On the Highway

Fun (or possibly slightly alarming) fact: I got so absorbed in thinking about asakiyume's "On the Highway" that I, like the heroine Jolene, skidded on the icy road.

Unlike Jolene I wasn't going very fast, so I just skidded a bit before I got the car back under control. In the story, however, Jolene slides right off the highway into a ditch - and that's where she's sitting when a helpful stranger finds her...

I really liked the story - possibly more than was good for me, clearly - the ghostly wayfarer thing it's got going on (which is also reminiscent of that Emily Dickinson poem: "Because I could not stop for Death, he kindly stopped for me"), the New Year's Eve setting (I love holiday stories and it's always fun to see one for a holiday that is not Christmas), the lovely atmospheric writing and particularly the contrast between the warmth and cold. He helps Jolene into the cab, which is warm and golden, like the inside of a jack-o-lantern...

It's a lovely New Year treat.

Book Review: Wolf Hollow

I found Lauren Wolk’s Wolf Hollow such a page turner that I took it to work with me so I could finish reading it on my breaks (and then stretched my lunch just a bit for that purpose), but now that I’ve finished and gotten a bit more distance from it, I’m starting to see more flaws, which I cannot discuss without spoilers so… ( behind the spoiler cut we go )

On the bright side, finishing this book means that I have finished all my reading challenges for 2017! I read a book for each of the twelve challenges in the 2017 Reading Challenge, and I finished all the unread books that were sitting on my shelves (...and acquired some new ones; the cycle is endless), and now I’ve finished reading the 2017 Newbery Honor books. Hurrah for me!