We Have Always Lived Here by Shirley Jackson (review by Andrew R. '17)

We Have Always Lived in the Castle by Shirley Jackson
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

There’s a malicious presence in the Blackwood estate, the imposing structure on the outskirts of town inhabited by the only surviving members of a reclusive aristocratic family. It might be wheelchair-bound Uncle Julian, who constantly relives the day most of his family dropped dead of arsenic poisoning. It might be Constance, who hasn’t left the estate in six years and is fanatically devoted to the rules of etiquette. It might even be Merricat, the younger sister, who surrounds the estate with wards and totems to keep the rest of the world at bay. Jackson is best-known today for “The Lottery,” her horrifying story of small-town insularity gone wrong, but of all her notoriously creepy works this one deserves the most attention. Its suspense works in two directions: the reader discovers unsettling details about the past even as the narrative creeps toward a chilling climax, leaving the present moment doubly uncertain and doubly tense. The question of who sprinkled arsenic in the sugar bowl is pretty easily answered, but don’t be fooled—that apparent mystery is just a diversionary tactic to let more frightening revelations approach unnoticed. Even if horror isn’t your genre of choice, as Halloween approaches, Shirley Jackson’s novels are worth a try. - Andrew R. '17

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Six of Crows by Leigh Bardugo (review by Amelia H. '19)

Six of Crows by Leigh Bardugo
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Six of Crows is a fantasy heist story, with a cast of characters who practically spring off the page into real life and a world fleshed out to the tiniest detail. Bardugo’s gift for writing scenes and characters leaves readers feeling as if they themselves have followed the characters on their journeys step by step. Although the author spent considerable time setting up the main plot initially, after finishing the book, I could think of no unnecessary scenes or chapters. Everything came together in the final chapters of the book, which offered just enough closure to satisfy the reader but left enough unsolved that the reader has continue on to the sequel. If you like to immerse yourself in richly detailed fantasy worlds and carefully planned heists, this book is for you. Perfect for fans of The Lies of Locke Lamora. - Amelia H. '19

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The Girl Who Drank the Moon by Kelly Barnhill (review by Anya W. '20)

The Girl Who Drank the Moon by Kelly Barnhill
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

There's a witch in the woods. Her name is Xan. Every year, in the same spot just outside of that town soaked in sorrow, a mother abandons her baby. The witch doesn't know why, but every year she takes that baby across the bog to the Free cities where a loving family adopts it. Except one year, when instead of milk from starlight, Xan accidentally feeds the baby girl with stars in her eyes the moon, enmagiking her. Enmagicked children are a bit hard for normal humans to raise so, she decides to keep her and name her Luna.

There's a madwoman in the tower. Many years ago during the day of sacrifice, she did something no one else has ever done-she tried to keep her baby with the starry eyes, the one chosen for sacrifice on that terrible day, when the townspeople do what they must to keep the Witch away. The woman has never been the same since.

Caught up in the story are also Antain, the nephew of the village's Grand Elder, Fyrian, a pocket sized Simply Enormous Dragon, and the creature that is "the Bog, the Poet, and the World," Glerk. And let's not forget the (slightly trouble making) tween girl with stars in her eyes. The Girl Who Drank the Moon is a poignant story of magic, madness, good intentions, friendship and sorrow--with an ancient witch or two sprinkled in. Barnhill weaves an alluring, complex tale that is well worth a read. - Anya W. '20

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The Beginning of Everything by Robyn Schneider (review by Arushee B. '19)

The Beginning of Everything by Robyn Schneider
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

​​This beautifully-crafted, gripping novel follows the tragic life of a high school boy, Ezra, after an accident cripples him. Suddenly thrown out of his social circle and unable to fit in with anyone anymore, he returns to his unpopular childhood best friend to whom he had not spoken in years. He joins the debate team and joins a table of misfits to eat lunch with. He falls in love with one of these misfits, a girl on the debate team who is beautiful, but not in the expected way. Throughout the novel, Ezra discovers and learns to embrace this new version of himself. I really enjoyed reading this book and I would recommend it to anyone who loves high-paced, realistic fiction.


