Gregor the Overlander (Underland Chronicles #1)

by Suzanne Collins
3 Stars
Children's Fantasy
Setting: NY
320 pages
Published 2003

Ellie's Review
This was a fun kids' book about a NYC brother and sister who fall through a laundry grate into the Underland where rats, bats, roaches, and spiders are huge and warring with each other. While I probably won't read any more in this series, I will recommend it to 8-year-olds, especially if they've ever been in a big city with those pests.

Book Summary
When eleven-year-old Gregor follows his little sister through a grate in the laundry room of their New York apartment, he hurtles into the dark Underland beneath the city. There, humans live uneasily beside giant spiders, bats, cockroaches, and rats—but the fragile peace is about to fall apart.  Gregor wants no part of a conflict between these creepy creatures. He just wants to find his way home. But when he discovers that a strange prophecy foretells a role for him in the Underland's uncertain future, he realizes it might be the only way to solve the biggest mystery of his life. Little does he know his quest will change him and the Underland forever.

Author Information
Gregor the Overlander is the debut novel from Suzanne Collins who is now best known for writing The Hunger Games series.

Read Ellie's 5-star review of The Hunger Games.

Infidel

by Ayaan Hirsi Ali
5 Stars
Nonfiction: Memoir
Setting: Africa, Middle East, USA
353 pages
Published 2006

Ellie's Review
This memoir was fascinating to me! Ayaan grew up in Somalia, Kenya, Ethiopia, and Saudi Arabia and just told her life story as a Muslim. On one hand, she's just a normal person who had a typical childhood. On the other hand, she is incredible for what she's gone through. I learned so much about Muslims and the world we live in.

Book Summary
Somali-born author Ayaan Hirsi Ali is one of the most controversial women on earth. For years, she has been forced to live in hiding; her life has been threatened numerous times; an anti-Koran script that she wrote provoked the assassination of filmmaker Theo Van Gogh; and a dispute over her citizenship indirectly brought down the Dutch government. This memoir about her family's travails living under strict fundamentalist Islamic precepts tracks the evolution of a world-changing radical feminist.

The Passion

by Jeanette Winterson
3 Stars
Historical Fiction
Setting: Europe
176 pages
Published 1987

Ellie's Review
This was beautifully written novel about the many different aspects of passion set during Napolean's reign, and I loved how she spun in little bits of fairy tale. I really liked the first section and while I enjoyed the other three sections, they weren't as gripping.

Book Summary
Set during the tumultuous years of the Napoleonic Wars, The Passion intertwines the destinies of two remarkable people: Henri, a simple French soldier, who follows Napoleon from glory to Russian ruin; and Villanelle, the red-haired, web-footed daughter of a Venetian boatman, whose husband has gambled away her heart. In Venice's compound of carnival, chance, and darkness, the pair meet their singular destiny. In her unique and mesmerizing voice, Winterson blends reality with fantasy, dream, and imagination to weave a hypnotic tale with stunning effects.

Born to Run

Born to Run: A Hidden Tribe, Superathletes, and the Greatest Race the World Has Never Seen
by Christopher McDougall
5 Stars
Nonfiction: Memoir
Setting: USA, Mexico
287 pages
Published 2009

Ellie's Review
If you run or have ever thought about running, you should read this book. I was completely hooked from the first page to the last: the story was so incredibly interested and was well written. Learning about the running tribe in Mexico was amazing, and I am seriously considering purchasing a pair of Five Finger running shoes (even though I've openly mocked their appearance). I will honestly think of this book every time I run, and I hope to think of it whenever I face a challenge I think is too great for me. I loved this book!
 
Book Summary
Full of incredible characters, amazing athletic achievements, cutting-edge science, and, most of all, pure inspiration, Born to Run is an epic adventure that began with one simple question: Why does my foot hurt? In search of an answer, Christopher McDougall sets off to find a tribe of the world’s greatest distance runners and learn their secrets, and in the process shows us that everything we thought we knew about running is wrong.

