Foster Community Library

Tag: audrey recs

  • “I Cheerfully Refuse” by Leif Enger

    Audrey recommends: I Cheerfully Refuse by Leif Enger

    Genre: Science fiction

    Reading level: Adult

    Summary: A futuristic folk tale about a man on a mythological quest across Lake Superior.

    Audrey says: I loved reading Rainy’s enthusiastic first-person narration and its unique use of language, and meeting all the charming characters that inhabit this not-too-distant America. Enger’s writing fully inhabits a world that is familiar and yet unfamiliar, and maintains a folkloric quality that resembles an oral tradition tale like The Odyssey or Beowulf.

    This title is available at Foster Public Library.

  • “Piglettes” by Clémentine Beauvais

    Audrey recommends: Piglettes by Clémentine Beauvais

    Genre: Contemporary fiction

    Reading level: YA

    Summary: Three teenagers, brought together by an “ugliest girl in school” contest, make a plan to bike across the country and gate-crash the President of France’s garden party.

    Audrey says: The eponymous “three little piglettes,” Mireille, Astrid, and Hakima, are unexpectedly brought together by their classmate’s unofficial “ugliest girl in school” poll. The girls become fast friends, and quickly learn that they each have a reason to disrupt the Bastille Day garden party in Paris. They retrofit an old pickup into a bike-powered food truck and fund their trip by selling homemade sausages on the way. The character interactions are fantastic, the situations are hilarious, and the development that each girl goes through to reach Paris is full of heart. Mireille is the most sarcastic unreliable narrator of all time and it makes an already great story even better.

    This title is available at Foster Public Library.

  • “Bull” by David Elliott

    Audrey recommends: Bull by David Elliott

    Genre: Novel in verse

    Reading level: YA

    Summary: The Ancient Greek myth of Theseus, retold from the perspective of the Minotaur at the center of the labyrinth.

    Audrey says: David Elliott’s poetry sets a high bar for all other novels in verse. An ancient story finds a modern voice as he playfully mixes archaic vocabulary with modern colloquialisms. Elliott is inspired by established poetic forms, but plays with their execution. He further complicates the story by giving the “monster” a voice. This version of the story truly humanizes these abstract characters, which is ironic to say about a tale of gods and bull-men. Each is the hero in their own version of events.

    Greek myth retellings are everywhere now (think Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller, Lore Olympus by Rachel Smythe, and Ariadne by Jennifer Saint) but none I’ve read have packed such an effective punch as this one.

  • “The Best at It” by Maulik Pancholy

    Audrey recommends: The Best at It by Maulik Pancholy

    Genre: Realistic fiction

    Reading level: Middle grade

    Summary: Rahul enters seventh grade with one mission: to find one activity that he can be the BEST at.

    Audrey says: This quick read was packed with more heart and character than I thought possible. Rahul, a gay Indian-American with OCD, has a lot of reasons he feels like he’ll never fit in, and he believes the only way to overcome these “shortcomings” is to achieve some kind of wild success. Luckily, Rahul has a fun-loving grandfather and a loyal best friend, who both advocate for Rahul when he would rather erase himself. Readers with perfectionist leanings will see themselves in Rahul’s absurd, accomplishment-based logic, and learn to give themselves the grace that a friend would extend.

  • “Positively 4th Street” by David Hajdu

    Audrey recommends: Positively 4th Street by David Hajdu

    Genre: Nonfiction

    Reading level: Adult

    Summary: Hajdu expertly captures a brief window of the Folk Revival movement between 1960-1966.

    Audrey says: I couldn’t put this book down. Hajdu writes nonfiction like a novel, turning the lives of Richard Fariña, Bob Dylan, Joan Baez and Mimi Baez into a compelling narrative. He can take you into the infinitesimal interpersonal drama among these creative personalities, and then zoom out to show the nationwide shift from rock n’ roll teenyboppers to folk revival hippies. He uses suspense and foreshadowing brilliantly, keeping the story engaging even if we know how it ends. Most of all, Hajdu treats his subjects as people. He neither excuses their behavior nor condemns them for it. They lie, they take credit for others’ work, they chase partners who are too young for them, they let their egos get in the way of their relationships, but moreover, they are human.

    Check it out before the new Bob Dylan movie, A Complete Unknown, comes out in December!

    This title is available at Foster Public Library or via the eZone as an ebook or audiobook.