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Girl in Translation by Jean Kwok (review by Anya W. '20)

Girl in Translation by Jean Kwok
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

When eleven-year-old Kimberly Chang moves to New York straight from China with her newly widowed mother, severely lacking English skills and with little help from her uncaring aunt and uncle, hope seems dim. Indeed for her first few years in America the young genius struggles in a rat and cockroach-infested apartment, working every day after school in a Chinatown sweatshop. But gradually, as her English improves and she pushes herself onward--even getting accepted into her dream schools--she begins to create a beautiful future for herself. Until, that is, the day she realizes she must choose between love and the future she wants for herself and her family. In this touching coming-of-age novel about hard work, social inequality, friendship, first love, and infatuation, Kwok paints a beautifully realistic portrait of a teenager struggling and succeeding to take control of her own destiny.

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Dawn by Olivia Butler (review by Catherine H. '17)

Dawn by Octavia E. Butler
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Sometime in the future, Lilith Iyapo dies after humans make the Earth inhospitable in a nuclear war. Centuries later, Lilith is Awakened by aliens known as the Oankali who are trying to save the human species--taking them aboard their ship to be Awakened and teaching them how to live on Earth again. The Oankali have redeveloped the Earth and hope to use human genetic material to merge with their own and evolve as a species. Chosen to act as a leader and teacher for humans meant to be sent back to Earth, Lilith must learn to live among the Oankali and accept that the human race will be changed forever. She must learn to accept the Oankali, who as a species, have three sexes: male, female, and Ooloi. The Ooloi are the humans’ only chance at reproduction, as they can mix the genetic material of both species to create new children.

I thought Butler’s perspective on the Ooloi was very interesting, and appreciated that the Ooloi were referred to with neutral pronouns. Though this book was written in 1987, I still find the ideas regarding gender in this novel are something we can learn from today.

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Spontaneous by Aaron Starmer (review by Amelia H. '19)

Spontaneous by Aaron Starmer
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Myra Carlyle’s senior year of high school is going perfectly normally until her classmates start spontaneously exploding. Starmer’s witty narration and snarky protagonist take a tragic story and give it a comedic twist, following Myra through her senior year as everyone tries to both solve the mystery of the senior class and move on from it.

I enjoyed reading the narration, which was unexpectedly humorous, and Myra’s own growth as a result of her struggling is fascinating to read. Some might find the ending unfulfilling, but I liked how the story closed and would recommend it to anybody looking for a highly unusual coming of age story.

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The Street of a Thousand Blossoms by Gail Tsukiyama (review by Catherine H. '17)

The Street of a Thousand Blossoms by Gail Tsukiyama
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Gail Tsukiyama’s simple yet beautiful writing style draws the reader into this well crafted tale of two brothers whose stories span several decades. Set in Japan in 1939 on the eve of the second world war, Hiroshi finds his passion in sumo wrestling while his younger brother Kenji discovers the ancient art of carving masks for traditional Japanese theater. When the war comes, the two must readjust their lives, and when it is over, they must take part in the rebuilding of their nation.

I found this novel to be deeply touching and greatly appreciated the way Tsukiyama wrote about the struggles that each of the characters face and would highly recommend it to any reader looking for a coming of age story.

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Girls Like Me by Lola StVil (review by Anya W. '20

Girls Like Me by Lola St.Vil
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Girls Like Me is an artistic collection of prose starring Shay, an overweight, quirky, junior still coping with her father’s death with the support of her two best friends, and her budding romance with "Blake," someone she talks to exclusively online. As their connection deepens, she finds out Blake is actually one of the most popular guys in her school. Because she deems him to be way out of her league, she attempts to conceal her identity. Mishap and mayhem ensue, just as her friends' lives start getting tougher and tougher, sending Shay--and the reader--on an emotional roller coaster. Along with giving readers a (very) relatable protagonist, all the main characters have some level of depth and uniqueness. Although at least one plot point that could have been quite interesting was dropped (but not badly enough to make,**horror of horrors**, a plot hole!), all in all Lola StVil crafts a realistic story about first love and friendship that is pretty much guaranteed to give every reader major feels.

