reviews

If Firestarter were less exciting . . . Author: Stephen King Luke Ellis is a 12 year old genius who can sometimes move small objects with his mind. But this little quirk isn’t what is extraordinary about him – it’s his intellect and his bright future. That is until the night he is kidnapped.  In the new world where he awakens, at The Institute, his mind means nothing; only his latent telekinetic power means anything, and it will ultimately seal his slow degeneration throughout a series of increasingly brutal medical experiments and an eventual move to what is enigmatically called “back half,” [...]

Earthquakes, Spying, and Love Author: Jessica Dall Cecília de Santa Rita e Durante wants excitement, change, adventure. She is tired of being the good Portuguese lady, waiting at home, accompanying her mother and sister to Mass, looking at the ships in port and wishing that just once she could take one, feel the heaving sea beneath her feet and her dreams flying free. As the old adage goes, though, sometimes you have to be careful what you wish for. On All Saints Day, 1755, while Cecília is out of the house, one of the largest earthquakes in history pulverizes Lisbon. [...]

On Recuperation, Recovery, and Downward Facing Dogs Author: Michele Harper I am so not a doctor—which is to say I dislike needles and the sight of blood, and hospitals make me feel lightheaded. I wasn’t sure, then, if reading Michele Harper’s memoir, The Beauty in Breaking, would be a terrific idea. Harper is a Harvard-educated emergency room physician who has worked in the South Bronx and Philadelphia, and in her gracious debut she invites readers to try on her white doctor coat. From page one, I was expecting wailing sirens, shouting nurses, and gory wounds—people piled on stretchers with their [...]