I was truly surprised, educated, and impressed by this book. From reading the back cover, I knew El Deafo was about a young, deaf, school-aged girl who is of course finding life a bit more complicated than most. But it’s so much more--it’s about growing up, being yourself, finding acceptance, making friends, being confused, getting into trouble, getting ...

Halloween is a favorite holiday around our house. It runs a very close second to Christmas. We all get excited about decorating the house with creepy, spidery stuff and our kids take every opportunity to wear as many different costumes as possible. This past Halloween, Oct. of 2015, we kicked it up a notch with a special event - The Goosebumps Movie! We all...

This is a superhero book . . . that’s not another superhero book. The story has loads of amazing action, cool characters, sweet gadgets, outstanding writing, basically everything you’d want from a superhero book. However, again, this isn’t that. Well, it is, but it isn’t. In the futuristic world of Steelheart, the USA is full of regular people and s...

I enjoy Mr. Gaiman’s writing quite a bit. I like his wordsmanship, his focus on small details, his always surprisingly imaginative style, and the impact of his dark, intense tone. You can already find several glowing reviews of his books here on my site, and now here’s another one--about The Ocean at the End of the Lane. This excellent book tells a uniq...

If you browse a few other reviews of this book here on Amazon, you’ll see a fair amount of 3 star reviews, but the reviewer will lead off with “I really liked this” or “Excellent writing” or something along those lines. So, why the 3 star review then? Well, I can understand how these people felt about Anna and the Swallow Man. The book is written ...

The Scorpion Rules may appear to be yet another YA book about a post-catastrophe future where life is entirely different, constantly dangerous, and always delicately perched on the brink of disaster. However, this one is extremely smartly written with plenty of thoughtful extras and creative areas of focus; making it unique, surprising, and memorable. The s...

Fantastic. I loved this book. I cannot wait to read the sequel, The Wise Man’s Fear. The writing is spectacular; characters are real, deep, and compelling; plot is complex but well thought out and perfectly executed; and the world Mr. Rothfuss has created is an entirely believable and likeable fantasy land. If you like epic fantasy and brilliant story-tel...

My older brother read The Passage during an overseas business trip and liked it well enough to give a copy to me for my 40th birthday last November. He also got me a stellar Van Morrison record. Thanks, bro - you really nailed the gifts this time! Van’s the man and The The Passage was excellent. Basically, we are in the near future (can’t recall if a da...

Mockingbird takes place a few hundred years in the future where highly advanced, humanoid robots have all but eliminated the entire human population. They have done so using specially formulated, widely available drugs plus new rules for society which encourage extreme privacy and individualism. Out of nowhere, one man innocently learns to read, something th...

For me, Fuzzy Mud was a strange little book. It seems like a fantastic choice for teachers who are studying the environment, pollution, or the way any idea that is meant to help the world - can actually have a drastically negative impact. At the same time, the book also deals with relational themes like standing by your friends, doing the right thing even wh...

The illustrations in The Marvels are fabulous so the first 400 pages or so of artwork are absolutely mesmerizing. The "story in pictures" told during this section is brilliant. Characters come and go, time passes, events unfold, clues are dropped, and it's all cleverly revealed in these magnificent sketches. However, when the text part of the story began, I...

Solid book, not outstanding for me but I enjoyed the writing and the characters. The main plot develops from an experiment undertaken by Eli and Victor wherein they try to determine if a near death experience can give a person special powers - thus making them an EO or ExtraOrdinary. The answer is yes, this can happen. However, this quickly brings up a more ...