Posts tagged with coming-of-age
Positive signs
There are some good reviews coming out for the movie adaptation of How To Build a Girl, based on Caitlin Moran's coming-of-age novel of the same name. I'm never going to see this movie (even reading the plot summary makes me cringe), but...
The Delinquent Housewife! Vol.1, by Nemu Yoko
Nemu Yoko's The Delinquent Housewife! is a four-volume manga, originally published in Japan in 2015 and now fully available in English from Vertical Comics. It's an amusingly far-fetched tale about a young woman who has recently been introduced to her in-laws. When Komugi's husband-to-be Tohru deposits her with his family and leaves on a business trip...
The Lovely and the Lost, by Jennifer Lynn Barnes
In the note at the end of her most recent book, The Lovely and the Lost, author Jennifer Lynn Barnes acknowledges the debt this story owes to two of her earlier series: The Naturals and Raised by Wolves. Of course, lots of writers recycle their own work, although I was a little taken aback...
Slayer, by Kiersten White
In my recent review of the BOOM Comics Buffy the Vampire Slayer reboot, I wondered if the Buffy-centric storytelling well had finally run dry. Bestselling author Kiersten White's new spinoff novel Slayer proves that there is still some life in this 'verse...
Grey Sister, by Mark Lawrence
Grey Sister, the second book in Mark Lawrence's Book of the Ancestor series, combines the magical schools and super-powered children of Harry Potter, the mystical sisterhood of Dune's Bene Gesserit, and more violence and looming ice than Game of Thrones. The various elements don't fuse together perfectly, but there are some A+ ideas in play...
The Sky is Yours, by Chandler Klang Smith
I picked up Chandler Klang Smith's novel The Sky is Yours for two reasons: I liked the cover art, and several reviewers compared it to a Jane Austen novel. I still like the cover art, but the Austen comparison is a total bait-and-switch. Both novelists touch on similar issues—sex, marriage, social position—but they're about as similar as cherry cough syrup and an actual cherry...
Weekly Book Giveaway: The Sky is Yours, by Chandler Klang Smith
This week's Book Giveaway is Chandler Klang Smith's debut novel The Sky Is Yours, which I fully admit I picked due to its awesome cover art. Of course, I've been burned by seductive covers in the past, but hope springs eternal. A full review will follow shortly...
Red Sister, by Mark Lawrence
Let me start with a word of warning: Mark Lawrence's latest fantasy novel Red Sister is really, really violent. Scenes include (but are by no means limited to) the execution of a child, the torture of an older woman, and the fatal beating of an animal. There's a lot to admire about this book, but readers with delicate sensibilities should take heed...
The Goal, by Elle Kennedy
Earlier this year, we reviewed the first three books in Elle Kennedy's Off-Campus series, a collection of New Adult romances set in the college hockey world. The final book in the quartet, The Goal, has recently been released, and it has just as much easy charm as its predecessors...
Weekly Book Giveaway: The Trials of Apollo: The Hidden Oracle, by Rick Riordan
This week's Book Giveaway is Rick Riordan's new book The Trials of Apollo: The Hidden Oracle. Riordan has a gift for making total Mary-Sues into appealing, sympathetic characters, but humanizing an actual god might be a tall order, even for him. Our review will follow later today...
The Cake House, by Latifah Salom
After complaining (a lot) about anyone having the nerve to describe Cymbeline as “William Shakespeare's undiscovered masterpiece” and reviewing Jenny Trout's Romeo and Juliet/Hamlet-inspired Such Sweet Sorrow, we're concluding our totally unplanned rush of Shakespeare-themed posts with a review of Latifah Salom's debut novel The Cake House...
The Secrets of Tree Taylor, by Dandi Daley Mackall
If you, like me, feel a pang of sadness whenever you remember that Wendelin Van Draanen's Sammy Keyes series has really and truly ended, I have good news: Dandi Daley Mackall's coming-of-age novel The Secrets of Tree Taylor hits a lot of the same notes, and hits several of them even better...
Girl to the Core, by Stacey Goldblatt
Stacey Goldblatt's Girl to the Core has the makings of a sweet, inspirational coming-of-age novel... cursed with a story-crippling flaw. Goldblatt's heroine is Molly O'Keefe, the only girl in a large, boisterous Irish-American family. Molly's a pushover, so when her boyfriend Trevor cheats on her she knows she'll need a distraction to keep herself from taking him back. Unexpectedly, she finds one in the Girl Corps, a Girl Scouts-like group...
The Car Thief, by Theodore Weesner
The back cover of Theodore Weesner's The Car Thief describes the book as a "modern American classic" featuring “heartbreak, cruel realities, and stunning personal triumphs”. That may be true, but allow me to issue a word of warning: you have to wade through a lot of heartbreak and cruel reality before you get to any personal triumphs...
Utterly generic
The trailer is out for the upcoming movie adaptation of Stephen Chbosky's 1999 novel The Perks of Being a Wallflower. I know people are excited about this, but I was rolling my eyes at the sight of Paul Rudd playing the requisite oddball-yet-understanding English teacher, and...
There Are No Stars in Brooklyn, by Meredith Gran
Meredith Gran's graphic novel Octopus Pie: There Are No Stars in Brooklyn is frequently compared to Bryan Lee O'Malley's Scott Pilgrim series, and the two comics do share a certain hipster vibe...
The Dark Days of Hamburger Halpin, by Josh Berk
When I opened the package containing Josh Berk's debut novel The Dark Days of Hamburger Halpin, I assumed it was a book aimed at elementary school students. The colorful cover, the goofy nam...
The School of Possibilities, by Seita Parkkola
The School of Possibilities is the English translation of Seita Parkkola's award-winning novel Viima, originally published in Finland in 2006. While the book isn't perfect, it is an unusua...
A Brief History of Montmaray, by Michelle Cooper
I have never learned to love Dodie Smith's novel I Capture the Castle. I don't care how classic it is: if I spend 99% of a novel thinking wistfully of giving all of the characters a swift ki...
Shiver, by Maggie Stiefvater
We here at Wordcandy admit it: we judge books by their covers. This doesn't always work for us (note our recent post on Atlas Shrugged), but we still believe that great cover art is an impor...
Obernewtyn, by Isobelle Carmody
Isobelle Carmody wrote Obernewtyn, the first novel in her Obernewtyn Chronicles, at the ripe old age of fourteen. Admittedly, the book wasn't actually published until she was thirty, so we'r...