...The Ocean at the End of the Lane is not only for adults who remember being children, but, perhaps more importantly, for those who’ve forgotten.
...eloquent memoir as a letter to his teenage son, bearing witness to his own experiences and conveying passionate hopes for his son’s life.
Through Joe’s narration, which is by turns raunchy and emotionally immediate, Erdrich perceptively chronicles the attack’s disastrous effect on the family’s domestic life, their community, and Joe’s own premature introduction to a violent world.
In this moment and a thousand others like it, Johnson...juxtaposes the vicious atrocities of the regime with the tenderness of beauty, love, and hope.
Ms. Stedman builds a solid case for all sides — or, at least, makes everyone’s motives understandable.
...where the author best succeeds is with his portrayals of parents — those who struggle along just like the rest of us, with all the anxiety and joy that children wring from our hearts.
Minor gripes aside, this is a first-rate book—based on an impressive mass of research, written in a lively style and providing just the right balance of intellectual seriousness with practical advice on how to break our bad habits.
. . .leaves you mulling over its inventive theories for days afterward. It also, unfortunately, avoids grappling in a few instances with research that casts doubt on those theories.
The shadows of a beginning for black-white understanding, the persistent fight that Scout carries on against school, Jem's emergence into adulthood, Calpurnia's quiet power, and all the incidents touching on the children's "growing outward" have an attractive starchiness that keeps this southern picture pert and provocative.
One of Kingsolver’s better efforts at preaching her politics and pulling heartstrings at the same time.
It is an outstanding book, distinguished by beauty and clarity of detail, precision of presentation and gentleness of manner.
READERS will marvel at the intelligence and resilience of the Walls kids. We root for them when they escape, one by one, to New York City...
I find it a co-incidence that the lesson Malala found in the ‘Wizard Of Oz’ book is the lesson that I found in this book: if you really want to do something, you can – even with hurdles along your way.
...a mishmash of cardboard characters, a convoluted yet preposterous plot, cartoonish marital discord, paralyzing generational divides, transparent conspiracies, an epidemic of personality disorders, and stereotypical conflicts...
In ''The Kite Runner,'' Khaled Hosseini gives us a vivid and engaging story that reminds us how long his people have been struggling to triumph over the forces of violence -- forces that continue to threaten them even today.
Like all great novels, “Freedom” does not just tell an engrossing story. It illuminates, through the steady radiance of its author’s profound moral intelligence, the world we thought we knew.
It's a testament to Foer's writing that his dazzling way with words never trumps the emotions he serves
...this literary page-turner tells us in fascinating detail what it means to have every aspect of your life overturned.