Parenthetical

YA reviews and book geekery

Parenthetical bookshelf

Review: Dream Factory, by Brad Barkley & Heather Hepler

February 20th, 2011 · 2 Comments

Thanks to an actors’ strike, Disney World is desperate enough to hire a bunch of teenagers on an open casting call. For a summer, until the strike is settled, the park becomes an awkward summer camp for people who get paid to dress up as Goofy and Cinderella — and, just like summer camp, spend [...]

[Read more →]

Tags: Reviews

Impossible, by Nancy Werlin

September 8th, 2010 · No Comments

When Lucy was small, her mother went crazy and disappeared, leaving her in the care of her beloved foster parents. She doesn’t believe it, of course, when she finds pages from her mother’s diary claiming that the family has been under an Elfin Knight’s curse for centuries — each woman is doomed to get pregnant [...]

[Read more →]

Tags: Reviews

The Knife of Never Letting Go, by Patrick Ness

November 5th, 2009 · 3 Comments

Oh, read it read it read it! If you liked The Hunger Games, you must absolutely read this book. And that means that you should skip everything past the “spoilers” cut, because you really don’t want to be spoiled. Basically, Prentisstown is a human settlement on an alien planet. There was a war with the [...]

[Read more →]

Tags: Reviews

Nation, by Terry Pratchett

March 23rd, 2009 · 1 Comment

On his way back from the Boys’ Island to his coming-of-age feast, Mau survives the giant tidal wave that wipes out his entire Nation. On her way to join her father at his new island governorship, Daphne’s ship is caught in the same wave and runs aground on Mau’s island; she is the only survivor. [...]

[Read more →]

Tags: Grown-up table · Reviews

Strange Tomorrow, by Jean Karl

January 6th, 2009 · 4 Comments

Hey, everybody, it’s post-apocalyptic YA from the ’80s! Home, sweet home. It even has a watercolory cover and a fresh-faced, all-American heroine named “Janie Johnson”! This book was brought to my attention recently [and by "recently," I mean about six months ago, when I actually read it -- Ed.] by an old friend, who presented [...]

[Read more →]

Tags: Uncategorized