March 26, 2015

March is all about madness, and we don’t mean just the college basketball kind. It’s also about spring cleaning...and trying to wrap our heads around the fact that it’s still 20 degrees out in the bitter northeast --- seriously?! Nori West may love all things Frozen, but the northeast sure doesn’t.

As long as we’re still stuck inside, we might as well get a start on our spring cleaning. Crazy, old spring cleaning...always good for a laugh. But seriously, we’re jumping on the hyper-organized bandwagon of getting rid of the clutter. You’d think we’d be experts by now (especially after 20something years of our mothers yelling at us to clean our rooms), but we’re not. So to help us along the way, and because a little extra reading never hurts, we’re turning to Marie Kondo’s THE LIFE-CHANGING MAGIC OF TIDYING UP: The Japanese Art of Decluttering and Organizing. The easy-to-follow guide, which came out in the US in late 2014, is gaining plenty of wrinkle-smoothing steam among people in their 20s and 30s. Last month, it was featured on The Cut, New York Magazine’s fashion/lifestyle website. Kondo preaches daily decluttering --- discarding anything that no longer “sparks joy” --- and the book is basically the 30-year-old’s light-living manifesto, an easy-to-follow guide to lifelong feng shui. “Kondomania” is sweeping the nation, and we’re following suit (but not soot).

As we look forward to our spruced-up homes and lives, we’re also gearing up for the spring holidays --- Easter, Passover...and Spring Break. We admit that it’s been a while since we’ve been able to experience a real spring break for ourselves, so we will be vicariously living through all those young college studs as we indulge in celebratory ham and Matzoh pizza --- and maybe both at the same time :-O. Since we know that family time can be a little extravagant during the holidays (whether they be weeklong or even just 24 hours), we suggest a preemptive reading of Thich Nhat Hanh’s THE ART OF COMMUNICATING. We could all probably learn a thing or two from the famous Buddhist about mindful communication...or at least making small talk with our cousins.

And if you --- like Emily --- aren’t in the market for life lessons, you can always just see Get Hard this weekend. And if Kevin Hart-Will Ferrell buddy comedies aren’t your jam (who are you, you monster?), check out these must-read books:

If you feel like you’re seeing Erik Larson’s DEAD WAKE: The Last Crossing of the Lusitania everywhere, it’s because you are. This book is definitely in shipshape, debuting on the Times list at number one. The sinking of the Lusitania is a story that many of us think we know from history class as a bunch of memorized facts. But here Larson tells it thrillingly, switching between hunter and hunted while painting a larger portrait of America at the height of the Progressive Era. DEAD WAKE brings to life a cast of evocative characters --- from famed Boston bookseller Charles Lauriat to pioneering female architect Theodate Pope to President Woodrow Wilson, a man lost to grief, dreading the widening war but also captivated by the prospect of new love.

Our very own Teenreads/Kidsreads Editorial Manager Shara Zaval personally recommends DELICIOUS FOODS by James Hannaham. It’s the story of Darlene, once an exemplary wife and a loving mother to her young son, Eddie, who finds herself devastated by the unforeseen death of her husband. Unable to cope with her grief, she turns to drugs and quickly forms an addiction, which leads to her sudden disappearance. Unbeknownst to 11-year-old Eddie, now left behind in a panic-stricken search for her, Darlene has been lured away with false promises of a good job and a rosy life by a sinister company named Delicious Foods. Sounds like a great “True Detective” arc to us!

Last but not least is MADEMOISELLE CHANEL, C. W. Gortner’s fictional account of Coco Chanel’s meteoric rise to fame. The visionary Chanel was a woman who fought every convention of her time to become the most iconic fashion designer the world has ever known. She hit her stride in the 1920s with a style that freed women of restraining garments, and money brought her a freedom she had never known. As her reputation and business reached new heights, Chanel became the woman every man wanted and every woman wanted to be.

Also be sure to check out GOLDENEYE: Where Bond was Born --- Ian Fleming's Jamaica by Matthew Parker. As Greg Fitzgerald of The Book Report Network puts it, "Matthew Parker takes a look at one of the greatest of these influences on the story of 007. The subtitle is 'Where Bond Was Born: Ian Fleming’s Jamaica,' and this book is as much a testament to Jamaica as it is to Bond." If this book doesn't make you want to travel to Jamaica, then we don't know what will.

We tried to include something for everyone above, but if you only have a head and heart for all things Divergent, then we recommend checking out Insurgent in theaters ASAP. We were lucky enough to score tickets to a prescreening, and let’s just say that the deep-voiced Theo James and Shai Shai brought it...just as expected. Read our roundup of the movie’s highlights here.

