Happy Independence Day/4th of July to all my fellow bibliophiles and authors in America!
I am so excited that Jimmy Fallon has chosen a science fiction/fantasy novel for the Summer Reading program on his show! Well done, Mr Fallon! I have this book in my TBR!
Tonight
Show Summer Read: Children of Blood and Bone
On
Friday,
Jimmy Fallon
revealed that Tomi Adeyemi's Children of Blood and Bone
has been chosen as
the Tonight Show Summer Reads
Fallon launched
his book club last week
on viewers to
select the first pick from a list of five titles.
More than 140,000
votes were cast, with Children of Blood & Bone
garnering 47%,
followed by Joe Ide's IQ (23%), Chloe Benjamin's The
Immortalists
(16%), Caroline Kepnes's Providence (8%) and You-Jeong
Jeong's The Good
Son (7%).
Participating
readers can follow Fallon's Instagram and the Tonight Show
on Facebook for
updates throughout July, using #tonightshowsummerreads.
Fallon and the
show will give feedback on the book, answer questions and
hear what readers
have to say about it.
The Tonight Show
is teaming up with publisher Macmillan to donate
3,000 copies
through First Book
provides books to
classrooms, shelters and community programs across the
country.
Author Adeyemi
tweeted
DID IT!!!!!!!
65,000 VOTES MADE #CHILDRENOFBLOODANDBONE THE
#TONIGHTSHOWSUMMEREAD!!!!!!
THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU!!!!!!!!"
I loved this book, and I can hardly wait to see the movie, which looks fantastic!
Movies: The
House with a Clock in Its Walls
Jack Black and
Cate Blanchett "welcome you to a world of witches,
warlocks, demon
pumpkins and creepy puppets" in the new trailer for The
House With a Clock
in Its Walls
based on the books
by John Bellairs, Entertainment Weekly reported.
Directed by Eli
Roth from a screenplay by Eric Kripke (TV's Timeless,
Supernatural), the
film also stars Owen Vaccaro, Kyle MacLachlan,
Colleen Camp,
Rene Elise Goldsberry, Vanessa Anne Williams and
Sunny Suljic. It
will hit theaters September 21.
"When I was
10, I fell in love with this book," Kripke tweeted when the
first trailer came
out. "The only fan letter I ever wrote was to its
author. It's one
of the main inspirations for [Supernatural]. Now we got
to make it into a
movie. Dreams do come true. If you like
[Supernatural],
see where it all began."
I found a few summer reads myself this past week, and they proved to be lighthearted, fast and fun, which was just what the doctor ordered!
Stay Sweet by Siobhan Vivian is a fun YA beach book, the kind with light and dialog-driven prose and a fast-moving plot that goes directly from point A to point B without any twisty bits to make you wonder where things will end up. You can read it in an afternoon and still have time for volleyball and a picnic with hot dogs and watermelon. Here's the blurb: Summer in Chickadee Lake isn’t complete without a trip to Meade
Creamery—the local ice cream stand founded in 1944 by Molly Meade who
started making ice cream to cheer up her lovesick girlfriends while all
the boys were away at war. Since then, the stand has been owned and
managed exclusively by local girls, who inevitably become the best for
friends. Seventeen-year-old Amelia and her best friend Cate have worked
at the stand every summer for the past three years, and Amelia is “Head
Girl” at the stand this summer. When Molly passes away before Amelia
even has her first day in charge, Amelia isn’t sure that stand can go
on. That is, until Molly’s grandnephew Grady arrives and asks Amelia to
stay on to help continue the business…but Grady’s got some changes in
mind…
Though Amelia has ambition and pretty good management skills, she seems to lack the backbone, until late in the book, to actually tell her friend Cate that she is in love with Grady and that Cate is a lousy manager and an even worse friend. Sadly, most of the adults in this cool novel come off as jerks, including Grady's horrible and abusive father. Still, via letters, we get a glimpse back at the origins of the Molly's ice cream and the ice cream stand, and we learn that while things may look one way on the surface, when you dig a little deeper you often find that war stories and romances didn't have a happy ending, or even an ending at all. I'd give this book a B,and recommend it to anyone looking for a fun YA book that can be read in a day at the beach.
