Johnson County Library
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Reviews by Category: Fiction
Teen Review
Thursday, Mar 2, 2017
Henry Page has never been in love, and he's fine with it. He's much happier focusing on college and the future, and becoming the newspaper editor at his school. When Grace Town walks into Henry Page's school one day, he practically overlooks her. Were it not for her rather oversized boy's clothes and the cane she walks with, he may have ignored her completely. But their paths cross in the form of the newspaper, and sparks fly, and Henry's about to learn for the first time just how stunning and disastrous love can be.
Honestly, I didn't expect much from this book. I just assumed it...
Staff Review
Thursday, Dec 1, 2016
This consists of four stories--"quarters," Sedgwick calls them--from four different eras. Each is a compelling, haunting meditation on human nature. Each has horror undertones, confronts suffering and misery. Each is distinct in style, tone, setting, and action. Each involves philosophical musings about the meaning of spirals in the way of Jungian archetypes (universal, archaic patterns and images that derive from the collective unconscious and are the psychic counterpart of instinct; Wikipedia).
Staff Review
Wednesday, Nov 2, 2016
If you knew the world was going to end, but you had the power to stop it, would you?
A Man Said to the Universe
A man said to the universe:
“Sir, I exist!”
“However,” replied the universe,
“The fact has not created in me
A sense of obligation.”~ Stephen Crane
Does an ant's life matter to you when you step on it?
Does your life matter to the universe when it steps on you?
Staff Review
Monday, Oct 10, 2016
Now, as I read it all over again, I wonder . . .
They call that literary analysis, Stella, and I'm not particularly good at it. My job is to write. Your job is to figure out the deep stuff.
And there is deep stuff going on here, isn't there? For the love of Luna, I hope so.
Staff Review
Tuesday, Aug 23, 2016
Don't be fooled by the opening battle scene and continuous conflict that drives the story into thinking this is a simple action book. It's tense and fast-paced, yes, but it is also full of moral, psychological, interpersonal, and political conflict. It is a book whose external action deeply considers complicated internal issues.
Staff Review
Thursday, Aug 18, 2016
Jack Hurd lives with his parents on a small farm in Maine. One day in the winter of his 6th grade year, Joseph Brooks comes to live with them as a foster child. Joseph has been in trouble and spent time in a boy's group home, a juvenile detention center, and most recently a high security juvenile prison after allegedly trying to kill a teacher. He is only 14, but is the father of a newborn baby girl. He has never seen his daughter, but loves her and her mother dearly.
Staff Review
Thursday, Aug 11, 2016
This starts off deep, but maybe faux deep. Then it gets heavier and heavier. In the best possible way. It gets authentic. As Nanette digs deeper and deeper to find her authentic self.
Staff Review
Wednesday, Jun 15, 2016
A few facts about Glory O’Brien:
Staff Review
Monday, Jun 6, 2016
It's been a long time since a book has transported me so completely. Has taken me so deeply into myself that I become oblivious to the world around me and my head spins with disconnection when I try to regain awareness. Just me and the book, and nothing else. I started reading and was supposed to stop because life was still going on around me, but I didn't. I couldn't find my way back. So life moved on without me until I finished the book. Now I must figure out how to catch up, but that's okay. It was worth stopping at a special place for a while.
Teen Review
Wednesday, Jun 1, 2016
After the death of Jack’s mother, he is suddenly uprooted from his home and placed in a military boarding school. There, he befriends Early, a boy who reads pi as a story and collects newspaper clippings of a great black bear in the mountains nearby. When they unexpectedly find themselves alone at school, they embark on a journey on the Appalachian Trail in search of the bear. Along the way, they meet people who figure into the pi story Early tells. They both discover things about themselves and others in their lives on this great adventure.
This book captures not only the magic of...