Jenny Twist's Sci-Fi Book Gets High Praise

The Owl GoddessAuthor: Jenny Twist
Author's Web site: https://sites.google.com/site/jennytwistauthor/home 
Genre: SciFi
ISBN-13: 978-1530594665Reviewer’s Rating 5 out of 5 stars
Buy link: myBook.to/OG

Reviewed by Mary Patterson Thornburg, http://www.marypattersonthornburg.com/

"The Owl Goddess" is one of the most entertaining and original books I've read in a long time.

On one level, it's a story based in a familiar science-fiction theme: a spacefaring vessel is wrecked on a planet inhabited by an intelligent but technologically primitive race. One of the native tribes discovers the accidental visitors' camp, and the novel follows the two groups over a period of a couple of years, as they interact with and endeavor to understand each other.

But from the very first page, it's obvious this is a completely different "first contact" story. The twelve shipwrecked spacefarers have familiar names: Athena, Zeus, Hera, Artemis, Apollo... Yet the members of both groups are definitely human, physically and emotionally very like each other despite the fact that the accidental visitors are far from their home world. What's going on here? It's a mystery the twelve visitors attempt to solve even as they struggle to build a base for themselves on this strange – but not entirely strange – new planet. And the solution is so clever that I gasped and then laughed out loud when I discovered it.

The story is told from multiple points of view (including, briefly, that of a young owl), but the two central characters are Athena, the youngest of the visitors, daughter of the ship's captain, sixteen when the novel begins, and Prometheus, a teenaged member of the stone-age tribe. Stunned by the unusual habits and abilities they observe in these new people, the natives take them for supernatural beings; the spacefarers, equally baffled by the cave-dwelling tribe's way of life, suppose the natives are mentally as well as technologically primitive. But Athena and Prometheus become friends, and their friendship leads both groups into a series of adventures.

This novel will be appealing to readers of all ages, interesting and amusing whether they are familiar with the ancient Greek myths or not. It's well and clearly written, in straightforward and colloquial language. It humanizes all the characters – not only the "gods and goddesses," who after all are very human in the mythic stories themselves, but maybe more importantly the stone-age people, who are just as human as we are despite their primitive technology. As a retired teacher, I couldn't help thinking how much a middle-school or high-school class would love this. I'd certainly teach it in a unit about mythology. And as a movie producer (in my dreams), I'd grab this one in a minute.

Jenny Twist is an amazing author whom I discovered only recently. I can't wait to read more of her work!

ABOUT THE NEW REVIEW BLOGGER

The New Book Review is blogged by Carolyn Howard-Johnson, author of the multi award-winning HowToDoItFrugally series of books for writers. It is a free service offered to those who want to encourage the reading of books they love. That includes authors who want to share their favorite reviews, reviewers who'd like to see their reviews get more exposure, and readers who want to shout out praise of books they've read. Please see submission guidelines on the left of this page. Reviews and essays are indexed by genre, reviewer names, and review sites. Writers will find the search engine handy for gleaning the names of small publishers. Find other writer-related blogs at Sharing with Writers and The Frugal, Smart and Tuned-In Editor.

Title: Mentorship Basics: an overview.

Author: Charles Mathenge Rimiru.

Amazon's Link for purchase

ISBN-10: 1539037908

• ISBN-13: 978-1539037903
• 
  

Synopsis:

The main theme of the book is: Why mentorship or rather, what is mentorship? 

    This book was born as a result of the author conducting leadership and mentoring seminars to different groups, organizations, churches or individuals, he came to realize that quite a number of people indicate that they had heard about mentorship or the mentoring process but they do not quite grasp what is entailed therein. A lot of them also wonder why mentorship seems to be such a big deal nowadays since it seems like everyone is talking about mentorship or being mentored by someone or a group.

This book is a very basic introduction to what I would consider basic mentorship principles where I have tried to use as few technical terms as possible. I have also tried to use real life experiences where we can learn and apply these principles on a daily basis.The author hopes that this basic introduction of these principles will evolve into an even bigger series where each of these principles (and many others not included here) will be expounded upon even farther to make them more familiar and practical to anyone who reads about them. Let us enjoy this learning journey together as we navigate the mentoring basics discussed herein.

  The book itself is very plainly written and the author self -published through CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform (a part of Amazon). It is easy to follow the thought pattern and ideas by the author. However, since it was edited by the author himself and a couple of friends, there are a few grammatical and spelling errors to be found in the book.

