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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: ,

Review: The Art of Falling by Kathryn Craft

Oct 032013
 

craft-artoffallingKirkus Reviews:  The art of falling isn’t hard to master, Penelope Sparrow discovers, when she wakes up in the hospital after a 14-story plunge that ended with her body colliding with Marty Kandelbaum’s car.

Remembering the fall is too dangerous. Remembering means facing the loss of Dmitri, the loss of dancing. Remembering means facing that she may have tried to commit suicide. Continue reading »

 October 3, 2013  Tagged with: ,

Review: Revenge of a Not-So-Pretty Girl by Carolita Blythe

Apr 152013
 

Blythe - Revenge of a Not-So-Pretty-Girl coverLibrary Journal: Faye, 14, feels worthless and oppressed. Her father, a struggling musician, left her and her mother years earlier, her mother is full of anger and takes it out on the teen, and her two neighborhood friends have convinced her that if you aren’t attractive, the only way to make it in life is to take what you want. The novel, which is set in 1984 Brooklyn, opens with Faye and her friends staking out a former movie star’s apartment so they can take her money. The robbery goes awry Continue reading »

 April 15, 2013  Tagged with: ,

Revenge of a Not-So-Pretty Girl by Carolita Blythe

Apr 092013
 

Blythe - Revenge of a Not-So-Pretty-Girl coverFans of Walter Dean Myers and Rita Williams-Garcia’s One Crazy Summer will cherish this gripping story of an African American girl living in 1980s Brooklyn, who overcomes abuse and neglect in discovering real friendship, self-respect, and that pretty and mean don’t always win. Continue reading »

 April 9, 2013  Tagged with: ,
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