In the midst of the promotional muddle, that keeps me on an emotional roller coaster, it’s so good to hear a voice talking about sentences. The nuts and bolts of writing come back to me. And I remember that I am truly glad to create sentences on the page. “My Life’s Sentences” is a beautiful essay by Jhumpa Lahiri.

“…But only certain sentences breathe and shift about, like live matter in soil. The first sentence of a book is a handshake, perhaps an embrace. Style and personality are irrelevant. They can be formal or casual. They can be tall or short or fat or thin. They can obey the rules or break them. But they need to contain a charge. A live current, which shocks and illuminates…”

And two lovely Peculiar reviews :

“… this is a top notch book with all the qualities of a great story. It’s definitely intended for the YA audience, however, the annoying new YA-Supernatural-Romance-Stupid-Girl tendency is completed avoided. The characters are smart, relateable and completely fascinating.” Book Snob

“…It is a reminder that we need to try and not only accept but embrace the things that make us all so different no matter how much we don’t understand why they are. And possibly most importantly it tells us that things may not always be what they seem and we need to learn about them before we judge based on appearance or what we may have heard from others. Predjudice in any form is wrong.
I have not been so swept away by a book in a very long time. This was such a unique and meaningful YA novel.” Desiree

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