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EllenAllen

Ellen Allen Writes

Avid reader. Wild swimmer. Indie Author of The Sham. Collector of writing titbits (http://www.ellenallen.co) and all things bookish...

Today
November
07
Ellen Allen
December 2016
29
read
reviewed: When Breath Becomes Air; over-hyped and way too sentimental
I had been wanting to read Paul Kalanithi's memoir for a while, having read a rave review in the New York Times; he was an es...
When Breath Becomes Air - Paul Kalanithi, Abraham Verghese
reviewed: The Girls; superb teen angst with a splash of murder
I first came across author Emma Cline in the Paris Review of Books in summer 2013 when I found her story Marion. The opening ...
The Girls: A Novel - Emma Cline
May 2016
08
reviewed: The Luminaries; sooo long but worth it
My god, I made it. Eleanor Catton’s Booker Prize-winning first novel is not for the faint-hearted. It is long. And I mean lon...
The Luminaries - Eleanor Catton
January 2016
22
reviewed: The Interestings; vivid, evocative and really bloody good
I hadn’t heard of Meg Wolitzer but when I read some of the reviews in The New York Times and The Telegraph, I discovered she ...
The Interestings: A Novel - Meg Wolitzer
December 2015
31
read and rated
reviewed: Middlesex; riveting book about gender but still way too long
Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides (who wrote The Virgin Suicides) is a really interesting book about gender; what it really mean...
Middlesex - Jeffrey Eugenides
read and rated
reviewed: The Hundred-Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out Of The Window And Disappeared; a long-winded unfunny dose of Forrest Gump
So I get that The Hundred-Year-Old Man by Jonas Jonasson is meant to be a satire on politics and politicians throughout the 2...
The Hundred-Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out of the Window and Disappeared - Jonas Jonasson
October 2015
21
reviewed: Slade House; a bit bonkers, quite scary and oh so well written
I found Slade House by chance on netgalley and didn’t know what to expect (I haven’t read any of David Mitchell’s other books...
Slade House: A Novel - David Mitchell
read and rated
finished reading:
October 2015
15
reviewed: My Heart and Other Black Holes; a great YA issues novel
There are lots of brilliant YA books about suicide (All The Bright Places, Thirteen Reasons Why, Wintergirls, etc) – if a boo...
My Heart and Other Black Holes - Jasmine Warga
finished reading:
started reading: