Posted on by Ms. Kelly Proulx

Review: The Sun Down Motel by Simone St. James

Before I start, I acknowledge again that I am hard to please with mysteries and thrillers. I still read them, because even if I am not wowed, I usually find something enjoyable in the reading experience.

The Sun Down Motel was billed as an exciting and frightening ghost story. What I read was a little different.

The POVs of the book alternated between Viv in 1982 and her niece Carly in 2017. Viv disappeared in 1982 after a shift at a creepy motel and Carly arrives 35 years later to find out where she went. Listen, that mystery was interesting. Big fan over here. And I liked the mysterious Nick Harkness. I wanted more of him…just like Carly.

However, the ghost story that surrounded it didn’t seem necessary to my enjoyment or understanding of the mystery. I felt like I was looking for an explanation for the ghost appearances beyond what I was given. That one is on me. I am willing to admit it.

Again, I am hard to please. I enjoyed it, but wasn’t wowed, you may be!

Posted on by Ms. Kelly Proulx

Review: The Silent Patient by Alex Michaelides

From what I can tell on Goodreads, people loved this book. Any moderately exciting thriller ends up with rave reviews because people have never read anything like it. And if people are going to read, I love it! Even if I don’t necessarily get as excited about the same book.

But, listen, mystery/thriller books do not always shock or surprise me. I have read all of them. I’m almost not kidding, I have been reading mysteries and thrillers since I was six years old and I think I have encountered almost every possible incarnation of this genre.

This book started off as a very middling and unmemorable thriller. Therapist tries to reach mute, accused murderess/artist. You do not know who is telling the truth and you are always questioning character motivations. I felt like I had seen it all before. That means, for much of the book, I was saying to myself “Why do people even like this? It’s okay, but I am not even kind of shocked by any of this.”

Boy, was I wrong.

Until the end, I felt like the book moved slowly and was not the most engaging, but by the end, I changed my mind. I was finally suprised and I call that a win for me and the author.

Definitely worth the read.

Posted on by Ms. Kelly Proulx · 1 Comment

Review: The Hypnotist By Lars Kepler

I found The Hypnotist on a list…as I do….of thrillers that kept readers on the edge of their seats. While I have been reading a lot and writing a lot about “guilty pleasure” reads and YA books, I have not been reading too many mysteries. And, I love a mystery. The first chapter books I remember reading were Nancy Drews. My mother and grandmother were always reading mysteries. It’s a family thing.

Any ways, this book is un-put-down-able. In my opinion. Seldom do I find a book that can surprise me and capture my attention. I don’t want to say too much, but, the book follows Detective Joona Linna as he tries to solve the murder of a family; a murder that was witnessed by one child, who lies in a coma. He turns to a disgraced hypno-therapist to help him question the surviving boy. What results is a fast-paced and, at times, anxiety producing story.


I devoured this rather lengthy mystery/thriller in record time. It was fascinating, horrifying, and never predictable. I kept trying to solve one layer and then, another layer of another case was exposed. What a ride.

I will say….Don’t read this one alone, at night.

Posted on by Ms. Kelly Proulx

On Graphic Novels

Now that it is summer time, I fill the void of a highly scheduled teacher life, with a highly scheduled personal life. It is how a Type A person like me survives.

There is time for reading, for walking, for lifting, for watching Ru Paul’s Drag Race, for socializing safely, for writing, and for taking professional development classes. Currently, I am enrolled in two classes. One is on using graphic novels in the classroom and the other is on using reading to support socio-emotional growth. As a teacher and a reader, I approach courses with the same mindset: ‘Okay, how do I use these concepts in my classroom and don’t those books sound fun to read and review?” Are those thoughts at odds? I think not.

As a reader, one who revels in reader response theory, I want to enjoy what I am reading and feel all of the feelings that come with it. As a teacher, I am often asked to put that aside and think about literary devices and standardized testing. However, I find that my students are the most engaged when I do both. I give them something to enjoy, that we can also talk about, analyze, and write about.

One of my courses has gone into great detail about how graphic novels are misconstrued as not challenging texts. Is this another situation where something fun (like romance novels) is not considered academically worthy? Perhaps. I love recommending graphic novels to reluctant readers and I love reading graphic novels. I love being immersed in the complex world that each author and illustrator creates. The colors and style can help to set the tone, sometimes even faster and more effectively than straight text.

