Wicked, Gregory Maguire

I read this several months ago but I’m throwing it in the summer reading list anyway. This is one of those rare books that I really, truly, completely hated. Cynical, pessimistic, explicit, and just generally annoying.

0 out of 5 Personal Pan Pizzas

The Reader, Bernhard Schlink

Germans, Nazi past, coming of age, themes about good and evil and morality, and oh yeah, a relationship between a 15-year-old boy and an older woman. Not bad, but there’s a lot of ambiguity in the characters. It felt like something that would be on the reading list in high school English but not something I’d read more than once.

3 out of 5 Personal Pan Pizzas

City of Thieves, David Benioff

This book was really hard to put down. It contains a good blend of adventure, humor, and tragedy. It’s about surviving WWII in Russia and follows 17-year-old Lev Beniov as he is sent on a mission to find a dozen eggs for a colonel’s daughter’s wedding cake.

4 out of 5 Personal Pan Pizzas

Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, Jane Austen and Seth Grahame-Smith

85 percent of the original text remains and zombie nonsense makes up the rest. It’s clever and has its moments but ultimately it was too uneven for me to really enjoy. I’ll stick to the original.

2 out of 5 Personal Pan Pizzas