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Booked: Literature in the Soul of Me by Karen Swallow Prior (review by Mr. Hurshman, Teacher)

Booked: Literature in the Soul of Me by Karen Swallow Prior
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

If you've ever thought that you could tell the story of your life through the books that you read, you will find a kindred spirit in Karen Swallow Prior. Her Booked: Literature in the Soul of Me is a memoir of her growth from a young child to a professor of literature.

Prior organizes each chapter around a book that proved especially formative to her experience or that shed light on it in hindsight. To give but a sampling: Milton's "Aeropagitica" taught her the virtue of "promiscuous reading," Charlotte's Web reinforced her love of animals and revealed the power of words, Hardy's Tess of the d'Urbervilles helped her better to understand the grace her grandparents extended to her mother, and Flaubert's Madame Bovary warned her of the perils of losing herself in books and fantasy. In each case, Prior's interpretation of these works reveals her sensitivity to and her abiding love of them, and she interweaves the biographical elements smoothly and sensibly.

Prior's book hit all the right notes for me. There are a few typesetting errors that distracted my attention at times, and Prior's emphasis on her formation as a Christian may be off-putting or disorienting to some, but her book still earns my warmest recommendation.

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Harry Potter and the Cursed Child by J.K. Rowling (review by Anika B. '18)

Harry Potter and the Cursed Child by J.K. Rowling
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

By the operationalization of the star rating system, five stars means Harry Potter. Although this book, or play rather, was faced with high expectations, it was everything I hoped it to be and more. This story takes place 19 years after the Battle of Hogwarts, and it follows the adventures of Harry and Ginny’s son, Albus, and Draco Malfoy’s son Scorpius. Plagued by troubled relationships with their respective fathers, Albus and Scorpius use a stolen time turner to prevent the death of Cedric Diggory, leading to huge complications.

Due to its structure as a play, the book lacked J.K. Rowling’s signature descriptions, but the dialogue was very smooth and well written. The plot was brilliantly delivered, and there was never a dull moment. The new characters were well developed and the dynamic relationships held the perfect degree of depth. Finally, by taking readers back in time, the book referred to moments from the earlier Harry Potter books in ways that would have made any Potter fan feel nostalgic.

Once I picked up the book, I could not put it down. Although Harry Potter and the Cursed Child was not a traditional Harry Potter book, it did not disappoint.

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We Were Liars by E. Lockhart (review by Anika B. '18)

We Were Liars by E. Lockhart
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

E. Lockhart’s We Were Liars follows a member of the distinguished Sinclair family, Cadence Sinclair Eastman, who is recovering from a brain injury she received in an accident that she cannot remember. As she recalls more about the accident, she begins to question her family’s ideals and develops her own identity. For me, the strongest element of this novel was the addition of various stories about a king and his three daughters being told in parallel to the main plotline. These short stories created an interesting structure and served as perfect transitions between sections. However, besides the protagonist, most characters were very black-and-white, and lacked the dynamic personalities needed for an effective story. Cadence remembers the majority of the details involving her accident quite suddenly towards the end of the book. Spreading out the realizations and starting them earlier in the book might have resulted in a stronger, more engaging novel. Most fans of this book believe the ending to be stunning, but I found it incredibly disappointing, as it seemed to contradict much of what had occurred earlier. Overall, the book had an impressive structure, but the one-dimensional characters and ending diminished its overall efficacy.

