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The Martian is a runaway bestseller about a guy stuck on Mars who spends his time being a smartass and trying to get back to earth by “sciencing the shit” out of the problem. Using a lot of tape. And radioactivity. And potatoes. This book is from a debut novelist who really knows his shit: both the chemical jury rig for creating water out of jet fuel, and the way to make you turn pages so fast they rip a little, the paper spotted with blood from your overly-gnawed fingernails. I discovered the novel during my spring field season as a wildlife biologist, reading by headlamp in the camper shell of my truck. I sacrificed way too many precious hours of sleep to finding out OH, GOD, WHAT WILL HAPPEN to Mark Watney, the disco-hating astronaut whose favorite pastime is... Read More

If I Stay by Gayle Forman, is a teen cello-addict whose whole family gets wiped out by a car crash in the first scene. *All readers click the X button on this blog * To be fair, that was my first response too. Despite many people recommending this one to me, I don’t like sad books. Therefore, it took me a while to give this one a chance, especially since it is written from the POV of a girl in a coma (wow, game for a challenge much, Gayle? That’s hardcore). The book is really about the girl (Mia) deciding if she wants to live. I was pumping the pom poms from the start, because she has a super hot boyfriend (Adam, oh Adam…) who sings in a rock band, plays the guitar like a true panty-dropper, and is sweet... Read More

First, the name of this post is not a drill. These are not my favorite books, they’re the best ones ever written in the English language. Probably all the other ones, too. Except Italian, because everything you say in Italian sounds post-orgasmic. 1. The Sky is Everywhere by Jandy Nelson This book wraps you in another kind of air, like music, like dance, like the first touch from a boy you’ve had a crush on forever. I have no idea why Nelson isn’t 50 Shades of Grey famous. She should be signing books and tossing them down from her private plane, while getting footrubs from men with beautiful abdominal muscles and even more beautiful Ph.D’s. This is a debut novel from a seasoned literary agent, and I can only assume she’s been saving up all of her talent to spend... Read More