Angieville

Retro Friday is a weekly meme hosted here at Angieville and focuses on reviewing books from the past. This can be an old favorite, an under-the-radar book you think deserves more attention, something woefully out-of-print, etc. Everyone is welcome to join in at any time! So this is a book I've spent a lot of time talking about. Chances are, if you've hung around these parts, you've heard me push it. But I actually read it for the first time way back in the olden days before the blog was, well, what it is now. I read it shortly after it was first published, back in 2007, when I was writing monthly posts, mere collections of mini-reviews. So Song of the Sparrow  got shortchanged. I decided to address that situation today. The fun thing is lots of friends have read (and reviewed) it since, and so I was able to trip through their lovely thoughts and remember my own. When I heard about a retelling of Tennyson's " Lady of Shalott ," I was so in. I mean, I'...

A big thanks to  Scholastic  for sending me an advanced copy of  Lisa Ann Sandell 's  A Map of the Known World . Ever since I  read and loved  Sandell's  Song of the Sparrow , I have been eager to see what she would write next. I knew it would probably be something quite different. It both was and it wasn't. Where  Song of the Sparrow   was an Arthurian novel in verse told from the perspective of Elaine of Ascolat,  A Map of the Known World   is a contemporary prose novel about a girl named Cora's struggle in the wake of her brother's death. What they share is a young woman's attempt to make sense of (and leave her mark on) the changing world around her. Cora's brother Nate died in a car crash six months ago. And Cora's been on her own ever since. Grief inhabits all corners of her world now. Her parents effectively collapsed in on themselves after Nate's death, her best friend doesn't know how to talk to her anymore, and Cora is afraid she will f...

Best reads of the past month: All Together Dead by Charlaine Harris There's nothing like a new Sookie to cheer you up. And this one (#7) is the best one since #5. Harris skillfully weaves in threads from each of the previous books in complex, riveting ways. It becomes very clear that the events of the past six books have changed Sookie. Her life is not what it was when she met her first vampire (who shall remain nameless here) in a bar in Bon Temps. This theme dovetailed particularly well with the focus on how Louisiana itself was altered by Hurricane Katrina. I like the direction Harris is taking with Sookie and Eric's relationship. I like that she's given her a friend in Amelia. I like where this series is going. Song of the Sparrow by Lisa Sandell When I heard about a retelling of Tennyson's Lady of Shallott, I was so in. I mean, I'm nothing if not up for a good Camelot tale. When I heard that, like Tennyson's version, it was entirely in verse, I wasn't...