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Why We Broke Up by Daniel Handler (review by Megan H. '18)

Why We Broke Up by Daniel Handler
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Why We Broke Up by Daniel Handler (more commonly known under his alias Lemony Snicket) tells the story of the short-lived romance of Min Green, indie film fanatic and nameless nobody at school, and Ed Slatterton, the popular co-captain of the basketball team. The novel follows Min, as she returns mementos from their relationship back to Ed after their breakup, each accompanied by a letter addressing him, which divulges to the reader the story behind the souvenir, as well as a reason that the two broke up, as stated in the title. The backstory behind each trinket composes the entire tale of the relationship, from start to finish, while the letters from Min to Ed reflect her opinions and emotions she feels as she goes through it. Handler excellently depicts the classic teenage relationship, while weaving in his own twists that have always characterized his distinctive writing. Although the events that the two protagonists face are incredibly interesting and unlike a typical romance novel, their personalities sometimes fall flat and seem stereotypical, as Min is depicted as an artsy hipster while Ed is portrayed as the classic jock. However, I still enjoyed this book from the beginning to the end and would recommend it to anyone looking to read a unique story about the life and death of a relationship.

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Fortune Smiles by Adam Johnson (review by Andrew R. '17)

Fortune Smiles by Adam Johnson
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

In Fortune Smiles, which won the most recent National Book Award, Adam Johnson collects six short stories that showcase both his penchant for dark, uncomfortable subject matter and his startlingly powerful ability to treat unsympathetic characters with compassion. Johnson, who has garnered laurels in the past for a novel about North Korea, repeatedly takes on apparently unredeemable perspectives—a virtual-reality-obsessed programmer in Palo Alto, a reclusive pedophile with a traumatic past, a retired and unrepentant East German prison warden—and convinces the reader to replace at least some disgust with sympathy. Certain stories, like “Interesting Facts” (about a raging cancer sufferer) and “Hurricanes Anonymous” (about a displaced delivery man in Louisiana in 2005), miss the magic ratio of darkness to compassion and spoil the effect. But then you get a piece like “Fortune Smiles,” in which Johnson turns his focus back toward North Korea to explore the lives of two defectors to South Korea and their near-suicidal impulse to re-defect back into the North. This story closes the collection, cementing the book’s diverse but complimentary themes: the irrationality of obsession, the persistence of pain, and, most importantly, the essential humanness of everyone, even those we don’t understand.

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Lark & Termite by Jayne Anne Phillips (review by Andrew R. '17)

Lark & Termite by Jayne Anne Phillips
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Very occasionally, a book you’ve never heard of and wouldn’t expect to like by an author you don’t know will make its way into your hands and remind you why you read books in the first place. For me, Lark and Termite was that book. Jayne Anne Phillips’s subtle, looping novel combines the story of Leavitt, an American soldier mortally wounded by friendly fire deep in enemy territory during the Korean War, with that of his orphaned son Termite, a sufferer of severe mental and physical disabilities nurtured by his half-sister Lark and the few sympathetic members of their small-town community. Flitting through the book, seen only from a distance, is Lola, the biological mother of both Lark and Termite, whose abandonment of her two children and of the town of her birth casts a long, complicated shadow through the characters’ lives. Once the stage is set and the characters introduced, the novel’s plot is simple and unadorned. Viewed through the questioning gaze of Lark and the lyrical, kaleidoscopic perspective of Termite, though, even the simplest childhood memory takes on beautiful, subtle shades of meaning. There aren’t many books that I plan to read and reread and reread, but this is one of them.

