Parenthetical.net

Book reviews, snark, and adventures in locovoration

Parenthetical.net bookshelf

Dystop-a-rama

February 26th, 2010 · 9 Comments

Post-apocalyptic and/or dystopian fiction! It’s: a) pretty much all I read as an adolescent, b) what made the hippie I am today, c) ridiculously popular all of a sudden in YA lit, or d) all of the above?
D, obviously. The YA lit world is exploding with talk of dystopias. This article from [...]

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Tags: Links · Musing

The Ask and the Answer, by Patrick Ness

February 10th, 2010 · 2 Comments

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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Tags: Reviews

When You Reach Me, Rebecca Stead

December 6th, 2009 · 8 Comments

Sixth grader Miranda walks home with her best friend every day, helps her mom study for her $20,000 Pyramid debut, and reads A Wrinkle in Time over and over again. But suddenly her life is full of odd characters: the crazy man under the mailbox on her street, and the kid who punches her [...]

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Tags: Reviews

The Knife of Never Letting Go, by Patrick Ness

November 5th, 2009 · 2 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 [...]

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Tags: Reviews

The Hunger Games & Catching Fire, by Suzanne Collins

November 5th, 2009 · 7 Comments

Oof. Just when you think this story has gotten as fucked up as it can possibly get… it gets worse. Over and over. And I do mean that in the best possible way: The Hunger Games is one of the most intense, intelligent books I’ve read in a long time, and I [...]

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Tags: Reviews

Support multicultural YA fantasy/SF

October 29th, 2009 · 2 Comments

Via Deborah at Gnomic Utterance: Tu Publishing will be a small press “dedicated to publishing fantasy, science fiction, mystery, and historical fiction for children and young adults inspired by many cultures from around the world….” They plan to start acquiring their first two books, which will be fantasy or science fiction, in January.
It’s exciting [...]

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Tags: Links

Cybils nominations are closed

October 26th, 2009 · No Comments

Here’s the Science Fiction & Fantasy list — damn, that’s a lot of books! I’m glad I’m not on the Round I panel! …Er, I mean, what a fabulous list. I’m so sorry I won’t be reading all of them. :) Good luck, Round I team!
Comment here

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Tags: Uncategorized

The Forest of Hands and Teeth, by Carrie Ryan

October 8th, 2009 · 2 Comments

Yes, I read a zombie novel! Call it YA science fiction and you can get me to read anything. In this version of the zombiepocalypse, the dead Returned and the world was overrun generations ago. Mary’s village beat back the zombies — the Unconsecrated, as they call them — far enough to [...]

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Tags: Reviews

Cybils: here we go again…

October 1st, 2009 · 2 Comments

Good news: because what I need in life is another responsibility because I heart books and having opinions about them, I’m rocking the Cybils awards again this year! The Cybils are the Children’s and Young Adult Bloggers’ Literary Awards, and, as the name would imply, they are handed out by panels of bloggers like [...]

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Tags: Links

Simmons conference notes, part I

August 5th, 2009 · 2 Comments

Some personal stuff intervened last week*, but I still have many, many thoughts about the Simmons conference to post. The theme was “Crimes & Misdemeanors,” and most of the authors stuck remarkably well to it. A few smart thoughts from smart people, lifted from my notes:
Many people argued that crimes (for a sufficiently [...]

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Tags: Musing