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Matched (Matched Trilogy, Book 1)

A Match Made in...Government? Author: Ally Condie Is there anything as grand as true love in the eyes of a 17-year-old girl?  I think not.  Especially a first love.  Or a forbidden love!  Oh, the tragedy, the ecstasy, the everlasting drama.  Now imagine if that love were truly forbidden.  Not by parents but by the whole of a rigid society.  That's right, Romeo and Juliette, you have company and that company lives in the YA novel Matched. No, I'm not comparing Matched author Ally Condie to Shakespeare - only pointing out the eternal appeal of the basic tale of two [...]

2013-08-26T13:34:16-07:00October 23rd, 2011|Tags: |

Fool’s Errand

A Fool for Love Author: Robin Hobb It seems it is my fate to forever humiliate myself on the bus by carrying around Robin Hobb’s paperback novels, festooned with embarrassingly cheesy cover art. Thankfully, the Tawny Man trilogy (of which Fool’s Errand is the first volume) isn’t as bad as some of the others I’ve had to lug around, but it’s bad enough. Skulking wolf? Check. Stern-looking men in puffy shirts on horseback? Check. Village street with Tudor buildings and cobbled road? Check and check. If these books weren’t so addictive, the shame of holding them in public just wouldn’t [...]

2016-12-31T17:57:46-07:00October 21st, 2011|Tags: , , , , |

Reamde

ReadThis.txt Neal Stephenson (William Morrow, 2011, 1056 pp. hardcover, $35) Spoiler Alert: This review includes some minor spoilers, because there really is no way to summarize a thousand-page book without giving something away. I’m beginning to doubt that Neal Stephenson will ever produce anything matching the brilliance of his masterpiece, Cryptonomicon (The Baroque Cycle was certainly larger in terms of volume and ambition, but not in excellence). In fact, I have to admit that I bogged down halfway through his last tome, Anathem, and never finished it, though I have every intention of trying again. Still, I dutifully pre-order each [...]

2016-12-31T17:57:46-07:00October 6th, 2011|Tags: , , , , , , , |
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