When Dimple Met Rishi by Sandhya Menon is another YA summer read, this time a diverse romance that follows two teenagers who are first generation Americans whose parents are from India. Dimple, our fine female protagonist, is desperately seeking an independent life as a computer software developer by attending college far away from her parents and also attempting to attend a summer workshop in California where she can develop an application and compete to win an audience with a famous female coder. Dimple's parents, who are a traditional "arranged marriage" couple, have a different future planned for their daughter, as Dimple's mother, who seems like a terrible one-track-mind person, goes behind her back and arranges for the son of a friend, Rishi, to meet and marry Dimple at the same summer workshop, without explaining to him that she's not gotten her daughters approval for this match.
Here's the blurb: Dimple Shah has it all figured out. With graduation behind her, she’s more than ready for a break from her family, from Mamma’s inexplicable obsession with her finding the “Ideal Indian Husband.” Ugh. Dimple knows they must respect her principles on some level, though. If they truly believed she needed a husband right now, they wouldn’t have paid for her to attend a summer program for aspiring web developers...right?
Rishi Patel is a hopeless romantic. So when his parents tell him that his future wife will be attending the same summer program as him—wherein he’ll have to woo her—he’s totally on board. Because as silly as it sounds to most people in his life, Rishi wants to be arranged, believes in the power of tradition, stability, and being a part of something much bigger than himself.
The Shahs and Patels didn’t mean to start turning the wheels on this “suggested arrangement” so early in their children’s lives, but when they noticed them both gravitate toward the same summer program, they figured, Why not?
Dimple and Rishi may think they have each other figured out. But when opposites clash, love works hard to prove itself in the most unexpected ways.
I found that I liked Dimple's ability to stand up for what she wants and to believe that she doesn't need a romance or marriage to define her as a young woman.
What I didn't like was Rishi's ridiculous blinders that made him follow everything his parents wanted him to do, and to believe that tradition and towing the line of family expectations was more important than doing what he loved and was meant to do (be a comic book artist). I was also not a fan of how the book eroded Dimple's yearning to lead an independent life, without marriage and children to tie her down to a traditional life. Of course Rishi is handsome and adorkable, and Dimple inevitably falls for his charms, because this book was primarily a romance, but in the end they both admit they are in love and can't bear to be apart from one another, which will, inevitably lead to Dimple having to leave her career aspirations behind and become a wife and mother. If that author didn't intend for that to be the case, she should have outlined how the two were going to go through college and have careers and not follow the traditional path, so Dimple wouldn't have to pay the price that so many women have had to pay in the past for love: that is, to lose your self and your independence while the male half of your partnership gets to have it all, career and family, at your expense. Still, the prose was clean, clear and bright, and the plot moved at a clip. This is another book that can be read on one long summer day, purely for enjoyment. I'd give it a B, and recommend it to anyone interested in YA diverse romances.
By the Book by Julia Sonneborn is, I think, a book written under a pen name (because Sonneborn is an anagram of Sorbonne,the famed university in Paris) by a gay man who loves reality TV shows, fabulous fashion, celebrity gossip magazines and Jane Austen novels. The prose is funny to the point of being goofy and ridiculous at times, and the plot reads like something from an old 80s nighttime soap opera, like Dynasty, or an over the top melodrama like As the World Turns, but set in the hyper-vigilant media world of today. For being an educated woman with a doctorate, I found the protagonist to be willfully naive and stupid when it came to men, fashion or any aspect of her life except for teaching. Here's the blurb: An English professor struggling for tenure discovers that her ex-fiancé has just become the president of her college—and her new boss—in this whip-smart modern retelling of Jane Austen’s classic Persuasion.
Anne Corey is about to get schooled.
An English professor in California, she’s determined to score a position on the coveted tenure track at her college. All she’s got to do is get a book deal, snag a promotion, and boom! She’s in. But then Adam Martinez—her first love and ex-fiancé—shows up as the college’s new president.