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The Great Transformation by Karen Armstrong (review by Andrew R. '17)

The Great Transformation: The Beginning of Our Religious Traditions by Karen Armstrong
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

In The Great Transformation, religious historian Karen Armstrong sets out to analyze the origins of Buddhism, Judaism, Confucianism, and Daoism in the context of political and social strife in the centuries leading up to the Common Era. As a primer to the study of ancient Mediterranean and East Asian philosophy, The Great Transformation occasionally hits the mark: its analyses of the historical realities of the Babylonian Captivity in the Middle East and the Period of the Warring States in China bring clarity to historical periods often overshadowed by the state-building that occurred on either side. Such moments of lucidity, however, appear far too rarely in this thick 500-page text. Having set out to compress an eight-hundred-year history of philosophical movements in the entire Eastern Hemisphere into a single volume, Armstrong falls almost constantly into disjointed, abstract accounts of wars, reigns, and migrations, indulging in so many disparate stories that her ostensible subject—commonalities of Mediterranean and Asian religious movements—disappears for twenty pages or more. Too wide-ranging to shed light on any particular historical subject and too bogged down in specifics to synthesize its parts into one coherent thesis, Armstrong’s book leaves the reader with little more than a mound of undigested historical facts by the last page.

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The Samurai's Garden by Gail Tsukiyama (review by Catherine H. '17)

The Samurai's Garden by Gail Tsukiyama
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Gail Tsukiyama’s The Samurai’s Garden tells the tale of a young Chinese man, Stephen, who travels to a sea-side town in Japan to recover from tuberculosis during the Second Sino-Japanese war in the late 1930s. He stays with Matsu, who has worked for Stephen’s family all his life, and learns to live in the quiet town of Tarumi while he regains his strength. Stephen also meets Matsu’s friend Sachi, also an outcast, and slowly gains her trust. This book tells a touching story about friendship in a time of war and Tsukiyama’s simple, yet elegant language really draws the reader into Stephen’s story. I really appreciated learning about the war and how Tsukiyama incorporated Stephen’s identity as a Chinese man who is immersed in Japanese culture and makes friends at Tarumi during this time period. I would recommend this book to anyone looking for a satisfying read.

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The Bean Trees by Barbara Kingsolver (review by Andrew R. '17)

The Bean Trees by Barbara Kingsolver
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Initially, Barbara Kingsolver’s debut novel is appealing but unremarkable: a native Kentuckian on the cusp of adulthood named Taylor Greer hits the road, hoping to escape the stifling small-town life that’s suffocated her for her entire life. As Taylor’s odyssey through the Southwest progresses, though, a warm, eccentric cast of characters emerges that begins to set the novel. Chief among these is Turtle, a Native American toddler unceremoniously dumped in Taylor’s truck while her back is turned, who quickly becomes the heart of this endearing, mostly light story. For me, the book’s appeal was rooted in its lively sense of humor: characters like Mattie, the owner of a middle-of-nowhere auto repair shop called “Jesus Is Lord Used Tires,” kept me engaged even when the plot got bogged down in sentimentality. Despite the lofty themes of motherhood and self-actualization that float through the narrative, The Bean Trees, at its heart, isn’t much more than a tale about a girl who leaves her small town to see the big wide world. That’s a story we’ve read before, of course, but Kingsolver’s talent for character and humor makes it worth reading again.

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Lock In by John Scalzi (review by Catherine H. '17)

Lock In by John Scalzi
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

John Scalzi’s Lock In introduces the reader to a world in the near future where millions of people have been affected by a virus that immobilizes the body but leaves the brain fully functional, while others have had their brains altered but still have fully functional bodies. Those who are immobilized are “locked in” and can use “threeps,” or robotic bodies, to interact with others in the physical world; those who have had their brain chemistry changed but have had no other physical effects are called Integrators and can allow those who have been “locked in” to borrow their bodies for a time. Hadens, those who have lost the ability to use their bodies due to this virus, find themselves in a new community that can exist outside of the physical realm, because they are not attached to their bodies. Scalzi does some interesting world-building and purposefully leaves the protagonist, Chris Shane, ambiguous. For example, Chris’s gender and race are hardly mentioned, which leaves the reader to interpret how Chris interacts with the world as an FBI agent looking to solve a murder that may have involved Hadens. I appreciated Scalzi’s subtle inclusion of diversity in the novel, and I look forward to reading more from him.

