The Simpletons Book Blog

The Readers’ Advisory Matrix for Bad Girls: Sirens, Jezebels, Murderesses, Thieves & Other Female Villains, by Jany Yolen and Heidi E. Y. Stemple 1. Where is the book on the narrative continuum? › Highly narrative (reads like fiction) - A mix (combines highly narrative moments with periods of fact-based prose) - Highly fact-based (has few or no narrative moments) 2. What is the subject of the book?      Bad women throughout history or had done criminal things, most commonly for their own gain. 3. What type of book is it?      A history of criminal women in a narrative format 4. Articulate appeal What is the pacing of the book? Short, quick read, episodic format for each character read. Describe the characters of the book. Each person introduced is a bad girl, and we follow the two authors as they talk about the book and each character and a short blurb on their opinion. How does the story feel? Quick, to the point, but also engaging th...

  Author: Carissa Broadbent Title: Daughter of No Worlds Genre: Fantasy Publication Date: January 8, 2020 Number of Pages: 518 Geographical Setting: Time Period: Series (If applicable): The War of Lost Hearts Plot Summary: Tisaanah, a girl forcibly removed from her home at a young age in the middle of the night, and forced into slavery, wants to help those that she had been taken from. All she wants to do is free them with the help of the Order, being that they are a highly powerful organization of magic wielders. Maxantarius Farlione wants nothing to do with her but is forced to take her on. With the dynamic between two opposing forces, we see how each grows and pushes each other to their limits. Subject Headings: Fantasy Fiction, Slavery, Magic, Women Heroes Appeal: Story Line – This story goes into such depth that helps build the characterization of the characters well and makes it clear how they have come to have their motivations throughout the book. Bui...

Something that is appealing about ebooks and audiobooks is that you can easily bring ebooks anywhere. All you need is a tablet or phone to read on to be able to read your books from anywhere. There is also less risk of losing, misplacing, or ruining a book, and lots of systems automatically send your book back on the due date, so you don’t have to worry about returning the book. As for audiobooks, they are more convenient for reading at times when you are cleaning your home, doing any chores, or working on your favorite hobby. EAudiobooks are great since you can download them onto your phone and listen anywhere on a trip. And the same applies to them automatically returning once the due date comes up. These are great benefits for those who love using the library and can’t find time to visit or forget when materials need to be returned. Although it is not the same as holding a physical book, it doesn’t necessarily change the book's content or the genre. Although readers can change...

The book that I had read for the club that I participated in was The Chaos Machine: The Inside Story of How Social Media Rewired Our Minds and Our World by Max Fisher. This book was something that felt like reading a history book of recent events. It was a long read and was a struggle to get through, though I was able to finish the book in time for the book club. It was also interesting as to how everyone interacted with each other. The conversation felt very productive since everyone felt familiar with each other since they had been meeting for a while, and I am very new to the group. Who is asking the questions, is there a leader or do people take turns? There was a librarian leader to help lead and guide the discussion, but mainly she had included her thoughts and guided the conversation to keep it on track with the book, as well as letting others talk about their real-life experiences with technology and the platforms trying to garner are use time on them. Mainly, we answered her ...

For my special topics paper, I decided to do a deep dive into romance throughout history to get a better understanding of where the romance genre has been, where we are now, and how we got from then to now. I mostly wanted to stay within a certain range and thought it best not to go too far, so I decided to go only so far as the 1900s for my research. Here's a bit of an idea of where we went from the 1900s to now. In the 1920s, we had a surge of regency books, where Jane Austin made a comeback 100 years after her stories, but that didn't have as much detail about the time period since they were written during that period, but we had several other authors who wrote books with more details about that time period in their writing. We also had romance books covering some scandalous topics, such as premarital consummation and abortions. Moving into the 1950s and 1960s, we started to see many romance books portraying financially responsible women who have jobs and want a compassionat...