The following is a discussion post that I submitted for the course to answer a question about how to use graphic novels in the classroom. I share it because my thoughts about how to use them as a teacher reflect how I see them as a reader:

As a sixth grade teacher, I am fortunate to have some creative freedom and to teach a population of students that are still excited about school and learning ( a devastating but true sentiment.). They want to have fun and from what I can see, graphic novels would be academically valuable and fun resources. I read that graphic novels can provide a rich and challenging reading experience, even though they have less text than a traditional novel.  Students in my class could use a graphic novel to discover character traits and types of conflict, without being bogged down in the comprehension of a difficult text (especially my students with language disabilities or my english language learners.).  I am also excited by an idea in “In Defense of Graphic Novels” to use graphic novels for complex analytical tasks.  The article says, “Eric S. Rabkin discusses how he uses graphic novels to focus his class’s attention on how narrative time unfolds. He explains that he will have “students in turn focus on a single frame of a graphic narrative, speak aloud whatever they see and whatever they infer, including their reflective and proleptic understandings of how the frame fits into the flow of the larger narrative” (Hansen 2012.)  One of our standards in sixth grade is to discuss how a scene in a book affects the plot or overall theme.  We do this with episodes in The Phantom Tollbooth, a novel with some pictures, and the exercise is fairly simple.  Doing the Rabkin exercise with a frame of a graphic novel, would allow for more complex thinking from our students, as they infer actions. traits, themes, etc from text and complex illustrations. And of course, graphic novels are inherently more fun.  They seem, to students, to be not school work, because they have pictures and are related to comic books.  When students see pictures, they often connect them to their own sources of entertainment (like cartoons, movies, comics, and video games.). Completing school assignments using a medium that they consider fun will encourage and excite students.  Sixth graders want to have fun in school and using graphic novels can bring that fun, with valuable learning experiences. 

As I wrote this, I realized that I could substitute “Students” for “I or me.” I am always more engaged in something when it seems fun, vibrant, or interesting. Graphic novels never cease to pull me into a story and are often the first things that I recommend to my struggling or reluctant readers.

How do you feel about graphic novels? Do you have any favorites?

Posted on by Ms. Kelly Proulx

“Guilty Pleasure” Review- Bringing Down the Duke by Evie Dunmore

Apparently, I am doing a lot of “guilty pleasure” reading this summer. Well…in between my YA reads and my anti-racist reading. Here is one that I liked. Didn’t love.

Am I hard to please? Well, no, but I have read over 3000 books in my 32 years and it is hard to really surprise me with a plot. I almost feel like I have read it all before. That means I hardly ever really “love” a book, but I usually still “like” it.

Please read my previous and future reviews with that in mind.

Bringing Down the Duke

Bringing Down the Duke, to frequent readers of historical romance, has a familiar plot. Beautiful, but too intelligent to land a husband, Annabelle Archer (love an alliterative name) crosses paths with handsome but cold and aloof Sebastian Devereux, Duke of Montgomery while she is handing out fliers in support of women’s suffrage. After that, you. know what happens.

This one was fun and steamy. I loved the build up of tension and the back drop of the British women’s suffrage movement. That was a new one. It is great when a main heroine asserts her intelligence, but loved to see her using it to affect change for a larger group of people, rather than just her own place in society.

What kept me from loving it was this: I’m not a huge fan of the “woman getting a fever from being out in the cold so they have to stay at the aloof, heartless, handsome aristocrat’s manor” trope. But it’s always a pretty convenient way to advance a romantic plot. Come on. I get it, but I would have loved something more.

With that being said, I did enjoy my experience reading it last night and I will absolutely pick up Evie Dunmore’s next one.

Posted on by Ms. Kelly Proulx

“Guilty Pleasure” Review: Not That Kind of Guy by Andie J. Christopher

A review with no shame. Get ready.

Not that Kind of Guy

If Peter and Lara Jean or Sandra Bullock and Ryan Reynolds made you swoon, this might be the book for you.

Not That Kind of Guy follows hard working attorney Bridget. Fresh off a break-up with the only serious boyfriend she ever had, she is saddled with handsome and wealthy intern Matt.

I found it to be hot and kind of cute.

The premise, intern/boss forbidden lust to drunken Vegas mistake to fake relationship had, had all of the fun romance tropes. I liked both characters and loved her family.

I just kind of wish there was a little more build up of tension between the two of them. They work together for three months and we learn this because the book flashes forward and we are told that three months of meaningful looks and tension have happened.

I, for one, would have enjoyed being frustrated about that with them.

That all being said, I did not love it, but I liked it. Pick it up and make your own judgement.

Posted on by Ms. Kelly Proulx

“Guilty Pleasure” Book Project

Last week, I engaged in a Twitter discourse with followers of Epic Reads about the term “guilty pleasure” and how it applies to reading. Many fellow Tweeters expressed a similar sentiment to mine.

As I have mentioned before, almost ad nauseam, I find the term to be outdated and sexist. It mostly applies to female readers and books where the plot focuses on romance. Sometimes the book is humorous. Sometimes the book has a murder. Sometimes the book is vaguely historical. No matter the actual plot or setting, a “guilty pleasure” read usually has a steamy romance and a happy ending. Sign me up!

Readers have to hide their delight in these often predictable books. The couple meets, has some tension, has some smutty moments around page 150, has some sort of conflict, and then gets together in the end. So what if the text that brought them together would not be taught in an upperclassmen literature seminar? The idea that only highbrow novels are worthy of reading and worthy of discussing is elitist and foolish.