Rimiru, Charles Mathenge grew up mostly in rural Kenya, East Africa but now lives in Richmond, Virginia where he is a mentor a coach devoted to helping other people discover what it is to live a fulfilling and exciting life. He previously worked as a College Instructor/Professor for a couple of years before transition to the banking Industry where he still currently works full time. Charles has been in the Mentor-ship and Leadership Training fields since 2008 to individuals, various churches, youth groups and to men’s organizations as well especially in the areas of personal development and basic finance matters with special focus on budgeting and getting out of debt. 

He has previously authored a couple of books and articles in the academia world and is now currently working on various self-development and mentor-ship books that derive a lot of their contents from the many seminars and mentor-ship conferences he participates in.

He can be contacted on email at mcrimiru@gmail.com and also on twitter at @Rimirumc.
Charles Mathenge Rimiru.

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The New Book Review is blogged by Carolyn Howard-Johnson, author of the multi award-winning HowToDoItFrugally series of books for writers. It is a free service offered to those who want to encourage the reading of books they love. That includes authors who want to share their favorite reviews, reviewers who'd like to see their reviews get more exposure, and readers who want to shout out praise of books they've read. Please see submission guidelines on the left of this page. Reviews and essays are indexed by genre, reviewer names, and review sites. Writers will find the search engine handy for gleaning the names of small publishers. Find other writer-related blogs at Sharing with Writers and The Frugal, Smart and Tuned-In Editor.

Extending the Power of Your Fave Review FREE

I received a note from a new author about this blog so I thought I'd share what a told her. She said (approximately):

"Carolyn:

I am new at this and trust that my higher power lead me to the right place."

  

 This is my answer to her:

LOL. I think your higher power knows what it is doing! 

 

Maybe we should take one thing at a time. I take it that all of this was written by you. In that case, I need permission that it is yours and that you give me permission. If not, I need assurance that whoever wrote it gives me permission.  I also need metadata on your book. Info on how to do that is in the side column of The New Book Review at http://TheNewBookReview.blogspot.com.  OR, you can copy the format of one of the reviews on that blog.  You can also include a biography with links to where your book is available.  And if a reviewer did wrote it for you, you can include a bio for them with links to their book or business. Everyone wins! You'll see that my own bio is at the bottom of each review--yes with links!

 

Then you send the whole shebang to me at HoJoNews@aol.com.  This is a free service so it must be a copy and paste effort for me. I know you will understand that.  But you'll also see how  liberal I am with information and links that can benefit writers everywhere. I want the blog to be a resource for names of reviewers, publisher, as well as good books to read. It helps (but isn't required) when all who participate also subscribe.

 

And right now you need help with reviews. As it happens Bookbaby.com is offering the third in my multi award-winning HowToDoItFrugally Series of books for writers as an e-book absolutely free.  Find it at http://Bookbaby.com. If you can't find it, sign up for their newsletter. It will be featured in many of those before October 30 when their free offer expires.  After that, How to Get Great Book Reviews Frugally and Ethically will be released on Amazon as a paper book and as an e-book on Kindle. Until then you can learn more about it on its new page on my Web site at http://bit.ly/HowToGetReviews. I am adding to it--slowly. (-:

 

This book includes all the hard-won secrets of review-getting--and I mean ALL--for my fiction, poetry, and nonfiction books.  I know you would also benefit from my The Frugal Book Promoter (some of it on reviews) at http://bit.ly/FrugalBookPromo. 

 

Best,
Carolyn Howard-Johnson
Multi award-winning poet, novelist, and author of how-to books for writers and retailershttp://howtodoitfrugally.com
Twitter: @frugalbookpromo
and @frugalretailing
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ABOUT THE BLOGGER AND THIS BLOG

The New Book Review is blogged by Carolyn Howard-Johnson, author of the multi award-winning HowToDoItFrugally series of books for writers. It is a free service offered to those who want to encourage the reading of books they love. That includes authors who want to share their favorite reviews, reviewers who'd like to see their reviews get more exposure, and readers who want to shout out praise of books they've read. Please see submission guidelines on the left of this page. Reviews and essays are indexed by genre, reviewer names, and review sites. Writers will find the search engine handy for gleaning the names of small publishers. Find other writer-related blogs at Sharing with Writers and The Frugal, Smart and Tuned-In Editor.

Memoir, Athens, New Life! What More Can Be Asked of a Book!

