Imagoala

I Believe in a Thing Called Love  by Maurene Goo Blurb: Desi  Lee believes anything is possible if you have a plan. That's how she became student body president. Varsity soccer star. And it's how she'll get into Stanford. But she's never had a boyfriend. In fact, she's a disaster at romance, a clumsy, stammering humiliation magnet whose botched attempts at flirting have become legendary with her friends. So when the hottest human specimen to have ever lived walks into her life one day, Desi finds guidance in the Korean dramas her father has been obsessively watching for years—where the hapless heroine always seems to end up in the arms of her true love by episode ten. It's a simple formula, and Desi is a quick study. Armed with her "K Drama Steps to True Love," Desi goes after the moody, elusive artist Luca Drakos—and boat rescues, love triangles, and staged car crashes ensue. But when the fun and games turn to true feels, Desi finds out th...

Human Acts  by Han Kang (translated by Deborah Smith) Blurb: In  the midst of a violent student uprising in South Korea, a young boy named Dong-ho is shockingly killed. Review: You  look around at the old man. You don’t ask him if this is his granddaughter. You wait, patiently, for him to speak when he’s ready. There will be no forgiveness. You look into his eyes, which are flinching from the sight laid out in front of them as though it is the most appalling thing in all this world. There will be no forgiveness. Least of all for me.   My  opinion is split when it comes to Human Acts . On the one hand the writing style is absolutely beautiful and I was in awe all the while reading it, on the other hand I struggled a lot to connect with this story. The story this book tells is an important one. I hardly know anything about Korean history - frankly, I still hardly know anything about the events described - thus, this book seems like an i...

Exit, Pursued by a Bear  by E. K. Johnston Blurb: Hermione Winters is captain of her cheerleading team, and in tiny Palermo Heights, this doesn't mean what you think it means. At PHHS, the cheerleaders don't cheer for the sports teams; they are the sports team – the pride and joy of a tiny town. The team's summer training camp is Hermione's last and marks the beginning of the end of … she's not sure what. She does know this season could make her a legend. But during a camp party, someone slips something in her drink. And it all goes black. Review: I  didn't used to overthink my choice quite so much. Then someone made what I've always been told is a very important choice for me, and now I tend to overthink everything else.  In  a central plot point Exit, Pursued by a Bear  is similar to What We Saw  (both are about rape) but, when it comes down to it, both books are completely different. What We Saw  treated rape from an ou...

What We Saw  by Aaron Hartzler Blurb: The party at John Doone's last Saturday night is a bit of a blur. Kate Weston can piece together most of the details: Stacey Stallard handing her shots, Ben Cody taking her keys and getting her home early … But when a picture of Stacey passed out over Deacon Mills' shoulder appears online the next morning, Kate suspects she doesn't have all the details. When Stacey levels charges against four of Kate's classmates, the whole town erupts into controversy. Facts that can't be ignored begin to surface, and every answer Kate finds leads back to the same question: Who witnessed what happened to Stacey? And what responsibility do they have to speak up about what they saw? Review: " Why  do you like birds so much?" I asked. A look of pity flitted over her face, followed by a smile. "Because they can fly, silly." This is not an easy book, but I didn't expect it to be. To be honest, I ha...

Love, Life, and the List  by Kasie West Blurb: Seventeen -year-old Abby Turner's summer isn't going the way she'd planned. She has a not-so-secret but definitely unrequited crush on her best friend, Cooper. She hasn't been able to manage her mother's growing issues with anxiety. And now she's been rejected from an art show because her work "has no heart." So when she gets another opportunity to show her paintings Abby isn't going to take any chances.  Which is where the list comes in. Abby gives herself one month to do ten things, ranging from face a fear (#3) to learn a stranger’s story (#5) to fall in love (#8). She knows that if she can complete the list she’ll become the kind of artist she’s always dreamed of being. But as the deadline approaches, Abby realizes that getting through the list isn’t as straightforward as it seems… and that maybe—just maybe—she can’t change her art if she isn’t first willing to change herself. ...

How to Get Filthy Rich in Rising Asia by Mohsin Hamid Blurb: (The  bad news: I can't find a decent blurb for this book. More bad news: I can't make up a decent blurb for it either - anything I could come up with would do injustice to the story/storytelling. The good news: my edition uses as "blurb" an excerpt from the very beginning (it's from the second page) which works decently as an introduction not only to the story but also to the storytelling. Thus, I'll just cite that same excerpt and pretend like it's a blurb.) This book is a self-help book. Its objective, as it says on the cover, is to show you how to get filthy rich in rising Asia. And to do that it has to find you, huddled, shivering, on the packed earth under your mother's cot one cold, dewy morning. Your anguish is the anguish of a boy whose chocolate has been thrown away, whose remote controls are out of batteries, whose scooter is busted, whose new sneakers have been stol...