Parenthetical.net

This is the precursor to popular recent books like The Adoration of Jenna Fox and the Skinned trilogy. Attractive, athletic Eva is in a coma after a horrible car accident. To save her, her parents agree to an experimental treatment: re-growing her mind in the body of a chimpanzee.
In Jenna Fox and Skinned, the main [...]

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Magic is most interesting when it works like a physical weapon: the character is given it (or learns she has it), and has to learn how to use it. It behaves according to rules, and she has to learn those rules in order to use it effectively. In a historical novel, you never see a [...]

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Another very complicated story by the author of one of my recent favorites, Jellicoe Road. She’s trying out fantasy this time: when Finnikin, son of the captain of the guard of Lumatere, is a child, the ruling family is murdered and the city occupied. It’s also sealed off, Sleeping Beauty-style, by the dying curse of [...]

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Ah, vampires. Sexy, powerful, immortal vampires. What if you achieved immortality at your dorkiest? Would you be stuck an awkward high school boy forever?
While we’re asking questions, what if you were sick to death of vampires, but the author of The True Meaning of Smekday, one of the most brilliant pieces of children’s fiction in [...]

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This is the next book by the author of Marcelo in the Real World. I wanted to adore this as much as I adored Marcelo, but it didn’t quite come together for me.
Pancho is a troubled young man with one goal: to avenge the mysterious death of his sister. She was his legal [...]

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Now that the Cybils winners are all official ‘n stuff, I can review the finalists from the Middle Grade Fantasy & Science Fiction category. Here they are, in one speedy blowout:

The Prince of Fenway Park, Julianna Baggott
Check this premise, people: the famous Curse on [...]

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This is the second book in the Chaos Walking trilogy, the sequel to The Knife of Never Letting Go. The last 150 pages were separated by a work day for me, and it was possibly the least productive day ever. I should’ve just finished the damn thing at the circ desk, except that [...]

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I think Kristin recommended this one to me, in which case, props to you! Loved it. I finished it over a dinner shift at work and was totally sobbing in the library kitchen. But don’t worry; it’s not just a sad book — there’s plenty of funny, romantic, and hopeful in there [...]

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I’m madly reading Cybils finalists, which I’m not allowed to review until the winner is announced in February, because our judgely reviews might telegraph the result. So in the meantime… catching up on other reviews!

This collection of short stories is subtitled “Twelve stories of identity,” and by identity we mean queerness. I know [...]

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A few weeks ago I saw It’s a Wonderful Life for the first time. I know the face you’re making right now, because every single person to whom I mentioned that I was doing this made a, “What? What kind of American are you?” face, followed by an “Awww, I love that movie; [...]

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