jodiwilldare's reviews
1523 reviews

Holy shit! Holy shit! Holy shit! You need to read We Need to Talk About Kevin by Lionel Shriver. It’s the kind of book that the minute you finish it, all you want to do is talk about it with someone.

I have to admit this novel languished on my bookshelf for years. I remember picking it up from the remainder bin at Barnes & Noble because of the buzz surrounding the book. Then a few weeks ago my sister was pestering me for something to read. I plucked Shriver’s novel from the shelf because I had seen it on a list of Most Controversial Books Ever or something like that. She ate it up and as soon as she finished started nagging me to read it too.

My only regret is that it languished for so long on my shelf. This book. . . man oh man.

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A total disappointment. It seems the writer is bored with the series.

Hilary Jordan’s novel When She Woke is a modern day mashup of The Scarlet Letter and The Handmaid’s Tale. In this futuristic United States abortion has been banned because some weird STD called The Scourge has left many women sterile and the birthrate around the world has plummeted. Apparently in the future we’ll have solved the problem of over-population so well that a nearly non-existent birthrate will be a huge cause for concern. Or maybe it’s just the platform super-conservative Christians were looking for to spread their anti-woman agenda. It’s never clearly addressed, but if you just go with it you’ll enjoy the book much more.

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In Anne Ursu’s Breadcrumbs Minnesota is a magical place covered in glittery snow and shiny ice. You remember when winter used to be like that, don’t you? As I write this review in January there’s no snow to be found, and because I’ve read Breadcrumbs I’m convinced our usually snowy state is in the thrall of some sort of enchanted Heat Miser who abhors snow.

It’s hard not to be enchanted by the fairy tale aspects of Breadcrumbs that mix so wonderfully with the mundane world. Here we have Hazel, an eleven-year-old girl, who doesn’t quite fit in. Her parents have recently divorced and her dad is a bit MIA, wrapped up in his new life. Hazel’s mom is struggling to provide Hazel with stability and implores her daughter to get her head in the game so to speak.

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Shalom Auslander is not for the faint of heart or easily offended. His writing is angry, bitter, hilarious, some might even call it blasphemous. It will make you squirm. It’s uncomfortable and itchy and may induce squirming, which is what makes it so fantastic.

If you’re not familiar with Auslander’s short story collection Beware of God or his memoir Foreskin’s Lament, I feel a little sorry for you. You’re missing out. You can remedy that immediately by reading Auslander’s Largehearted Boy Book Notes essay for his latest novel Hope: A Tragedy. If you can hang with that essay you might be the kind of reader who can handle Auslander’s longer work.

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Perhaps the worst thing that can happen to a book is to be nice. Nice is boring. Nice is forgettable. Nice is something you continue reading in hopes that it will get un-nice, it will either turn vile or ascend to greater heights.

Nice is a drag.

I can remember with exacting detail why I loathed American Psycho by Bret Easton Ellis. The reasons for abhorring Downtown Owl or The Wedding fall easily from my lips. The same can be said for the books that I love. Do you really want to hear me go on again about my love for A Prayer for Owen Meany? Because I will.

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I have a pack of friends who write books for young-adult and middle-grade readers (all of whom you should read). This is not just because I’m incredibly blessed to know smart, talented people, but also because this is Minnesota and you can’t throw a lutefisk without hitting someone who writes books for people who aren’t yet considered grown-ups. Seriously, this state is filthy with young-adult, middle-grade, and children’s writers*.

Because of this I hear about a lot of fabulous young-adult writers both old and new. However, none of them have ever spoken about one of my very favorite young-adult writers, M.E. Kerr.

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There’s something disconcerting about disliking a book where a child suffers horribly. It makes you feel like a heartless monster. But here I am, not liking Girlchild by Tupelo Hassman.

In this case, I don’t blame callousness for the dislike, but rather the clever way the story is told. Hassman has chosen to tell Rory Dawn Hendrix’s story by way of word collage. The novel is a mishmash of first-person narrative, social worker reports, and occasional chapters from the Girl Scout’s Handbook as translated by Rory. There’s also math problems, bartending guides, and other sort of wordy ephemera. What’s not there? A straight cohesive story that allows you to get close to the main character/narrator.

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First, I will admit that I’m virtually the only person on the entire planet who did not adore Julian Barnes’ The Sense of an Ending. If it Christa hadn’t loved the crap out of this and begged someone to read it, I’d probably have skipped the whole thing. But her review intrigued me, and I dove in without reservation.

Oof. This is just not my kind of book. Some people really dig the thinky books, books where the main character rattles around pondering great questions. I am not those people. I like books where something happens, something besides the main character puttering about reminiscing and wondering about his life’s choices.

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