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The Cake House, by Latifah Salom
After complaining (a lot) about anyone having the nerve to describe Cymbeline as “William Shakespeare's undiscovered masterpiece” and reviewing Jenny Trout's Romeo and Juliet/Hamlet-inspired Such Sweet Sorrow, we're concluding our totally unplanned rush of Shakespeare-themed posts with a review of Latifah Salom's debut novel The Cake House...
Call of the Highland Moon, by Kendra Leigh Castle
Kendra Leigh Castle’s debut novel Call of the Highland Moon kicks off with a supernatural twist on the meet cute device: When werewolf Gideon MacInnes is attacked by his cousin’s minions during a ...
The Calling, by Kelley Armstrong
The Calling is the second book in Kelley Armstrong's Darkness Rising trilogy, which is in turn loosely connected to her bestselling (and ridiculously enjoyable) Darkest Powers trilogy. The Calling opens moments after the events of the earlier book: shape-shifting teenager Maya Delaney and a handful of her classmates have been bundled into a rescue helicopter after their remote Vancouver Island town is threatened by a forest fire...
The Car Thief, by Theodore Weesner
The back cover of Theodore Weesner's The Car Thief describes the book as a "modern American classic" featuring “heartbreak, cruel realities, and stunning personal triumphs”. That may be true, but allow me to issue a word of warning: you have to wade through a lot of heartbreak and cruel reality before you get to any personal triumphs...
The Cardturner, by Louis Sachar
Seventeen-year-old Alton Richards, the protagonist of Louis Sachar's novel The Cardturner, is furious when his parents insist he spend the summer working for his wealthy great-uncle Lester. Lester is blind, testy, and a master bridge player, so Alton foresees a long, dull summer spent driving his uncle to his club and helping him play the world's most boring card game...
Carry On, Jeeves, by P.G. Wodehouse
Carry On, Jeeves is a collection of ten of P.G. Wodehouse's early Jeeves and Wooster short stories. Nine are told from the point of view of Bertie Wooster, a wealthy, genial, mentally negligible young Englishman; the tenth is narrated by Jeeves, Bertie's unflappable and infinitely resourceful valet. There are no surprises in a Jeeves and Wooster short story...
Cartoon Cute Animals, by Christopher Hart
Christopher Hart, author of the hugely popular book Manga Mania: How to Draw Japanese Comics, has written a number of bestselling illustrated art instruction manuals. His latest effort is...
The Case of the Forked Road, by John Allison
The Case of the Forked Road, the seventh installment in John Allison's excellent Bad Machinery series, is—as always—a whacked-out delight. There's time travel, puberty jokes, and a PG-rated adaptation of Glengarry Glen Ross. The boys play a reduced role in this volume (although their stories are expanded from the online version), but...
The Casket of Time, by Andri Snaer Magnason
More books are published in Iceland per capita than anywhere else in the world. A disproportionate number seem to be indistinguishable gloomy thrillers, but a few stand out. Admittedly, Andri Snaer Magnason's The Casket of Time is both thrilling and frequently gloomy, but in an impressively idiosyncratic way...
Castle Waiting, by Linda Medley
As I’ve said before, I like stories about people working. I find reading about somebody else’s labor to be deeply satisfying. I’m also a big fan of fairytales, particularly the ones that reward their characters for doing obscure tasks. (I love that one about the girl whose evil stepmother makes her hunt for fruit in the middle of winter, wearing a paper dress.) That’s why the new hardcover version of Linda Medley’s collected Castle Waiting stories had me nearly giddy with excitement...
Castration Celebration, by Jake Wizner
The cover of Jake Wizner’s new book looks like the promotional posters for Disney’s High School Musical. It features about 10,000 hokey musical numbers*, just like Hig...
Catching Fire and Mockingjay, by Suzanne Collins
Well, dear readers, I waded through both Catching Fire and Mockingjay yesterday, and my emotions were mixed. There were elements I liked, but the violence was so constant that I found myself actu...
Chaos Choreography, by Seanan McGuire
After a two-book-long detour, the fifth installment in Seanan McGuire's InCryptid series brings the action back where it belongs: on ballroom-dancing, ass-kicking cryptozoologist Verity Price. In Chaos Choreography, Verity has set aside her dancing career in favor of full-time cryptozoology... but when she gets a call from the producers of the reality TV series Dance or Die, she decides...
