Illiterarty.com Book reviews and blogs by Bridget

Abby Slovin, author of Letters In Cardboard Boxes, fills us in on what inspires her and how Letters came about.

The second-wave rite-of-passage story (ie late twenties as opposed to late teens) has been done a lot lately. But if you want a solid example of the genre, go with Another Broken Wizard. Dodds has done an outstanding job painting a poignant, utterly unselfconscious depiction of growing up.

Letters in Cardboard Boxes is a very realistic, well developed character study, that deals with fairly full and complex family dynamic issues in a sensitive and undramatic way, and is really given extra dimension by virtue of it's web-based publication.

If this was... Wine, it would be that Cab Merlot I so freakin' elegantly analogise in paragraph three.

With almost text-book precision, Jonathan Tel captures the essence of the perfect short story in this loosely woven collection of heartbreaks, secrets, humanities and mundanities, backdropped by the mysterious Beijing.

Mildly disappointing, but only compared to the insanely high standards I have come to expect from Mr de Berniéres and his extreme awesomeness as an author.

If this was about a pubescent boy instead of a pubescent girl, it would confirm everything a certain sort of person likes to pretend lurks primarily within the purview of the homosexual mindset. But it isn't, so deal with it, heteros.

Divine Secrets Of The Ya Ya Sisterhood is a book that every daughter should read - an explosion of friendships, lies, honesty, despair, raw emotion, and the complex relationships between generations of women.

Instead of killing himself, Luke Rhinehart decides to give up his life in a different way - to the roll of a dice. The Dice Man challenges the notions of psychiatry, psychology, and how people live their lives.

The Walker family from Thornton, Louisiana, is like any other family—full of love, life, joy, heart-ache, and dirty secrets.

In a generation struggling to come to grips with what the generation before them has done, The Reader is the story of love, betrayal, war, and reading aloud.

If this was a car, it would be going cheap—a DeLorean someone died in. Pay cash, clean it yourself.

When autistic fifteen year old Christopher John Francis Boone discovers his neighbour’s dog, Wellington, dead on the lawn with a gardening fork sticking in his side, he decides to investigate.

In a world where beauty opens every door, can a person be brave enough to be everything they don’t want to be?

If this was a gadget from Q’s laboratory, it would be a flame-throwing bassinet.

It’s 1942, and overnight, Americans of Japanese decent are turned from citizens to enemy aliens. This is a circumstance that will change their lives, not just for the duration of the war, but forever.

If this was made into a film starring Elijah Wood, it probably wouldn’t work very well, because it’s far too good a book. Oh wait, whoops.

Ever wondered about the motivations of a screwed up sex addict with a penchant for making people feel needed and a need to be loved? Choke is a tale of addiction, mothers, best friends, faking the eighteenth century, and weird doctors—with a little bit of religion thrown in.

Flight 2039 has a couple of hours before it crashes into the earth. And on that flight is a man, recording his life story into the black box. Chuck Palahniuk at his finest.