Rachel Reads & Reviews

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  • Women’s History Month Books

    It’s that time of year again with my yearly list of nonfiction books for those who want to learn about women’s contributions throughout history. This year, there weren’t many new books covering new women to interest me. Except for NPR’s Women in Music that I still haven’t gotten my hands on. And . . .…

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  • Cool find: Riverdale High

    So I think most everyone knows these ‘New Look” stories that briefly lit up the Archie scene in the early 2000s. Very controversial when they came. Fans derided the art as ugly or unnatural, but since they didn’t replace the ‘house style’, the vitriol faded and the readers accepted each exciting new look event for…

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  • History Mystery P2

    The second half of the series gets a little bit darker. The mysteries involve dangerous individuals whose actions are not explained away as a misunderstanding or bitterness. Often there is real hate or greed motivating them, and they have the weapons to back them up if others get in their way. There is more exploration…

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  • History Mystery P1

    I have discussed this a little bit in my historical fiction pages but as I’m rereading this for the first time in years, I thought I’d go a little more in-depth with my thoughts. For those that are not in the know, History Mystery was a 1997 spin-off of Pleasant Company’s very popular American Girl…

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  • Reading Goals 2025

    I’m beginning this year with my feel-good favorite by Steve Kluger, My Most Excellent Year. This is the tenth year in a row I’ve read it and just the sort of comfort-reading one needs when faced with so much uncertainty in the world. This year I truly mean it when I say I want to…

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  • Dec Books

    Storm: Dawn of a Goddess by Tiffany D. Jackson Storm is my favorite Marvel superheroine. In fact she may have been the first Marvel superhero I was exposed to. I mean she’s just so striking with the white hair, the glowing eyes, the weather powers. She’s so awesome, the goddess moniker is well earned.  But…

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  • Star Power

    As part of my nostalgia year, I decided to finally look at a series that keeps popping up on Goodreads suggestions when I filter Hollywood, celebrity etc. It was for lower schoolers in the vein of Hannah Montana and such. After all these years of reading the summaries I had to find out what they…

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  • Nov Books

    Private Label by Kelly Yang A perfect title for the private things that Serene and Lian hide from their peers and their family in this moving, coming of age romance. Serene is the daughter of single mom and major fashion designer, Lily Lee. Her real name is Liu but her mother’s Board of Trustees thought…

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  • Finished Nancy Drew!

    It only took over a year and browsing through Internet archives to get to the final two Nancy Drew books that escaped my grasp-The Clue of the Whistling Bapipes and The Strange Message in the Parchment. Oddly enough, they both involve a lot of sheep. The Bagpipes have Nancy heading to her ancestral Scotland homeland…

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  • Fall Nonfiction

    Humans of Judaism edited by Nikki Schreiber Taken from the social media hashtag, this is a collection of stories from Instagram highlighting the breadth of the Jewish diaspora, their traditions and stories and tales of survival. From sweet stories of Bashert (think kismet) where two Holocaust survivors meet again in New York after the war, and…

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