By Amelia Alexander Amelia, an Ada HS student, is the Icon's newest columnist. Writing twice a month, this is her third column. Click here to read her most recent column. You will find all her future columns on our "Columnists" page.
COVID has caused a lot of uncertainty for everyone. This past spring, the majority of us were afraid of the virus, the economic uncertainty of the shutdown, and the uncertainty of remote learning.
Review by Robert McCool
Alice Hoffman's latest chronicle of the remarkable Owens women s “Magic Lessons” (ISBN9781982108847). It completes the enchanting trilogy “Practical Magic (1995) and “The Rules of Magic” (2017) began.
Ms. Hoffman explains the reason she writes most succinctly with a quote from her Aunt Jet, a character in “”The Rules of Magic” - “she opened a book and therefore was saved, discovering that a novel was as great as any spell.”
Reviewed by Craig Hoffman
American country music singer Carrie Underwood is out with My Gift. This is her seventh album and first Christmas-themed effort. Underwood won the fourth season of American Idol in 2005.
Her debut single, “Inside Your Heaven,” made her the only country artist to enter at number one on the Billboard Hot 100 chart. Underwood’s debut album, Some Hearts (2005), featured crossover hits “Jesus, Take the Wheel” and “Before He Cheats.” She won three Grammy Awards for the album, including Best New Artist. The Christmas album dropped in September.
Reviewed by Craig Hoffman
Positions is the sixth studio album by American singer and actress Ariana Grande, released on Oct. 30, 2020, by Republic Records.
The album builds on the R&B and trap pop elements of Grande’s earlier efforts, Sweetener (2018) and Thank U, Next (2019). There is also a good amount of hip hop, neo-soul, and funk featured on Positions.
By Amelia Alexander Note: Amelia, an Ada HS student, is the Icon's newest columnist. Writing twice a month, this is her second column. Click here to read her first column. You will find all her future columns on our "Columnists" page
The fate of the climate rests upon my generation’s shoulders.
Review by Robert McCool
James Patterson hits it out of the park in this double header.
“The world's best selling author” no longer writes his own books, of which he produces a plethora each year. He “coauthors” with carefully chosen writers, leading to different flavors for each book. In this example, “Murder Thy Neighbor- True Crime Thrillers” (ISBN 978-1-5387-5241-8) he gives us two different stories of damaged people by two different authors in the same volume.
