Ocean City Free Public Library Book Blog

      It is only recently that I began reading the Ransom Riggs Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children series, but once I started I easily knocked out the first two books in one day. The second novel in the series, Hollow City  continues immediately where the first novel ends--with the peculiar children of the Cairnholm time loop fleeing from the hollowgasts, while searching for a way to restore their guardian, Miss Peregrine, back to her human form.       While the use of time travel was introduced in the first novel, it is a much more reinforced idea Hollow City . In Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children , the protagonist Jacob is taught how to travel effortlessly between his own timeline and a day during the second World War that continuously loops back each night--thus the people within the loop relive the same day repeatedly. However, in Hollow City, this time loop is nonexistent, and Jacob decides to remain in the past in order to...

      Trigger Warning is Neil Gaiman's newest collection of short stories addressing topics that question the boundaries of human capacity of disturbance and horror. True to Gaiman's usual style of writing, the stories contained in this collection are macabre in nature, at times bordering on terrifying, but never breaching the barrier into outright gory. They focus more on the building of suspense rather than the jumpscare value, in a truly H.P. Lovecraft style of story building.       What made this book stand out from Gaiman's other writings, and what made it interesting to me, was his explanation of his choice of title. In the introduction, Gaiman sets out to give a brief explanation of what the phrase "trigger warning" implies, how the landscape of storycrafting is evolving alongside social media, and how the personalisation of social media through user-tagging is changing the landscape of blogging and entertainment.       A "trigger...

      The beginning of March marks the beginning of Women's History Month, and specifically March 8th as International Women's Day. According to the official International Women's Day website , March 8th is " a global day celebrating the economic, political and social achievements of women past, present and future."       This day is set to remember the  suffragettes worldwide who protested, campaigned, and made their voices heard in order that women everywhere in the world would gain the equality and rights they deserved in order to make their voices heard. In some countries, such as China, Vietnam, Russia, and Bulgaria, International Women's Day is an official national holiday.       It's not just a day to remember the past, though. It is also a time to call attention to the fact that despite the efforts and many accomplishments of our suffragette ancestors, that there are still issues that need addressing--wage gaps,...

" I felt that one had better die fighting against injustice than to die like a dog or a rat in a trap"  Ida B. Wells       In honor of it being February, and therefore Black History Month, I wanted to do a special entry highlighting a major historical figure of note, both in the struggle for civil rights and the struggle for women's rights: Ida B. Wells.       Ida B. Wells was born in July of 1862, in Holly Springs, MO to James and Lizzie Wells. Ida and her parents, as well as the rest of the people still held as slaves in the Confederate states, were declared free by the Union six months after Ida's birth with the issue of the Emancipation Proclamation. Ida's parents were active in the Republican party during the Reconstruction, and her father helped to found  Shaw University (now Rust College) and served on the first board of trustees for this school dedicated to educating the newly freed former slaves. Ida recieved her early school...

       Landline is the latest novel by Rainbow Rowell, and author who has written both adult and YA romance novels. Landline follows the story of TV writer Georgie McCool as she struggles to balance her work life and her home life, while the state of her marriage declines. When she attempts to postpone a family holiday vacation as the result of an emergency at work, her husband, Neal, insists on taking their children home for Christmas anyway without Georgie. During the holiday week, Georgie tries to call Neal at his mother's house--however Neal's habit of never charging his cell phone leads to Georgie resorting to her parent's old rotary land-line phone to call Neal's mother's land-line. What Georgie soon realises is that this land-line connection allows her to call Neal in the past before they were ever married. Georgie now has an opportunity to either fix her marriage before it begins or to end it and see if they would have been better off never being marr...

      ***       The Cure for Dreaming by Cat Winters presents the story of Olivia Mead--a young suffragist in 1900 Portland, Oregon whose headstrong and determined ideas regarding women's rights cause her father to hire a performing hypnotist to hypnotize Olivia into being a more docile and submissive woman. Unbeknownst to her father, the hypnotist instead unlocks Olivia's mind to the ability to see people beyond their physical appearance and into their souls to see their true nature and intentions, while continuing her fight for women's rights.       I was drawn into this story right away with the presentation of Olivia Mead. She is the daughter of a dentist who is a prominent man in the city of Portland, and has to live up to her father's expectation that she be the perfectly well behaved and content with her place in society of being subservient to all the men in her life. Unfortunately for her father...

***       As Chimney Sweepers Come to Dust is the latest installment in the Flavia de Luce mystery series by Alan Bradley. And is the first book in the series that takes place in a location other than the large English estate of the de Luce family. Set in a girls boarding school in Canada, 12 year old Flavia de Luce once again finds herself in the middle of a mystery after discovering human skeletal remains in one of the chimneys of her new home. The story follows her attempts to once again solve a murder, while also unraveling more of the mystery that surrounds her deceased mother's enigmatic past, and the secret government agency of which she was a part.       I was turned on to the Flavia de Luce series by a friend who knows that I enjoy all things science, as well as strong well written female characters. It has quickly become one of my favourite mystery series. This newest one is almost a complete reinventing of the series, come at jus...