A Room in Athens: A Memoir

by Frances Karlen Santamaria

Tatra Press LLC
ISBN- 978-0-9898352-9-9
Softcover; 174 pgs; $15.00

Review by Karen Chutsky  originally for IndependentPublisher.com

They say artists hover a bit outside of life; too obsessed with observing, contemplating and recording their impressions of it to be one hundred percent involved in it. 

Such is the pensive writing style of Frances Karlen Santamaria, best described through the words of her adoring son: “...she dashed off written watercolor like impressions of people fresh and literary…some sympathetically rendered others verge on harsh caricature.”

And what better subject to render into vivid pictures than her first foreign sojourn at the age of 27, during the midst of the mad dash of the early 60’s in America to soak in the “Zorba the Greek” experience of Greece and other exotic European ports of call, “where your consciousness is stretched each second with total attention.”  

Foreign travel has always been a rite of intellectual passage for the class of thinking Americans to which Frances and her husband belonged.

The synopsis: In 1964, off Frances went with Arno, the Holiday magazine writer and aspiring novelist at her side -- and soon to emerge son inside her for part of the ride -- a child who would become for the last three months of her adventure a gurgling focus more intriguing than that of the life around her in their last and longest stop, Athens, Greece. 

What I find wonderful about diaries and memoirs are the raw emotions and images of life that so often become the dulled and manipulated stuff of fiction, written by those trying to capture the sparks of lives lived by someone else. Frances’ writing offers up her experience like a plate of steak tartar.

Though the book is billed as a comparison of the realities of Greek life versus the idyll of Greece – “eh” -- the main storyline bubbling through her memoir is purely the journey of a woman on the cusp of becoming a mother, as she quips; “the one major event of our grown lives for which we do not have our hair done,” choosing to have her baby at a natural childbirth clinic in Greece; thought of as a rather dubious thing to do at the time, while coming to  grips with marrying a man “with a built-in mistress”: a writing career. She describes it succinctly thus; “he seems about to write something…but whatever it is hasn’t emerged …and he lives around an unseen but felt iceberg lodged in his mind.” Her husband seemed to place a higher value on his own freedom to experience the night life of Greek tavernas with other young sponges dissecting the novelty of Greek life -- while his wife was sequestered to “a room in Athens.”

To quote one of those famous Greek philosophers she admired so, “Without strife, there can be no greatness.” And in the end, France’s wonderfully potent writing speaks its greatness in this memoir clearest to women, through the unique episode of life she and a handful of Greek woman experienced in their journey into motherhood. 

Most notable are her vivid sketches of places and peoples, palpable as if one muddled through the grand tour of Europe -- though sadly, her diary of the months spent touring England, Italy, Spain, and Yugoslavia, pre-birth are reduced to a few paragraphs. They would have blasted open the tunnel of the book into a grander adventure. Hopefully, they will someday be compiled and edited into what would be a very worthwhile book.

Some vibrant excerpts:

         

“At twilight, the sky above Athens turns orange and the light in the streets takes on a purple tones of the bare mountains that semicircle the town.  Men sat drinking in cafes where women never went.  The city had awakened from its long afternoon nap and Athenians were out in their numbers, going back to work, shopping, strolling.  Soldiers―with custom-made uniforms hugging their bodies-- passed by in the twos and threes of soldiers everywhere, there were many of the righteous priests in their black robes, their hair braided in a knot in the back like a matador’s.  They had , without exception, the air of smug landowners…”

“Boys in white aprons ran by, swinging tripodic, long handled trays of coffee and ouzo--messengers of the Greek carry-out.  Occasionally, a cart rumbled by with a handsome young man standing up driving the horse, so like a charioteer I had to smile.”

The greatest compliment I can pay her is that many of her fecund commentaries on life were just as poignant and literary as those penned by the great philosophers of Greek antiquity she so admired. 

And though the reality of her Greek cultural adventure felt far short of her fantasy, as she realized “Ancient Greece is a state of the spirit only to which plane fare can’t take you,” the birth of her firstborn son did not disappoint.   

A Room in Athens or the more befitting title from its first publication, Joshua, First Born, exposes just the tip of the iceberg lodged in the mind of the very talented writer, Frances Karlen Santamaria

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The New Book Review is blogged by Carolyn Howard-Johnson, author of the multi award-winning HowToDoItFrugally series of books for writers. It is a free service offered to those who want to encourage the reading of books they love. That includes authors who want to share their favorite reviews, reviewers who'd like to see their reviews get more exposure, and readers who want to shout out praise of books they've read. Please see submission guidelines on the left of this page. Reviews and essays are indexed by genre, reviewer names, and review sites. Writers will find the search engine handy for gleaning the names of small publishers. Find other writer-related blogs at Sharing with Writers and The Frugal, Smart and Tuned-In Editor.

