what I’ve been reading lately:
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Sharp Teeth by Toby BarlowHarperCollins, 2008
I didn’t necessarily expect to really really like an epic poem/novel in free verse about rival werewolf gangs/packs in Los Angeles, but I really really liked Sharp Teeth. It starts with a nod to a Homeric invocation of the muse, but modern, and slips in at least one nod to “rosy-fingered dawn” that I caught,…
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The Book of the City of Ladies by Christine de PizanTranslated by Earl Jeffrey RichardsPersea, 1998
My personal rule for the TBR Triple Dog Dare is basically just: no library books. If it’s on my shelves, it’s fair game. This means that I’m fine with re-reading things during the time of the Dare, especially if I think that after a re-read, I might decide to give a book away and free…
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Getting the Girl by Markus ZusakArthur A. Levine Books (Scholastic), 2003 (Originally Pan Macmillan Australia, 2001)
At the start of Getting the Girl, Cameron Wolfe is alone and lonely: he’s never had a girlfriend, and he doesn’t really have any friends outside his family. His best friend is his older brother Rube, and he’s friendly with his oldest brother, Steve, as well, but he’s also overshadowed by them: he’s not a…
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Lament by Maggie StiefvaterScholastic, 2011 (Originally Flux, 2008)
Deirdre, the sixteen-year-old narrator of Lament, plays the harp, and plays it very well. But she has an overbearing mother and a major case of stage fright, and she feels pretty much invisible at school: she has a best friend, James, who’s also a musician, but that’s basically it. But the summer between her sophomore…
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The Golden Globe by John VarleyAce (Penguin), 1999 (Originally 1998)
At the start of The Golden Globe, our narrator, Kenneth Valentine, aka Sparky, aka various aliases, is in a production of Romeo and Juliet somewhere out past Pluto. He’s playing Mercutio; the actress playing Juliet is indisposed. He convinces the director to let him play Juliet and Mercutio for this performance, which works out nicely:…
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Bright Lines by Tanwi Nandini IslamPenguin Books (Penguin Random House), 2015
Bright Lines is more of a sprawling family novel than what I usually read, and I think that fact hindered my enjoyment of it in some places: I wanted it to be more tightly focused on a single character than it is. Instead, we get bits and pieces focused on the various inhabitants of a…
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Hold Me Closer: The Tiny Cooper Story by David LevithanDutton Books (Penguin), 2015
In Will Grayson, Will Grayson by John Green and David Levithan, one of the title characters is best friends with a guy named Tiny Cooper, who’s a self-described “loud and spectacular” gay football player who has written a musical about his life (1). This is that musical: as the title page puts it, it’s “A…
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The Shepherd’s Life by James RebanksFlatiron Books, 2015
A sheep that has been hefted has “become accustomed and attached to an area of upland pasture,” to quote from the definition near the start of this book, but that definition clearly applies, in a way, to James Rebanks as well. The Lake District is his home and his family’s home; he grew up watching…
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Shadow Castle by Marian CockrelliUniverse, 2000 (Originally Whittlesey House, 1945)
My mom remembered having read Shadow Castle when she was a kid, and was tickled to see it back in print, so I got it for her for Mother’s Day, and then borrowed it when I was visiting her for Christmas. I was bothered by a line or two of casual racism (e.g. “This was…