5 Things We’re Obsessed With at This Very Moment, in no particular order:
1. The brand new cover of Harper Lee's MOCKINGBIRD 2.0, GO SET A WATCHMAN (see image above)
2. Matzoh Pinterest boards
3. Dan Stevens being cast as the Beast in the forthcoming, live-action version of Beauty and the Beast
4. Green tea-flavored EVERYTHING, but especially the new Chobani flavor.
5. Actress-poet Amber Tamblyn's DARK SPARKLER --- mark our words, Tamblyn's the new James Franco.

Nicole Sherman ([email protected]) + Emily Hoenig ([email protected])

Tired of freezing your fingers every time you take off your glove to turn that page? We are too. That's why GraphicNovelReporter.com has put together 20 titles they're most looking forward to reading this spring --- out on a park bench under warm streaming sunlight. The best way to take in a graphic novel, right?

This spring brings a little bit of something new mixed with old favorites --- retrospectives of the work of Jules Feiffer, Bill Watterson and a slew of Drawn and Quarterly creators sit on our shelf next to Wonder Woman's first digital excursion and the collected short graphic fiction of rising star illustrator Nate Powell. You'll find bugs that talk, cats that talk and... well, honestly, there are a lot of animals that talk on this list. But that's not all. Philosophy and computer history mix with adaptations of Greek myth and weird fiction and cosmic horror. Take a look, and enjoy some of the best of what this season has to offer.

BETTER THAN BEFORE: Mastering the Habits of Our Everyday Lives by Gretchen Rubin (Self-Help/Personal Growth)
If habits are a key to change, then what we really need to know is: How do we change our habits? BETTER THAN BEFORE answers that question. It presents a practical, concrete framework to allow readers to understand their habits --- and to change them for good. Infused with Gretchen Rubin’s compelling voice, rigorous research and easy humor, and packed with vivid stories of lives transformed, the book explains the (sometimes counter-intuitive) core principles of habit formation. Reviewed by Jamie Layton.

COLD BETRAYAL: An Ali Reynolds Novel by J. A. Jance (Thriller)
Ali Reynolds’ longtime friend and Taser-carrying nun, Sister Anselm, rushes to the bedside of a young pregnant woman hospitalized for severe injuries after she was hit by a car on a deserted Arizona highway. The girl had been running away from The Family, a polygamous cult with no patience for those who try to leave its ranks. Something about her strikes a chord in Sister Anselm, reminding her of a case she worked years before when another young girl wasn’t so lucky. Reviewed by Barbara Lipkien Gershenbaum.

DARK ROOMS by Lili Anolik (Mystery)
Death sets the plot of DARK ROOMS in motion: the murder of 16-year-old Nica Baker. The crime is quickly solved --- a lonely classmate, unrequited love, a suicide note confession --- but memory and instinct won’t allow Nica’s older sister, Grace, to accept the case as closed. Dropping out of college and living at home, working at the moneyed and progressive private high school from which she recently graduated, Grace becomes increasingly obsessed with identifying and punishing the real killer. Reviewed by Sarah Rachel Egelman.

THE DAUGHTER by Jane Shemilt (Psychological Thriller)
Jenny is a successful family doctor, the mother of three great teenagers and married to a celebrated neurosurgeon. But when her youngest child, 15-year-old Naomi, doesn’t come home after her school play, Jenny’s seemingly ideal life begins to crumble. More than a year after her daughter’s disappearance, Jenny is still digging for answers --- and what she finds disturbs her. Everyone she has trusted, everyone she thought she knew, has been keeping secrets, especially Naomi. Reviewed by Barbara Lipkien Gershenbaum.

DEAD WAKE: The Last Crossing of the Lusitania by Erik Larson (History)
The sinking of the Lusitania is a story that many of us think we know but don’t, and Erik Larson tells it thrillingly, switching between hunter and hunted while painting a larger portrait of America at the height of the Progressive Era. DEAD WAKE brings to life a cast of evocative characters --- from famed Boston bookseller Charles Lauriat to pioneering female architect Theodate Pope to President Woodrow Wilson, a man lost to grief, dreading the widening war but also captivated by the prospect of new love. Reviewed by Stuart Shiffman.

DELICIOUS FOODS by James Hannaham (Fiction)
Darlene, once an exemplary wife and a loving mother to her young son, Eddie, finds herself devastated by the unforeseen death of her husband. Unable to cope with her grief, she turns to drugs and quickly forms an addiction. One day she disappears without a trace. Unbeknownst to 11-year-old Eddie, now left behind in a panic-stricken search for her, Darlene has been lured away with false promises of a good job and a rosy life. A shady company named Delicious Foods shuttles her to a remote farm, where she is held captive. Reviewed by Sarah Rachel Egelman.

