Page 2 of our reviews
He Started It by Samantha Downing
To say a book has a twist is sometimes a spoiler: you’ll find yourself living in a constant state of suspense, waiting for when it’ll happen. I don’t think saying that He Started It has twists is any…
I Don’t Know How That Happened by Oliver Driscoll
The pared-back prose poems in this collection examine the seemingly small details of domestic life. They tell the stories of encounters – moments of contact and subtle conflict – that happen between …
Stormbreaker by Anthony Horowitz
When Alex Rider is woken up in the middle of the night and told that his uncle, who is also his sole guardian, has been killed in a car crash, his life rearranges itself around him. Enter MI6, a supe…
Exciting Times by Naoise Dolan
Ava is an Irish expat living in Hong Kong, teaching English to privileged Hongkonger children. She is in her twenties, and is a rudderless kind of high-achiever: intelligent, but unable (or unwilling…
Design Lives Here by Penny Craswell
The beauty of this book is that it does many things in a (seemingly) effortless, elegant fashion. For every house or apartment featured, the sum of its parts creates the whole: architecture, interior…
A Conspiracy of Bones by Kathy Reichs
Okay, full disclosure: there are some Very Famous Authors I’ve never read, and Kathy Reichs is one of them. I haven’t even watched a full episode of Bones, the TV show based on her Temperance Brennan…
Your Birthday Was the Best! by Maggie Hutchings & Felicita Sala
This is a delightful and energetic picture book about a happy-go-lucky cockroach crashing a birthday party. The cake looks absolutely delicious and that’s not at all a surprise because this book is i…
The Animals in That Country by Laura Jean McKay
The Animals in That Country is a standout debut novel of 2020. It is the second work of fiction from Laura Jean McKay, following her acclaimed short-story collection, Holiday in Cambodia (2013). Orig…
The Book of Chance by Sue Whiting
There is not much that twelve-year-old Chance Callahan is uncertain about. She draws a hard line between true and false, and values honesty over everything else. Chance’s mother has kept detailed dia…
The List of Things that Will Not Change by Rebecca Stead
Twelve-year-old Bea reflects on life since her parent’s divorce and the many challenges periodically conspiring to overwhelm her: family adjustments, school frustrations, struggles with spelling and …
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