Young Adult Novel Tackles Domestic Abuse

Title: Girl on the Brink

Author: Christina Hoag

Publisher: Fire & Ice Young Adult Books; First edition (August 30, 2016)

Publication Date: August 30, 2016

Genre: YA Fiction/Teen Romance 

Available on Amazon: https://www.amazon.ca/Girl-Brink-Christina-Hoag/dp/168046339X

ISBN: 978-1-68046-339-2 (Paperback)

ASIN: B01K9L996A (Kindle)

Website: http://www.ChristinaHoag.com

Twitter: @ChristinaHoag

Facebook: http://facebook.com/ChristinaHoagAuthor

Reviewer, Marlan Warren
“Roadmap Girl’s Book Buzz”

Reviewed by Marlan Warren originally for Roadmap Girl's Book Buzz Blog

"I hope...he never calls me again, but he still owes me a big apology."

 --Girl on the Brink

Summary: Aspiring reporter Chloe (age 17) lands a dream job as a summer intern with the local paper in her New Jersey suburb, and meets the somewhat annoying-but-cute Kieran while she is on assignment. Kieran (age 19) pounces on Chloe, who is pleased to find a creative person like herself (he's an aspiring actor), and enjoys his lavish attention as a welcome alternative to her unhappy home life due to her parents' impending divorce. Gradually, it becomes more and more apparent that Kieran is emotionally disturbed, and unable (or unwilling) to control his need to micromanage her life or his extreme jealousy. At first, she thinks "There's no point in resisting," but by the time he's repeatedly hurt her physically and mentally, Chloe knows in her head that he's abusing her, but her heart makes excuses for him. Which will win? Head or heart?

Los Angeles author Christina Hoag has crafted Girl on the Brink as a "howdunit." While it is no mystery why the vulnerable and intelligent 17-year old Chloe falls for the initial charm of a potentially lethal 19-year old young man whose avid attention leads her into a summer romance, the real mystery lies in how the heck this otherwise sharp, but troubled, teen will extricate herself from what increasingly becomes an abusive relationship.

Hoag has grounded the story in the psychological reality of how abusive relationships can occur at any age. The episodic story is told in first person from Chloe's point of view, which gives it a kind of one-sided diary quality, but its use of present tense gives it a you-are-there immediacy. It unfolds the way life--and relationships--unfold.

This is not a "sleeping with the enemy" tale. There are no real villains here. Neither the sex nor the violence is sensationalized. In fact, the tragedy and victory play out with greater impact because "domestic abuse" is sadly commonplace--even though it is almost taboo in American culture to discuss it openly, especially with young daughters and sons.

Many readers may see themselves or someone they know in these pages. And to her credit, Hoag supplies a "Resources" list in the Appendix where teens can seek help if they are in Chloe's situation.

It is a well-documented fact that a significant number of abusive relationships are inhabited by two people who say they love each other. Girl on the Brink gently explores this paradox (nothing is preachy). And when it is finally over, a wiser Chloe states:

"I know it was okay to leave Kieran, and it was okay to miss him, too."

Abusive relationships can happen throughout women's lives in repetitive patterns. Girl on the Brink serves as a beacon that shines light on how to nip potential abuse cycles in the bud, and place high priority on mutual respect in relationships.

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The New Book Review is blogged by Carolyn Howard-Johnson, author of the multi award-winning HowToDoItFrugally series of books for writers. It is a free service offered to those who want to encourage the reading of books they love. That includes authors who want to share their favorite reviews, reviewers who'd like to see their reviews get more exposure, and readers who want to shout out praise of books they've read. Please see submission guidelines on the left of this page. Reviews and essays are indexed by genre, reviewer names, and review sites. Writers will find the search engine handy for gleaning the names of small publishers. Find other writer-related blogs at Sharing with Writers and The Frugal, Smart and Tuned-In Editor.

