Author Archives: Teresa

February Reading in Review

Posted on March 1, 2020

I hadn’t intended to read all of the 2020 Tournament of Books contenders, but once I’d read most of them, I couldn’t help myself and ended up finishing the list. Alas the TOB brackets have my favorites (Girl Woman Other, … Continue reading →

Posted in Contemporary, Fiction, Mysteries/Crime | 13 Comments

Nothing to See Here

Posted on February 8, 2020

A month ago, I was pretty discouraged with this year’s Tournament of Books line up. Everything I read from the shortlist was just … fine. Sometimes pretty good. Sometimes worth discussing. But nothing was knocking my socks off. Well, now, … Continue reading →

Posted in Contemporary, Fiction | 12 Comments

Your House Will Pay

Posted on February 1, 2020

Steph Cha’s Your House Will Pay takes a nuanced look at the difficulties of living in a world filled with intergenerational racist violence. It tells this story through the lives of two characters who come at the problem from opposite … Continue reading →

Posted in Contemporary, Fiction | 8 Comments

In the Dream House

Posted on January 25, 2020

Bluebeard’s greatest lie was that there was only one rule: the newest wife could do anything she wanted—anything—as long as she didn’t do that (single, ordinary) thing; didn’t stick that tiny, inconsequential key into that tiny, inconsequential lock. But was … Continue reading →

Posted in Memoir, Nonfiction | Leave a comment

Girl, Woman, Other

Posted on January 21, 2020

Bernardine Evaristo’s Booker Prize winning novel Girl, Woman, Other tells the stories of a series of characters, almost all of them Black women of varying social classes, backgrounds, ages, and sexualities. All of them individuals, all of them complex. She … Continue reading →

Posted in Fiction | 9 Comments

Call Down the Hawk

Posted on January 19, 2020

The interactions between the Lynch brothers were one of my favorite parts of Maggie Stiefvater’s Raven Cycle series, so I was delighted to learn that she would be writing a new series focusing on Ronan Lynch (with, presumably, a lot … Continue reading →

Posted in Children's / YA Lit, Fiction, Speculative Fiction | 4 Comments

Among Others

Posted on January 15, 2020

Mori’s diary starts in September 1979, as she heads to a new boarding school in the country, after the school year has already started. Teenage Mori suspects she’s being sent to school so her aunts can be rid of her. … Continue reading →

Posted in Fiction, Speculative Fiction | 5 Comments

Mary Toft; or, The Rabbit Queen

Posted on January 13, 2020

I loved Dexter Palmer’s previous book, Version Control, and so I knew I’d be interested in whatever he did next. However, I did not expect his next book to be about a woman who, in 1726, claimed to be giving birth … Continue reading →

Posted in Fiction, Historical Fiction | 8 Comments

The Water Dancer

Posted on January 12, 2020

There is a lot to like about Ta-Nehisi Coates’ debut novel. I appreciated, for example, the way he illuminates the complex relationships between the enslaved and those who enslaved them, especially when, as so often happened, those characters were actually … Continue reading →

Posted in Fiction, Historical Fiction, Speculative Fiction | 6 Comments

2019 in Review

Posted on December 31, 2019

In a lot of ways 2019 felt like a pretty typical reading year for me. I finished 96 books, and my total is usually somewhere in the 90s. I read more books by women than men, and a little over … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | 18 Comments