Adult Readers | When Loose Ends Meet

Finding Balance by Kati Gardner

13 Feb 2020 by Jeanne E. Fredriksen

Gr. 9-12 ***Starred Review*** Like Jase Ellison, Mari Manos is a cancer survivor. Unlike Jase, however, Mari lost one leg to the disease. Both teens are close during summers at Camp Chemo, but when Mari transfers to Jase’s exclusive Atlanta West Prep, he freaks. No one there knows his medical history, so instead of welcoming Mari, he rudely pretends not to know her. Mari’s life at AWP grows more miserable as Jase’s girlfriend spews hurtful comments about Mari’s economic status […]

Categories: Adult Readers, Book Reviews, Young Adult Readers • Tags: cancer, disability, health, Starred Review

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How to Live on the Edge by Sarah Lynn Scheerger

13 Feb 2020 by Jeanne E. Fredriksen

Gr. 8-12 Teenagers Cayenne and Saffron barely remember their mother, who died from breast cancer when they were young. Understanding that this could be their future as well, Cayenne aspires to live fully, if recklessly, while Saffron is dedicated to being her best self. When their Aunt Tee, who raised them, tests positive for BRCA—the inherited gene that all but guarantees her their mother’s fate—she opts for elective mastectomy and gives the girls access to a journal and series of […]

Categories: Adult Readers, Book Reviews, Young Adult Readers • Tags: BRCA gene, health, parental loss, sisters

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The Atlas of Reds and Blues by Devi S. Laskar

11 Feb 2020 by Jeanne E. Fredriksen

Black and White Are Not Colors • The second-generation Bengali woman known as Mother in Devi S. Laskar’s emotionally raw debut novel, The Atlas of Reds and Blues, is forty-three years, six months, twenty-five days old when an unexpected, swift, and tragic chain of events transpires. Upon returning home from dropping her three young daughters at school, agents storm her house, she refuses to remain silent, then she finds herself lying on her driveway in an Atlanta suburb, bleeding from […]

Categories: Adult Readers, Appeared in India Currents Magazine, Book Reviews • Tags: 2nd generation, family, guns, violence to POC

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An English Made in India by Kalpana Mohan

An English Made in India: How a Foreign Language Became Local by Kalpana Mohan

22 Jan 2020 by Jeanne E. Fredriksen

Language is fluid, and anyone who has successfully made it to adulthood has experienced slang growing into accepted usage and accepted usage shifting as new verbal practices infiltrate conversation and the written word. Such is the conundrum India has encountered since the British East India Company carried out the will of its crown. In her engaging, entertaining, and educational book, An English Made in India: How a Foreign Language Became Local, Kalpana Mohan cleverly mixes pieces of India’s history with […]

Categories: Adult Readers, Appeared in India Currents Magazine, Book Reviews, India, language • Tags: India, language, non-fiction

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I Never Told You by Bernie Brown

27 Oct 2019 by Jeanne E. Fredriksen

SHOUT OUT! Bernie Brown’s debut novel, I Never Told You, is an emotional mother-daughter story that moves geographically from a small town in Iowa to a competitive art school in Chicago to the glitz and glam of Hollywood in 1965. Anna and her daughter Katya love each other, but there are important parts of their lives they can’t share with each other, moving them apart emotionally as well. The chasm between them deepens, and only tragedy can bring them together. […]

Categories: Adult Readers, Book Reviews, Brief Book Shout-Out • Tags: 1965, coming of age, mother-daughter

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The Poison Garden by A. J. Banner

26 Oct 2019 by Jeanne E. Fredriksen

SHOUT OUT! Damn! I couldn’t put this book down, and it’s A. J. Banner’s fault! Like her previous three domestic psychological thrillers, this newly-published novel is tight and compact. Set on one of the islands of the Pacific Northwest, it has more twists and turns than a mountain road. In under 200 pages, she manages to draw in the reader with a grip that never releases until the last page. If you’re looking for a read that has creepy and […]

Categories: Adult Readers, ARC provided via NetGalley.com, Book Reviews, Brief Book Shout-Out • Tags: domestic thriller, Pacific Northwest, psychological thriller

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Unmarriageable: Pride and Prejudice in Pakistan by Soniah Kamal

11 Jun 2019 by Jeanne E. Fredriksen

SHOUT OUT! I admit it: I’m a sucker for Pride and Prejudice (Austen’s original and all filmed versions, even if a scene or two is thrown in for, um, effect), and my wildest dreams included a novel like Unmarriageable: Pride and Prejudice in Pakistan by Sonial Kamal. I’ve been around South Asian communities for two decades, I’ve written for an Indian magazine for nearly as long, and I love the spectacle and unabashedly larger-than-life qualities of Hindi films. So, when […]

Categories: Adult Readers, Book Reviews, Brief Book Shout-Out • Tags: Jane Austen, life choices, Pakistan, sisterhood

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The Nearest Exit May Be Behind You by Amulya Malladi

10 Jun 2019 by Jeanne E. Fredriksen

SHOUT OUT! Not all of us are in high-profile, cutthroat work environments that fling a person all over the world, leading to an intimacy with worldwide airports, fine hotels, and finer restaurants. However, Asmi Verma is that corporate woman in Amulya Malladi’s eigthth novel, The Nearest Exit May Be Behind You (publishing July 1, 2019). The novel doubles as a working woman’s workbook/pep rally and love story to the strength of women everywhere. Asmi, single and nearly 40 (much to […]

Categories: Adult Readers, Book Reviews • Tags: corporate, leadership, work-life

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Shout Out Review! The Promise Between Us by Barbara Claypole White

9 Jul 2018 by Jeanne E. Fredriksen

A quick review of an wonderfully-exhausting book. During a recent week at the beach, I allowed myself to fall deeply into a world created by five-book-old local author Barbara Claypole White, the self-proclaimed “Mad Brit.” Barbara, a petite and bubbly, gin-loving, red-wine-loving woman who lives a few towns over from me, makes me laugh with her Facebook posts, gives wonderful author visits, conducted one of the best writing workshops I’ve ever taken, and writes beautiful, all-consuming novels that not only […]

Categories: Adult Readers, Brief Book Shout-Out

When Loose Ends Meet

Connecting the frayed ends of reading, writing, and living

Category Archives: Adult Readers

Finding Balance by Kati Gardner

How to Live on the Edge by Sarah Lynn Scheerger

The Atlas of Reds and Blues by Devi S. Laskar

An English Made in India: How a Foreign Language Became Local by Kalpana Mohan

I Never Told You by Bernie Brown

The Poison Garden by A. J. Banner

Unmarriageable: Pride and Prejudice in Pakistan by Soniah Kamal

The Nearest Exit May Be Behind You by Amulya Malladi

Shout Out Review! The Promise Between Us by Barbara Claypole White