Happy Galentine’s Day – Literature’s Best BFFs

February 13, 2015 by Ladies On The Shelf

Let’s all take a moment to thank Leslie Knope for a holiday ladies can all get behind – Galentine’s Day. Invented by Amy Poehler’s perky character on Parks and Rec, this holiday delights in one of our most favorite things: lady friends! Sure, maybe it’s fun to give your sweetie some flowers and candy, but come on, girlfriends are where it’s at, amirite? Ovaries before brovaries! So crack a bottle of bubbly with your favorite gal pals and take a […]

Categories: Best Of • Tags: anne of green gables, besties, bffs, children's literature, daughter of smoke and bone, fiction, gal pals, galentine's day, minnie and moo, young adult

Sort of Scary Stories to Tell in The Dark – Trigger Warning Review

February 11, 2015 by Caitlin

Title: Trigger Warning: Short Fictions and Disturbances Author: Neil Gaiman Published: February 2, 2015 Genre: Fiction, Short stories Rating: ★★★★☆ One can always expect the same thing from Neil Gaiman: he’s going to take you on a weird ride. Trigger Warning, his newly release book of short stories is no different. Comprised of 23 of Gaiman’s short stories and poems, this compilation was inspired by one of the most, in my humble opinion, misused terms on the internet: “Trigger warning.” […]

Categories: Book Review • Tags: creepy, doctor who, fiction, Neil Gaiman, poetry, sherlock holmes, short stories, Trigger Warning

More like The Okay-ders

February 10, 2015 by Jessi

Title: The Wonders Author: Paddy O’Reilly Published: February 10, 2015 Genre: Fiction Rating: ★★★☆☆ The premise sounded pretty promising. (Say that five times fast.) We meet three people with remarkable medical transformations: Leon, the story’s timid narrator, has a mechanical heart; buxom, perpetually naked Kathryn covered in black wool after a gene therapy cure for Huntington’s; and artist Christos who implanted metal wings into his back. Brash American, Rhonda, offers them work in her circus, though circus is more like a “glamorous” […]

Categories: Book Review • Tags: book reviews, fiction, Paddy O'Reilly

“Everything Was Beautiful and Nothing Hurt” – Bingo Update

April 10, 2014 by Caitlin

Bingo Square: Read something I’ve been putting off Book: Slaughterhouse-Five, Kurt Vonnegut Embarrassingly, I do not read a lot of literary fiction. If it’s not a graphic novel or an adaptation of a classic fairy tale, my attention span is just pathetic. That does not mean, in my own defense, that I do not appreciate and love the written word. Sure, I’m lazy sometimes, but that doesn’t mean I don’t linger lovingly over a perfect metaphor. Slaughterhouse-Five was put off by […]

Categories: Book Review • Tags: classics, fiction, Kurt Vonnegut, literary bingo, literary fiction

Top 4 Must Read YA Trilogy Closers for Spring

April 5, 2014 by Erin

There’s nothing quite like reading that final book in your favorite young adult trilogy. Such an exciting and emotional time! The third book has the potential to redeem or ruin the entire series, and hardcore fans react with sweet tears of joy or an uncontrollable desire to hurl the book across the room. Or maybe that’s just me. Here’s a list of upcoming YA trilogy finales that I’m anxiously wringing my hands over, because you never know when your favorite […]

Categories: Best Of • Tags: dystopian, fantasy, fiction, love triangles, new books, young adult

Drop Everything and Listen to Neverwhere from BBC Radio

April 1, 2014 by Erin

Neverwhere is a six part radio adaptation of Neil Gaiman’s 1996 fantasy novel of the same name. It was dramatized by Dirk Maggs. Fun fact! Neil Gaiman originally wrote Neverwhere as a companion book to a BBC television miniseries that he co-created. I suppose this radio version more accurately should be called an adaptation of a televised production instead of a novel, but I’ve never seen the miniseries and it generally is not as well-known as the book. We’ll just forget […]

Categories: Adaptations • Tags: adaptations, books on the radio, fantasy, fiction, Neil Gaiman, sexy british accents

Divergent – For Once, the Movie Might be Better than the Book

March 20, 2014 by Ladies On The Shelf

We, your authors at Ladies On The Shelf, love us some young adult fiction. It’s not something we have ever shied away from – it’s consumed us since we were actual young adults. Divergent hits theaters tonight, and promises to be in line with fellow YA dystopian trilogy The Hunger Games – but despite our YA love, something about Divergent just didn’t hit the same chord. Familiar with the term the “Mary Sue”? Here we discuss whether that’s what bugged […]

Categories: Adaptations • Tags: book versus movie, divergent, fiction, young adult