The Next Best Thing
Jennifer Weiner, 2012
400 pp.
Book Review by Molly Lundquist
August, 2012
Author Jennifer Weiner is a 21st-century Jane Austen, who uses her sharp eye and sharper wit to skewer modern-day convention. In this book Weiner turns her sights on Hollywood...and conjures up a delicious satire.
Ruthie Saunders, Weiner's smart, funny heroine, was raised watching The Golden Girls—where "the skies are always sunny...not everyone is beautiful...and love sustains you." So what's a good girl to do but live life as a TV sitcom? Or better yet, write one.
The Fault in Our Stars
John Green, 2012
336 pp.
May, 2012
This is a Young Adult book which, like The Book Thief before it, has migrated over to the adult market. Although it's a teenage romance, it offers such a beautiful rendering of teens-in-trouble that adults have found it riveting.
In this book, "teens-in-trouble" has a different meaning than it ususally does. Hazel, the 16-year-old narrator, drags a portable oxygen machine behind her wherever she goes. Augustus, her boyfriend, a former basketball player, wears a prosthetic leg, and their friend, Issac, misses an eye. This is the grim reality for three teens battling cancer.
Death Comes to Pemberley
P.D. James, 2011
304 pp.
March, 2012
In her newest work, P.D. James, the great doyenne of murder mysteries, plies her talents in the service of Jane Austen. The result is a combined period novel, romance, crime novel, and court room drama.
The novel, which takes place six years into the Bennet-Darcy marriage, opens with a summary of events from Pride and Prejudice. In reconstructing those events, James chooses a wry perspective—that of the gossip-prone neighbors, who feel certain Elizabeth had her cap set for Darcy all along, especially once she'd seen the sumptuous grounds of Pemberley.
The Batboy
Mike Lupica, 2010
256 pp.
February, 2012
Brian Dudley needs his dad; Brian's idol—famous hitter Hank Bishop—needs his inner child, the kid Hank used to be, the one who once loved baseball. That's the premise of this delightful tale about a boy, a man, and their love of the game.
Fourteen-year-old Brian gets his dream summer job as a batboy for the Detroit Tigers. He's nuts about the game and thinks, hopes, prays that the sport will somehow bring him closer to his father, a washed-up major leaguer who's left home for good.
LIE
Caroline Bock, 2011
224 pp.
Book Review by Molly Lundquist
December, 2011
A double meaning lies at the heart of this book's title—"lie" as falsehood and "LIE" as the Long Island Expressway, a vast stretch of highway running the length of New York's Long Island.
In Caroline Bock's fictional world, LIE is the fault line, dividing Anglo culture from Hispanic—and truth from lie. The story hinges on which side of the LIE you're on.