Writer, Reader, English Teacher
“I don't understand it any more than you do, but one thing I've learned is that you don't have to understand things for them to be.” - Madeleine L'Engle
My first experience with A Wrinkle in Time, was in fourth grade, when our teacher read it aloud to us. The part where Meg uses her love for Charles Wallace to face down the monstrous IT stayed with me for years. I then read the book on my own, as a kid. Decades …Lately, I have come to a new realization: I need to update my list of favorite authors to include Karen McManus. The Cousins is the third book by her I have thoroughly enjoyed. The first was One of Us is Lying, which I read on my Kindle. The second was Two Can Keep a Secret if One of Us is Dead, which I listened to on audio. Because of the title, I figured it was a sequel to One of Us… but the two books have no relation, other than they are both twisty, character-driven YA mysteries. The third, …
In “Brownies,” from Drinking Coffee Elsewhere, ZZ Packer relays a tale that is based on either a lie or a misconception, depending upon how you want to look at it. The members of an all Black Brownie troop insist they heard a member from an all White Brownie troop use the “N” word. The story is told through first person POV, by a girl nicknamed Snot. She barely speaks, but she focuses quite a bit on how other people sound. In the beginning, Snot is not so relevant as a character. She …
You Can’t Catch Me is about a woman named Jessica Williams. No – scratch that – it’s about THREE women named Jessica Williams, and several other Jessica Williams also make an appearance. But only one Jessica narrates the story, and that story is original and compelling. When the book begins, Jessica has just lost her job in disgrace. She’s about to take her severance package and leave town for somewhere tropical, when she meets another Jessica Williams with the same birthday as her …