“Guilty pleasure” reads often provide socio-emotional and empathy training for readers without them even realizing it. These books give us an escape. These novels make us want to actually pick up and finish a book, instead of scrolling mindlessly on our phone. These books have value, even if they cost six dollars at the grocery store instead of twenty dollars at a book store.

So here it is. The newest addition to my blog: The “Guilty Pleasures” Book Project. As I review and think about books, I am going to update a new page on my blog that brings all of these reads together. Please recommend and comment so that we can start to reclaim the term and read things we enjoy without shame.

Because a love of reading is a love of reading, no matter what you choose to read.

Posted on by Ms. Kelly Proulx

“Guilty Pleasure” Review: The Dare by Elle Kennedy

Yes, I am still using the term.

But, am I learning that it is not a mark of shame for its reader? Also yes.

Two nights ago, I binge read The Dare by Elle Kennedy. I do not care what you think of her books or her writing style. Well, I do, but I refuse to be shamed because I enjoy them. Her books make me laugh. Her books make me swoon (a little and a lot…mostly a lot.). And, most importantly, they are something that I read because of my best friend. She shares new ones with me. She shares her favorite lines with me. We share our lol-worthy or swoon-worthy moments. As she would say: “Real friends share smutty books with each other.”

I think that is a beautiful sentiment.

This latest smutty-book-share follows elementary education major, sorority sister, curvier than she would like, college student Taylor. Very early on in the book, Taylor is dared by her arch-nemesis to seduce the hot new hockey player Conor, a tall order considering the lack of confidence that Taylor has in her body. Of course, high-jinx and smut ensue.

Not going to lie, this one is heavier on the smut, with a little bit of fun and feelings. It has the always great “fake dating” trope and fairly realistic heroine (who wants to be a teacher!)

My only gripe is that I wish Taylor had a bit more to her personality than her body image issues. As someone with a lot of hang-ups of her own, I like to think that I am more than that and I don’t need some handsome hockey player to convince me otherwise. So I found her relatable, but I thought we could have seen a little bit more of what she could be.

But complex characterization is not why you pick up an Elle Kennedy.

And I always do.

And I always enjoy it.

Posted on by Ms. Kelly Proulx

Review: Pachinko by Min Jin Lee

Last week, I made my way through the National Book Award Finalist book Pachinko by Min Jin Lee.

This book gave me a lot to think about and a lot to Google as I read.

Pachinko follows four generations of a Korean family. It shows their love, their poverty, their ambition, and their family dynamics. Some of the family employment centers around yakuza owned Pachinko parlors. I knew nothing about these and gladly jumped into the internet rabbit hole to learn about them.

This book was beautiful and heartbreaking, giving the reader insight into the plight of Koreans in Japan. The narrative style was not my favorite. Chapters were long and the big life moments like falling in love, birth, and death were glossed over in time jumps.

Maybe that makes sense. Maybe the author was making a point that the characters could not take the time to dwell on any emotion. I would have loved to dwell on so many of them. When I read, I usually am swept up in the character’s emotions. They become my own. They urge me to finish a book, so that I can resolve the emotions. With this book, it was not the point, leaving me with my own unresolved emotions. Again, perhaps that is the point.

Pick it up and see for yourself!

Posted on by Ms. Kelly Proulx · 2 Comments

On Trilogies

Three is the best number of books to read in a series (or movies to watch.)

Controversial thought. Yay or nay?

Many of my favorite book series (and movie series) are trilogies. There is just something about the set-up in the first book. The real drama of the second book. The cliff hanger that brings you into book three. The neatly wrapped-up plot of the three books in the third. On a reread of the series, there is only three books to read.

I know that sometimes a series is good if there are more than three books (but name one…I’ll wait.) Often a series becomes more complex and unbelievable, moving away from the story told in the first few books. Of course, a well plotted series can support more than three books. As a reader, I just find trilogies to be the sweet spot. For me.

Now that I am on summer break, I am re-reading Claudia Gray’s Firebird trilogy. It is a fabulous YA series that follows the daughter of two brilliant scientists through parallel dimensions to avenge her father’s killer. Of course, there is futuristic London, a version of imperial St. Petersburg, and swoon-worthy heroes. I am not always a sci-fi fan, but this trilogy does not really feel like sci-fi.

Some other favorite trilogies include:
1. The Infernal Devices by Cassandra Clare (do or don’t judge me. Your choice.)
2. To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before by Jenny Han
3. The Summer I Turned Pretty series by Jenny Han
4. The Caraval Series by Stephanie Garber
5. The Little Lady Agency series by Hester Browne
6. The Dark Days Club series by Alison Goodman
Of course there are others. I also have favorite series that have four books or 22 books. Some, I even thought were trilogies and was confused when plot points were not wrapping up at the end of book three (looking at you The Raven Boys.)

You know that there is no shame on this blog. You know that I believe people should read what they like and love. So, get out there and read some of your favorite trilogies. Or don’t. Read a stand alone. Read a book of short stories. Read a series that won’t end. It’s your reading life. So live it.

Leave a comment below with your favorite trilogies or your ideal number of books in a series.