A heart-wrenching, delightful work of words
921212
My family greatly anticipated this book after reading the rest of The Wingfeather Saga. It did not disappoint!  This beautiful story is exactly what we have come to expect from Andrew Peterson, whether in word or music.
597579
The highly autobiographical poems in this volume are varied in form, tone and subject matter but together they provide an intimate view of the poet's emotional life and sensibility. Zavatsky does not shy away from revealing a full range of feelings, from pre-adolescent and teen-age sexual fantasies to depression and self-pity after a divorce; from disillusionment about an uncle to admiration for his favorite jazz musicians.  He tells us about teaching his third grade class to notice the world around them with "Class Walk with Notebooks after a Storm."  In this poem, images are introduced and layered, so by the end, the poetry of the words hovers above the poem, transcending the words of the story.  And telling a story is what this poet loves to do.  These are not abstract poems that make you struggle to piece together some sort of meaning.  These are stories that communicate, that are so well told that you remember them long afterwards, such as the hilarious yet touching "The Woman Who Danced and Took off Her Clothes, The Woman Who Sang and Cried" and the love scene gone wrong in "Where X Markes the Spot."  If you are any kind of a writer yourself, after you read his poems you find yourself inspired to write about your own grandmother or father or cat -- but I suspect few can write them as simply and eloquently as Bill does.  I highly recommend this book to those who love poetry.
2177408
These poems will make you weep for the victims, they will make you pound the table in anger, they will make you sing with joy, they will make you hope despite everything -- above all, they will make you ponder and reflect. Benedetti is one of those poets who somehow manages to jolt us out of our ordinary half-consciousness into a heightened state of awareness, using an economy of words and the subtleties of sound to do so.

The challenges of conveying Benedetti's poetry across the channel into English must be formidable. How the translator, Louise Popkin, managed to do this, preserving Benedetti's voice in an entirely different language without doing violence to the original, is astonishing. Very few literary translators are up to this task. Popkin's long familiarity with Uruguay and her close friendship with Benedetti were undoubtedly key factors, but it must also be her own poetic sense and relentless determination to do justice to the originals that made her translations so powerful. With the original and the translation facing each other on any pair of pages, the reader can savor both versions, each enriching the experience of the other.
2986669
Not being a dog person myself, I was amazed to find myself in tears, there in the middle of the library, when I first read Dog Breath.  This story is an absolutely touching remembrance of the every-day imperfections in one beloved companion animal.  Although there is no direct mention of the death of the dog, sensitive readers will immediately recognize this book as a eulogy.  Carolyn Beck's Dog Breath would make a perfect gift for a child who has been bereaved by the loss of a pet.

Carolyn Beck is a masterful writer, capable of turning even the most mundane and even foul habits of animals into poetry.  It takes a brilliant writer to make the squelchy contents of a trash can sound good enough to eat, but Beck somehow makes that happen!  She dares to humorously and sensitively delve into topics that other children's writers have more typically shied away from.  For readers who don't care for the gross-out moments of Wellington's Rainy Day or Richard was a Picker, Buttercup's Lovely Day is a lyrical and zen exploration of all the good things a cow encounters during one typical day in a pasture.
3174031
Beautiful thoughts and poetry about loss, life and the goodness that endures beyond pain. Poignant and hope-giving words.
I highly recommend this book for anyone who wants to acknowledge and honor those lost to and survivors of the Holocaust, which
 should be all of us. The universal themes in the writings also helped me reflect, feel and honor my own history and those I have had the privilege
 of witnessing. Frieda, clearly a deeply caring therapist, provides the reader with wise insight that is heart felt and not preachy. A book one can read in one sitting, but will likely be returned to again and again. Leslie Gustafson, LMFT & Co-Author of Amazing Intimacy
1322048
The book will take you through the gamut of human emotions.  The author's words are poetry that draw you into the labyrinth of the human mind and heart and then back out again, moving from love to hate, desire to regret sometimes within a single minute. It is both subtle and powerful, a book you'll want to keep so that at some future time you may refer to some of the thoughts of the main character, because the author has a way of putting into words things you may have thought or felt yourself, but much more succinctly. The book will bring tears to your eyes at one point or another, and will leave nostalgia in your heart for the great loves of your life.
3821844
This book is spare the way a field of snow in an Ansel Adams photograph is spare. Its music is in the spaces between the notes.

Justin Torres reaches the beating heart of childhood with his prose, lovingly exposing the raw newness of being and the way growth twists around pain. Three young brothers are one for most of the book, and the POV (first-person plural) reflects this.

Each vignette of a chapter has a single point the way a poem has a single point; its reached via the craft of the words as much as their content. This is about a screwed-up family full of love, with beauty and brutality in equal measure serving to highlight one another. Torres gets at the meaty morsels of childhood change and shines a single beam of light right on their naked essence.

