Maali is a deeply flawed but deeply beautiful character. Usually, I find the second person too distant and lacking personality, but this narration is, oddly for a ghost, full of life.
I also loved how Karunatilaka doesn't give a history lesson, but the way he opens the reader's eyes to the past is exactly like we're looking at Maali's photographs. It's a hard look but the surreal dark humor of the novel prevents this from being a bleak read.
Perhaps the thing that is most striking about the novel is how razor-sharp the writing is. I bookmarked so many sections that I knew I'd want to go back over to think about. Karunatilaka gets his ideas across with intelligence, humor and originality. This was my first read of the year, and my favorite.
Colombo, 1990. Maali Almeida-war photographer, gambler, and closet queen-has woken up dead in what seems like a celestial visa office. His dismembered body is sinking in the serene Beira Lake and he has no idea who killed him. In a country where scores are settled by death squads, suicide bombers, and hired goons, the list of suspects is depressingly long, as the ghouls and ghosts with grudges who cluster round can attest. But even in the afterlife, time is running out for Maali. He has seven moons to contact the man and woman he loves most and lead them to…
The prose was so dreamy; Schwab's writing floated across the page, and I was completely swept away.
I loved the descriptions of 1700s France and of the old gods and how easily attached I was to Addie as she went from feeling trapped in the restrictive time she was born in to finding herself trapped in a curse that should have given her boundless freedom. There was so much heartbreak in this particular curse. Addie's identity is taken from her so that she's forced to live this ghost-like existence throughout the ages.
The jumps between her past and current timeline added so much intrigue and I never minded who or when we were following, every moment captured something that I wanted to hold onto, long past the end of the novel.
"For someone damned to be forgettable, Addie LaRue is a most delightfully unforgettable character, and her story is the most joyous evocation of unlikely immortality." -Neil Gaiman
A Sunday Times-bestselling, award-nominated genre-defying tour-de-force of Faustian bargains, for fans of The Time Traveler's Wife and Life After Life, and The Sudden Appearance of Hope.
When Addie La Rue makes a pact with the devil, she is convinced she's found a loophole-immortality in exchange for her soul. But the devil takes away her place in the world, cursing her to be forgotten by everyone.
When I say this book had me laughing out loud, I mean I kept re-reading sections and laughing over them.
The bromance was the heart of this story for me (although of course it isn't really confirmed that Rocky is male). Grace and Rocky's besties-for-life relationship was everything, and the sassiness of that rock-spider-alien will forever stay with me. Though, aside from my alien crush, I also really liked the story.
The possible end of the world is classic stuff, but Grace's character arc was its own movie–full of drama and a lot of emotion towards the end. It’s a story that’s clever, heartfelt and manages to be serious while still remembering to have a sense of humor.
Ryland Grace is the sole survivor on a desperate, last-chance mission—and if he fails, humanity and the earth itself will perish.
Except that right now, he doesn’t know that. He can’t even remember his own name, let alone the nature of his assignment or how to complete it.
All he knows is that he’s been asleep for a very, very long time. And he’s just been awakened to find himself millions of miles from home, with nothing but two corpses for company.
His crewmates dead, his memories fuzzily returning, Ryland realizes that an impossible task now confronts him. Hurtling through…
Adlai Bringer remembers going to the desert market with her father: The colorful tents, the wink of gold, and her father’s shadow, black as night, as it moved of its own accord and stole whatever trinket she wanted. He called it the Shadow Game.
But ever since her father disappeared one night, Adlai has had to play the game alone. And when one of her marks turns out to be a killer, she’s left entirely defenseless. To flee his grasp, she must leave the city, the only home she’s ever known. From the desert to the Shadow World to even more unlikely places, Adlai only knows one thing for certain: her shadow is a gift worth killing for.
This book is super interactive, and the illustrations are so creative; they really bring the book to life. My son giggles every time I pretend to be searching for the monster in our room and then call him back into the book.
I think it’s great for language development–the story is simple but interesting enough that I don’t mind that I have to read it twice every night!
The rhymes in this book are fun and memorable, and my son loves all the sound effects. He finds the story exciting but there’s a nice, calming down section at the end that he understands to signal bedtime.
The illustrations are a riot of color and have small details that make looking at every page interesting for him.
Join ten cheeky monkeys for lots of jungle fun in this rhyming counting adventure!
Follow the ten little monkeys as they swing through the jungle, getting up to all sorts of mischief! On the way you'll meet all your favourite wild animals: elephants, lions, giraffes, meerkats and more!
Read the bouncy rhyming story and count from ten to one and back again, as the little monkeys disappear then reappear. Spot and count the details on each page, and join in with the read-aloud animal sounds. ROAAAAR!
Part traditional counting rhyme, part fun-filled story, Ten Little Monkeys is perfect for sharing.…
My son loves diggers, so he was naturally drawn to this book. He also loves rockets, cars, helicopters…and just about every transport vehicle–which is great because this book says goodnight to every kind.
It isn’t a lot of text to read, which my son prefers, and is focused instead on all the cool pictures that we can point to and say goodnight to.
