🌟🌟🌟🌟 1/2 An absolutely riveting ride, from start to finish. With its ominous pacing, vivid characterization, and alarmingly-charged plot, the author achieves an intensity of menace and foreboding that never lets up. Dealing with infamous events that took place, for the most part, in the year 1965, situated on and…
🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟➕ This may very well be my favorite children’s picture-book ever! A composite of absolutely adorable watercolor pictures, (each edged in ink and portraying a different child with their cuddly pet), this story is so sweetly evocative that you’ll find yourself reluctant to leave this author (who is also the…
🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟+ Myths and Fairy Tales. Consciousness. Escape. Redemption. Pathos. Eccentricity. Assimilation. A wildly beautiful book, this literary masterpiece - reminiscent in spirit and some thematic elements of the also-magnificent Kazuo Ishiguro- is both heartbreakingly tender and intensely thoughtful. While the reader can’t stop thinking about the momentousness of the themes…
🌟🌟🌟🌟 1/2 Richly immersive and entirely disturbing, this beautifully written book is destined to fascinate as much as it will horrify readers as unfamiliar up-close with this subject matter and historical time-period, as was this reader. Set in the ancient Roman city of Pompeii, in the year AD 74, this…
Food That Tastes Like Home 🌟🌟🌟🌟1/2 In this beautifully illustrated homage to his Korean-American roots, food writer and columnist Eric Kim leads us through a delightful tour of Korean cooking covering all the bases - from quick and easy TV Dinners, to Pantry Meals, Stews, Rice (the bedrock of Korean…
🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟➕ How to describe a book that alternately, makes you laugh out loud, cringe at the no-holds-barred misogyny of the fifties, grieve and ache (when your heart’s not soaring with delighted wonder), and throughout it all, cheer with wild abandon for the main protagonist Elizabeth Zott (a mother, lover, Chemist,…
🌟🌟🌟🌟 1/2 Any book that starts with a Lorelai Gilmore quote is destined to be a book that this reader will love. And so it was! Katy Silver, our first person POV narrator, is a thirty year-old freelance copywriter, married to Eric, a dorkily handsome Disney film executive, living in…
🌟🌟🌟🌟 A taut and twisty psychological puzzle, this book, exposing you to “Before” and “Now” timelines, alternatively told from the POV of the two main protagonists, will leave you tense and wondering just who you can trust, what to believe, and ultimately, just what the heck is going on? Sarah…
🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟+ The first thing that hits you when you open this spectacularly beautiful cookbook is COLOR! Bursting with vibrancy, personality, style, Mexican scenery, and oh yes, gorgeous food, the illustrations in this book are a smorgasbord of delight - as are the recipes that follow. This cookbook, the author’s self-proclaimed…
🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟 This adorable picture-book touched me. With its simple rhyming prose, gentle watercolor images, and lovely message, reading this book (with a child, or as an adult with the child-in-you listening ) is like wading into a serene and calming lake - losing yourself to something eternal, something bigger and…