breakfast

Beartown + Bear Claws

September 22, 2020 by Megan Leave a Comment

How often do you give books a second chance? Until Fredrik Backman’s Beartown, I would’ve said never. And, if I’m being honest, I’m not sure it’s a practice I will repeat often, but I’m so glad I did decide to give this novel another try.

The first time I read Beartown (about 3 years ago) I was less than impressed. I went into it expecting "classic" Backman — the Backman of charming, somewhat whimsical stories/characters as in A Man Called Ove and My Grandmother Asked Me To Tell You She’s Sorry, both books I absolutely loved — and what I got was not that. Beartown is a much darker narrative (though both of the above-mentioned books certainly have their dark spots), and I just wasn’t ready for it. I wasn’t expecting it, and so I was disappointed.

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Kids Edition: Dr. Seuss's ABC + Chocolate Doughnuts

September 19, 2020 by Megan 1 Comment

Welcome to another Kids Edition post on The Hungry Bookworm. Today we will be talking about Dr. Seuss’s ABC: An Amazing Alphabet Book! And the recipe is brought to you by the letter D...d...D (more on that later).

In his ABC book, Dr. Seuss talks about each letter of the alphabet with fun rhymes and silly characters. At our house, we read the board book version. All of the content is there but the pages are condensed. We often get the rhymes stuck in our heads.

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Kids Edition: Curious George Makes Pancakes

August 22, 2020 by Megan 7 Comments

Welcome to the first Kids Edition post on The Hungry Bookworm! Today we will be talking about a charming little monkey and his culinary adventures in Curious George Makes Pancakes.

George is a good little monkey. He is also very curious. This curiosity makes for a lot of antics that we love reading about with my son Henry.

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Rubyfruit Jungle + Baked Strawberry Donuts

July 21, 2020 by Megan Leave a Comment

Rita Mae Brown’s novel Rubyfruit Jungle was quite revolutionary when it was first published in the 1970s. I had never heard of it until recently when I was searching for books to include in my office’s book club poll for Pride Month reads, and certainly now, the content isn’t what I would call groundbreaking, but I can see why it was at the time.

Rubyfruit Jungle is a coming-of-age lesbian novel based somewhat on Rita Mae Brown’s own experience growing up and becoming an author. The main character, Molly, is an easygoing, independent thinker — even from a young age (we meet her around 12) — and, in many ways, her narration reminded me of Scout from To Kill a Mockingbird. She doesn’t want to become a housewife and gets scolded for playing doctor because, after all, men are the doctors. She wants nothing more than to leave her small life and become a filmmaker.

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Recursion + Huevos Rancheros

July 14, 2019 by Megan 2 Comments

As you may recall, Blake Crouch’s Dark Matter was one of my favorite books the year I read it. So, naturally, when I heard he was releasing a new similarly thrilling sci-fi novel, I was looking forward to it. I was lucky enough to get a copy of Recursion through NetGalley before its release (though it’s available now; it came out June 11th). And, most importantly, I am so happy to report it lived up to my high expectations!

Just like with Dark Matter, it’s hard to describe Recursion without giving too much away. But here’s what I can tell you: Barry Sutton is a New York City cop who stumbles into an investigation on something called False Memory Syndrome, in which those affected suddenly have a whole set of real, vivid memories from another lifetime; one they haven’t actually lived. Helena Smith is a researcher obsessed with memory. She has dedicated her life to trying to preserve those memories most precious to us, so they never get lost.

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The Dreamers + Almond Croissants

March 9, 2019 by Megan 4 Comments

For those of you who have been with me since the beginning, you may recall my love of Karen Thompson Walker’s previous novel, The Age of Miracles. Because of that, I have been anxiously awaiting her follow-up The Dreamers since I first heard about it months ago. I was lucky enough to get it from the library on its release day, and I wasted no time getting right to it!

Like The Age of Miracles, The Dreamers starts with a seemingly innocuous anomaly. This time, a college girl falls asleep and doesn’t wake up. Her roommate, Mei, is unable to wake her, and the girl is brought to the hospital. When a second girl falls asleep and then another, people begin to worry. The dorm is put on lockdown. As the mysterious illness spreads, the entire college town is quarantined, doctors are flown in to investigate and the National Guard summoned to keep order.

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