jodiwilldare's reviews
1523 reviews

Wow, is Rainbow Rowell’s Fangirl kind of a disappointing, too-long mess. It’s kind of shocking because Eleanor & Park is such a beautiful, poignant book, and this is the opposite of that.

Cath, our protagonist is a freshman at the University of Nebraska in Lincoln. Her twin sister Wren has decided that they need a trial separation. So Wren is off in another dorm partying it up with her roommate, while Cath is left with a sort of brusk roommate who is in and out of the room a lot, often accompanied by tall, rangy Levi who likes to eat Cath’s protein bars. Another thing you should know about Cath is that she’s the writer behind wildly-popular Simon Snow fanfiction. Simon Snow is a Harry-Potteresque character. There are Mages and wands and successful movie adaptations in his thirteen-book series. Read more.

When it came to the Two Coreys. I was always much more Haim than Feldman. I mean, “Lucas?” Come on! Sure, Feldman had “The Goonies” and the whole “This one, this one right here, this was my dream, my wish. And it didn’t come true. So I’m taking it back. I’m taking them all back. But that cannot compare to the slow clap finale of Lucas. That one karate-kicks you right in the tear ducts.

After reading Coreyography, Corey Feldman’s memoir. I’m still more Haim than Feldman, but I do have a whole new respect for the other Corey. Read more.

During one of my many fiction-reading slumps last year Amy Rea suggested Yoko Ogawa’s short story collection, a collection that LeAnn also loved. Because I’ve made it a goal to read more outside my comfort zone, I suggested this one for my Rock & Roll Bookclub. Like me, their experiences were decidedly mixed. Some hated it. Some dismissed it as pointless. Some thought it was beautiful and intriguing. And I thought it was okay. Read More.

This was one tough read. Not because the writing or the content or anything like. It was tough to read because the teens were so real and my adult brain kept shouting “Ugh! Don’t. Stop! Don’t! That’s gonna leave a mark.” Evan Carter is the perpetual new kid, moved from boarding school to boarding school around the country after his mom dies and his dad disconnects. Read More

Frangello’s new novel A Life in Men is a tender, wonderful story of friendship, perseverance, and living life in the face of tragedy. Mary and Nix are longtime BFFs just embarking on the world outside of their Ohio hometown when Mary discovers she has cystic fibrosis. Read More

In the parlance of the day the amount of fucks I give about writers in Brooklyn is zero. In fact I have gone so far as to actively avoid books set in Brooklyn and/or written by people who live in Brooklyn. The air of smug self-importance in many of those books makes my Minnesota sensibilities claustrophobic. And yet, what a strange and delightful gem the Dept. of Speculation turned out to be. This is the kind of book you gobble up as quickly as your eyes can shovel it in.Read More

An Unnecessary Woman by Rabih Alameddine is one of those novels I should have enjoyed way more than I did. A book-loving woman in her twilight years reminiscing about her life, loves, and reads? Sign me up. The way it’s executed in this book? Unsubscribe. Read more.

I can’t tell if my problems with this book are specific to B.J.Novak’s writing or the genre of flash (or short short, whatever you want to call it) fiction itself. I’ve struggled with this kind of writing before. All the stories come off as a set up for a punchline. It often seems as though the whole point is to come up with an absurd premise Read More.

Helen Oyeyeyemi’s Snow White retelling/fairy tale mishmash Boy, Snow, Bird starts out deliciously sinister, but never quite lives up to its potential. Read more.