Warning: Spoilers ahead! Turn back now if you have any intention of reading this book and don’t want to be spoiled! Verity is about a best-selling author, Verity Crawford, who has become unable to care for herself after a tragic car accident. Her husband, Jeremy, hires a ghostwriter, Lowen, to finish Verity’s world-renowned book series, and while Lowen is sorting through Verity’s notes in the two’s home, Lowen and Jeremy begin to develop something more than a friendship. Aside from Verity’s accident, the couple also lost their twin daughters, one after the other, earlier in the same year, but luckily, Jeremy still has Crew, his 5-year-old son. While Lowen in staying…
The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo: A Review
A gripping tale of finding oneself among the pomp-and-circumstance of Hollywood fame in the 50s, 60s, 70s, and 80s, The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo is a masterpiece of this generation. Evelyn Hugo, a Hollywood starlet of the Golden Age, wants Monique, a struggling writer, to tell her story. A story no one has ever heard before, and a story a lot of people would spend a lot of money to read. The book is perfectly written as a frame story going between the present day and Evelyn’s complicated past. It both tells Evelyn’s story as well as Monique’s and the vast impact Evelyn’s words have on Monique’s understanding of herself. On the…
The Martian: A Review
Title: The Martian Author: Andy Weir Genre: Science Fiction Quotation: “Everything went great right up to the explosion.” Rating: 5/5 Stars Who knew so much heart and passion could be conveyed through such scientific thought processes? Andy Weir’s The Martian takes place almost entirely with one character alone on a deserted planet. When Mark Watney and his crew find themselves in the midst of a life-threatening dust storm on day six of their 31 day mission on Mars, they decide to evacuate. Unfortunately, Watney is struck by a satellite that was ripped loose from the storms winds, and the crew is forced to leave without him. To everyone’s dismay, especially Watney’s, he survived being impaled by a…
Salt to the Sea: A Book Review
Over 9,000 innocent lives lost. Over 9,000 lives that ended too soon. Over 9,000 people who didn’t get to continue their story. And I only knew about it because of a book. I was never taught about it in any classes, but the sinking of the Wilhelm Gustloff was one of the largest civilian casualties in World War II, and I didn’t learn about it until I picked up a book from a local bookstore. Told from four different perspectives, Salt to the Sea combines the unique journies of Joana, Florian, Emilia, and Alfred as they attempt to escape dangerous lands during World War II. Each character brings their own baggage to…
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time: A Book Review
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time was marketed as a book about a boy with unusual skills and intelligence that embarks on a quest to find out who killed his neighbors dog, and it turns out to be so much more than that. Christopher, Mark Haddon’s main character, is exceptionally gifted at math and science, but when it comes to communicating with the people around him, he struggles more than the average teenager. You see, Christopher has some sort of mental development issues. It is never stated directly in the book that there is anything wrong with Christopher, and that’s exactly the point. The book isn’t about Christopher’s “disability”…
Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda: A Book Review
Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda is a unique story written by Becky Albertalli that features a 16-year-old boy, Simon, who is put in a unique position that forces him to come out to his friends and family. Simon forms a secret relationship with another gay boy at his school. They communicate exclusively over email and use fake names, so neither boy knows the others identity. One day, Martin, a kind of dorky kid in Simon’s grade, sees Simon’s emails, and he decides to blackmail Simon into helping him secure a date with one of Simon’s friends, Abby. If Simon doesn’t help him, Martin will out Simon to the whole school…
Red Queen: A Book Review
A girl like no other thrown into a world she knows nothing about determined to change the world. This sounds like almost every YA dystopian novel I have ever read — and Red Queen is no different. Victoria Aveyard’s breakout novel Red Queen is set in a dystopian world where there is a harsh division between the red-blooded and the silver-blooded. Those that have silver-blood are blessed with abilities that allow them to manipulate the elements around them. For some that means being able to grow massive trees from tiny seeds, and for others that means being able to start blazing fires from a tiny spark. While the silver-blooded live…
Justice, Redemption, and Finding Inner Peace
“Picking Cotton: Our Memoir of Injustice and Redemption” features a sleepy little town in North Carolina where nine months out of the year it is bustling with college life and the other three months people are sweating in the Carolina heat. Burlington, North Carolina, I can say from experience, doesn’t have much going on. There’s a wide divide between the rich and the poor (still) and a lot of economic activity results from the university in the small town of Elon. I first put “Picking Cotton” on my TBR when I read about it in another book, “Subliminal.” When “Picking Cotton” was mentioned, it was discussing how sometimes eyewitness accounts are…
The Art of Being an Introvert
I am a female. I am a young adult. I am a college graduate. I am a Florida native. I am a cat person. I am a sister. I am a bibliophile. I am a perfectionist. I am a Sagittarius. I am an introvert. It might sound weird, but being an introvert is a huge part of my identity. And surprisingly enough, it’s a part that I have struggled with for years. One third of people in the world are introverts. Or, at least that’s what this Forbes article says. To be honest, I couldn’t find any clear statistics on how much of our world is made up of introverts,…
The Girl on the Train Was Right
Reminiscent of books like “Gone Girl” by Gillian Flynn, Paula Hawkins takes mystery to a whole new level in her thriller “The Girl on The Train.” Hawkins, a British author who began her career as a business journalist, writes her story from the perspectives of three women in relation to a man named Tom; Rachel, the alcoholic ex-wife; Anna, the seemingly perfect replacement wife and mother; and Megan, the dead mistress with a big secret. When you pick up “The Girl on the Train,” you might be looking for just another thriller, but you’re going to get much more than you bargained for. While the married mistress showing up dead…