Anne should be able to keep herself distracted. After all, she’s got a book to write, an aging father to take care of, and a new romance developing with the college’s insanely hot writer-in-residence. But no matter where she turns, there’s Adam, as smart and sexy as ever. As the school year advances and her long-buried feelings begin to resurface, Anne begins to wonder whether she just might get a second chance at love.
Funny, smart, and full of heart, this modern ode to Jane Austen’s classic explores what happens when we run into the demons of our past...and when they turn out not to be so bad, after all.
Because her dad dies and she discovers that a writer in residence (who everyone else can see is a scumbag and a liar and a plagiarist) with whom she's having an affair is actually a complete con artist, Anne pretty much loses her sh*t and is unable to function as a normal human being. Fortunately, this book is full of cliche's and stereotypes, so Anne's best friend and fellow professor Larry, who is flamboyantly gay (and who steals every scene he's in with witty one-liners and quotes from Oscar Wilde), comes riding to Anne's rescue. All things being equal, if the author hadn't have been selling this book as "chick lit" I think Larry would have been the protagonist/main character,no question. I nearly snorted a sandwich laughing while reading about Larry's exploits with an action movie star who is gorgeous, but dumb as a box of rocks and married to an heiress. Of course, to protect his career he must keep his life as a gay man firmly in the closet, so he sneaks around with Larry and eventually dumps him in favor of reconciling with his rich and influential wife. Larry's reactions to all of this are hilarious and classic farce. Since the prose is dialog heavy and written in a light and fluffy 'magazine feature' style, the plot of the book moves at lightening speed, and once you've picked up the novel, you'll finish it in record time,because there's nothing to really think about or ponder with this novel. It's all farcical entertainment, all the way through. I'd give it a B-,and recommend it to those who don't want demanding or thought-provoking books, but are just looking for something fun to read at the airport.
This Side of Murder by Anna Lee Huber is the first "Verity Kent" mystery, set in the post WW1 era in England. I was eagerly looking forward to reading this book, as I usually love historical mysteries with a female sleuth. Unfortunately, this book's plot moved so glacially that I was tempted to toss it aside several times. The prose was stuffy and the characters dull and predictable. Nothing really happens until after the first 130 stultifying pages of characters blathering and sniping at one another, which got tedious after the first two chapters. Here's the blurb: England, 1919. Verity Kent’s grief over the loss of her husband pierces anew when she receives a cryptic letter, suggesting her beloved Sidney may have committed treason before his untimely death. Determined to dull her pain with revelry, Verity’s first impulse is to dismiss the derogatory claim. But the mystery sender knows too much—including the fact that during the war, Verity worked for the Secret Service, something not even Sidney knew.
Lured to Umbersea Island to attend the engagement party of one of Sidney’s fellow officers, Verity mingles among the men her husband once fought beside, and discovers dark secrets—along with a murder clearly meant to conceal them. Relying on little more than a coded letter, the help of a dashing stranger, and her own sharp instincts, Verity is forced down a path she never imagined—and comes face to face with the shattering possibility that her husband may not have been the man she thought he was. It’s a truth that could set her free—or draw her ever deeper into his deception.
Of course Verity is beautiful but haunted by her husband's death, and of course (SPOILER ALERT) said husband turns up on the island, not dead at all, but determined to find out who tried to kill him and several other officers from his battalion. Though Sidney makes it clear that her grief and sorrow are secondary to his machinations, she still swoons over him and gets together with him in the end, which I thought moved her IQ points way down south. Women who automatically become fools and idiots when they're in love is one of those tropes that I continually find to be sexist and annoying. Authors can't seem to stop using these cliches, however, which, as a feminist and a human being, really hacks me off.
Though Amelia has ambition and pretty good management skills, she seems to lack the backbone, until late in the book, to actually tell her friend Cate that she is in love with Grady and that Cate is a lousy manager and an even worse friend. Sadly, most of the adults in this cool novel come off as jerks, including Grady's horrible and abusive father. Still, via letters, we get a glimpse back at the origins of the Molly's ice cream and the ice cream stand, and we learn that while things may look one way on the surface, when you dig a little deeper you often find that war stories and romances didn't have a happy ending, or even an ending at all. I'd give this book a B,and recommend it to anyone looking for a fun YA book that can be read in a day at the beach.
