Archive for the ‘Coming-of-Age’ Category

THE GLASS DEMON by Helen Grant

“I didn’t believe in demons; I ranked them with ghosts and vampires and werewolves, as products of a fevered imagination, or phenomena with a perfectly rational explanation. I did not realize yet, that summer when I was seventeen and my sister Polly was still alive, when the sun was shining and even the wind was warm and my whole body was restless, that there are worse things than being stuck in a small town for a year. There are demons, and they are more terrible than we can imagine.”

August 27, 2011 · Judi Clark · No Comments
Tags: ,  Â· Posted in: Coming-of-Age, Germany, Mystery/Suspense, Psychological Suspense, Speculative (Beyond Reality)

THE TYPIST by Michael Knight

Only those who fully venerate war can think of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima as a glorified event. Indeed, many fictional books that are set in post-Hiroshima reconstruction are filled with vivid, colorful and poignant descriptions.

So it comes as a surprise that Michael Knight’s THE TYPIST is such a gentle book. It is devoid of precisely what one might expect in a book set in the wake of World War II: no brow-beating, no heart-wrenching, no intrusive authorial political statements.

August 9, 2011 · Judi Clark · No Comments
Tags: , , ,  Â· Posted in: Character Driven, Coming-of-Age, Facing History, Japan, Literary, World Lit

ELEGIES FOR THE BROKEN HEARTED by Christie Hodgen

The premise—we are shaped by our interactions with others—sounds like something from a school summer writing assignment and is almost too bland to be worked with. But if truly great writing creates marvels from almost nothing, then Christie Hodgen’s ELEGIES FOR THE BROKENHEARTED is one such wonder.

July 19, 2011 · Judi Clark · One Comment
Tags:  Â· Posted in: 2011 Favorites, Character Driven, Coming-of-Age, Contemporary, Family Matters, Literary, y Award Winning Author

THE EVOLUTION OF BRUNO LITTLEMORE by Benjamin Hale

Consider the big questions. For instance, what does language afford us? Is self-consciousness and all it implies (self-reflection, guilt, joy…) embedded in language, daresay a function of language? Why do we create art? Nature or nurture, what shapes us? How is love possible? Where does rage come from? Cruelty? What are we to make of the animals, those we imprison, those we consume, the beasts we love as companions? What, indeed, does it mean to be a human being and can it, whatever it might mean, be fully realized? Now, take these questions and a bunch more just like them, and wrap them up in a narrative so unique and compelling, so rich as to bring transparency to the questions. Then shape the story around a unique voice that ranges from the mindlessly inarticulate to the Mensian complex. If you can imagine experiencing all that, you have a sense of what this book affords the adventurous reader.

June 26, 2011 · Judi Clark · No Comments
Tags: , , ,  Â· Posted in: 2011 Favorites, Character Driven, Coming-of-Age, Contemporary, Debut Novel, Literary

TEN THOUSAND SAINTS by Eleanor Henderson

It’s 1987 and New York’s lower east side and alphabet city are places for the homeless, vagrants, the impoverished, hippies, some immigrants who have held out through the next generation and some younger folks who call themselves “straight edge.” Straight edge refers to teenagers who like hard rock and punk but live a straight and clean lifestyle – no meat, no sex, no booze and no drugs. Many shave their heads and are into tattoos. That’s what TEN THOUSAND SAINTS by Eleanor Henderson is about – a group of straight ddge teens and their parents trying to understand themselves and one another as they venture through life, a lot of it in alphabet city in Manhattan.

June 8, 2011 · Judi Clark · No Comments
Tags: , ,  Â· Posted in: Coming-of-Age, Contemporary, Debut Novel, Family Matters, NE & New York, New York City

THE SOJOURN by Andrew Krivak

World War I was the deadliest conflict in Western history, but contemporary portrayals of war in literature and cinema primarily focus on examples of combat from the past fifty or sixty years. At a time when the Great War is receding into the annals of distant history, this elegiac and edifying novel has been released–a small, slim but powerful story of a young soldier, Josef Vinich, who hails from a disenfranchised and impoverished family in rural Austria-Hungary.

May 25, 2011 · Judi Clark · One Comment
Tags: , , , , ,  Â· Posted in: Austria, Coming-of-Age, Debut Novel, Facing History, Reading Guide, US Frontier West, World Lit