Intimate Review of LGBTQ Novel by Well-Known Poet

Title: Two Natures
Author: Jendi Reiter
Author website: http://www.jendireiter.com
Genre: Literary fiction
ISBN: 0996907424
Published by: Saddle Road Press
Where to buy it as paperback or e-book.
Special Offer: 99 cents for the e-book from Sept. 1-28, 2016!
Name of reviewer: Kittredge Cherry
Original review publication: Jesus in Love Blog

REVIEWED BY KITTREDGE CHERRY ORIGINALLY FOR JESUS IN LOVE BLOG

A gay fashion photographer who was raised Southern Baptist moves to New York City for a sexual and spiritual odyssey during the AIDS crisis of the early 1990s in “Two Natures” by Jendi Reiter.

This stylish debut novel from a gifted poet is a rare combination of erotic gay romance and intelligent reflection on Christian faith. Narrator Julian Selkirk seeks glamor and often-fleeting affairs to replace the religion that rejected him. He learns by experience to look beyond shame, surface attractions and short-term desires.

In the five-year period covered chronologically by the novel, he has relationships with three men who embody different archetypes: immature personal trainer Phil Shanahan, cosmopolitan editor Richard Molineux, and earnest activist Peter Edelman. The dense and varied literary coming-of-age novel ranges from comic scenes that could easily become a hit movie to the explicitly sexual and the touchingly tragic. Reiter brings alive LGBTQ touchstones of the era: the visit from out-of-town and out-of-it parents to their closeted son, the AIDS death and awkward funeral, and so on.

Jendi Reiter is a first-class poet and essayist, and her Reiter’s Block is one of my all-time favorite blogs. While reading "Two Natures," I sometimes wished for more of her incisive interpretations rather than her narrator’s witty voice leaving the reader to draw their own conclusions.

Female characters and experiences such as abortion are also portrayed well in “Two Natures.” Perhaps this is not surprising for an author who recently came out as a “genderqueer femme” on her blog.

Raised by two mothers on the Lower East Side of New York City, Reiter is able to portray New York with the casual realism of a native. Now living in western Massachusetts, she is a member of the Episcopal church and experienced first-hand how LGBTQ issues tore apart church groups, including the writing group where she was working on the earliest drafts of “Two Natures.”

Religious references in her novel are subtle… as are the allusions to AIDS in most of the first half of the 374-page novel. Julian finds no easy answers as he wrestles with his faith.The title is based upon the

two natures of Christ, who is fully human and fully divine in the eyes of believers. Julian observes:If what the preachers said

about Christ's two natures was true, I didn't know how he could stand his life anyhow, being split down the middle between the part of him that remembered heaven and the human part that would have touched me back.

I did find myself wondering sometimes whether gay men actually thought like her narrator Julian. I dared to explore this same challenging territory myself, writing as a lesbian author from the viewpoint of a queer male Christ in my “Jesus in Love” novels.

I can only say that “Two Natures” got rave reviews from gay male reviewers whom I respect. Toby Johnson called it “a pleasure to read” and Amos Lassen declared, “We all know someone like Julian and many of us see ourselves in him… You owe it to yourselves to read this wonderful novel.”

As art historian, I especially enjoyed the way that some of Julian’s spiritual reflections were provoked by art. For instance, Julian’s inner spiritual conflict is portrayed at first through his responses to “Piss Christ,” a controversial photograph by Andres Serrano.

The novel is also significant as an example of how a new generation tries to make sense of an AIDS crisis that they were too young to experience firsthand. I happened to read “Two Natures” at the same time that I was rereading my own journals for an oral history interview about doing AIDS ministry at Metropolitan Community Church of San Francisco in the late 1980s. Perhaps no novel can capture the agony, ecstasy and desperate intensity of those times.

Julian never found the kind of LGBTQ-affirming church home that we provided at MCC-SF. Sadly that may be true for many young gay men in the early 1990s, and even now. But there’s good news: Reiter is already working on a sequel. 

Julian will have another chance to find long-term love and a gay-positive spiritual community, with readers invited along for the ride.
###

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Jendi Reiter is the author of the newly released novel Two Natures (Saddle Road Press)

See the book trailer at http://bit.ly/twonaturestrailer.Midwest Book Review says,  "Intense revelations about what it means to be both Christian and gay...a powerful saga" --

Jendi is editor of WinningWriters.com, a Writer's Digest "101 Best Websites for Writers"

"Things are not what they appear to be: nor are they otherwise."
Surangama Sutra

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 The New Book Review is blogged by Carolyn Howard-Johnson, author of the multi award-winning HowToDoItFrugally series of books for writers. It is a free service offered to those who want to encourage the reading of books they love. That includes authors who want to share their favorite reviews, reviewers who'd like to see their reviews get more exposure, and readers who want to shout out praise of books they've read. Please see submission guidelines on the left of this page. Reviews and essays are indexed by genre, reviewer names, and review sites. Writers will find the search engine handy for gleaning the names of small publishers. Find other writer-related blogs at Sharing with Writers and The Frugal, Smart and Tuned-In Editor.

