![]() ![]() I took the subject of clichés up with several authors I know from various genres: Sci-Fi, Dystopian, Fantasy, Paranormal Romance, and Contemporary YA. In literature, it refers to a plot or character development that tramps familiar ground. Let me start with the definition of a cliché: In language, a cliché is a trite or hackneyed expression that has been used so often it has lost its originality and impact. ![]() Be sure to check it out (It will open in a new tab). In fact, a dear colleague of mine, Maggie Bolitho, sent me this amazing infographic that explains why clichés don’t work. The same is true for Young Adult fiction, and clichés are certainly boring. One of the questions was: What is the difference between writing children’s books and adult fiction? To which he replied jokingly that in Children’s books, “ you can’t leave the boring bits in.” I recently saw Neil Gaiman speak in Vancouver where he answered questions from the audience. ![]() Though it is true for all writers, it seems especially true in the YA market, due to the fact that over the past few years, YA has absolutely taken off. One of the toughest things for any writer to do is to keep her or his work fresh. ![]()
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![]() ![]() … it is a valuable rethinking of the complexity of the English Reformation, as well as a welcome broadening of our understanding of what literary responses to doctrinal matters can entail.” (Ryan Netzley, Journal of British Studies, Vol. ![]() “This is a book rife with gems of conceptual, interpretive, and historical insight. A broken A L T A R, Lord, thy servant reares, Made of a heart, and cemented with teares: Whose parts are as thy hand did frame No. ![]() “George Herbert and the Mystery of the Word makes a welcome turn in cultural studies, successfully reinstating a category and a mode of reading … the theological and phenomenological peripheries offered will make this text valuable to read for all who study Herbert’s poetry.” (Jonathan Nauman, Seventeenth-Century News, Vol. His other publications include: Muses Method: An Introduction of Paradise Lost The Heirs of Donne and Jonson Dreams of Love and Power: On Shakespeares Plays The Lyric and Dramatic Milton. … Herbert scholars and scholars of seventeenth-century religious culture will certainly find considerable value in this work.” (Brad Pickens, Anglican Theological Review, Vol. “Kuchar does put unique voices into dialogue with the Herbert corpus and his exploration of the interplay between dogmatic and mystical Christianity offers a fruitful jumping-off point for future studies. ![]() ![]() ![]() Sociologists of music have accordingly been concerned with the importance of musical taste for signifying status and distinguishing cultural hierarchies. ![]() In the landmark Distinction, Bourdieu argued, “nothing more clearly affirms ones ‘class,’ nothing more infallibly classifies, than tastes in music” ( Distinction: A social critique of the judgement of taste, p. ![]() The study of music has also concerned scholars in adjacent disciplines, particularly musicology, cultural studies, and economics. The study of music in society has been of interest to canonic social thinkers, including Weber, Simmel, and Adorno, since the establishment of sociology. Music is central to cultural life and therefore also often perceived as central to social life. ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() There are some bumps on the road to romance, though, and this book does a fabulous job delving into topics such as bullying, popularity, gossip, and what it means to be true to yourself and the people you care for. He feels ALL the feelings, has NO idea how to express them, but is luckily surrounded by incredible friends who help him through. ![]() Typically cool, calm, and collected, Jorge is suddenly tongue-tied, sweaty, and awkward around Jazmine and everyone he’s close to. This book seriously took me right back into the whirlwind of emotions I felt EVERY time I had a crush on a classmate in middle school.Ĭrush, by Svetlana Chmakova will make kids laugh and cringe alongside the protagonist, Jorge Ruiz, who is seriously struggling with how to handle his feelings for his friend, Jazmine. ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() Shen Fever is an airborne fungal infection that turns the ill into zombie-like human shells who repeat certain everyday actions-setting the table, reading a book, driving a taxi-over and over again, ignorant to their surroundings and physical state, until finally they perish from hunger or exposure or are killed by uninfected looters. But beyond the immediate comparisons, Severance is a story about what it means to make a life when one has been removed-whether willingly or by force-from one’s familiar surroundings, and the faith and perseverance required in order to call a new place home. She even touches upon the race and class divide that has characterized the toll COVID-19 continues to take. ![]() It is indeed impossible to read the book without shuddering at the accuracy with which Ma depicts the initial frivolous attitude and skepticism people hold about masks-a frivolity that is soon followed by terror, alienation, unraveling, and displacement, all of which have come to pass in the real world. A lot