- Audio Cassette
- Publisher: Recorded Books (November 2004)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 1402599331
- ISBN-13: 978-1402599330
- Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (1 customer review)
|
||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||
Product Details |
Product Description
From School Library Journal
Grade 9 Up--Maggy, a gifted artist, keeps a sketchbook called "The Blue Mirror" that shares its name with the coffeehouse where she regularly nurses a cappuccino for hours and draws what she sees. Tourists, bicycle cops, and especially the homeless kids or "skwatters" are her regular subjects. The 16-year-old crosses this metaphorical mirror (just like Alice in Through the Looking Glass) when she meets an attractive skwatter who takes a keen interest in her. Staring into the deep dark eyes of Cole, Mags forgets about her disastrous home life and feels as if she has finally met someone who understands her. She soon learns, however, that Cole is no Prince Charming, and she must find the strength to escape from his clutches. What makes this novel distinct is the stream-of-consciousness prose style that creates the illusion of everything happening at once, with Mags seamlessly slipping into and out of her mundane world and into "The Blue Mirror" with Cole. While her mother tends toward the stereotypical drunk who takes up space on the couch, and the secondary characters are a bit sketchy, Mags is a plucky protagonist, and readers will appreciate the ingenuity she musters to address her problems. Fans of Carol Plum-Ucci's What Happened to Lani Garver (Harcourt, 2002) and outsider themes will appreciate the gritty urban scenes and rhythmic language that give the book an almost surreal ambience.--Kelly Czarnecki, Bloomington Public Library, IL
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.
From Booklist
Gr. 9-12. Koja's writing talent, hinted at in Straydog (2001), reaches remarkable fruition in this cautionary tale of infatuation. Maggy, a talented, 17-year-old artist who spends long hours sketching at a local cafe, notices a beautiful boy of extraordinary grace (and dark blue lipstick) through the window. Eventually she and Cole meet, and she falls head over heels in love. Despite the well-meaning advice of a friend, Maggy is unable to see Cole's considerable flaws, and the relationship spirals downward until a tragedy finally forces her to see what is really going on. The familiar plot of first love gone awry is not particularly special. It's Koja's writing that is noteworthy. Long stream-of-consciousness sentences with creative (but recognizable) spelling and clever use of italics will enchant readers, while the atmospheric cover art will draw teens seeking stories about extraordinary experiences. Debbie Carton
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.
Tag this product(What's this?)Think of a tag as a keyword or label you consider is strongly related to this product.
Tags will help all customers organize and find favorite items. |
Customer Reviews
|
Share your thoughts with other customers:
|
||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Most helpful customer reviews
5.0 out of 5 stars
Back and brilliant as ever.,
By
This review is from: Blue Mirror (Hardcover)
Kathe Koja, The Blue Mirror (Farrar, Strauss, and Giroux, 2004)It should be obvious by now that any time a new Kathe Koja book comes out, I'll be reviewing it within a few weeks. The Blue Mirror is Koja's eighth novel, and her third for young adults. The YA novels are markedly different from her adult work; they are much shorter and more focused on a sole protagonist than her adult work (and, needless to say, there's less sex). The protagonist here is Maggy, a sixteen-year-old girl with an alcoholic mother, a cat she dotes on, a blatant indifference toward school, and a lot of artistic talent. She spends her afternoons in a window booth at the Blue Mirror cafe, drawing street scenes and drinking coffee. Until, that is, she meets a band of homeless kids led by mysterious, handsome Cole. Cole is the boy your mother always warned you about, and needless to say, things change quickly for Maggy. This is, perhaps, the YA novel that comes closest to one of Koja's adult novels; you can see the rawness through the paint scrapes (Maggy's mother being present and alcoholic, for example, rather than the referred-to-but-rarely-seen shades of parents in her earlier YA novels). Cole is very much the incubus, even if he doesn't sprout wings. As usual, Koja draws her characters with stunning believability, and nothing they do, no matter how irrational, ever seems out of character. The book's only real problem is that it's missing that certain undefinable something that makes Koja's best novels (Skin, Strange Angels, Straydog) into absolutely perfect works of fiction. But even without that whatever-it-is, he Blue Mirror is another ultimately worthy addition to the shelf of Koja novels you should all have been building next to the bed. Better than Buddha Boy, on a par with The Cipher. A must-read.(...)
Share your thoughts with other customers: Create your own review
Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta) Amazon.com:
4.0 out of 5 stars (12 customer reviews) 10 of 10 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars
the Blue Mirror,
By Metalgnome "Kathleen" - Published on Amazon.com
This review is from: Blue Mirror (Hardcover)
This is the wonderful story of Maggy, an with a alchoholic mother and a talent, a talent for art. She spends most of her time at the Blue Mirror a local café where she draws the world around her. But then she meets Cole a runaway and his friends Jouly and Marianne. She is intrigued by them and soon spends all of her time with the beautiful Cole. But soon things change and she finds things out about Cole things that are worrisome and change her initial outlook on Cole. But in the process she earns an unsuspecting friend.This story is wonderfully dark. The characters are magnificently drawn (especially Cole). If you love stories that show not only the darker side of human nature and are just overall dark (but good) you will love this story. *this book took me two hours to read it is realy easy and poetically written 8 of 8 people found the following review helpful
4.0 out of 5 stars
Somewhat cluttered but amazing story,
By Riley Rush - Published on Amazon.com
This review is from: Blue Mirror (Hardcover)
The Blue Mirror is a story I find captivating because it isn't a gushy love story where everyone is peachy and they live happily ever after. Yet it isn't shallow, not at all a book that would make you want to scream at the main character. In fact, Maggy is created like a true teenager, with the same thoughts and feelings.The 'poetic' language makes the book have a strange feeling I've never seen in a book before. It's wonderful, but sometimes the sentences go on forever and are hard to understand. The book is fairly short, but it stops at the right moment. I would rate this book Mature for language and sexual content, but it's realistic. 6 of 7 people found the following review helpful
4.0 out of 5 stars
Good book,
By Liz "A Teenager" - Published on Amazon.com
This review is from: Blue Mirror (Hardcover)
I really liked this book. I thought it was really good. I liked how it showed that not all guys are nice and that if a guy is cute you shouldn't immedietly fall for him. This book has a good moral, it shows that girls should stay strong at all times and not get pushed around just because they are teenage girls.
|
|
Listmania!
Look for similar items by category
- Books > Audiobooks > General
- Books > Children's Books > Issues
Look for similar items by subject
Feedback
Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?