The History of Love

by Nicole Krauss
4 Stars
Jewish
Setting: USA
260 pages
Published 2005

Ellie's Review
This book was very enjoyable, and I was sad to finish it. Different people narrate this novel, which was confusing at first (maybe because I was listening to the audiobook?). I absolutely loved the narration of Leo Gursky - he was a quirky and amazing character who I fell in love with and just wanted to hug.  Simply, it was a great book.

Book Summary
Leo Gursky is trying to survive a little bit longer, tapping his radiator each evening to let his upstairs neighbor know he's still alive, drawing attention to himself at the milk counter of Starbucks. But life wasn't always like this: sixty years ago, in the Polish village where he was born, Leo fell in love and wrote a book. And although he doesn't know it, that book also survived: it crossed oceans and generations, and changed lives." Fourteen-year-old Alma was named after a character in that book. She has her hands full keeping track of her little brother Bird (who thinks he might be the Messiah) and taking copious notes in her book, How to Survive in the Wild Volume Three. But when a mysterious letter arrives in the mail she undertakes an adventure to find her namesake and save her family.

The Birth of Venus

by Sarah Dunant
4 Stars
Historical Fiction
Setting: Florence, Italy
403 pages
Published 2003

Ellie's Review
If you liked Pillars of the Earth or The Other Boleyn Girl, you should read this. Set in Florence, Italy in the 1500's, The Birth of Venus is a wonderful historical fiction novel wrapped around the art of the time. I was fascinated by the story plus I loved learning about the art and treatment of women at this time. Just to warn you, this does have some sex scenes.

Book Summary
Alessandra Cecchi is not quite fifteen when her father, a prosperous cloth merchant, brings a young painter back from northern Europe to decorate the chapel walls in the family’s Florentine palazzo. A child of the Renaissance, with a precocious mind and a talent for drawing, Alessandra is intoxicated by the painter’s abilities.

Room

by Emma Donoghue
4 Stars
Setting: USA
321 pages
Published 2010

Ellie's Review
This was a crazy, dark book I was utterly hooked on. Donaghue did a wonderful job of drawing me into the story and actually causing me stress when the characters were in the most critical times and were themselves stressed.

Book Summary
To five-year-old Jack, Room is the entire world. It is where he was born and grew up; it's where he lives with his Ma as they learn and read and eat and sleep and play. At night, his Ma shuts him safely in the wardrobe, where he is meant to be asleep when Old Nick visits.

Unaccustomed Earth

by Jhumpa Lahiri
4 Stars
Settings: USA, India
333 pages
Published 2008

Ellie's Review
Unaccustomed Earth is a collection of short stories by Indian author Jhumpa Lahiri (Interpreter of Maladies and The Namesake) tells different stories of Indians from West Bengal adapting to America. While some stories I would only give 3 stars, I really enjoyed the collection as a whole. Two of the stories ended a bit abrupt - I would have liked even another paragraph in conclusion.

Book Summary
These eight stories by beloved and bestselling author Jhumpa Lahiri take us from Cambridge and Seattle to India and Thailand, as they explore the secrets at the heart of family life. Here they enter the worlds of sisters and brothers, fathers and mothers, daughters and sons, friends and lovers. Rich with the signature gifts that have established Jhumpa Lahiri as one of our most essential writers, Unaccustomed Earth exquisitely renders the most intricate workings of the heart and mind.

The Distant Hours

by Kate Morton
4 Stars
Setting: England
562 pages
Published 2010

Ellie's Review
The Distant Hours was an enjoyable read that ended up about a fascinating mystery; however, a mysterious letter doesn't intrigue me in the beginning as much as the foundling in Morton's The Forgotten Garden. I loved the descriptions of the castle in this book. I raced through the last 100 pages as the brilliant plot unfolded, but before that I found some slow parts.

Book Summary
A long lost letter arrives in the post and Edie Burchill finds herself on a journey to Milderhurst Castle, a great but moldering old house, where the Blythe spinsters live and where her mother was billeted 50 years before as a 13 year old child during WWII. The elder Blythe sisters are twins and have spent most of their lives looking after the third and youngest sister, Juniper, who hasn’t been the same since her fiance jilted her in 1941. 

See Ellie's review of Kate Morton other books: The House at Riverton and The Forgotten Garden.