Karen Finneyfrock

Last year, the mean girls picked on Celia, but this year she has decided to be Dark. Celia the Dark doesn't let anyone push her around, and she's determined to come up with a brilliant, poetic plan for revenge on the girls who bullied her. Of course, dealing with bullying and social ostracism isn't as simple as all that, and when you throw in complications like parents going through a separation that might end in divorce, and a new friend who is just coming out of the closet -- well, it all show more adds up to quite a year for Celia. Will her Dark outlook see her through?

Going in, I expected this book to dish out the teenage angst, and it does -- but what I didn't expect was that it would also be sweet and sometimes funny. Finneyfrock creates great, pitch-perfect teenage characters, but she's also able to pull out a bit of the ridiculous nature of high school (think Ferris Bueller's Day Off, for comparison). Enjoyable all the way through; this is an author I'll be sure to watch! show less

I picked this up at ALA as an ARC. I am not usually a fan of the mean girls genre (and thanks, yes, I am over my high school trauma. A lot. Mostly.) but there was enough other stuff going on in this one that I liked it despite the mean girls. Celia struck me as very familiar, reading everything she could get her hands on, writing abysmal poetry, getting things wrong and then making them worse while trying to make them better. Very believable, in other words.

The story arc was satisfying and show more I liked the writing. This is Finneyfrock's first novel and I will be keeping my eye out for her next. show less

What happens when you cross improvisational theatre with a literary event looking to create a truly collaborative novel? For me, the answer to that question is Hotel Angeline, a novel written in chapters penned by each of 36 participating authors - including two chapters with a graphic approach to the story - over the course of 6 days. A writing marathon, if you will. The end result: a fun, refreshing and quirky coming-of-age story that has its unexpected left turns while still retaining a show more unified, collective voice.

The story focuses on 14 year-old Alexis Austin, our narrator. Alexis lives in the Hotel Angeline, a run down residential hotel/apartment building her mother Edith runs, with Alexis' assistance, on Seattle's Capitol Hill. The Hotel Angeline has an interesting past, as a former mortuary, and an eccentric group of residents that are as much a part of the building as the creaky stairs and the bad plumbing. While only fourteen, Alexis has been doing more around the hotel to help out since her mom became sick. When one of the residents, LJ, informs Alexis of a phone message he took for Alexis' mom, Alexis takes on adult responsibilities in an effort to keep the life she knows at the Hotel Angeline.

That is all I will mention about the plot as it is difficult to summarize the plot without giving away the interesting plot developments. I loved this novel for a number of reasons. First off, The characters are fantastic. Second, the story is unpredictable, which provided an extra level of interest for me as I am not a fan of formula plots where I can predict what will happen next. Third, it is not just a coming-of-age story. It has a nice mix of mystery, YA, fantasy, comedy and tragedy. Lastly, I loved the fact that you could feel the story shift and develop in unique and wonderful ways under the pen of each author as they took they turn picking up the story where their fellow authors had left off, and just running with it!

If you are expecting exceptional literature, well, as mentioned in the forward written by Garth Stein, "It was never our intention to accomplish in six days what took James Joyce eighteen years to accomplish with Ulysses; we knew we were not writing a literary masterpiece. It was our intention to build a solid, fun story that was a collaboration between three dozen writers, various editors, and an audience both live and virtual - what we created was a community." I think the group hit their mark with Hotel Angeline and I can confidently say that this is a novel I recommend for anyone that is looking for a fun, offbeat and endearing coming of age story. show less

Apparently Karen Finneyfrock fell into a deep poetic depression following the death of her sister and found herself unable to write poetry. When, three years later, she was finally able to come back to writing, these are the poems she wrote.

Ceremony for the Choking Ghost plays out like a poetic carnival. The people, images, and metaphors parade through this book in delightful arrays of artifice and splendor. And yet, despite the glitter and sparkle and beauty, there is too, something deeply show more sad and unsettling, something seedy beneath the surface. After the thrills of reading this book, I am only sad that her first collection, Welcome to the Butterfly House, is out of print, so I will not be able to immediately read more of her work. show less