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Gallager Girls (Books 1-3), by Ally Carter
I charged through Ally Carter's YA caper novel Heist Society like a rhinoceros on a mission, so I was hoping her Gallagher Girls series would prove equally absorbing. Unfortunately, I'd Tell You ...
The Game of Triumphs, by Laura Powell
15-year-old Cat Harper, the orphaned protagonist of Laura Powell's debut novel The Game of Triumphs, is not your typical wide-eyed fantasy heroine. After witnessing a murder, streetwise, pragmati...
The Game, by Diana Wynne Jones
There’s nobody quite like English fantasy writer Diana Wynne Jones. Her novels feature bizarre subject matter, but she writes with such relaxed assurance that her worlds instantly feel familiar...
Gameboard of the Gods, by Richelle Mead
To do her justice, Richelle Mead is not lazy. Her Vampire Academy series is successful enough that many authors would have settled for simply producing more of the same, but she has chosen instead to return to her adult paranormal-fiction roots, creating the sci-fi/fantasy series Age of X...
Gated, by Amy Christine Parker
Amy Christine Parker's debut novel Gated occasionally strains credulity, but teen suspense fans are going to absolutely love it. It's engrossing, fast-paced, and about as real-world creepy as YA literature gets...
The Gathering Storm, by Robin Bridges
It always feels weird to complain about a story having too much plot, but sometimes I can't help it: Robin Bridges's novel The Gathering Storm—the first book in a projected trilogy—races along at a breakneck pace, but it would have been improved by more world-building and less straight-up storytelling.
Genius Squad, by Catherine Jinks
I really enjoyed Catherine Jinks’s novel Evil Genius, but its little-kid-friendly cover art and gimmicky opening failed to prepare me for the story that followed—it was tough to recover from the shock of finding such hardcore creepiness in a book with a cover that looked like a Saturday morning cartoon..
Getting In, by Karen Stabiner
I found Karen Stabiner's novel Getting In surprisingly readable, despite the fact that fully 99% of its plot could be summed up with a dismissive “First world problems”...
Giles, Issues 1 & 2, by Erika Alexander and Joss Whedon
During the past few years, Joss Whedon's reputation has taken a lot of well-deserved hits, both personal and professional. With that in mind, I assumed his much-heralded return to the Buffy comic 'verse would be something special. Sadly, I was wrong: there's nothing in the first two issues of the four-issue Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Giles miniseries that makes me miss Whedon at all...
Gimme a Call, by Sarah Mlynowski
I've been following Sarah Mlynowski's career ever since the publication of her first novel: 2001's Milkrun, one of the first offerings from Red Dress Ink, the now-defunct Harlequin...
Girl to the Core, by Stacey Goldblatt
Stacey Goldblatt's Girl to the Core has the makings of a sweet, inspirational coming-of-age novel... cursed with a story-crippling flaw. Goldblatt's heroine is Molly O'Keefe, the only girl in a large, boisterous Irish-American family. Molly's a pushover, so when her boyfriend Trevor cheats on her she knows she'll need a distraction to keep herself from taking him back. Unexpectedly, she finds one in the Girl Corps, a Girl Scouts-like group...
Girl Waits With Gun, by Amy Stewart
I usually avoid novels about historical figures, because I'm constantly wondering how much of the story is real and how much is invented. But as far as I can discover, there is very little known about Constance Kopp, the heroine of Amy Stewart's novel Girl Waits With Gun, so the author was able to let her imagination run wild—something she does with wit, style, and charm...
The Girl Who Never Was and The Boy With The Hidden Name, by Skylar Dorset
Skylar Dorset's novels The Girl Who Never Was and The Boy With the Hidden Name are mildly entertaining, thanks mostly to their unusual setting and solid romantic storyline. The series slides right down, but, sadly, there's very little in the way of memorable plot development to keep it from sliding straight back out again...
Girls Like Us, by Sheila Weller
Sheila Weller's Girls Like Us: Carole King, Joni Mitchell, Carly Simon—and the Journey of a Generation is an unusual but highly satisfying end-of-summer read. The book is an ambitious attempt at a...
Girls Most Likely, by Sheila Williams
I confess—I didn’t think that I’d like Sheila Williams’s novel Girls Most Likely, being both turned off by the cover art and actively repelled by the purple prose on the back cover, which made the story sound like something by Danielle Steel. Happily, Girls Most Likely turned out to be far superior to its packaging...
The Glass Casket, by McCormick Templeman
McCormick Templeman's novel The Glass Casket swipes most of its most memorable images from various classic fairytales: twin rose bushes, a girl in a red cloak, the titular glass casket. The rest of the story feels equally cobbled together, resulting in an ambitious but flawed mash-up of horror, romance, and magic...
The Glass Room, by Simon Mawer
It is easy to see why Simon Mawer's The Glass Room was shortlisted for 2009's Man Booker Prize: the book is gorgeously written, historically significant, and 99% of it is a total downer. Mawer's ...
The Glass Sentence, by S.E. Grove
Several people have compared S. E. Grove's debut novel The Glass Sentence to Philip Pullman's The Golden Compass. I understand the comparison, but, uh, like hell: Grove is a promising writer, but she doesn't have Pullman's skill (at least, not yet). Instead, I was put in mind of a child-friendly version of Susanna Clarke's Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell—a truly impressive effort, but...
