Category Book Reviews
The thing that makes this cookbook, Canadian Living: The Vegetarian Collection, so accessible for non-vegetarians, is that (I believe) these are all recipes originally published in Canadian Living magazine, which is not a strictly vegetarian audience. I am no master… Continue Reading →
I absolutely fell in love with The Birth House and couldn’t put the book down. I pretty much read it in just two sittings. Dora is a fantastic character with honest opinions, flaws, and wisdom beyond her years. The Birth… Continue Reading →
As soon as I read the back cover copy for Sub Rosa by Amber Dawn, I knew I wanted to read it. The themes and character setting sounded a bit like Lullabies for Little Criminals, which I really enjoyed. In… Continue Reading →
I’ve been meaning to read The Golden Mean by Annabel Lyon since it came out last year. The Golden Mean got tons of great reviews, nominated for the 2009 CanLit triple crown (the Scotiabank Giller Prize, the Governor General’s Award… Continue Reading →
I loved The Innocent Traitor and recently finished The Lady Elizabeth, both by historian-turned-author Alison Weir. I’ve noted before that Alison Weir’s writing gets a bit slow in places, and I think it’s the historian in her that needs to… Continue Reading →
I’ve been hearing about Lullabies for Little Criminals by Heather O’Neill for a few years now in the Canadian Lit scene as it was a finalist for the Governor General’s Award and won the 2007 Canada Reads. When it popped… Continue Reading →
I have taken so long to write a review for Room by Emma Donoghue because I don’t really know what to say other than “love love love love it!” I’m still having difficulties expressing what I liked so much about… Continue Reading →
The final installment of the Millenium Trilogy by Stieg Larsson began where The Girl Who Played With Fire ended — with Lisbeth Salander in the hospital and near-death with a bullet to the head. From there, the claws came out… Continue Reading →
I finished The Lady Elizabeth a few weeks ago and haven’t been able to muster a review. I think it’s a little bit of ambivalence; I enjoyed the book, but it lagged a bit in places. I read Innocent Traitor… Continue Reading →
Come, Thou Tortoise is a heart-warming book with really lovable characters. There was subtle humour with a quiet yet engaging plot. Audrey is brilliant, quaint, silly, admirable, and really just honest-to-goodness good. The book jacket blurb doesn’t do the novel… Continue Reading →
I finished the final book of the Hunger Games trilogy in three days, about the same length of time it took me to read Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. Read: Review for book one of the series,… Continue Reading →
I’ve been a fan of Stuart McLean’s Vinyl Cafe books since I was a kid. I was given Home From the Vinyl Cafe for Christmas when I was maybe 11 or 12. When I found out Stuart McLean also had… Continue Reading →
Kathleen Winter’s first novel, with House of Anansi Press, is the story of a young Labrador family secretly raising their hermaphrodite child as a boy. Winter’s prose is lyrical and lonely, yet relatable. Wayne’s story is magnetic, powerful, and has… Continue Reading →
The Book of Awesome is actually not that awesome. Some blog-to-book stories have been very successful and some blogs sell a lot of funny merchandise, but The Book of Awesome doesn’t stand up. Based on www.1000awesomethings.com, Neil Pasricha started the… Continue Reading →
Christopher Moore is a hilarious fiction writer. The first novel of his I read, A Dirty Job, had me laughing out loud. Then I picked up Fool, a satirical comedy loosely based on Shakespeare’s King Lear, which I also enjoyed…. Continue Reading →
I’ve been meaning to read The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time by Mark Haddon for a few years because I’ve heard extraordinary things about it. It came out in 2003, was a #1 international bestseller, and received… Continue Reading →
I enjoyed the second book in Larsson’s Millenium Trilogy in a different way than I enjoyed The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo (book review / movie review). In the first book, it’s very much about the mystery at hand, and… Continue Reading →
I wanted to read this book after I listened to the Canada Reads debates in 2009. It wasn’t the winning book (that was The Book of Negroes by Lawrence Hill), but the positive things said about The Outlander by Gil… Continue Reading →
Lisa Moore’s second novel, February, got some good reviews when it first came out including The Globe and Mail, Quill & Quire, and shortlisted for the 2009 Commonwealth Writers’ Prize. In February 1982, the oil rig Ocean Ranger sank off… Continue Reading →
Underground by June Hutton covers the adulthood of Albert Fraser, a young man from BC. As Al grows and changes, the book follows his story, thoughts, and confusion in life. Sometimes I felt like the book lacked direction, but it… Continue Reading →
When I heard that Life of Pi author Yann Martel had a new book coming out in April 2010, I was very excited. I read The Life of Pi when I was about 12 years old and remember discussing the… Continue Reading →
Having Faith in the Polar Girls’ Prison is a moving story about a 15-year-old girl who is locked in a prison with her premature baby (named Faith). Narrated by Trista in a stream-of-consciousness style, she tells her past through memories… Continue Reading →
I’ve been sitting on this review for a few days because it is a very hard book to read, let alone talk about. Meg Tilly tells the story of Gemma, a twelve-year-old girl who is being raped by her mother’s… Continue Reading →
This book has been at the top of international bestseller charts for quite a while now and is “destined to be regarded amongst the best crime novels ever written”. The most intriguing part for me is that the novels have… Continue Reading →
As soon as I finished the first book in the Buckshaw Chronicles, The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie, I picked up my ARC of The Weed That Strings the Hangman’s Bag. I am so pleased I had it… Continue Reading →