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Out of the Easy by Ruta Sepetys (review by Melissa K. '18)

Out of the Easy by Ruta Sepetys
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Out of the Easy begins with seventeen-year-old Josie Moraine's stark opening line: "My mother's a prostitute." From the very first sentence, author Ruta Sepetys sucks the reader into the world of 1950s New Orleans, a place rife with scandal and mystique. Desperate to escape the stigma of her mother's reputation, Josie dreams of leaving New Orleans by attending college far from the South.

Everyone in the novel has something to conceal—the wealthy Mr. Lockwell hides his trips to the French Quarter from his wife; Josie's friend Patrick hides his aging father's memory loss from the authorities; Josie hides a pistol under her skirt. The inexplicable death of a wealthy Memphis businessman in the French Quarter only adds to Josie's list of secrets, especially when she suspects her mother's involvement.

Ruta Sepetys writes flawlessly, revealing striking historical details through Josie's observant eye. As historical fiction, Out of the Easy is painstakingly researched and powerfully told. Do I need to say more?

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Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell by Susanna Clarke (review by Mr. Hurshman, Teacher)

Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell by Susanna Clarke
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

The action of this lengthy bestseller takes place in the first twenty years of the 19th century, when the two titular characters attempt a revival of magic in the British Isles. After several hundred years of dormancy, "practical magic" is making a comeback—just in time to serve England's interests in the Napoleonic Wars—but will the resurgence prove a blessing or a curse?

Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell is the only novel of its kind that I've ever encountered—a work at once of fantasy and of historical fiction that nevertheless seeks to replicate the realist style and comic sensibility of authors of the century in which it's set (think Austen or Thackeray or Dickens). In combining these elements, Clarke carries out a daring experiment that doesn’t really seem as if it should work. But the result is an unexpected alchemical triumph.

I would recommend Clarke’s novel to lovers of fantasy and lovers of 19th-century literature alike, but its ideal audience consists of those who love both. Its greatest pleasures depend on an acquaintance with the historical context that forms its backdrop and with the literary tradition that Clarke mimics and gently parodies.

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The Golem and the Jinni by Helene Wecker (review by Andrew R. '17)

The Golem and the Jinni by Helene Wecker
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

The premise of The Golem and the Jinni has an irresistible sort of cosmic balance to it: when a female homunculus named Chava and a male fire spirit named Ahmad collide in nineteenth-century New York, earth meets fire, the mythology of the West means that of the East, the Judeo-Christian tradition collides with one far older, and the ancient past meets the modern era. If only this novel could shed its affected writing, its chronically flat characters, and about a hundred and fifty pages, it might be able to meet this impressive potential. Wecker makes the unfortunate decision to relay the entire story in a faux-historical voice, weighing her sentences down with unwieldy vocabulary and convoluted syntax in a misguided effort (like so many other writers of historical fiction) to stay true to the literary style of the time she portrays. Uninspired prose might be excusable, but, in my view, weak characters are not; populating a fantasy world as Wecker does with transparent characters, single-minded and invariably “good at heart,” is a cardinal sin in any sort of fiction. I have to give the author credit for the alluring symmetry of her premise, but her execution is unremarkable and doesn’t nearly deserve the 500 pages it takes up.

