My freshman year of high school, I took a Leadership for Life class, where we wrote our own eulogies and discussed our bucket lists—pretty heavy, I know. We also watched many thought-provoking movies, my favorite being Tim Burton’s Big Fish. I forgot, until recently, that the story of a dying father recreating his life as … Continue reading Big Fish, by Daniel Wallace →

I have a love-hate relationship with disaster stories. On the one hand, they can give me anxiety, but on the other hand, they can be riveting in how their characters react to the disaster. Much in the vein of Susan Beth Pfeffer’s Last Survivors series (which I recommend checking out), Karen Thompson Walker’s The Age … Continue reading The Age of Miracles, by Karen Thompson Walker →

It would be more than redundant at this point to say that I love fairy tales. The sad truth, though, is that very few contemporary authors make that world seem close and true to life. However, once in a blue moon, when the sweeping language, the charming characters, and wondrous locations of old tales is … Continue reading Wildwood Dancing, by Juliet Marillier →

Me oh my, is my reading lineup eclectic this month: first, a Halloween read with Jekyll and Hyde, and now a winter read with Winterspell. That is not intentional though. It just so happened that personal and worldly anxieties drew me to pick up, to my knowledge, the only YA retelling of The Nutcracker there … Continue reading Winterspell, by Claire Legrand →

One of the scariest moments of my childhood was watching The Pagemaster, and seeing the part with Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. To see Dr. Jekyll writhe around his laboratory, to hear his screams of pain turn to ape-like grunts, then to a soaring maniacal laugh as he gleefully revealed his monstrous face…it still sends … Continue reading The Strange Case of Doctor Jekyll and Mister Hyde, by Robert Louis Stevenson →

If I could trace the popularity of contemporary young adult fairy tale retellings, I might start with Gail Carson Levine’s Ella Enchanted. It might not be precisely the first retelling of a popular fantasy, but it is certainly ranked among the most well known. Like I mentioned in my Geekerella review, it is ridiculously easy … Continue reading Ella Enchanted, by Gail Carson Levine →

Last summer, I made the acquaintance of Sarah Henning, who offered me some writing career advice, and in return for her kindness, I reviewed her debut book, Sea Witch. Little did I know that there was a sequel on the horizon, called Sea Witch Rising. I knew even less that I would be offered the … Continue reading Sea Witch Rising, by Sarah Henning →

In case I haven’t confessed it, I love Shakespeare—like, really love Shakespeare. I read for Juliet in my freshman English class, I worked behind the scenes in my high school’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream, I’ve been to the Stratford Shakespeare Festival in Canada twice, and I even performed as Prospero in a summer production of … Continue reading Saving Juliet, by Suzanne Selfors →

I fondly remember December 2012. And no, it wasn’t because the Mayan calendar allowed us to live another year. That was when I read Jodi Picoult and Samantha Van Leer’s Between the Lines in one sitting, enthralled at the adventures of an ordinary girl falling in love with a prince from a fairy tale—a story … Continue reading Off the Page, by Jodi Picoult and Samantha Van Leer →

This one’s a little tricky, because it is not fiction, nor a memoir. I’m tempted to spend this whole review waxing nostalgic about perhaps the best sitcom ever produced (although I can’t really avoid doing that), but rather, I ought to articulate how another person did it first. But just the same, here is my … Continue reading I’ll Be There for You: The One about Friends, by Kelsey Miller →