

Your Own, Sylvia
Author: Stephanie Hemphill
Narrator: Various
Unabridged: 4 hr 51 min
Format: Digital Audiobook Download
Publisher: Listening Library
Published: 03/03/2009
Categories: Young Adult Fiction, Poetry, Social Themes, Biographical
Author: Stephanie Hemphill
Narrator: Various
Unabridged: 4 hr 51 min
Format: Digital Audiobook Download
Publisher: Listening Library
Published: 03/03/2009
Categories: Young Adult Fiction, Poetry, Social Themes, Biographical
This book is extraordinary. I have limited shelf space and even when I love a book, it usually goes right out the door as a gift to someone else when I'm done reading. For example - recently I adored THE HUNGER GAMES, gave it five stars here, raved about it... but as I compare my reaction to that bo......more
So good. So, so, so good. I thought I would be at a disadvantage because (shame on me BA English, MS Library Science) all I knew about Sylvia Plath was that she wrote poetry, wrote something called The Bell Jar which I was fairly certain (now confirmed) was depressing, and that she killed herself. T......more
Whoo hoo! Today it won a Printz Honor! I just finished this last week, and if I had read this last year (a few days ago at this point) it would have definitely been on my 2007Favorites shelf! It was hard to get ahold of in libraries, though, and my hold was just filled a few days ago. Hopefully it'l......more
This author really adored Sylvia Plath and created this biographical verse novel in homage to Plath's work. I loved that on each page the author used a sort of 'footnote' to delineate who was talking: one of her many friends or boyfriends, her mother, her husband. etc. The research that went into th......more
The element of Your Own, Sylvia which I appreciated the most was its accessibility. Each poem is contextualized with a date and narrator at the beginning and followed by an author's note explaining details of Plath's life relevant to the poem. Particularly after reading Wintering, a prose novel abou......more
Starred review, Kirkus Reviews, February 2007:
"[R]eaders come away with a sense ofreally knowing Plath . . . a must for any young-adult reader of poetry or Plath."
Starred review, Booklist, February 15, 2007:
"[A]n intimate, comprehensive, imaginative view of a life, which also probes the relationships between poetry and creativity, mental fragility, love, marriage, and betrayal."
Starred review, The Horn Book Magazine, March/April 2007:
"Hemphill's verse, like Plath's, is completely compelling: every word, every line, worth reading."