PositivePeople Magazineit’s a risky narrative choice to focus on Snow, since through three books and four films, fans have been conditioned to abhor him. Will anybody care to learn his origin story? Certainly, few will sympathize given what they already know about who he becomes. However, by introducing a new cast of teenagers, Collins is able to raise questions about privilege, the uses of violence, and the futility of war ... Will everybody be reading Ballad this summer? (Scholastic announced a first printing of 2.5 million copies.) The odds appear to be ever in its favor. The film version is already in the works.
Anna Quindlen
PositiveThe New York Times Book ReviewIf a novel about \'first-world problems,\' as [protagonist] Nora’s daughter calls them, already has you rolling your eyes, remember that Quindlen, who won a Pulitzer Prize for commentary while a New York Times columnist, is one of our most astute chroniclers of modern life. This novel may be too quiet for some, too populated with rich whiners for others, but it has an almost documentary feel, a verisimilitude that’s awfully hard to achieve. There’s no moment that feels contrived or false, except perhaps to non-New Yorkers who may find it impossible to believe that anyone would consider $350 a month for a parking space a bargain too good to pass up.
Alice Hoffman
PositiveThe New York Times Book ReviewIt’s tough to top a dead body in a car, the event that drove the plot in Practical Magic, and Hoffman doesn’t try. Instead she goes for historical sweep, setting the Owens siblings’ saga against the backdrop of real events like the Vietnam War, San Francisco’s Summer of Love and the Stonewall riots. But this is a novel that begins with the words, 'Once upon a time,' and its strength is a Hoffman hallmark: the commingling of fairy-tale promise with real-life struggle. The Owens children can’t escape who they are. Like the rest of us, they have to figure out the best way to put their powers to use.
Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay[/caption]