has already been written about the eerie propheticism of Ling Ma’s 2018 debut novel Severance, in which a pandemic originating in China shuts down facilities and services and fells entire societies around the world. ![]() ![]() ![]() Before she knows it she’s dealing wth a huge crush on a certain hunky deputy and a brand new addiction: an overpowering craving for brains. To add to the weirdness, she receives an anonymous letter telling her there’s a job waiting for her at the county morgue – and that it’s an offer she doesn’t dare refuse. ![]() Angel remembers being in a horrible car crash, but she doesn’t have a mark on her. That is, until the day she wakes up in the ER after overdosing on painkillers. Now on probation for a felony, it seems that Angel will never pull herself out of the downward spiral her life has taken. Living with her alcoholic deadbeat dad in the swamps of southern Louisiana, she’s a high school dropout with a pill habit and a criminal record who’s been fired from more worthless jobs than she can count. White Trash Zombie Synopsis: My Life as a White Trash Zombie is the first White Trash Zombie novel. If You Like White Trash Zombie Books, You’ll Love… ![]() ![]() ![]() For the purposes of narrative the vampires must have a nature to struggle against (“We lift the lemons and swing them to our faces. I slept in coffins, in black cedar boxes, and woke every night with a fierce headache.” As in “The New Veterans,” the story’s ending both confirms and belies its myths. A vampire named (in a characteristic gesture for Russell, who treasures such sparks of postmodernist humor) Clive recalls his years “on the blood,” before he learned from his wife - “the first and only other vampire I’d ever met” - that the old stories about them were lies: “I listened to the village gossips and believed every rumor, internalized every report of corrupted bodies and boiled blood. The collection’s title story, which is, as advertised, about vampires in a lemon grove, contains a similar moral. ![]() ![]() A book that will stay with youĪ fun read by a smart person for smart people. Eagleman writes well and has brought together great stories from the wild shores of neuroresearch, taking a field that is enormously complex and creating a clear path through it. A smart, captivating book that will give you a prefrontal workoutĪ shining example of lucid and easy-to-grasp science writing You'll never hear the phase You don't know what you're doing! in the same way againīreezy, fun, optimistic and full of the latest research Incognito is a fascinating book that will not so much turn your mind upside down as flip. I guarantee it'll change the way you think of yourself entertaining and truly brainy front-line report from the neuroscience labs. Environmental science, engineering & technology.Civil engineering, surveying & building.Electronics & communications engineering.Industrial chemistry & manufacturing technologies. ![]() ![]() ![]() Rich boy Jake (30) and his girlfriend Eliza (30) are also on the island. Soon, Lux finds herself heading for the island with Nico, Brittany, and Amma, but they aren’t the only one there. Then Brittany (22?) and Amma (22?) showed up, wanting to hire Nico to take them to Meroe Island, a secluded atoll famous for cannibalism legends in WWII. When she followed her boyfriend Nico (26) to Hawaii, she was hoping for some travel adventures but ended up working at hotels instead. Lux (25) has been stuck in life after her mother passed away from cancer. With Reckless Girls, I had a similar experience of wanting to keep reading to find out what’s going on, but unfortunately, the final reveal also happened to be a huge, unexplained plot hole that just made the whole build-up fell flat. I read Hawkins’ The Wife Upstairs ( my review) this time last year and couldn’t put it down. Location: Hawai‘i, USA + Meroe Island (fictional) POV : single 1st-person (present) + multiple 3rd-person (past) MCs : cishet white woman (*4)+ cishet white man (*2) Martin’s Press, January 4th 2022Ĭlick on the cover for my review on Goodreads. ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() Mo began his career as a writer and animator for television, garnering 6 Emmy awards for his writing on Sesame Street, creating Nickelodeon's The Off-Beats, Cartoon Network’s Sheep in the Big City and head-writing Codename: Kids Next Door. ![]() ![]() Mo’s work books have been translated into a myriad of languages, spawned animated shorts and theatrical musical productions, and his illustrations, wire sculpture, and carved ceramics have been exhibited in galleries and museums across the nation. The New York Times Book Review called Mo “the biggest new talent to emerge thus far in the 00's." In addition to such picture books as Leonardo the Terrible Monster, Edwina the Dinosaur Who Didn’t Know She Was Extinct, and Time to Pee, Mo has created the Elephant and Piggie books, a series of early readers, and published You Can Never Find a Rickshaw When it Monsoons, an annotated cartoon journal sketched during a year-long voyage around the world in 1990-91. #1 New York Times Bestselling author and illustrator Mo Willems is best known for his Caldecott Honor winning picture books Don’t Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus and Knuffle Bunny: a cautionary tale. ![]() |