When Dimple Met Rishi by Sandhya Menon is another YA summer read, this time a diverse romance that follows two teenagers who are first generation Americans whose parents are from India. Dimple, our fine female protagonist, is desperately seeking an independent life as a computer software developer by attending college far away from her parents and also attempting to attend a summer workshop in California where she can develop an application and compete to win an audience with a famous female coder. Dimple's parents, who are a traditional "arranged marriage" couple, have a different future planned for their daughter, as Dimple's mother, who seems like a terrible one-track-mind person, goes behind her back and arranges for the son of a friend, Rishi, to meet and marry Dimple at the same summer workshop, without explaining to him that she's not gotten her daughters approval for this match.
Here's the blurb: Dimple Shah has it all figured out. With graduation behind her, she’s more than ready for a break from her family, from Mamma’s inexplicable obsession with her finding the “Ideal Indian Husband.” Ugh. Dimple knows they must respect her principles on some level, though. If they truly believed she needed a husband right now, they wouldn’t have paid for her to attend a summer program for aspiring web developers...right?
Rishi Patel is a hopeless romantic. So when his parents tell him that his future wife will be attending the same summer program as him—wherein he’ll have to woo her—he’s totally on board. Because as silly as it sounds to most people in his life, Rishi wants to be arranged, believes in the power of tradition, stability, and being a part of something much bigger than himself.
The Shahs and Patels didn’t mean to start turning the wheels on this “suggested arrangement” so early in their children’s lives, but when they noticed them both gravitate toward the same summer program, they figured, Why not?
Dimple and Rishi may think they have each other figured out. But when opposites clash, love works hard to prove itself in the most unexpected ways.
I found that I liked Dimple's ability to stand up for what she wants and to believe that she doesn't need a romance or marriage to define her as a young woman.
What I didn't like was Rishi's ridiculous blinders that made him follow everything his parents wanted him to do, and to believe that tradition and towing the line of family expectations was more important than doing what he loved and was meant to do (be a comic book artist). I was also not a fan of how the book eroded Dimple's yearning to lead an independent life, without marriage and children to tie her down to a traditional life. Of course Rishi is handsome and adorkable, and Dimple inevitably falls for his charms, because this book was primarily a romance, but in the end they both admit they are in love and can't bear to be apart from one another, which will, inevitably lead to Dimple having to leave her career aspirations behind and become a wife and mother. If that author didn't intend for that to be the case, she should have outlined how the two were going to go through college and have careers and not follow the traditional path, so Dimple wouldn't have to pay the price that so many women have had to pay in the past for love: that is, to lose your self and your independence while the male half of your partnership gets to have it all, career and family, at your expense. Still, the prose was clean, clear and bright, and the plot moved at a clip. This is another book that can be read on one long summer day, purely for enjoyment. I'd give it a B, and recommend it to anyone interested in YA diverse romances.
By the Book by Julia Sonneborn is, I think, a book written under a pen name (because Sonneborn is an anagram of Sorbonne,the famed university in Paris) by a gay man who loves reality TV shows, fabulous fashion, celebrity gossip magazines and Jane Austen novels. The prose is funny to the point of being goofy and ridiculous at times, and the plot reads like something from an old 80s nighttime soap opera, like Dynasty, or an over the top melodrama like As the World Turns, but set in the hyper-vigilant media world of today. For being an educated woman with a doctorate, I found the protagonist to be willfully naive and stupid when it came to men, fashion or any aspect of her life except for teaching. Here's the blurb: An English professor struggling for tenure discovers that her ex-fiancé has just become the president of her college—and her new boss—in this whip-smart modern retelling of Jane Austen’s classic Persuasion.
Anne Corey is about to get schooled.
An English professor in California, she’s determined to score a position on the coveted tenure track at her college. All she’s got to do is get a book deal, snag a promotion, and boom! She’s in. But then Adam Martinez—her first love and ex-fiancé—shows up as the college’s new president.