Chasing Shadows, by Swati Avasthi
Swati Avashthi's YA novel Chasing Shadows strongly reminded me of a movie that I haven't seen in fifteen years but will never, ever forget: Peter Jackson's 1994 film Heavenly Creatures. Like Heavenly Creatures, Chasing Shadows is an engrossing portrait of the kind of intense, heady friendships that teenagers are capable of—friendships that can be deepened even further by adversity, transforming into something destructive and codependent...
Cheese in the Trap, by Soonkki
Today we're going to review something a little different: an ongoing Korean webtoon by Soonkki called Cheese in the Trap. Normally I would wait to cover this kind of thing until it was finished and fully translated, but A) I'm not that patient, and B) this story is so interesting, you guys—it's totally worth the inconvenience of reading it online...
Chicken With Plums, by Marjane Satrapi
I do not enjoy tragic love stories. I rolled my eyes when Anna Karenina offed herself, I failed to sympathize with the plight of Newland Archer, and I spent most of The Great Gatsby wanting to kic...
Chilling Adventures of Sabrina, Vol.1, by Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa and Robert Hack
Following the success of the recent H.P. Lovecraft-inspired Afterlife with Archie series, Archie Comics decided to follow it up with a Sabrina the Teenage Witch-inspired title, Chilling Adventures of Sabrina. The two series don't seem to exist in the same world, but they have one major thing in common: both are remarkably effective horror stories...
Choose Your Own Misery: The Holidays, by Mike MacDonald and Jilly Gagnon
Written by Onion alums Mike MacDonald and Jilly Gagnon, Choose Your Own Misery: The Holidays is an R-rated choose-your-own-adventure story that takes you through countless holiday misadventures, ranging from moderately gloomy to gross as hell. The set-up is simple: your family is out of town, and your relationship is too new for a shared Christmas, so...
The Chopin Manuscript, by assorted authors
Since going live in 1997, Audible.com has become the leading provider of spoken entertainment and information on the Internet, allowing users to download digital audio editions of books, newspaper...
Christine Falls, by Benjamin Black
I’m not much of a mystery fan. I’m more of a fantasy/sci-fi kind of guy. But despite the appalling family secrets, ominous settings, and rampant alcoholism in Benjamin Black’s Christine Falls, I still found myself compulsively turning pages. It’s a brilliant book, gloom and all...
Churchill's Triumph: A Novel of Betrayal, by Michael Dobbs
Churchill’s Triumph, the fourth and final novel in Michael Dobbs's Churchill series, further explores the unique talents and historical legacy of Winston Churchill. The book takes place over the eight days at Yalta, as three world leaders (Churchill, Joseph Stalin, and Franklin Roosevelt) attempt to find the light at the end of the World War II tunnel...
Cinderella Cleaners: Change of a Dress and Prep Cool, by Maya Gold
Maya Gold's Cinderella Cleaners series has the bright, cheery appeal of a Disney Channel made-for-TV movie, cut with some Nora Roberts-style respect for service-type jobs. I was dubious, but found...
Cirque du Freak: Trials of Death (Yen Press Extravaganza Part VIII), by Darren Shan
Aaaand we're done! (At least for a while.) When a spider-obsessed boy named Darren Shan sneaks out with his best friend Steve to see the infamous Cirque Du Freak, things get even scarier than they'd bargained for. The inhabitants of the freak show aren't just strange, they're downright otherworldly, and...
City of Bones, by Cassandra Clare
Cassandra Clare’s City of Bones, the first book in her Mortal Instruments trilogy, has a lot going for it: the twists and turns of the plot make sense, the dialogue is lively, and—unlike so many...
Code: Breaker Vol. 1, by Akimine Kamijyo
Volume one of Akimine Kamijyo's series Code: Breaker is not for the faint of heart. And as the first few pages indicated the story was going to be an all-ages-friendly shounen mang...
Cold-Hearted Rake, by Lisa Kleypas
Lisa Kleypas's latest historical romance, Cold-Hearted Rake, checks quite a few of my preferred boxes: there's a strong focus on money, a period-appropriate (well, more or less) wariness about sex, and a celebration of family support systems. Unfortunately, the actual romance falls a little flat, but even sub-par Kleypas novels are well worth reading...
