I Feel Pretty (Comedy - 2018)

Amy Schumer delivers a smart, heart-warming, and absolutely hilarious piece of comedy in her new movie "I Feel Pretty." She is raw and real and in true Amy Schumer fashion, holds nothing back.  A refreshing comedy with great laughs throughout the film.  Renee is working as a sysadmin for a Lili LeClair, a large beauty conglomerate. But she longs to be part of the action at the company's 5th Avenue headquarters.  There's only one problem, Renee doesn't look like the waifish model-types who grace the halls of Lili LeClair.  Lacking self confidence, she decides to let a dream job opportunity pass her by until a well timed wish "to be pretty" gives her the some mojo and she decides to follow her dream. Schumer displays brilliantly what it feels like to be bigger in this society and what it feels like to lack self confidence. A hilarious movie that wasn't just inappropriate raunchy jokes the whole time. This film gives laughs the whole time, provides a great message, and will leave you smiling long after the movie is finished.  

Recommended by Monica Shine

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Meg, Jo, Beth, Amy : The Story Of Little Women And Why It Still Matters by Anne Boyd Rioux

A passionate and serious writer, Alcott dreamed of literary success, but she didn’t imagine she would attain it with a children’s book. She wasn’t above writing for the sake of money, though, and so Alcott accepted her publisher’s request that she write a book for girls. This project would eventually become Little Women.

In the generations since its release, the book has been adapted for stage and film and has influenced children’s literature and produced literary heroines who follow in Jo March’s footsteps (Katniss Everdeen, anyone?). Little Women’s feminist undertones also continue to encourage readers to reimagine expectations for women and girls.

Rioux’s extensive research invites lifelong Little Women fans and new readers alike to dive deeply into the worlds of Alcott and the Marches. Along the way, they’ll uncover the novel’s inspiration and influence and grow to appreciate its ongoing significance, even 150 years later.

Recommended by Monica Shine

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*Portions of this review was originally published in the September 2018 issue of BookPage.  It was published with their consent.

The Tattooist of Auschwitz by Heather Morris

Perhaps the three scariest words in the history of human imagination were cast in iron atop a gate leading directly into the closest approximation of hell ever erected on earth: ARBEIT MACHT FREI. “Work sets you free.” The banal words that were nothing more than a cruel and tragic joke for thousands turned out to have a deeper meaning for Lale Sokolov, an Auschwitz survivor and the real-life hero of Heather Morris’ extraordinary debut novel, The Tattooist of Auschwitz.

Like the Nobel Prize-winning author Elie Wiesel’s Night, Morris’ work takes us inside the day-to-day workings of the most notorious German death camp. This tale weaves a heart-rending narrative of a Jew whose unlikely forced occupation as a tattooist put him in a position to act with kindness and humanity in a place where both were nearly extinct.  

Just as a flower can grow through a sidewalk’s crack, so too can love spring and flourish in the midst of unspeakable horror, and so it is that Lale meets his lifelong love, Gita, when he inscribes the number 34902 on her arm.  Amidst the horrors of the camp, Lale and Gita must figure out how to survive and keep secrets in this ruthlessly cruel environment.

For decade upon decade, Lale’s story was one that desperately needed to be told. And now, as the number of those who witnessed the terror that was Nazi Germany dwindles, it is a story that desperately needs to be read. The disgraceful words that once stood over Auschwitz must be replaced with others: Never forget. Never again.

Recommended by Monica Shine
Click here to view in the catalog.

*Portions of this review was originally published in the September 2018 issue of BookPage.  It was published with their consent.