I sped through the book in a two hour flurry of reading, and at the end, I have to admit that this is a captivating adventure novel. The pace does drag in the middle, and the romance is a bit contrived, but the book reads well and there is plenty of action. I imagine that this will have a larger female audience than male, given the emphasis on Puck’s being the first woman to ride in the races; and the popularity of horse books, and of Stiefvater’s previous works amongst girls. Stiefvater’s writing has improved greatly, and I would not hesitate to recommend this one, though it might not personally be a first choice.

The catalyst in this story is the arrival of the childhood best friend of Hayat’s mother, a woman named Mina, who comes to the Shahs’ home as a divorced mother of a son. The Shah family is complicated — Hayat’s father, Naveed, is an alcohol, a skeptic, and is fond of white women, while Hayat’s mother, Muneer, is outspoken, demanding, and fiercely protective of her friend. Hayat becomes enamored of Mina and of the Quran, which neither of his parents have much use for. Meanwhile, Mina herself is being courted by one of Naveed’s coworkers, a Jewish doctor named Nathan. Each of these strong and unique personalities clash with and against each other in a fascinating narrative seen through Hayat’s quickly maturing yet still naive perspective.

I really really liked this book. It was revealing to see how similar the progression of the infatuation and adoption of religious faith is in a young Muslim and a young Christian, as well as the beginnings of the conflicts within those religious tenets, and how they are played out in a familial setting. Hayat’s confusion and concern over the interpersonal turmoil amongst the adults in his life is something that carries over to young people from any cultural or religious background. This is one of my personal favorites out of the novels I’ve read in recent months.

Reading this book is a little painful because it does reflect some of the current lines of thinking that I’ve heard tossed about, even in passing or in jest. Seeing how these ideas might play out, even in fiction, is horrifying. One interesting conversations in the novel is about halfway through, when the leader of the young organization Enough is Enough meets with an older Dr. Masters, who specializes in mercy euthanasia for the functionally brain dead and terminally ill. Brooks also creates a number of solutions to the problems in his America, including pilotless jets, cruise ships that are designed to be long-term housing facilities for the olds, an enterprising Chinese doctor who designs a healthcare system based on robotics. It is a fascinating book, and well worth reading.

The story follows a young lady recently graduated from high school, who, though offered a half-scholarship from Vassar, stays home to care for her widowed mother, and has an unfortunate romance with her employer’s son. Frankie eventually manages to go off to Vassar, where she struggles through the studies and the society of wealthy young women who hope to find a good husband and be wives and mothers after graduation. Frankie, however, wants to be an author, and moves to New York after finishing school, where she spends time with her roommate’s brother and edits stories for a magazine.

This book won an Alex award in 2012. However, I would note that its subject matter does limit it pretty strictly to young women; I would be hard pressed to find a teenage boy that would be caught reading this. It has appeal to both budding and full-fledged hipsters, although some will be confused by the caption “a Corona at last — I’ve always wanted one!” in reference to the typewriter, not the beer.

Each chapter is headed with a statistic, such as the odds of getting sick on vacation, of a U.S. citizen filing for bankruptcy, of being served breakfast in bed on Valentine’s Day, or some other number roughly associated with the chapter’s content. The novel is very readable, and paints a realistic picture of a couple in today’s American society — dealing with joblessness, financial troubles, and trying to keep at all together. A charming novel without being overly cloying or dramatic.

In this novel, an aspiring film director, sixteen-year-old Min, relates the growth and death of her relationship with basketball team co-captain Ed through mementos that she is packing into a box to return to him. These items, which include movie ticket stubs, posters, bottle caps, paper napkins, and other scraps, each tell a little piece of the story of their short relationship, from their first date to their inevitable dramatic breakup. The pace picks up towards the end as the tension between Min and Ed escalates.

Books like this make me so glad to not be a high schooler. Min, looking retrospectively at her relationship, sees the warning signs and the hints that her boyfriend is not the catch that she thinks he is; his sister, her mother, and her friends all have some things to say, but she chooses to ignore them, much to her later chagrin and regret. I found the story to be well-written; Min is a likeable narrator, though I wanted to shake her and tell her to listen to her friends when they suggest that Ed is not quite what he seems. The book has a slightly different feel than the typical Dessen or Caletti novel, but fans of those will probably enjoy this.

I have to admit that I grew up with some girls like this. My parents did homeschool me, and my mother tried hard to make us fit into the good homeschooled Christian girl model (ala Elisabeth Elliot), although we were too Chinese to ever be the perfect fundamentalist girls. So I know all too well the world that the curious Dylan describes, right down to the “Christian girlhood” blogs that she reads, first with astonishment and a little scorn; I had friends who dabbled in writing similar newsletters, though these were actual mailed newsletters — no World Wide Web for them! I appreciate that in this story, Dylan’s experience with this foreign family and their odd lifestyle causes her to become closer to her own family and friends, creating an appreciation that she did not have before. That Dylan realizes she cannot force Abigail to accept her help in breaking away from the unhealthy aspects of the lifestyle is also very true to life. The author seems to do a good job at portraying Dylan’s attempts to understand and respect the lifestyle choices made by the fundamentalists while still disagreeing with some of their beliefs; however, upon reading Bloss’s blog, it is evident that she is adamantly anti-fundamentalist, calling her discoveries “sheer mind-boggling terror.” And while I too have issues with fundamentalism, for many of the same reasons that Dylan does in this novel, the author’s attitude of outright condemnation and disgust does not seem like the most appropriate way to bridge the gap to women who are emerging from this lifestyle.

The protagonist of the novel, in fact named Hiro Protagonist, is a biracial Japanese African living in what once was Los Angeles, inside what once was a storage unit; these units are now converted into housing of varying quality. When the novel opens, Hiro is a pizza delivery boy who prides himself on never taking longer than twenty-one minutes to arrive at his destination; outside of this job, he spends his time in the Metaverse, a virtual reality world which the wealthy and technologically savvy inhabit. As one of the latter (sadly not the former, having cashed in his stocks to pay for his mother’s care), Hiro is intrigued by rumors of what seems to either be a new drug or a computer virus dubbed “Snow Crash.” But when one of his friends is suddenly struck down before his eyes, Hiro finds that “Snow Crash” is far more insidious and dangerous than it seems.

There are so many things about this novel that I liked; realizing that it was first published twenty years ago makes it even more impressive. The levels of technology, the virtual realities and interfaces described are eerily familiar, from the avatars and software to the transfer of information and the integration with reality. In particular, I loved the interaction that Hiro has with the Librarian, a software program which helps him conduct research and make connections between the things he is learning in both reality and the Metaverse. The portrayal of the Library of Congress, the takeover of the roads by private companies, the privatization of the governing bodies and police — so many of these possibilities are quickly becoming real in our own world, and to see how they are portrayed in this futuristic novel are fascinating. I did get bogged down in the middle of the novel when Hiro and the Librarian are wading through ancient civilizations and trying to make sense of the slowly unfurling connections between mythology, religion, and other stories. However, This novel, a leap into Stephenson’s blend of science fiction, mythology, society and virtual reality, turned out to be one of my favourites from the list thus far.

This is a fun little book to flip through, and if you want to see more, I suggest subscribing to Popek’s blog, http://www.forgottenbookmarks.com/.

As someone who works daily with a wide variety of mannered persons, there were plenty of familiar sounding complaints and stories in this book. This is a fun read and is great to help take the edge off of the persistently rude and annoying people that you encounter.