Check out these reviews written by the staff of the Marathon County Public Library! (For reviews in all genres, visit our main Staff Reviews webpage.) Staff book reviews are also published at Goodreads.com; follow us for the latest updates.
Are you a fan of mysteries that grab hold and won’t let go? Do ghosts and the paranormal intrigue you? Carly Kirk has always been fascinated with the macabre and strange. The disappearance of her aunt before she was born has always been a sensitive subject in her family. In 1982 when her aunt Viv was 20 years old she disappeared without a trace while...
Everyone has a range of emotions that they go through on a daily basis. Sometimes, an event or an object triggers that emotion, and other times that person feels that emotion for no reason at all. Happy Right Now looks at what makes an individual happy and choosing to be happy. Chores and the "worry monkey" are things that don't typically make people...
Audience: children | Genre: fiction, picture book
Has there ever been a time where you have felt left out or forgotten in group activities, such as recess? This book focuses on that issue. For a variety of reasons, some of the kids at this school feel left out when it comes to recess. They watch as their classmates play with kites or throw a ball, having fun without them. The students who are watching just...
Audience: children | Genre: fiction, picture book
Do you have a big family with lots of siblings? Growing up, Marvel did! She had seven siblings and her Mum. Who is Marvel? She’s the main character and also the grandmother of Eliza Wheeler, the author and illustrator of this book. This story was inspired by Marvel’s childhood experience of finding a new home with her family and learning together, how to...
My favorite fairy tale retellings are those that you can’t immediately identify as a retelling, and this is one of the best. Meet Alice. Alice lives in a mental institution, she has no memory of how she got there, or why. She does have memories, just bits and pieces here and there; a tea party, long ears, the large slash down the side of her face, and *...
On gray rainy days, don’t you wish you were exploring warm tropical beaches under the hot sun? Out on a trail ride with a real cowboy? Or instantly surrounded by snowcapped mountains, taking in the sights and sounds from on top of a hill of lush wildflowers? Well, good news! You can! That is, if you happen to have a Grandfather named “Grandude” and he...
Be prepared to giggle and laugh your way through Fraidyzoo by Thrya Heder. The lessons throughout the book are twofold, but the creative and playful illustrations are worth the read alone! Do you look forward to visiting the zoo and seeing all of the unique animals there? Some zoos have so many animals to see, it’s hard to take them all in. From...
Have you ever kneeled down in the soil and planted a seed in a garden? When you stood up, were your knees covered in dirt? If so, you’ll fit right in reading about the friendship between a young curious girl named Laurel and her delightful neighbor Honey, who owns the house next door. In some ways Honey is continuously planting seeds throughout her garden,...
The Painted Girls takes place in Paris in 1878 and tells the story of the Van Goethem sisters, who love to dance. The family is surviving until the father dies and the sisters are raised by their mother, a laundress with a drinking problem. The oldest girl is Antoinette, who must take over the role of the mother. She is an extra...
For the person who has ever had - or has - a dog that you love, this book is for you. The story starts as Rocky's husband has a major heart attack in their bathroom. She tried to save him with CPR, but fails. Now, Rocky needs to put together her life, alone. That is, until she moves to Peak Island off of Maine. The story tells of a...
Author Michael Christie's novel tells the story of four generations of the Greenwood family, whose lives all revolve around trees: Jake, a guide through one of the last old-growth forests to survive the Great Withering; her father Liam, a carpenter who grew up wandering the wilds of Canada with his mother Willow, a dedicated but non-violent eco-warrior...
Meg loves to create and build, and boxes are her favorite medium. From tiny house to marvelous castles, she loves her self-appointed role as "Boxitect." Her mom is very proud of her skills and decides Meg should expand them by attending Maker School. There, she meets other kids who also love to create things out of various items such as blankets, tin-...
Marianne is a focused little girl who follows her own interests and dreams, even though others can’t understand her passions. She spends her days painstakingly and patiently digging for dinosaur bones on a sandy beach. Her persistence finally pays off when she discovers a whole dinosaur skeleton! But the story does not end there. It takes a fantastic...
In imitation of the classic poem “The House That Jack Built” this book’s text begins: “These are the twigs, dried in the sun,/that papa collected one by one/to cradle the nest that Wren built.” The rhythmic tone continues in the text while on each page a different natural scene unfolds. More and more elements are added to the nest—even a snakeskin and...
If you are a fan of suspenseful thrillers, this debut novel by Tanen Jones is a must read! This novel races through twists and turns, alternating between chapters told by three unreliable narrators: Leslie, Robin, and Mary. Leslie has spent the last few years taking care of her father as he dies from cancer. After he dies,...
When I picked up Wicked Saints I thought I knew what I was getting into, boy was I wrong. This novel follows three main characters, introduced as A Girl, A Prince, and A Monster. Full of twists and surprises, this book blew me out of the water and into someplace dark and unsettling. Set amidst a war between two neighboring countries, the...
For a high school senior, Jessup Collins has a lot on his mind. He’s focused on leading his football team to state. He’s hoping to secure a collegiate scholarship that will take him far away from his hometown of Cortaca, New York. And he’s heavily weighing how the people in town will view him and his family now that his stepfather has been released from...
Audience: adults | Genre: contemporary fiction, fiction
After the recent loss of her mom, Ollie is just trying escape into a world of books. When she stumbles upon a woman trying to throw a book into the river, she rescues it and becomes entranced by what she soon discovers is a journal that spins quite the creepy tale. On a school field trip, the haunting pages of the journal suddenly seem only too real, and...
This story is about an old-school firehouse in Boston that has a few issues with the new female firefighter on staff. Not only is there a new female on the C shift, but a new rookie. With budget cuts for the fire station, only one of the newbies can stay. Who will get to keep their job - the rookie (whose dad was a fire chief, and quite...
Alex Turner escapes from an abusive relationship by fleeing to a small town and taking on a job with a local marine biologist, who researches the orcas that pass through the area. While the locals are attached to the local group of orcas that swim through, the town is also known for being one of the most haunted towns in Washington. The more Alex stays, the...
Leaving Manhattan was never part of Alice Hale's life plan. Yet she finds herself, on the verge of 30, moving to the sleepy suburbs with her husband, Nate. Recently fired from her public relations job (though Nate thinks she left on her own accord), Alice plans to keep busy by writing her first novel, making renovations to the outdated property...
Audience: adults | Genre: fiction, contemporary fiction, historical fiction
Being evil has never come naturally to Clementine, the daughter of the Dark Lord Elithor. Clementine, who prefers flowers and sunshine to darkness, wakes up one morning to find her father literally whittling away. Clementine needs to keep the family farm running, while her father locks himself away in his laboratory to find a cure for the curse put...
All unfinished, unwritten books are held in Hell's library in the "Unwritten" wing (a neutral place within Hell). The books are sentient and want terribly to escape to their author, to beg to be finished. It's the job of the Head Librarian to keep them contained. This novel is refreshing, wonderfully written, and is a great read for bibliophiles...
Tess, who runs a charity that focuses on trying to help those wrongly convicted of crimes, gets her newest case: Carrie, charged with the brutal murder of her husband’s mistress. Carrie has maintained her innocence for three years, and she wants nothing more than to be released to be with her pregnant daughter. The case brings Tess back to the hometown...
The Girl and the Wolf by Katherena Vermette is a wonderful retelling of the classic Red Riding Hood tale. With gorgeous illustrations and lyrical dialogue, Vermette walks you through the woods as a little girl who has wandered too far and finds herself alone and lost. A wolf comes upon her, and what follows is a twist on the original...