  • “Amber and Clay” by Laura Amy Schlitz

    Audrey recommends: Amber and Clay by Laura Amy Schlitz

    Genre: Historical fiction novel in verse

    Reading level: YA

    Summary: In Ancient Greece, a stable-boy-turned-philosophy-student and a devotee to the wild goddess Artemis cross paths in the most unexpected way.

    Audrey says: “Hermes here. The Greek god — No. Don’t put down the book — I’m talking to you. If the lines look like poetry, relax. This book is shorter than it looks.”

    This book is truly a work of art. This hybrid novel combines poetry, prose, and artwork to create a whole greater than the sum of its parts. The book freely traverses between history and fantasy: we hear from real ancient philosopher Socrates, but also from the perspective of various gods of the Greek pantheon. The living world and the ghostly afterlife are treated with equal weight. Hermes quotes contemporary literary criticism. We read modern museum labels of historical artifacts, and then read Schlitz’s imagined provenance and what their significance might have been. This is genuinely the most unique book I’ve ever read.

    “This is their story. When it’s over, if you like, you can tell me what it means.”

  • “We Play Ourselves” by Jen Silverman

    Audrey recommends: We Play Ourselves by Jen Silverman

    Genre: Contemporary fiction

    Reading level: Adult

    Summary: Cass, an up-and-coming playwright, moves across the country to reinvent herself after her latest flop leads to a social media implosion.

    Audrey says: This book is all about the complicated relationships between artists: infatuation, jealousy, pity, worship, betrayal. Cass idolizes an older director, demonizes her younger-but-more-successful colleague, obsesses over her filmmaker neighbor, dismisses the teens acting in the film. By the end of the story, all these relationships have flipped around, and Cass’s truest friend might be her agent’s secretary, who she only knows in the form of brief phone conversations. This novel untangles the conflated webs of fame, love, success, and happiness. I find it a must-read for creative types.

  • “The Blue House” by Phoebe Wahl

    Audrey recommends: The Blue House by Phoebe Wahl

    Genre: Picture book

    Reading level: Age 4-8

    Summary: Leo and his dad are forced to move out of their beloved neighborhood when the cranes come to knock it down.

    Audrey says: There’s nothing more difficult than going through a huge unexpected life transition. I love the way Leo’s single-parent household channels their big emotions into music and art. Not to mention, Wahl’s illustrations are beautiful. Her intricate paintings are littered with little Easter eggs to favorite albums and musicians, plus a cat hiding on every spread. You can easily find yourself lingering on a single image for several minutes.

    This title is available at Tyler Free Library.

  • “Bellweather Rhapsody” by Kate Racculia

    Audrey recommends: Bellweather Rhapsody by Kate Racculia

    Genre: Mystery

    Reading level: YA to adult

    Summary: All the brightest music students in the state are snowed in at a (possibly) haunted hotel, where a mysterious wedding-night murder occurred 15 years ago.

    Audrey says: File this under “books I wish I could read again for the first time.” This novel pulls double duty as a whodunnit and a coming-of-age story. Each chapter flips between an equally captivating perspective, from the eccentric orchestra conductor to the wallflower bassoon prodigy to the elderly butler who was working the night of the murder. So many geniuses trapped under one haunted roof is a recipe for catastrophe, but the coming implosion is necessary for the teens to understand who they are and what they truly want out of life. I don’t know how Kate Racculia managed to write a dark mystery that’s also a feel-good novel about growing up, but I’m grateful she did.

  • “It’s Lonely at the Centre of the Earth” by Zoe Thorogood

    Audrey recommends: It’s Lonely at the Centre of the Earth by Zoe Thorogood

    Genre: Graphic novel memoir

    Reading level: YA to adult

    Summary: Zoe, in the throes of a quarter-life crisis, uses cartoons and storytelling to reframe how she views her life.

    Audrey says: This short volume obliterates the limits of what a graphic novel can do and what art is for. Comics are how Zoe makes sense of the world around her: adding structure, finding narrative, changing perspective, and starting over from the beginning. Zoe draws herself in many different forms: a teenage loser, a cutesy cartoon, a barely-sketched outline, sometimes even a worm. She exists as both character and author on the page, arguing against her own narration. If you also stumble across questions like “what am I doing?” and “what’s the point?”, you won’t necessarily find answers here, but you will find someone who knows the journey it takes to answer them.

    This title is available at Foster Public Library.