Go Green: How To Build An Earth-Friendly Community, by Nancy H. Taylor
Nancy H. Taylor’s Go Green: How To Build an Earth-Friendly Community offers a concise, well-organized guide to a more sustainable lifestyle. Taylor examines everything from green building to loca...
The Goal, by Elle Kennedy
Earlier this year, we reviewed the first three books in Elle Kennedy's Off-Campus series, a collection of New Adult romances set in the college hockey world. The final book in the quartet, The Goal, has recently been released, and it has just as much easy charm as its predecessors...
Goats: Showcase Showdown, by Jonathan Rosenberg
According to the Infinite Monkey Theorem, an immortal monkey hitting a keyboard at random for an infinite amount of time will eventually replicate the complete works of Shakespeare...
Godmother: The Secret Cinderella Story, by Carolyn Turgeon
Carolyn Turgeon’s Godmother: The Secret Cinderella Story, is an elegantly melancholy retelling of the classic fairytale. The novel focuses on Lil, a desperately unhappy old woman with a secret: sh...
Golden Girl, by Sarah Zettel
Sarah Zettel's novel Dust Girl was one of my favorite books of 2012, which meant I was equally excited and nervous to read Golden Girl, the next book in the series. Middle books in trilogies are tough to get right, so I was thrilled to find that Golden Girl is just as entertaining as its predecessor—and possibly even weirder...
Goodbye Stranger, by Rebecca Stead
This is going to sound a little random, but Rebecca Stead's Goodbye Stranger reminds me of a young-reader take on Jennifer Crusie's wonderful romance novel Bet Me. Both books focus on the various forms of love (familial, platonic, romantic), and both are simultaneously incredibly sweet and unexpectedly profound...
The Grand Dark, by Richard Kadrey
Richard Kadrey's The Grand Dark reads like he took the little-seen but super fun 2012 film Premium Rush (bike messengers! Crooked cops! Underachieving young adults!) and filtered it through a Grand Guignol-inspired lens. His protagonist is a young man named Largo, who relies on drugs and macabre entertainment to muffle his intense anxiety about the rapidly crumbling world around him...
The Grand Sophy, by Georgette Heyer
It's tough for most Georgette Heyer fans to choose their favorite of her novels*, but I think it's telling that The Grand Sophy is her first book to get a big-budget movie adaptation. (Allegedly, although I'm not getting my hopes up.) The Grand Sophy is a lively, witty, unabashedly good time, and perfectly encapsulates Heyer's appeal...
Grave Mercy, by Robin LaFevers
Robin LaFevers's Grave Mercy rings my bell on about a million different levels. Her heroine is thoughtful, cautious, and totally badass, the story dives into a load of historical details without triggering all of my usual squeamishness about novels set pre-1800, and—best of all—it's the first installment of a trilogy, but there's no cliffhanger...
The Great Outdoor Fight, by Chris Onstad
A word of warning before we begin, dear readers: the packaging of Chris Onstad’s Achewood: The Great Outdoor Fight is deceptively adorable. This book might look like it belongs on the set of...
Greensleeves, by Eloise Jarvis McGraw
My copy of Eloise Jarvis McGraw's Greensleeves is battered, ugly, and features a gigantic stamp on the dust jacket reading "THIS IS NO LONGER THE PROPERTY OF THE SEATTLE PUBLIC LIBRARY"...
Gregor and the Code of Claw, by Suzanne Collins
Gregor and the Code of Claw, the final installment in Suzanne Collins’s Underland Chronicles, is the most unsatisfying book I have read this year. It’s not a bad book—Collins’s characters...
Gregor the Overlander, by Suzanne Collins
Pretty much the only things that went through my head while reading Suzanne Collins’s novel Gregor the Overlander were My God, this book is awesome! and There’s a sequel, right?. It’s been a long...
Grey Sister, by Mark Lawrence
Grey Sister, the second book in Mark Lawrence's Book of the Ancestor series, combines the magical schools and super-powered children of Harry Potter, the mystical sisterhood of Dune's Bene Gesserit, and more violence and looming ice than Game of Thrones. The various elements don't fuse together perfectly, but there are some A+ ideas in play...
Greywalker, by Kat Richardson
Kat Richardson’s debut novel Greywalker is a rare beast: a female-oriented fantasy/horror story without a single kinky sex scene. There’s a minor romantic subplot (and the heroine encounters a few alternate romantic possibilities), but Richardson seems much more interested in her cloudy Seattle setting, her levelheaded P.I. heroine, and her tense, action-packed plot...
Grocery: The Buying and Selling of Food in America, by Michael Ruhlman
We mostly review fiction here at Wordcandy, but there are a handful of nonfiction topics we consider of universal interest: money, history, and (most of all) food. Michael Ruhlman's recent book Grocery: The Buying and Selling of Food in America actually touches on all three of these subjects, so it's right up our alley...
Guy Langman, Crime Scene Procrastinator, by Josh Berk
I absolutely loved Josh Berk's first novel, The Dark Days of Hamburger Halpin, so my hopes were high for his second, Guy Langman, Crime Scene Procrastinator. Like Dark Days, it's a mystery/coming-of-age story told from a convincing teen-boy perspective, complete with bouts of insecurity, an obsession with the opposite sex, and a positive gift for saying the wrong thing...