Title: S.
Author: J.J. Abrams & Doug Dorst
Genre: Epistolary
Rating: 4.5/5
# pages: 456
Date read: October, 2015

One book. Two readers. A world of mystery, menace, and desire.

A young woman picks up a book left behind by a stranger. Inside it are his margin notes, which reveal a reader entranced by the story and by its mysterious author. She responds with notes of her own, leaving the book for the stranger, and so begins an unlikely conversation that plunges them both into the unknown.

THE BOOK: Ship of Theseus, the final novel by a prolific but enigmatic writer named V. M. Straka, in which a man with no past is shanghaied onto a strange ship with a monstrous crew and launched onto a disorienting and perilous journey.

THE WRITER: Straka, the incendiary and secretive subject of one of the world's greatest mysteries, a revolutionary about whom the world knows nothing apart from the words he wrote and the rumours that swirl around him.

THE READERS: Jennifer and Eric, a college senior and a disgraced grad student, both facing crucial decisions about who they are, who they might become, and how much they're willing to trust another person with their passions, hurts, and fears.


I don't usually post photos in my reviews, but the charm of this book is best explained via visual aids.


The minute I saw this book, I knew I had to have it. I adore books that play with the media ("Lost in a Good Book" and "The City of Dreaming Books" spring to mind as other books that do this really well), so when I realized that half the plot in this book was told via the book "Ship of Theseus" and the other half was told through comments in the margin of said book as well as clippings, photos etc. inserted throughout the book - I was sold. What an altogether brilliant idea! I almost didn't care about the plot itself.

And the book didn't disappoint. I loved getting to know Eric and Jen through the comments in the margin - trying to figure out the timeline as they jumped back and forth to have conversations and follow up on things. I cared less about the story of SOT, but I don't think we were really supposed to, as it was mostly a means to an end. The main problem with the book - and the only reason it didn't make a straight 5 star rating - is that it was almost too realistic in Eric and Jen's way of communicating, so some things were just implied or understood, as they were referring to events they obviously both knew the outcome of. This also made the ending slightly abrupt, and left me with a few unanswered questions.

Nothing major though, and at the end of the day, the charm of the book won through. Definitely the most unusual book I have ever read.

Title: Does My Head Look Big In This
Author: Randa Abdel-Fattah
Genre: YA, Cultural
Rating: 9/10
# pages: 351
Date read: October, 2008

Summary: Sixteen-year-old Amal makes the decision to start wearing the hijab full- time and everyone has a reaction. Her parents, her teachers, her friends, people on the street. But she stands by her decision to embrace her faith and all that it is, even if it does make her a little different from everyone else.

Can she handle the taunts of "nappy head," the prejudice of her classmates, and still attract the cutest boy in school? Brilliantly funny and poignant, Randa Abdel-Fattah's debut novel will strike a chord in all teenage readers, no matter what their beliefs.

Review: YA, but don't let that scare you. It's really, really relevant and really, really well-written. I loved reading about Amal's life, and though her experiences as a Muslim were obviously foreign to me, her experiences as deeply religious weren't. It was interesting to see how similar many of our moral issues were.

I also appreciated the completely unapologetic way Randa Abdel-Fattah described life as a Muslim girl and the prejudice Amal faced - from non-Muslims as well as Muslims.

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