Anne should be able to keep herself distracted. After all, she’s got a book to write, an aging father to take care of, and a new romance developing with the college’s insanely hot writer-in-residence. But no matter where she turns, there’s Adam, as smart and sexy as ever. As the school year advances and her long-buried feelings begin to resurface, Anne begins to wonder whether she just might get a second chance at love.
Funny, smart, and full of heart, this modern ode to Jane Austen’s classic explores what happens when we run into the demons of our past...and when they turn out not to be so bad, after all.
Because her dad dies and she discovers that a writer in residence (who everyone else can see is a scumbag and a liar and a plagiarist) with whom she's having an affair is actually a complete con artist, Anne pretty much loses her sh*t and is unable to function as a normal human being. Fortunately, this book is full of cliche's and stereotypes, so Anne's best friend and fellow professor Larry, who is flamboyantly gay (and who steals every scene he's in with witty one-liners and quotes from Oscar Wilde), comes riding to Anne's rescue. All things being equal, if the author hadn't have been selling this book as "chick lit" I think Larry would have been the protagonist/main character,no question. I nearly snorted a sandwich laughing while reading about Larry's exploits with an action movie star who is gorgeous, but dumb as a box of rocks and married to an heiress. Of course, to protect his career he must keep his life as a gay man firmly in the closet, so he sneaks around with Larry and eventually dumps him in favor of reconciling with his rich and influential wife. Larry's reactions to all of this are hilarious and classic farce. Since the prose is dialog heavy and written in a light and fluffy 'magazine feature' style, the plot of the book moves at lightening speed, and once you've picked up the novel, you'll finish it in record time,because there's nothing to really think about or ponder with this novel. It's all farcical entertainment, all the way through. I'd give it a B-,and recommend it to those who don't want demanding or thought-provoking books, but are just looking for something fun to read at the airport.
This Side of Murder by Anna Lee Huber is the first "Verity Kent" mystery, set in the post WW1 era in England. I was eagerly looking forward to reading this book, as I usually love historical mysteries with a female sleuth. Unfortunately, this book's plot moved so glacially that I was tempted to toss it aside several times. The prose was stuffy and the characters dull and predictable. Nothing really happens until after the first 130 stultifying pages of characters blathering and sniping at one another, which got tedious after the first two chapters. Here's the blurb: England, 1919. Verity Kent’s grief over the loss of her husband pierces anew when she receives a cryptic letter, suggesting her beloved Sidney may have committed treason before his untimely death. Determined to dull her pain with revelry, Verity’s first impulse is to dismiss the derogatory claim. But the mystery sender knows too much—including the fact that during the war, Verity worked for the Secret Service, something not even Sidney knew.
Lured to Umbersea Island to attend the engagement party of one of Sidney’s fellow officers, Verity mingles among the men her husband once fought beside, and discovers dark secrets—along with a murder clearly meant to conceal them. Relying on little more than a coded letter, the help of a dashing stranger, and her own sharp instincts, Verity is forced down a path she never imagined—and comes face to face with the shattering possibility that her husband may not have been the man she thought he was. It’s a truth that could set her free—or draw her ever deeper into his deception.
Of course Verity is beautiful but haunted by her husband's death, and of course (SPOILER ALERT) said husband turns up on the island, not dead at all, but determined to find out who tried to kill him and several other officers from his battalion. Though Sidney makes it clear that her grief and sorrow are secondary to his machinations, she still swoons over him and gets together with him in the end, which I thought moved her IQ points way down south. Women who automatically become fools and idiots when they're in love is one of those tropes that I continually find to be sexist and annoying. Authors can't seem to stop using these cliches, however, which, as a feminist and a human being, really hacks me off.
Romance should not always be the primary motivation of any or all female protagonists. Women are human beings, first and foremost, and not all of us aspire to getting married, settling down and having children. There are women who live completely fulfilling lives with a career and no husband/partner or children in sight. I had a great aunt who lived such a life, and was never bored or boring, nor did she regret her choices. At any rate, I'd give this mystery a C, and only recommend it to those who find WW1 mysteries set on English Islands irresistible.
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