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Review: Anatomy of a Misfit by Andrea Portes

Jun 302014
 

cover for Anatomy of a Misfit by Andrea Portes. A bright teal background with the title in yellow handwriting. Across the bottom are a half dozen chairs, most of them yellow but one bright blue.Kirkus: Anika Dragomir, the third most popular girl at her high school in 1980s Nebraska, is pursued by two different boys, both off-limits to her, in a romance filled with seriously funny dark humor and tragedy.

When, toward the end of this unconventional novel, Anika realizes that she may have inherited her tendency toward mental imbalance from her loving and smart but eccentric mother, it’s an epiphany for her. It might not be similarly revelatory for readers, given the first-person window they’ve been given into her thoughts throughout. Nevertheless, Anika will already have won most of them over, even in the face of some questionable moral lapses, such as dosing her (albeit obnoxious and, it turns out, racist) boss’s coffee with Valium and pilfering money from the register. She worries that, inside, she’s “spider soup,” but it’s clear that Anika’s a good soul, though she’s terrified of her supposed friend, the most popular girl in school. Continue reading »

 June 30, 2014  Tagged with: ,

Starred Review: Anatomy of a Misfit by Andrea Portes

Jun 182014
 

cover for Anatomy of a Misfit by Andrea Portes. A bright teal background with the title in yellow handwriting. Across the bottom are a half dozen chairs, most of them yellow but one bright blue.Publishers Weekly: As the third most popular girl in school, 15-year-old Anika Dragomir worries a lot about her precarious social rank, which means tolerating the casual cruelties of Becky Vilhauer, who rules their Nebraska high school with an iron fist. Morally conflicted, Anika surreptitiously tries to undo some of Becky’s damage (such as dismantling an invented pregnancy rumor), but Anika’s secret relationship with geek-turned-hottie Logan McDonough only adds to her problems. This nascent romance is further complicated when Jared Kline, “the biggest stone-cold fox in the city, possibly in the state,” unexpectedly starts courting Becky and she gets disturbing glimpses of Logan’s home life. In this YA debut, adult author Portes (Hick; Bury This) serves up a self-deprecating and highly memorable heroine whose bawdy, laceratingly funny narration makes her instantly endearing while also revealing her flaws, uncertainties, and ethical quandaries. Throughout, Portes hints that tragedy is in the cards, and while the final chapters flirt with melodrama, the novel will leave many readers dwelling on missed opportunities to take a stand in their own lives.

 June 18, 2014  Tagged with: ,

Library Journal Top Indie Fiction

Jun 052014
 

cover for Bury This by Andrea Portes. A white doll's head with blue eyes lies half-buried in show, pine trees in the background.Andrea Portes’ BURY THIS has been named a Top Indie Fiction pick by Library Journal!

The body of a young woman is found by a snow plower at the side of the road in 1979 small-town Michigan, and the case is unsolved for 25 years until some film students decide to make a documentary. The effect on the town, always insidious, turns incendiary. VERDICT Based on a true story, this book delivers suspense but means to be a social study, told in precise, lyrical language.

 June 5, 2014  Tagged with: ,

Deal: Leah Ferguson

Apr 102014
 

leah-fergusonLeah Ferguson’s ALL THE DIFFERENCE, written in alternating chapters, if she said yes and if she said no, about a career-focused 30-year-old who finds out that she’s pregnant on the day her long-term boyfriend proposes to her and is faced with making a choice, to Julie Mianecki at Berkley, by Katie Shea Boutillier.

 April 10, 2014  Tagged with: ,

Bank Street Best Books of 2014

Apr 032014
 

Cover for Revenge of a Not-So-Pretty Girl by Carolita Blythe. A black teen girl looks off to the left, pulling the collar of her denim jacket up to hide everything but her eyes.Congratulations to Carolita Blythe on Revenge of a Not-So-Pretty Girl being selected as a Bank Street Best Book of 2014!

Girls who are pretty have a way of looking down their perfect noses at anyone they feel isn’t worthy of sharing the air with them. They have a way of making regular girls like me feel inferior for not winning the gene pool lottery. Tormenting them is my way of getting even.

Everyone knows that pretty equals mean, and Evelyn Ryder used to be a beautiful movie star—never mind that it was practically a lifetime ago. There’s no time limit on mean. So if you think I feel guilty about mugging her, think again.

But for something that should have been so simple, it sure went horribly wrong.

 April 3, 2014  Tagged with: ,

Review: Bury This by Andrea Portes

Mar 032014
 

portes-burythisNew York Times: Portes tells this tale of violence in spiraling prose. Her empathy shies away from nothing in the tangled lives of this small Michigan town, with a young girl tied up tight in the center. “Bury This” begins with the snowplow driver who finds Krauses’ body, and the writing is so exquisite it is impossible to believe that Portes could sustain its impressionistic method, at once omnipresent and precise, for the remainder of the novel. But she does, with hardly a slip in tone as we move from character to character.

Read the full review online here: New York Times Book Review

 March 3, 2014  Tagged with: ,

The Art of Falling by Kathryn Craft

Jan 282014
 

craft-artoffallingAll Penny has ever wanted to do is dance—and when that chance is taken from her, it pushes her to the brink of despair, from which she might never return. When she wakes up after a traumatic fall, bruised and battered but miraculously alive, Penny must confront the memories that have haunted her for years, using her love of movement to pick up the pieces of her shattered life. Continue reading »

 January 28, 2014  Tagged with: ,

Review: The Art of Falling by Kathryn Craft

Nov 012013
 

craft-artoffallingBooklist: When Penelope Sparrow wakes up in the hospital, she’s told she fell 14 stories and is lucky to be alive. But with bruises and pain and a broken bone, Penny faces the possibility of life without dance. All Penny ever wanted was to be a dancer, but her five-foot, eight-inch stature and wide hips (despite a lifetime of eating just enough “to stay on the right side” of anorexia) meant rejection from the traditional five-foot, five-inch and 95-pound-worshiping dance world. Continue reading »

 November 1, 2013  Tagged with: ,

Review: Bury This by Andrea Portes

Oct 242013
 

portes-burythisPublishers Weekly: A new effort to close an unsolved murder case reopens old wounds in this enigmatic novel from the author of Hick and Anatomy of a Misfit. In Muskegon, Mich., 25 years have passed since a hapless snowplow operator discovered 22-year-old Elizabeth Krause’s body off Route 31. Continue reading »

 October 24, 2013  Tagged with: ,

Deal: Kathryn Craft

Oct 082013
 

kathryn-craftKathryn Craft’s While the Leaves Stood Still, based on the author’s personal story, about a tense ten-hour standoff between one desperate man ready to take his life and the police, while his family and the community grapple with how best to respond, to Shana Drehs at Sourcebooks, for publication Spring 2015, by Katie Shea Boutillier.

 October 8, 2013  Tagged with: ,
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