The Coldest Girl in Coldtown, by Holly Black
If you can stomach the first scene in Holly Black's The Coldest Girl in Coldtown, you're sitting pretty for the rest of the book. The story opens with a massacre: when Tana wakes up in a bathtub after a teen party, she discovers that she has drunkenly dozed through a massive vampire attack. Most of her friends are dead, but her ex-boyfriend Aidan has survived...
Comic Book Design, by Gary Spencer Millidge
Gary Spencer Millidge's Comic Book Design offers readers a colorful and informative tour of the behind-the-scenes work that goes into the creation and promotion of comic books. He delves into cons...
The Complete Sookie Stackhouse Stories, by Charlaine Harris
Charlaine Harris's The Complete Sookie Stackhouse Stories is a collection of nine short stories and a novella. I'm not sure how hardcore Sookie Stackhouse junkies will feel about this book, but as a casual fan I actually found it more fun than a full-length novel—it offers a tantalizing glimpse of Harris's characters and world-building, but you get to skim over all the tedious background drama created by thirteen books' worth of storytelling...
Confessions of a Serial Kisser, by Wendelin Van Draanen
Seventeen-year-old Evangeline Logan, the heroine of Wendelin Van Draanen’s new YA novel Confessions of a Serial Kisser, has a lot in common with the eponymous star of her kid-friendly Sammy Keyes mystery series. Both girls are smart, resourceful, and fearless...
Confessions of the Sullivan Sisters, by Natalie Standiford
Natalie Standiford's Confessions of the Sullivan Sisters seems like it's one of the many trashy thrillers out there about wealthy, pretty kids behaving badly, but the plot summary and glossy cover art are misleading. I'm not sure what I could compare this story to, but it's definitely no Gossip Girl rip-off...
The Cookbook Collector, by Allegra Goodman
Allegra Goodman's novel The Cookbook Collector has been widely compared to Jane Austen's Sense and Sensibility. Sadly, I have always found Sense and Sensibility much easier to admire than actually enjoy, so I opened The Cookbook Collector with trepidation...
Cotillion, by Georgette Heyer
Georgette Heyer's Cotillion is romantic, hilarious, delightfully unconventional, and one of my all-time favorite books. For some unfathomable reason, Cotillion is rarely reprinted, so I was thrilled when Sourcebooks announced that this outstanding historical romance would be one of their Fall titles...
Cover-Up: Mystery at the Super Bowl, by John Feinstein
John Feinstein’s Cover-Up: Mystery at the Super Bowl offers an appealing alternative to the majority of books aimed at preteen male readers (most of which seem to feature wizards, spies, and/or laser-toting aliens). While Cover-Up includes its fair share of armed thugs and sneering bad guys, it’s basically a thoughtful, entertaining novel about the world of sports journalism...
Crazy Rich Asians, by Kevin Kwan
You know that bit in celebrity magazine interviews where they list in painstaking detail the outfit the actress is wearing? Or describe her utterly fabulous house? Well, picture an entire book composed of those paragraphs, and you'd be covering at least 75% of the plot of Kevin Kwan's 2013 novel Crazy Rich Asians...
The Creeping Shadow, by Jonathan Stroud
In The Creeping Shadow, the fourth book in Jonathan Stroud's spine-tingling Lockwood and Co. series, the heroine has left her friends at the Lockwood and Co. ghost-hunting agency. Lucy is now a freelance Listener, hiring herself out to the big London agencies. But when her former teammates request her help with the ghost...
The Creepy Case Files of Margo Maloo, Vol. 1, by Drew Weing
If you are shopping for any middle-grade readers this year, I highly recommend the collected volumes of Drew Weing's webtoon The Creepy Case Files of Margo Maloo. It boasts all the joys of an 80s kids movie (distracted parents! loads of adventure! legit brushes with danger!), but—thanks to being a comic—no worries about cheesy special effects or wooden acting...
Cross My Heart, by Sasha Gould
Sasha Gould's historical mystery/romance Cross My Heart isn't perfect, but YA novels as ambitious as this one are rare*, so I want to give credit where credit is due: apart from some minor missteps, Cross My Heart is atmospheric and compulsively readable.
Cross My Heart opens in Venice, 1585, as sixteen-year-old Laura della Scala glumly counts down the days until she will be forced to become a nun....
The Crossbones: Skeleton Creek #3, by Patrick Carman
We liked the first two books in Patrick Carman's Skeleton Creek horror/mystery series. Sure, we moaned about having to access hokey online videos in order to fully experience th...