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Wake, by Lisa McMann
Lisa McMann’s debut novel Wake has a lot going for it: a great premise, an intriguingly dark atmosphere, and a plausibly screwed-up heroine. Unfortunately, it’s way too short, it’s currently...
The Watchman, by Robert Crais
I thoroughly enjoyed Robert Crais’s action/suspense novel The Watchman. Crais’s book is neither deep nor plausible, but it is fast, fun, furious, and capped off with a satisfyingly noisy shoot-‘em-out ending. It doesn't have any of the intellectual ambitions of the last action/suspense novel that we reviewed, but it's much more entertaining...
We Interrupt this Broadcast, by Joe Garner
Effectively combining history, commentary, and audio recordings of actual news broadcasts, Joe Garner’s recently re-released We Interrupt This Broadcast is a far cry above the typical coffee-table...
Welcome to Temptation, by Jennifer Crusie
St. Martin's Press has recently re-released Jennifer Crusie's Welcome To Temptation, giving Crusie fans a second chance to enjoy this ridiculously fun, sexy blend of small-town pol...
What Looks Like Crazy, by Charlotte Hughes
Before reading What Looks Like Crazy, our exposure to Charlotte Hughes’s work was limited to the utterly forgettable Full House series she co-wrote with Janet Evanovich. As longtime fans of ...
What To Eat, by Marion Nestle
Wordcandy doesn’t review much nonfiction. It’s not that we have anything against nonfiction. It's just that the nonfiction books we tend to read (and then pass along to each other, because, hey, misery loves company) are frequently depressing, and none of us want to linger over the subjects in question—global warming, voter fraud, the contents of a McDonalds hamburger—long enough to write a halfway decent review...
What You See in the Dark, by Manuel Munoz
It's been several days of teen-oriented books, so today was time for a literary palate cleanser. After poking through some of the older titles on our “To Be Read” shelves, I pulled out Manuel Munoz's 2011 book What You See in the Dark, equally attracted by the novel's absolutely stunning black-and-white cover art and its official description, which sounds about as far from most YA novels as you can get...
Where Does the Money Go? Your Guided Tour to the Federal Budget Crisis, by Scott Bittle and Jean Johnson
Wordcandy doesn’t review much nonfiction, but we were pleasantly surprised by Jean Johnson and Scott Bittle’s Where Does the Money Go? Your Guided Tour to the Federal Budget Crisis. Miraculously, Johnson and Bittle have managed to write a politically unbiased book on an important-but-drier-than-dust subject that is both informative and entertaining...
White Cat, by Holly Black
Bookstores are currently overflowing with YA novels about vampires and werewolves, but the majority of the “monsters” in these books seem like fundamentally nice guys. They care about their ...
The White Mountains, by John Christopher
As post-apocalyptic visions of the future go, the world in John Christopher’s Tripod series isn’t so bad. In some ways, it’s almost idyllic—a world without war or famine, where people are comfortably assured of their own destiny. But there is one major downside: as soon as you turn fourteen, you’re sucked up into the belly of a three-legged, alien-controlled machine called a Tripod, and you’re not returned until a mind-controlling metal cap has been fused onto your skull...
Why Shoot a Butler?, by Georgette Heyer
Why Shoot a Butler? is perhaps Georgette Heyer’s most conventional detective story. Her murder weapons are unremarkable, her plot centers around a missing will, and her sleuth displays a lev...
Wicked Lovely, by Melissa Marr
Wicked Lovely, Melissa Marr’s debut novel, is a YA gothic fantasy that falls somewhere between Holly Black’s gritty, atmospheric fairy tales and Stephenie Meyer’s angst-filled Twilight series. Marr’s book has its weak spots, but this modern Tam Lin adaptation is more than entertaining enough to overcome them...
Wild Ride, by Jennifer Crusie and Bob Mayer
Wild Ride is the most successful of the Jennifer Crusie/Bob Mayer collaborations to date: fast, fun, and deliciously weird. Admittedly, we still prefer Crusie's solo work, but how could anyone ha...
Wildfire at Midnight, by Mary Stewart
Mary Stewart is one of those authors whose best work (the truly awesome 1958 novel Nine Coaches Waiting) was so good that everything else she produced pales in comparison...
Will the Vampire People Please Leave the Lobby?, by Allyson Beatrice
Will the Vampire People Please Leave the Lobby?: True Adventures in Cult Fandom, Allyson Beatrice’s collection of essays about her experiences as a hardcore Buffy the Vampire Slayer fan, is a...
Wintersmith, by Terry Pratchett
Terry Pratchett’s third Tiffany Aching book, Wintersmith, has problems. It’s not as uproariously funny as the previous two installments, and both the main plot and the villain are emotionally underwhelming. The book’s dreamlike atmosphere works in a few places, but Pratchett’s constant shifting from humor to pathos to action makes the story’s climax fall a little flat...
Wolverine: Prodigal Son, by Antony Johnston
In the grand tradition of alternate-universe fanfiction, writer Antony Johnston and artist Wilson Tortosa have created a shonen manga take on the popular X-Men character Wolverine. Their new series...
The Wolves of Willoughby Chase, by Joan Aiken
From fairy tales to Edward Gorey, we here at Wordcandy have long enjoyed stories about bad things happening to good children. British author Joan Aiken has been a steady contributor to this fine literary subgenre, from the 1962 publication of The Wolves of Willoughby Chase to the recent (posthumous) publication of the last book in her Wolves Chronicles, The Witch of Clatteringshaws...
The Wonderful Flight to the Mushroom Planet, by Eleanor Cameron
I enjoy books about home restoration. I once wrote a term paper passionately defending Martha Stewart's status as an American icon. I have a serious crush on Alton Brown and an even more serious one on Red Green. And while I am rarely tempted to actually attempt any of the projects that I read about or see on television, I always find the sight of other people creating stuff to be tremendously satisfying...