National Librarian Reviews Literary Fiction

Title: The Butterfly Prison

Author: Tamara Pearson

Author website: resistancewords.wordpress.com

Genre: Literary fiction

Publisher: Open Books

ISBN: 0692449264

Reviewer: Alison Dellit

Original review published on: Amazon

Reviewer's rating: 5 stars

Buy here.

Gets in your hear

Reviewed by National librarian Alison Dellit 
"Monarchs with business suits instead of crowns spent four thousand American dollars per day on accommodation at the APEC Summit in Busan, South Korea, in December 2005. The luxury banquet for summit participants cost 1.5 million dollars. It surely must have been Rollsroycefood, swan toilet paper, musical champagne.

Meanwhile the city government closed the street stalls near the venue and walled off the poor quarters. Thirty-five thousand police kept protesters away. If they could, the government would have gathered up the sun too and put it inside a crystal cage in the centre of the summit, leaving just the crumbs of yellow light scattered about for the rest."

"Sitting on the fence, he imagined/remembered a photo of his mum's eyes when she slept. A close up of one eye that was still, but not peaceful. The skin eyelid skin was pulled tightly, as though it was toiling. Paz gave the photo detail; skin lines crossing, the eyelashes dark and gentle."

The Butterfly Prison is an absorbing, rewarding and challenging reading experience. Pearson's language, a rhythm of description and reflection, is punch-the-air, breathtakingly good when it soars, drawing you seductively in to the perspective of her two protagonists, and carrying the fury, the despair, the strength and finally the hope of the world's poor with it.

Poverty Pearson sees as the theft of not just resources, but of joy, of creativity, of a life with possibility and variety from most of the world. The novel is a long scream of protest at this theft, and unlike many overtly political books, never simplified, never superficial.

Pearson, who grew up in Sydney's west and then spent most of her adult life in Latin America, draws seamless lines between the experiences of the world's poor, whether in Mexico City or Redfern, Venezuela's Merida or Macquarie Fields. The portrait of the latter - "Every day in Macquarie Fields, police cars parked in groups of three outside the supermarket, the station and the park. Officers patrolled the quiet public housing streets, and their shadows stuck to the public housing walls, haunting people even when they weren't around" - is searing, indictatory, confronting an instantly recognisable. It would have been easy to set this tale of poverty and resistance in a country renowned for both, but by setting the tale in Australia, Pearson confronts the reader to understand the universality of poverty, of theft and of the war being hope and hopelessness. She refuses to allow a middle-class Australian to look away, to pretend the problem is elsewhere.

The main technique employed here - the use of interspersed paragraphs of world history, works particularly well, and serves to break up the lengthy and occasionally repetitive, narrative (and in a surprising connection, reminded me somewhat of comic writer Warren Ellis' integration of headlines and story, albeit with a more driven tone).

Which is not to say the novel is grim. Far from it. Pearson has such love for humanity - her protagonists' creativity shines, and their love for housemates and collaborators gives the novel bounce and energy. A key theme of the novel is the families we construct for ourselves, the importance of loving and being loved, of being part of we and not just I.

The book is uneven - not unusual for a first novel - with clunky constructions popping up and pacing issues, particularly in the first half which drags too much. The author has time and space to grow, to make the soaring heights of the book closer to the normal terrain. I was a little worried that I wouldn't love this book, but while the flaws are real, there's no question that this is one of those which creeps inside you and changes something.

----- The New Book Review is blogged by Carolyn Howard-Johnson, author of the multi award-winning HowToDoItFrugally series of books for writers. It is a free service offered to those who want to encourage the reading of books they love. That includes authors who want to share their favorite reviews, reviewers who'd like to see their reviews get more exposure, and readers who want to shout out praise of books they've read. Please see submission guidelines on the left of this page. Reviews and essays are indexed by genre, reviewer names, and review sites. Writers will find the search engine handy for gleaning the names of small publishers. Find other writer-related blogs at Sharing with Writers and The Frugal, Smart and Tuned-In Editor.