ENDANGERED: A Joe Pickett Novel by C. J. Box (Mystery/Thriller)
Joe Pickett had good reason to dislike Dallas Cates, even if he was a rodeo champion, and now he has even more --- Joe’s 18-year-old ward, April, has run off with him. And then comes even worse news: The body of a girl has been found in a ditch along the highway --- it is April, and the doctors aren’t sure if she’ll recover. Cates denies having anything to do with it, but Joe knows in his gut who’s responsible. What he doesn’t know is the kind of danger he’s about to encounter. Reviewed by Joe Hartlaub.

FINDING JAKE by Bryan Reardon (Psychological Thriller)
Simon Connolly’s son, Jake, is the only child missing following a shooting at school. As his worst nightmare unfolds, Simon begins to obsess over the past while searching for answers, for hope, for the memory of the boy he raised, for mistakes he must have made, for the reason everything came to this. Where is Jake? What happened in those final moments? Is it possible he doesn’t really know his son? Or he knows him better than he thought? Reviewed by Stephen Febick.

THE HOUSE OF WOLFE: A Border Noir by James Carlos Blake (Noir Thriller)
A 10-member wedding party is kidnapped in front of the groom’s family mansion in Mexico City. The perpetrator is a small-time gangster who wants nothing more than to make his crew part of a major cartel and hopes that this crime will be his big break. Jessica Juliet Wolfe is a bridesmaid and close friend of the bride who hails from a family of notorious outlaws that has branches on both sides of the border. When the Wolfes learn of Jessie’s abduction, they fear that the kidnappers will kill the captives after receiving the ransom --- unless they rescue Jessie first. Reviewed by Joe Hartlaub.

LAST ONE HOME by Debbie Macomber (Romance)
Growing up, Cassie Carter and her sisters, Karen and Nichole, were incredibly close --- until one fateful event drove them apart. After high school, Cassie ran away from home to marry the wrong man, throwing away a college scholarship. Now 31, Cassie is living in Seattle with her daughter and hoping to leave her past behind. Despite the strides she has made, she hasn’t been able to make peace with her sisters. Then one day, Cassie receives a letter from Karen, offering what Cassie thinks may be a chance to reconcile. Reviewed by Michele Howe.

LIFE OR DEATH by Michael Robotham (Thriller)
Audie Palmer has spent 10 years in prison after pleading guilty to a robbery in which four people died and seven million dollars went missing. During that time he has suffered repeated beatings, stabbings and threats by inmates and guards, all desperate to answer the same question: where's the money? On the day before Audie is due to be released, he suddenly vanishes. Now everybody is searching for him, but Audie isn't running to save his own life --- he's trying to save someone else's. Reviewed by Joe Hartlaub.

THE LOVE SONG OF MISS QUEENIE HENNESSY by Rachel Joyce (Fiction)
THE UNLIKELY PILGRIMAGE OF HAROLD FRY followed its unassuming hero on an incredible journey as he traveled the length of England on foot --- a journey spurred by a simple letter from his old friend, Queenie Hennessy, writing from a hospice to say goodbye. Setting pen to paper, Queenie makes a journey of her own, a journey that is even bigger than Harold’s. One word after another, she promises to confess long-buried truths, including the devastating secret she has kept from Harold for all these years. Reviewed by Kate Ayers.

MADEMOISELLE CHANEL by C. W. Gortner (Historical Fiction)
Coco Chanel was a woman with a vision who fought every convention of her time to become the most iconic fashion designer the world has ever known. She hit her stride in the 1920s with a style that freed women and money that brought her a freedom she had never known. As her reputation and business reached new heights, Chanel became the woman every man wanted and every woman wanted to be. Reviewed by Amy Gwiazdowski.

NYPD RED 3 by James Patterson and Marshall Karp (Thriller)
Detective Zach Jordan and his partner, Kylie MacDonald, are called to the home of billionaire businessman Hunter Alden, Jr. after he makes a grisly discovery in his townhouse garage. When Alden's teenage son goes missing soon afterwards, and his father seems oddly reluctant to find him, Zach and Kylie find themselves in the middle of a chilling conspiracy that threatens everyone in its wake --- especially their city's most powerful citizens. Reviewed by Joe Hartlaub.

