Jane Litte's Blog, page 77

REVIEW: Overdue Reckoning with the Public Library by Amanda Oliver

When Amanda Oliver began work as a school librarian, fueled by a lifelong love of books and a desire to help, she felt qualified for the job. What she learned was that librarians are expected to serve as mediators and mental-health-crisis support professionals, customer service reps and administrators of overdose treatment, fierce loyalists to institutionalized mythology and enforced silence, and arms of state surveillance.

Based on firsthand experiences from six years of professional work as ...

REVIEW: Riding the Lightning: A Year in the Life of a New York City Paramedic by Anthony Almojera

The education of a New York City EMS worker, whose tales of tragedy and transcendence over a single year culminate in the greatest challenge the city’s medical first responders have ever faced: COVID-19

As a seasoned medical technician and union leader, Anthony Almojera thought he understood the toll of the job on first responders. They carried the traumas of the city, but also its triumphs, whenever a baby was born on a subway platform or an elderly man in cardiac arrest was brought back from...

REVIEW: You Made a Fool of Death with Your Beauty by Awaeke Emezi

Dear Awaeke Emezi,

I’ve been meaning to try one of your books for years, ever since I read Ana Grilo’s review of Pet for Kirkus. The book sounded really good and really different, but somehow, I never got around to reading it. However, when I heard that you’d written a romance, I knew I had to jump on the ARC. Also, there was the gorgeous title.

It’s been five years since the death of Feyi Adekola’s beloved husband in a car accident in front of Feyi’s eyes, and Feyi still sometimes wishes that ...

Review: The City Beautiful by Aden Polydoros

Chicago, 1893. For Alter Rosen, this is the land of opportunity, and he dreams of the day he’ll have enough money to bring his mother and sisters to America, freeing them from the oppression they face in his native Romania.

But when Alter’s best friend, Yakov, becomes the latest victim in a long line of murdered Jewish boys, his dream begins to slip away. While the rest of the city is busy celebrating the World’s Fair, Alter is now living a nightmare: possessed by Yakov’s dybbuk, he is plung...

REVIEW: Last Call at the Nightingale by Katharine Schellman

New York, 1924. Vivian Kelly’s days are filled with drudgery, from the tenement lodging she shares with her sister to the dress shop where she sews for hours every day.

But at night, she escapes to The Nightingale, an underground dance hall where illegal liquor flows and the band plays the Charleston with reckless excitement. With a bartender willing to slip her a free glass of champagne and friends who know the owner, Vivian can lose herself in the music. No one asks where she came from or ho...

REVIEW: Steadfast by Sarina Bowen

Dear Sarina Bowen:

I read the first book in this series three and a half years ago and gave it an A-, yet somehow never managed to continue on with the series. Maybe I was waiting for the second book to be free like the first one was (and eventually it was!) – no, actually I think I just kind of forgot about the series, though I did think of it occasionally. It’s up to eight books, so maybe I shouldn’t expect to get them *all* for free.

It also may have been that I wasn’t overly enamored of the...

Open Thread for Readers for June 2022

Got a book you want to talk about? Frustrated with a book or series? In love with a new one? Found a buried treasure? An issue that keeps popping up in the books you are reading? Just want to chat about stuff in general?

REVIEW: Book of Love (x 2) by Erin Satie

She’s trying to make ends meet. He’s out for a bit of fun.

Cordelia Kelly is busy, focused, worried about the future of her fledgling bookbinding business. When a handsome man stops her on the street to pester her with questions, she gives him the consideration he deserves: none.
That handsome man happens to be the Duke of Stroud, and he finds Cordelia’s hostility hilarious. He gives chase, if only for the pleasure of provoking her again.

He thinks life is a game. She doesn’t play around.

Withi...

REVIEW: The Eagle’s Fate by Dinah Dean

Captain Valyev had been kindness itself when he stopped on the road to give assistance to Nadya, one of a vast crowd of refugees fleeing before Napoleon’s advancing army. But the moment she told him her full name, his attitude had changed to chill hostility.

Why did he seem to dislike her so?

Gradually she understood that his behavior had something to do with her deceased brother, whom she had barely known. But what did the captain’s feelings matter, she thought. She could tolerate his rudenes...

REVIEW: Theo Tan and the Fox Spirit by Jesse Q Sutanto

After inheriting a grieving fox spirit, a Chinese American boy must learn to embrace his heritage to solve the mystery of his brother’s death in Jesse Q Sutanto’s magical, action-packed middle grade fantasy, Theo Tan and the Fox Spirit.

Theo Tan doesn’t want a spirit companion. He just wants to be a normal American kid, playing video games, going to conventions, and using cirth pendants to cast his spells like everyone else. But, when his older brother dies, Theo ends up inheriting Jamie’s fox ...