Recommendation Tuesday: Everything I Never Told You by Celeste Ng

Recommendation Tuesday: Everything I Never Told You by Celeste Ng

Sarah Moon
Books

Recommendation Tuesday started as a joke and is now an official thing. Basically, this is my way of making Tuesday a little more awesome. If you've got a book to recommend on this or any Tuesday, tweet me at @FullShelves and I'll help spread the word.

View all of the past recommendations over here. 

It's not often I find a work on literary fiction that has a story as compelling as its prose--hence, I don't recommend it very often. Sparkling, thoughtful writing is wonderful, but it feels awfully vapid when the story falters. Or it's filled with dull Middle Aged Man Angst.

Discovering Celeste Ng's Everything I Never Told You was an unexpected surprise, as result. While imperfect (as all novels are), it hits so many notes that make worth checking out, even if you normally avoid literary fiction. It's a historical novel, though the 1970s time period is one of the book's less-developed aspects, but more than anything it's a story of family and marriage. 

Power & the "Tough Enough" Narrative: Rites of Passage by Joy N. Hensley

Power & the "Tough Enough" Narrative: Rites of Passage by Joy N. Hensley

Sarah Moon
Books

When listening to the audiobook of Joy Hensley's debut YA novel, I kept recalling a huge news story from my youth: Shannon Faulkner's two year-long fight to be granted admission to The Citadel, South Carolina's public military college. When the court finally forced the college to allow her admission to the Corps of Cadets, she lasted only a week, having spent much of her time in the school's infirmary.

Years later, Faulkner revealed that she was subject to intense abuse, and feared for not only her own life but the lives of her family members, thanks to death threats she received while at the school. 

It was a gut-wrenching thing to watch on the news when I was a teenager. I'd been rooting for Faulkner to succeed, to win for every girl who wanted to smash any number of boys-only clubs (institutional or social) that were inaccessible to us girls.

Recommendation Roundup: September 2014

Recommendation Roundup: September 2014

Sarah Moon
Recommendation Roundup

Read any good books lately? We've got a few recommendations for you, if you're in need. (And who isn't, if we're going to be honest.)

My best read of this past month was hands-down RIck Yancey's The Infinite Sea. Man oh man, was that a killer sequel. It's been interesting reading the reviews of it, because it's a slow-paced novel that's not working for everyone. Laura, lucky girl that she is, has already read the next installment in The Raven Cycle and loved, loved, loved it. I think it's up next for me. And, Sandra recovered from her anger about the second book in Barry Lyga's I Hunt Killers series enough to read the final novel and grudgingly admits that it was pretty good. 

Stream-It Saturday: The Fosters (TV)

Stream-It Saturday: The Fosters (TV)

Sarah Moon
Television

In my continuing selfless service to the world (ahem), I'm always looking for the next awesome thing to stream. And, of course, I must share my finds with you fabulous folks. Hence, Stream-It Saturday.

Check out all my previous recommendations over here. 

Apparently, I am the target demographic for ABC Family--who knew? Between the show I'm spotlighting today, The Fosters, and my new binge-watching addition, Switched at Birth, I am a fan of the network, apparently.