Reviewer Spotlight

Branch: University City Regional

Reader's Club honors, Emily, a Children's Librarian at University City Regional Library. She is a voracious reader and frequent reviewer of teen fiction. Here are her thoughts on reading and writing reviews:

"My parents are both librarians, so I pretty much grew up in a library surrounded by books. I've always been a reader. As a girl, I had a favorite spot in the dining room where I'd lie on the floor with my feet in the air, reading my newest Nancy Drew.

I read pretty widely, genre wise, but these days it's rare for me to read books with an intended audience over the age of 18. I like a little bit of everything but I have two favorites: contemporary realistic fiction and fantasy. I like to write reviews because I hope to expose other people to the worlds I get lost in, and to introduce readers to the characters that have become my friends.

I like my fantasy worlds to be easily imagined by an outsider, and some of my favorites are Cornelia Funke's Inkheart trilogy, Rick Riordan's Percy Jackson & the Olympians series, Patricia C. Wrede's Enchanted Forest Chronicles, and, of coarse, Harry Potter. I also really enjoy fantasy that could almost be reality, like Ally Carter's Gallagher Girls books, set at a super-secret exclusive all-girls boarding school for teenage spies.

With general fiction, I am most drawn to characters I really identify with, like Kate in Laurie Halse Anderson's Catalyst, or to characters I wish I was friends with, like Ruby Oliver in many of E. Lockhart's books. Other authors who I think always create great characters include Chris Crutcher, Lisa Yee, and John Green." Thanks, Emily!