
Just sigh with me a moment. Deep breath in, deep breath out ...
