Lovely, Dark, and Deep by Justina Chen (Review by Anya W. '20)

Lovely, Dark, and Deep by Justina Chen
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Viola Li has a Plan. After the end of her first trip with her aunt, to Africa, she's working on several more bake sales to raise money for the causes she's written about. A few more of her scheduled vacations, and she'll have just the right resume for acceptance as a journalism major to her dream school in Dubai.
Except, as it turns out, sometimes the malaria vaccine can give you extreme, permanent, photosensitivity. Thanks to her professional disaster manager parents, Viola's entire life and all her plans for the future are permanently deconstructed within a week. All that's left now is figuring out how to cope.

Chen's novel is a good beach read, and typical YA. The romance, while not badly-written, is not particularly epic-it would have had the same impact as a friendship. However, her writing is excellent at evoking empathy within the reader, and breathes life into her main characters.
-Anya W. '20



View all my reviews

Skyscraping by Cordelia Jensen (review by Anya W. '20)

Skyscraping by Cordelia Jensen
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Mira doesn't know what she would call a major turning point in her life. Was it the walk when she decided that this year's yearbook theme would be New York City? Was it the day she found her father in bed with his TA? Was it the day when she found out about her parent's open marriage? Was it the day she found out that her family had no time left?

At some point though, Mira shut down, and she can't-isn't-won't ever be the same again.

Jensen's novel written in free prose is a heart wrenching expose on the beautiful, terrible mess we call family. She writes unflinchingly of parents' mistakes and the intolerance of youth, and manages to still infuse it all with a sense of understanding, and of the importance of acceptance and compromise. I love how dynamic her main character is, and how Jensen still allows the side character be multifaceted, with their own emotions and goals. While some plot points may seem trite, they are at least comparatively minor. This is a good, solid read that won't leave you feeling like you wasted your time. - Anya W. '20

View all my reviews

Pandemic (The Extinction Files Book #1) by A.G. Riddle (review by Saloni S. '21)

Pandemic by A.G. Riddle
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Bioterrorism. We’ve read about it in the news, heard from the TV anchors, but have we truly understood the plausibility of a global pandemic from a bioterrorist attack?

In the seven hundred page science fiction novel Pandemic, the first book in the Extinction series, author A.G. Riddle explores our vulnerability to a pandemic in an interconnected, global world; Conner McClain, head of a group of scientists known as “the Citium”, releases a deadly viral strain deep into the heart of the developing countries of Africa. While these events are taking place, protagonists Desmond Hughes, who is struggling to regain his memories, and Peyton Shaw, an epidemiologist at the CDC, scramble to find the cause and cure of this outbreak before it takes even more lives. This well-researched novel takes us deep into the world of the epidemiologists and public health workers who place themselves in danger in order to save the lives of others.

As the disease spreads across continents infecting and killing millions, Shaw and Hughes unveil treacherous secrets hidden deep inside the core of the Citium and tirelessly work to save the human race and to apprehend the criminals behind this deadly attack. Throughout this engaging novel, Riddle combines science and historic facts with the thrill of an action-packed story, further enthralling the reader. By alternating among different characters' points of view, the author intimately communicates the heart-wrenching emotions from each stunning revelation, drawing the reader deeper into the storyline. You won't be able to put this book down.

I read Pandemic on a plane and definitely enjoyed it more than watching movies; the book also makes one appreciate the importance of research and resources invested in the early identification of pathogens and response mechanisms. Overall, Pandemic is a great story and I would definitely recommend this book to a reader who wishes to read an enthralling, informative science fiction novel. I am eagerly looking forward to reading the next book in the series, Genome, which will be released in October this year! - Saloni S. '21

View all my reviews

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.

View all my reviews

Into the Valley by Ruth Galm (review by Jacqueline H. '18)

Into the Valley by Ruth Galm
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Into the Valley is a debut novel by Ruth Galm that chronicles the adventure of B., a thirty year old woman who wanders through 1970s California, trying to assuage a "carsickness" that plagues her thoughts. B. is unable to cope with the coarseness of the present world, yet rejects the traditional binds of the past. This tension is an interesting dichotomy throughout the novel, although it is never resolved at the end. The ending was surprising, but it left me hanging. Into the Valley reminds me more of a collection of individual narratives than a cohesive plot. Nevertheless, the novel was beautifully written and I found it hard to put down. The characterization of B. is excellent - the author represents her as an eccentric and neuroatypical itinerant. Written in raw, haunting prose, Galm's exceptional use of unreliable narration and stunning portrayal of California in the 1970s leaves an indelible mark in the reader's mind. I would recommend this book to anyone craving a dreamy, existential read.

View all my reviews

Doomsday Book by Connie Willis (review by Connie M. '17)

Doomsday Book by Connie Willis
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Doomsday Book, Connie Willis's first Oxford Time Travel novel, is one of her most famous, featuring young time traveler-historian Kivrin on an expedition to medieval England. Shifting between modern and medieval times, the novel combines first person "journal" accounts and traditional narration. Like many of Willis's novels, Doomsday Book is (in comparison) relatively slow moving for a good half of the book (though certainly not uninteresting) and speeds up to an incredibly moving ending. The book makes the horrors of the Black Death devastatingly real, and continuously questions the role of religion in our lives. While perhaps more interesting to those who have some background on the middle ages, I had little interest in medieval times but still found the book hauntingly captivating. I found myself pondering Doomsday Book for days after I had finished reading it.

View all my reviews

House and Fire by Maria Hummel (review by Andrew R. '17)

House and Fire by Maria Hummel
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

The poems collected in Maria Hummel’s House and Fire present emotions and dreams in their purest and least inhibited forms. Drawing from a huge variety of poetic forms, from archaic structures like the ghazal (a form of ancient Arabic verse) and the villanelle to sprawling free-verse constructions that span several pages, these pieces revolve around a single theme: the confused and frightened emotions of a mother whose infant son is slowly dying on a hospital bed. The narrative is all the more powerful because Hummel, a mother herself, has suffered through the same trying times as her narrator. With brutal self-reflection and honesty slathered unabashedly across its pages, House and Fire draws on the full potential of the poetic genre to transfer ideas straight from the writer to the reader. Even the most enigmatic and complex of Hummel’s poems will fill poets and non-poets alike with the raw emotion of the speaker and of the author herself.

View all my reviews