PAST CRIMES: A Van Shaw Novel by Glen Erik Hamilton (Thriller)
Van Shaw was raised to be a thief, but at 18 he suddenly broke all ties to that life and joined the military --- abandoning his illicit past and the career-criminal grandfather who taught him the trade. Now, after 10 years of silence, his grandfather has asked him to come home to Seattle. But when Van arrives, he discovers his grandfather bleeding out on the floor from a gunshot to the head. Van knows he’s sure to be the main suspect, and the only way he can clear his name is to go back to the world he’d sworn to leave behind. Reviewed by Joe Hartlaub.

THE POCKET WIFE by Susan Crawford (Psychological Thriller)
Dana Catrell is shocked when her neighbor, Celia, is brutally murdered. To Dana’s horror, she was the last person to see Celia alive. Suffering from mania, the result of her bipolar disorder, she has troubling holes in her memory, including what happened on the afternoon of Celia’s death. The closer she comes to piecing together the shards of her broken memory, the more she falls apart. Is there a murderer lurking inside of Dana...or is there one out there in the shadows of reality, waiting to strike again? Reviewed by Norah Piehl.

SEASON OF FEAR: A Cab Bolton Thriller by Brian Freeman (Psychological Thriller)
Attractive and popular politician Diane Fairmont is running for the Florida governorship, but a chill is cast over the campaign when she receives an anonymous note announcing the return of the assassin who killed her husband 10 years earlier. Because of complicated ties between Fairmont and his mother, Detective Cab Bolton is assigned to the case. As Bolton struggles to penetrate the veil of secrecy surrounding the Fairmont campaign, he begins to realize that the death threat is not the only danger faced by the campaign staff. Reviewed by Joe Hartlaub.

THE STOLEN ONES by Owen Laukkanen (Thriller)
A sheriff’s deputy steps out of a diner on a rainy summer evening, and a few minutes later, he’s lying dead in the mud. When BCA agent Kirk Stevens arrives on the scene, he discovers that local authorities have taken into custody a single suspect: a hysterical young woman found sitting by the body, holding the deputy’s own gun. The mystery only deepens from there, as Stevens and Carla Windermere find themselves on the trail of a massive international kidnapping and prostitution operation. Reviewed by Joe Hartlaub.

WEREWOLF COP by Andrew Klavan (Supernatural Thriller)
Detective Zach Adams serves on a federal task force that has a single mission: to hunt down Dominic Abend, a European gangster who has taken over the American underworld. After a brutal murder gives them a lead, Zach and his tough guy NYPD partner Martin Goulart feel like they’re finally on Abend’s trail. But things get complicated --- and very, very weird. Zach is beginning to suspect that Abend’s evil goes beyond crime --- perhaps to the edge of the supernatural. Reviewed by Ray Palen.

THE HAUNTING OF SUNSHINE GIRL BOOK ONE by Paige McKenzie and Alyssa Sheinmel (Young Adult Fiction, Paranormal, Supernatural)
From the moment 16-year-old Sunshine Griffith and her mother Kat move from sunny Austin, Texas, to the rain-drenched town of Ridgemont, Washington, Sunshine feels her world darken with an eeriness she cannot place. In the days that follow, things only get stranger. Sunshine is followed around the house by an icy breeze, phantom wind slams her bedroom door shut, and eventually, the laughter Sunshine hears on her first night evolves into sobs. She can hardly believe it, but as the spirits haunting her house become more frightening --- and it becomes clear that Kat is in danger --- Sunshine must accept what she is, pass the test before her and save her mother from a fate worse than death. Reviewed by Cheyenne C., Teen Board member.

THE LAST TIME WE SAY GOODBYE by Cynthia Hand (Young Adult Fiction, Social Issues)
Since her brother, Tyler, committed suicide, Lex has been trying to keep her grief locked away and to forget about what happened that night. But as she starts putting her life, her family and her friendships back together, Lex is haunted by a secret she hasn't told anyone --- a text Tyler sent that could have changed everything. Reviewed by Cheritta J., Teen Board member.

THE TIGHTROPE WALKERS by David Almond (Young Adult Fiction)
A gentle visionary coming of age in the shadow of the shipyards of northern England, Dominic Hall is torn between extremes. On the one hand, he craves the freedom he feels when he steals away with the eccentric girl artist next door, Holly Stroud --- his first and abiding love --- to balance above the earth on a makeshift tightrope. With Holly, Dom dreams of a life different in every way from his shipbuilder dad’s, a life fashioned of words and images and story. On the other hand, he finds himself irresistibly drawn to the brutal charms of Vincent McAlinden, a complex bully who awakens something wild and reckless and killing in Dom. Reviewed by Norah Piehl.