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This slight Downton Abbey knock-off takes place at Wentworth Hall, home of the Darlingtons, a down-on-their-luck noble family with nothing much left but their title. The book is full of the same sort of scandals that haunt the Granthams of Downton: illegitimate children, love between the classes, unfortunate matches with … Continue reading
The pitch: Eva has grown up in an underground shelter, with only a robot Muthr for a parent. She’s training for life in the outside world, but is never allowed to go there — until a mysterious attacker destroys her home and she must escape alone into the world above, … Continue reading
I saw it opening weekend, of course, but I’ve held off on writing my review until I could see it a second time. (And take three receipt-backs’ worth of notes in the dark, because I’m that nerd girl.) I should start by making it clear what I think the book … Continue reading
In The Lost Conspiracy, a colonial power expanded centuries ago to the island where the book takes place. The impetus for their expansion was more land — not for the living but for the dead. Their culture believes in such an elaborate afterlife that a colonial governor’s entire life is … Continue reading
Breast cancer is the usual go-to example for those opposed to overzealous web filtering. And indeed, the inability to look up basic health information is pretty problematic. The filter at my school is pretty lax. I rarely run into problems. Our students can look up breast cancer all day long. … Continue reading
Kate Hart just posted a fun series of infographics about the YA book deals of the past year, as reported in Publisher’s Weekly. Because I’m a giant data nerd, I want to look at all the numbers. (ALL THE NUMBERS!) But the infographics are pretty great in their own right: … Continue reading
Paolo Bacigalupi, who has my endless respect for telling hard truths about YA science fiction, writes about LGBTQ relationships as “the invisible dystopia” for Kirkus: When I was recently asked why more gays and lesbians weren’t seen in dystopian novels, my off-the-cuff response was that our present day is plenty … Continue reading
So many people have their hate on for this book that I feel like I need to defend it a little. I read it because I was going through some lady-in-her-30s life drama and I felt that maybe I should read a book that purported to represent my life rather … Continue reading
This is a sequel (companion?) to Saving Francesca, though it can entirely stand alone. This time the story is from Tom’s point of view. After his uncle got blown up in the London Tube, he and his family fell apart. His dad became an alcoholic and drove his mom away. … Continue reading
At the beginning of January, I posted this brief discussion of an article from The Atlantic about Finnish schools. A former exchange student from Finland to the US, whose daughter was an exchange student more recently, commented a couple of times, and then continued the discussion with me off-blog. He … Continue reading
