The Dark Tower Series
The man in black fled across the desert, and the gunslinger followed. The Dark Tower I: The Gunslinger by Stephen King Is there any better first line to start a novel? The beginning hook when I’m...
View ArticleDrowning Instinct
Word to the wise: if you want to avoid going to the loony bin, put all sharp objects out of reach. Also stay out of the way of your psychopath father and drunken mother. Ilsa J Bick’s Drowning Instinct...
View ArticleGrow Up
Grow Up by Ben Brooks is a dirty, dirty book. It is a wonderfully filthy book. I think I might have to buy it. The only things the teenagers in this book know how to do are drink, do drugs, do each...
View ArticleLet’s Pretend This Never Happened (a Mostly True Memoir)
I say inappropriate things. I mean, they just fall out of my mouth. That little voice inside my head is always saying “Ohhhhh, I can’t believe she just said that. I’m glad I’m in here and not out...
View ArticleThe Perks of Being a Wallflower
You want to know what the perks of being a wallflower were in middle school? Working in the coat check room during dances. Well, not a coat check room but more like where they kept the gym equipment...
View ArticleBeautiful Ruins
I couldn’t get enough of Jess Walter’s Beautiful Ruins. I’ve slept maybe four hours in the last two days reading it. I would rather read it than eat a Snickers. YES. That’s how good it is. The story...
View ArticleGone Girl
I can understand how a couple who are complete poison to each other, with one spouse keeping a hatchet beneath their pillow in case they wake up in the middle of the night to see their significant...
View ArticleEvery Day
There are too many days that I wake up and wish I wasn’t me. There are too many days that I wish I could be someone else. It would be nice to bounce around in new skin for a while, just for a respite...
View ArticleOne Last Thing Before I Go
Drew Silver, the protagonist of One Last Thing Before I Go by Jonathan Tropper, is a screw up. His ex-wife thinks so. His 18-year-old daughter thinks so. The other divorced men he’s friends with think...
View ArticleBad Glass
I think I’ve always understood that I’m known around here as “that creepy girl” because I love all things scary and grotesque. It used to embarrass me when a co-worker would find a book about serial...
View ArticleDwarf: A Memoir
I’m so short that at the age of 35 I still have to hop up on the kitchen counter if I want to get something from a high shelf. Sure, I could get the step stool but I’ll hop up there while I’m still...
View ArticleThe Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry
There are some days when I drive in to work and I think “What if I just keep driving? What if I don’t make that left-hand turn into the library parking lot and I just keep going?” I’m a creature of...
View ArticleWarm Bodies
My skin is always cold. I don’t like people to touch me, to try to hold my hand or touch the back of my neck because the skin there is always cold. Even in the middle of a scorching August day parts of...
View ArticleThen You Were Gone
I knew I was going to like this book when I read the author’s dedication: For my best girls and my ex-BFFs I think most grown women and young girls understand the power of an intense friendship. These...
View ArticleSin-Eater’s Confession
I don’t have all the answers to what happened back home, or why people did what they did, or, more to the point, why I didn’t do what I should’ve. The Sin-Eater’s Confession by Ilsa J. Bick is a novel...
View ArticleThe Wolf Inside
There are books that get inside of you like a bloated white worm. You can feel it in there, just to the left of your heart, burrowing deeper, further away from the light and closer to the red dark....
View ArticleFun and Games With Satan
Something unseen and unnamed has been trailing me for years. Sometimes pure happiness rides along on its back. Other times it carries bleakness and the kind of heartache that brings you to your knees....
View ArticleWho Wants to Live Forever Anyway?
I have hungered for things. I have bargained with people I don’t like. I have hated myself for bargaining with people I don’t like. I have slept and dreamed shameful things. Shameful because I’d give...
View ArticleShine On
There are empty houses with ugly pasts. People may have lived there, moved around every room, and dropped plates in the kitchen while drying them with tattered dish towels. There may have been love in...
View ArticleShe Ain’t Heavy, She’s My Sister
When I was in elementary school I knew a pair of twins, Sarah and Norah. Looking back, I’ve tried to figure out which one was good and which one was bad; which one would go on to have success and …...
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