Reviews

Staff Review
Cover of "Banyan Moon" by Thao Thai.

Banyan Moon by Thao Thai

By Thao Thai
Star Rating
★★★★

Rated by Gregg W.
Jun 21, 2023

Hello and welcome to the latest edition of New Title Tuesday, where we take a closer look at a new release that's hitting the publishing world this week.

Teen Review
The left hand with a dragon's talon growing in place of the ring finger, the background showing a very muted face of a dragon staring at the reader

Dragon's Keep

By Janet Lee Carey
Star Rating
★★★★

Rated by Anne G
May 31, 2023

“The real dragon haunted my head and heart.”

What makes Dragon's Keep work for me is its approach: a medieval fantasy written more like historical fantasy than high fantasy.  Yet it has that sliver of magic and magical creatures (dragons, of course) to spice up the lyrical story.   In other words, the author avoids over-doing the chosen one approach, and instead creates very believable characters in a believable world.

Teen Review

We Rule the Night

By Claire Eliza Bartlett
Star Rating
★★★★

Rated by Anne G
May 31, 2023

We Rule the Night caught me completely off guard with its immersive fantasy historical fiction world and narrative of fierce women. People who like the concepts of living aircraft, military, wartime, and magic will enjoy this. There is also the idea of traitors thrown into the mix.

Staff Review
Book Cover

Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge, and the Teachings of Plants

By Robin Wall Kimmerer
Star Rating
★★★★★

Rated by Chris K.
May 30, 2023

Kimmerer has the scientific training--rational, evidence-based, data-driven--of a botanist; the indigenous culture, worldview, and beliefs of a Potawatomi Anishinaabe; and the language, spirit, and skill of a poet. In this book she wonderfully melds those three ways of seeing, of knowing, of understanding and communicating. She beautifully shares an ecological message of the possibility of harmonious co-existence with plants and nature, a perspective deeply supported by science. More than any other book I know, it spoke equally to my head, my heart, and my soul.

Staff Review
scenes from the book

Demon Copperhead

By Kingsolver, Barbara
Star Rating
★★★★★

Rated by Cheryl M.
May 13, 2023

WINNER OF THE PULITZER PRIZE FOR LITERATURE 2023

Imagine you want to write about the opioid epidemic in Appalachia, a place you are from and have loved your whole life. Then imagine you are on a book tour in England and stay in Charles Dickens’s house, Bleak House, and you sit at his desk and lay your head down and ask the master writer, how? And you receive the answer, “let the orphan tell the story.” And with that, Demon Copperhead, a retelling of David Copperfield, is born. 

Staff Review
Cover of Yellowface by R.F. Kuang

Yellowface by R. F. Kuang

By R. F. Kuang
Star Rating
★★★★★

Rated by Allison M
May 11, 2023

R. F. Kuang is known for her fantasy novels but steps outside of the genre in this satirical, unreliable-narrator novel. Yellowface is, if nothing else, a compulsively interesting read. Some of the Goodreads reviews are pretty divided on it, which I think is testament to the complexity of the satire that R. F. Kuang has introduced. Kuang, who is Chinese-American, writes from the perspective of a white woman whose friend is a successful Asian writer.

Staff Review
bald man with glasses in long sleeved shirt looking pensive

Cycles Writing Contest Winner

By Steve Brisendine
Star Rating
★★★★★

Rated by Helen H.
May 4, 2023

Johnson County Library is pleased to announce that Steve Brisendine has won our writing contest on the theme of Cycles with his piece "Cyclone/cyclic."

Staff Review
Book Cover

You Feel It Just Below the Ribs

By Jeffrey Cranor and Janina Matthewson
Star Rating
★★★★

Rated by Chris K.
Apr 25, 2023

What a perfectly sinister, unsettling little book. Well, not so much a "little book," more a little amount of unease. A mildly sinister and unsettling book--in the best possible way. It is subtle. A tickle. Something not quite right gnawing at the edges, never openly stated, never resolved. Ambiguous and open to interpretation, with no interpretation feeling like a good one.

Staff Review
headshot blond woman smiling

Cycles Writing Contest Winner

By Claire McMurray
Star Rating
★★★★★

Rated by Helen H.
Apr 12, 2023

Johnson County Library is pleased to announce that Claire McMurray has won our writing contest on the theme of Cycles with her piece "In And Out of Our Lives."

Claire is a former academic who now writes about special needs parenting. You can her find posts, articles, and winning non-fiction essays on her blog, I Don't Know How You Do It (www.idontknowhowyoudoit.org).

Staff Review
cover of The Seventh Wish, has a goldfish with green eyes under the water

The Seventh Wish

By Kate Messner
Star Rating
★★★★

Rated by Kristen R
Apr 3, 2023

“Grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.”

 

The Seventh Wish, by Kate Messner, interweaves fantasy and real life.  This middle-grade fiction novel focuses on magic, empathy, overcoming obstacles, and family/friend relationships. 

Charlie Brennan, twelve-years-old, is ice fishing when she catches her first fish.  The fish offers her a wish in trade for its freedom.