Toward the end of the book, when the narration changes from we to they to I and finally to a detached third-person echo, the emotional resonance is strong and swift. The narrators final note, a tender tendril of intent struggling to push through frozen soil, is as much saving grace as it is his apogee.

This book is art.
3938423
I felt that I must add something to the wonderful reviews already posted about the magnificent memoir, "Getting to Ellen," which clearly holds an honored place at or near the top of a handful of other fine autobiographical works by transgender individuals.

This book is so deeply touching in that it graphically describes the agonizing passage and transition of a deeply gender dysphoric, male-born person coming to grips with the true nature of her being. In so doing, the reader is provided with a vicarious and painful opportunity to face and grapple again with his or her own inner demons, be they in the form of gender variance or other pressing internal conflicts.

I liken this story of lost love and one person's struggle for gender congruence and sexual identity to a "Shakespearean Tragedy" in that it clearly fits the Wikipedia definition of that phrase. To paraphrase, "The protagonist must be an admirable but flawed character, with the audience able to understand and sympathize. Such tragic protagonists are capable of both good and evil and operate under the doctrine of free will where they are always able to back out, to redeem themselves, but must move unheedingly to their doom." Perhaps "doom" is a bit strong, but "Getting to Ellen" is such a compelling read because, like the ripples from a pebble dropped into a clear pond, we witness Ed moving inexorably toward a known conclusion in his emergence as Ellen, a change that we know will surely result in deep loss, pain and the need for a total attitude readjustment for so many. This is powerful stuff indeed.

Lastly, this book speaks clearly to the role of society, which in reality is a community composed of you and me, and the pressure we place on individuals to conform to a bi-gendered system. Fortunately, with the progress made in the gradual lifting of the societal stigma about being gay, perhaps some day our children, or our children's children, will feel free from birth to express themselves as who they really are, rather than conform to the harsh standards of others, ultimately bringing about such pain to themselves and their loved ones.
4379488
I tend to read too quickly, and Pathways forced me to slow down and savor every beautiful sentence. This book is beautiful and sorrowful, tender, hopeful and tearful. It is about real people, that I could relate to. Many times I stopped and reread a section, that was piercing my heart with the words. The author weaved stories and novellas about very human people whose lives somehow intersect with a beautiful gem of Madison Park in NYC. It will touch your heart, male or female, young or old. It is about all of us. I am an avid reader and this is one of the few books I will reread and keep on my bookshelf near me. In some ways, I felt it connected me to "A History of Love" by Nicole Krauss which is also a book that I reread.
107541
I am little bit heart-broken and a lot impressed.
This was a heart-breaking and at the same time heart-warming tale of a mixed race boy growing up in 1980s Britain. My heart broke for Leon losing first his mother to her various problems and his home, and then losing the brother upon whom he doted. There are some lovely characters, especially Maureen and Sylvia, whose compassion and warmth are beautiful. This could have been a bleak read but the author has provided a delightful story with witty moments to offset the absolute sadness of Leons situation. This is a book that will stay with me for a long time.
1424951
This is a wonderful collection of poems that truly express the joy and sorrows of love.  I felt personally drawn to so many pieces and could relate to the heartfelt words in this wonderful book.  I look forward to reading more.
511084
This beautifully written story tells of the lives of several lost and wounded souls who would not be connected at all except by their Jewish heritage and by a strange and obscure book that has affected them all.  The story is told from various points of view, and slowly we see how the stories intertwine.

This story has so much to say:  finding one's place in the world; reaching out to others; how all our lives connect in some way; how small actions can have big consequences.  And it says it with such achingly beautiful voices:  Leo Gursky, whose inner monologue made me laugh out loud at times; Alma Singer, whose detached way of describing her life with lists of unrelated thoughts belied her pain; Alma's brother Bird, whose earnest searching for spiritual truth was sweet and sincere at the same time it could be comical.  A host of other sad-but-funny characters float through the pages.

Everything about this book drew me in:  the shifting narration, the confusion over who-wrote-what, even the confusion over who or what is real and not real.  When I first finished the book, I felt a little disappointed.  But after letting it stew in my head for a few days, I found myself liking it more and more.  It affected me in new ways long after I'd finished reading it.  Our book-club discussion revealed I was not the only one deeply affected.

One thing that some of our members noticed that I'd like to pass along (it would have helped me, too) was that at the head of each chapter was an icon that identified the voice who was speaking that chapter (or the person the chapter was about, in those chapters narrated in third person).  Match the icons with the characters, and off you go!

I recommend this book highly.  Enjoy!
1429629
I devoured The First Time She Drowned in two days. And, still, Im sitting here, my jaw in my lap wondering how I go about describing something so ugly and yet so beautiful. Though fiction, this exquisite debut novel speaks of things that are so very palpably real. It could well be used as a guidebook to understanding abuse and depression and anxiety. And also as a means to achieve happiness even when you have suffered, repeatedly, at the hands of each of those horrific demons.

