Audiobook Review: To Night Owl from Dogfish by Holly Goldberg Sloan & Meg Wolitzer

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4.5 disco balls

Published: February 12, 2019 by Dial Books
Length: 6 hours and 13 minutes, cast of narrators
Category: Middle Grade, Fiction, LGBT

Total Parent Trap vibes, but obviously not the exact storyline. If you are a fan of the original movie you will start singing “Let’s Get Together yeah, yeah, yeah” 🎶 to yourself quite often, or at least I did. 😉Read More »

Book Review: The Immortalists by Chloe Benjamin

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4 disco balls

Published: January 9, 2018 by G.P. Putnam’s Sons
Category: Contemporary Fiction

What an interesting concept for a book! Four siblings – during their youth – will visit a fortune teller who will tell them each individually the date of their death: no sibling telling the other. How they live the rest of their lives may- or may not – be dependent on “knowing.”Read More »

Audiobook Review: Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm by Kate Douglas Wiggin, narrated by Ann Richardson


Author: Kate Douglas Wiggin
Narrator: Ann Richardson
Length: 8 hours and 11 minutes
Publisher: Post Hypnotic Press Inc.
Released: Dec. 8, 2017
Genre: Classics

Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm has delighted readers for over 100 years. Published in 1903, when girls were inevitably depicted as pretty, gentle and proper, Rebecca Rowena Randall burst onto the scene of children’s literature. Sent to live with her prim and proper Aunt Miranda, who is expecting her much more demure sister, Rebecca is a “bird of a very different feather”. She has “a small, plain face illuminated by a pair of eyes carrying such messages, such suggestions, such hints of sleeping power and insight, that one never tired of looking into their shining depths….” To her Aunt Miranda’s continual dismay, Rebecca is exuberant, irrepressible, and spirited – not at all “proper” or “demure”. She wins over her aunt soon enough, and the whole town, and thousands of readers and listeners everywhere.

In 1904, author Jack London wrote Kate Douglas Wiggin: “May I thank you for Rebecca?…. I would have quested the wide world over to make her mine, only I was born too long ago and she was born but yesterday…. Why could she not have been my daughter? Why couldn’t it have been I who bought the three hundred cakes of soap? Why, O, why?” And Mark Twain called Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm “beautiful and warm and satisfying”. This recording, narrated by Ann Richardson, whose sweet voice has a facility for accents and character voices, is a satisfying listening experience you’ll want to revisit. Upcoming from Post Hypnotic Press is a new annotated print/eBook edition of this book, with illustrations from the original publication and a new introduction, as well as a work-book for children.

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Book Review: Crazy Rich Asians by Kevin Kwan

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4.5 disco balls

Published: June 11, 2013 by Doubleday
Category: Fiction, Contemporary

This was a super fun read. It was like I was reading a soap opera versus watching one; with a plethora of characters who were just what the book described: crazy! Overbearing, meddling and judgy moms whose circles run the same.

My goodness the things some of these characters do just because of what everyone thinks, not what they want. You kind of feel bad for them, but at the same time lack empathy for them – as they are super rich – and would trade places with them any day (you think).Read More »

Book Review: Paris by the Book by Liam Callanan

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3.5 disco balls

Publish Date: April 3, 2018 by Dutton
Pre-order/Purchase: Amazon, Barnes & Noble
Category: Fiction, Mystery

I recently joined Penguin’s First to Read program: a free membership that gives you access to request upcoming new releases before they hit the shelves. Paris by the Book, by Liam Callanan, was my first selection – of course, due to my obsession with all things Paris. Paris is on the bucket list!

Is Leah a widow? For almost a year, she is unsure. Her husband, Robert, vanishes and I don’t say suddenly, because it is like him to take a break from the family from time to time: this time, he doesn’t leave a note and does not return. Is he leaving her clues to his whereabouts? Conflicted with her emotions, Leah and her daughters, Ellie and Daphne, take a trip to Paris in hopes of finding their father; if he is still alive.Read More »