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The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood (review by Andrew R. '17)

The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

To call The Handmaid’s Tale a dystopian novel would be to do it a disservice: while the near-future mockery of American society in which the novel is set does, technically, fall under that category, the freedom-fighting and romantic entanglements that we’ve come to associate with the genre have no place in this book. On its surface, the story follows Offred, a young woman assigned to a high-ranking official in the Republic of Gilead and tasked with bearing him children. With birthrates falling below crisis level, Offred and the other “handmaids” of this brutal patriarchy represent the society’s only hope, but Gilead’s fanatical and fundamentalist codes of conduct force all women into submission, their lives characterized only by traumatic memories and a fervent hope for pregnancy. Atwood intends this novel, it seems, to be a thought experiment that extends systemic gender inequalities and the “family values” that perpetuate them to their most oppressive extremes, which may explain why Gilead is sometimes so hard to distinguish from the postmodern America it replaced. The novel’s dystopian conceit is so complete that its cast of characters tends to feel more like symbols than humans in their own right; still, The Handmaid’s Tale achieves a level of social-justice-minded indignation that very few other works of science fiction manage to attain.

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The First Bad Man by Miranda July (review by Lisa L. '16)

The First Bad Man by Miranda July
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Imagine aliens. Imagine supernatural creatures. Now, imagine that those things are your neighbors, behind the placid faces of housewives and the lady who works behind the desk at the local dentist’s office, and you have a basic idea of Miranda July’s eccentric novel. Like she does in her other works, July plays with interpersonal relationships in an extreme way; sex is like vanilla yogurt and violence is like a commercial break. Everything plays out in an almost hyperrealist way, with everything totally ludicrous but also plausible at the same time. The main character accidentally buys a hundred snails and they end up all over her apartment. And that’s a tame plot point. Miranda July has managed to infuse the banality of suburbia with madness, the kind of madness that lies quietly in all of us, the kind that only shows if we’re only brave enough to admit that it’s there. The First Bad Man is a contemporary novel that's definitely worth the read.

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Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell (review by Jacqueline H. '18)

Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Gone With the Wind is a refreshing twist on your typical classic novel. It's one of those books that leaves an indelible impression on you, the kind that you find yourself re-reading every so often.

We start off in the rolling red hills of the antebellum South. Scarlett O'Hara, a sixteen-year-old debutante with a self-centered personality and a sharp mind to match, comes of age during the tumultuous Civil War. In a surprisingly short time, Scarlett's life of luxury degenerates into one of starvation and poverty. The book is a masterful subversion of many common literature tropes. Rather than becoming the sweet-natured lady she was groomed to be, Scarlett is selfish and vindictive to the core. She doesn't get her initial love interest, nor her second - despite her former status as belle of the South. Lastly, Gone With the Wind is told from the perspective of the Confederates. Racial prejudice is a glossed-over issue in this novel, which reinforces the uncertain morality of the characters.

Overall, this is an amazingly well-written novel. I loved the vivid prose, the heart-wrenching moments, and the abrupt ending that yearns to be extended. I recommend this book to anyone searching for an interesting read.

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Flash Boys: A Wall Street Revolt by Michael Lewis (review by Tiffany Z. '17)

Flash Boys: A Wall Street Revolt by Michael Lewis
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Picture a stock market: If you imagine yourself ringing up a broker and asking him to find a seller for, say, 10,000 shares of Google, you're about ten years behind. Welcome to the world of e-trading, where you and your seller can theoretically exchange stocks electronically without needing to go through that pesky broker. But high-frequency traders—the people behind the mysterious flash crash of May 6, 2010—are out to squeeze the profit out of you both, and a small handful of talented, dedicated people want to change that. Flash Boys is an intricate yet accessible history of the contemporary stock market and a handy introduction to the tactics (and profit-mongering) of high-frequency trading. But it's also the encouraging story of the rare few who, instead of putting their talents to squeezing every last penny out of unsuspecting investors, choose to set a moral example so that one day, we may stop thinking of the terms "fairness" and "Wall Street" as polar antonyms.

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Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me? by Mindy Kaling (review by Melissa K. '18)

Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me? by Mindy Kaling
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Television personality Mindy Kaling has an opinion about everything, from the ideal level of fame to men’s chest hair. In her first book, she recounts stories of photo shoot fiascos, lists her favorite moments in comedy, shares her elaborate “Revenge Fantasies While Jogging.” While her memoir may read like a series of unrelated essays—she might transition from a chapter about “Karaoke Etiquette” to a chapter about “Day Jobs” without so much as a page break—the lack of flow reflects Kaling’s writing style: spontaneous, bold, and prone to going off on hilarious tangents.