Right from the outset, Kettlers words drift off the page with a subtle, poetic strength, like the mournful cries of an opera singer, taking root deep into the soil of the readers soul. Each word, each sentence, wraps around you. Tight. Like a straightjacket. Not letting go until the very end. When you are finally ready. Finally healed.

This novel is one big trigger, and those readers who have been the victim of emotional or physical abuse, who have been suicidal, or who are all too familiar with the dark endlessness of depression should take warning. Prepare yourself. Cassies story will hit you. Like a cement boulder falling down from the heavens upon your chest. But what her story will also do is give you the strength to pluck that boulder off of you as if it were just a feather. It will peel away those dark glasses that cover your eyes and let you see the light that exists at the end of your very long tunnel.

I cant recommend this book enough. To young adults. To every adult. The First Time She Drowned is about not only the devastating power of peoples words and actions against others, but also about the incredible resilience of the human spirit.

Kettler has written a novel that now sits atop not only the list of my favorite books for 2016, but of all time. She is a writer of impeccable talent, whose eloquent prose, I know, will transcend time.
1213286
Emma Darwin's mastery of language in the service of both sense and sensibility leaves me so conscious of my own limitations that I'd never have attempted to review this book were it not for my dismay at some of the other reviews here. THE MATHEMATICS OF LOVE is intricate and spellbinding novel, beautifully written and finely detailed. It's a tumultuous and glorious emotional adventure.

Although I've spent years studying the Napoleonic Wars, particularly the war in Spain, Darwin's perspective makes that tragic, brutal terrain fresh and haunting. At first I resented the segues into the 1970s, but Darwin skillfully weaves them into the older story, and they soon become compelling in their own right. The leading characters (Major Fairhurst, Miss Durward, Katrijn, Anna, Theo, Eva, and Cecil) felt as vital and precious to me as if they actually inhabited my own world. The minor ones, too (the Stebbings, the Barracloughs, Mercedes, Penny, Susan, etc.), are wonderfully realized.

Darwin looks squarely at some of the greatest cruelties human beings can inflict on one another, yet somehow manages to infuse the reader with an overwhelming sense of gratitude for the beauty of this world; for the wounded, brave souls who inhabit it; and for those who came before us. Thank you, Emma Darwin.
1402264
It's been a long time since I've read a book that has moved me so deeply.  Wright shines in many elements--her gorgeous prose, quirky sense of humor, vast range (everything from sci-fi to fantasy to magical realism to historical fiction) and delightful imagination, just to name a few--but what she excels at most is her empathetic, profound understanding of peoplethe way we blame ourselves for things beyond our control, the fierce way we try to protect those we love (even if it means hurting them in the process), the way we love our pets beyond reason, and much more.  Each of these stories packs an emotional punch that resonates with you long after the ending.

It's hard to pick favorites, because each story is so finely-crafted, but my personal picks are "Sheila," (where an elderly man is faced with a government-mandated order to put his beloved robotic dog to sleep), Tiger Bright, (a couple bereaved by the loss of their infant daughter inherits a tiger), Melville Loves Hawthorne (an American author educational actor finds himself fixated on, and then disappointed by, his idealized image of his coworker), and The Thing About Great White Sharks (in a future where animals and plants have viciously turned against mankind, a badass woman is forced by the government to fight in a series of increasingly difficult tests).  But honestly, there isn't a story in the bunch that hits a false notethey are all seriously THAT good!
2110535
When I went to read this book, I didn't know what to expect. I don't typically read much poetry, but the covert art intrigued me so I decided to check it out. However, by the end of the reading I found myself moved to tears. I have to say, it is a moving read. Cascade!: A Book of Dead Poems is a work that is done with so much sincerity and passion that you can feel it gushing out of each line you read. Each poem is filled to the brim with emotion, resonating with a whole gambit of feelings. Several times reading this I have found myself quickly shifting from a state of happiness and contentment to being moved to tears. The author lays his soul out on the table for you, the reader, and invites you to examine it to your heart's content. It is not very often you see such an honest and piercing look into a person's life, while at the same time being so elegant and beautiful. I would definitely recommend it if you like poetry, or even find it refreshing to see so  much honesty in one place.
4567088
With wisdom and grace, Joy Jordan-Lake spins a poignant tale spanning centuries, exposing her readers to horrors torn -- so dreadfully! -- from America's headlines. But she does not leave us there. She satisfies us not so much with answers as with merciful understanding, a commodity itself and one which Jordan-Lake is uniquely qualified to write. This is due to her deep, rich, and wide-ranging background, perfect preparation for writing such an important novel for our times. This book will make an enormous and lasting imprint on readers' hearts. "A Tangled Mercy" enriched my soul. I count it among my most cherished novels. By Carolyn Curtis, whose latest book is "Women and C.S. Lewis."