As a size eight Indian woman, Kaling is the minority in Hollywood. She could have easily preached to her readers or reveled in her own achievements. Luckily, she wrote a much more enjoyable book instead: one filled with sarcastic humor, random entertaining facts, and insightful observations. Highly recommended.

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Americanah by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie (review by Andrew R. '17)

Americanah by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Americanah bears all the hallmarks of the traditional epic story: between the protagonist Ifemelu’s emigration from Nigeria to the other side of the Atlantic, sparking a long process of depression, race-inspired musing, and eventual financial success, and her childhood friend Obinze’s thwarted attempt to make a life for himself in London, the novel encompasses all the heartbreak, alienation, and self-realization that characterizes the best epic novels. Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie has crafted a novel that handles a difficult topic—race relations, especially in the cultural interactions between African-Americans and non-American blacks—incisively and powerfully while refusing to pander to the reader’s opinions or reservations. Every character (and, given the prodigious heft of this novel, there are many) is treated with a rare mixture of sympathy and harsh honesty, resulting in a cast that strikes the reader as impressively human. Maybe the conclusion, when Ifemelu comes to terms with the personal changes her decade and a half of Americanization has wrought, trails off less powerfully than a novel of this magnitude deserves, but overall Americanah easily proved one of the best books I encountered all year: utterly convincing and unapologetic, the kind of book that it would be a shame to miss.

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Here's Your Hat What's Your Hurry by Elizabeth McCracken (review by Andrew R. '17)

Here's Your Hat What's Your Hurry by Elizabeth McCracken
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

One character stands out above all the rest in Elizabeth McCracken’s flamboyant collection of short stories: Aunt Helen Beck, an imposing and imperious wanderer who moves from stranger’s home to stranger’s home, masquerading as a long-lost relative until she is kicked back out onto the street. Judging by the vast array of circus sideshow performers, eccentric tattoo artists, and itinerant poets with handlebar mustaches on display in this collection, colorful characters are McCracken’s forte, and the supporting casts of each of the nine stories included here are really what give the collection its drive. Sometimes, as in the case of “Mercedes Kane” (an unsatisfying sketch about a middle-aged former child genius), the author’s tendency to prioritize characters over plot becomes tiresome; often, as with Aunt Helen Beck, the tradeoff is entirely worth it. Overall, just as with so many other short-story collections, the humorous genius of a few pieces is marred by their less impressive neighbors, and, like Aunt Helen Beck, Here’s Your Hat What’s Your Hurry is best picked up, briefly enjoyed, and then cast away once more.

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Pale Fire by Vladimir Nabokov (review by Tiffany Z. '17)

Pale Fire by Vladimir Nabokov
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Russian-American writer Vladimir Nabokov's novel, Pale Fire, consists of an eponymous poem written by a fictional American poet, John Shade, and the annotations to that poem, written by the enigmatic Zemblan professor, Charles Kinbote. Fear not, however, that this work will be didactic or esoteric: Kinbote takes advantage of the commentary section in which he is supposed to elucidate aspects of Shade's poem (a quiet introspection on the poet's life) to tell his own adventure story of an assassin's tenacious pursuit of an overthrown king. His thrilling tale, placed in the middle of a placid text, jars at first. But as Kinbote's story picks up pace--in stark contrast to the mellow, unhurried rhymes of Shade's poem--little details in both narratives begin to click together, and in the book's last pages the two narratives coalesce in a bizarrely thrilling rush. I heartily commend Nabokov not just for the technical feat of composing a 999-line poem and "discarded" drafts in a fictional writing style, but also for whisking us on a maddening journey that, hours later, made me think. I only suggest that readers have a dictionary open while reading this.

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