Elizabeth Fama

adventure (16) ARC (8) audio (5) audiobook (16) books-i-own (5) Chicago (5) children-ya (5) curses (13) death (5) dystopia (9) dystopian (10) ebook (7) fantasy (65) fiction (40) ghosts (22) historical (6) historical fiction (13) Indonesia (9) love (8) Massachusetts (17) mermaids (54) murder (11) mystery (12) own (11) paranormal (23) Plymouth (7) read (8) romance (33) science fiction (10) sff (8) short story (7) survival (18) Survival Stories (5) teen (12) thriller (6) to-read (215) unread (5) wishlist (8) YA (39) young adult (61)

Common Knowledge

Birthdate: 1963-03-30
Gender: female
Nationality: USA
Places of residence: Brussels, Belgium
San Francisco, California, USA
Education: University of Chicago Laboratory Schools, Chicago, Illinois, USA (BA|Biology)
University of Chicago Graduate School of Business (MBA|Economics)
University of Chicago Graduate School of Business (PhD|Economics)
Relationships: Cochrane, John H. (Husband)
Cochrane, Sally (child)
Cochrane, Eric W. (child)
Cochrane, Jean (child)
Fama, Lake (child)
Fama, Eugene (father)
Short biography: Elizabeth Fama is the author of three young-adult novels: Plus One (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2014), a Nerdy Award winner and "Best Book" by Bank Street College Center for Children's Literature; Monstrous Beauty (FSG, 2012), a 2013 YALSA Best Fiction for Young Adults book, and winner of the 2013 Odyssey Honor Award; and Overboard (Cricket Books, 2002), an ALA 2003 Best Book for Young Adults, a society of Midland Authors Honor Award winner, and a nominee for five state readers' choice awards.

Elizabeth is vastly overeducated, with a BA in Biology, an MBA, and a PhD in Economics from the University of Chicago. She enjoys running obsessively while downloading audiobooks into her brain, swimming, tennis, and cooking Sunday Dinners for her extended Italian-American family. She and her husband raised four creative children in Chicago before moving to the San Francisco Bay Area, where Elizabeth pretends that she's living in Tuscany while she works on an adult manuscript set in sixteenth-century Florence.

Members

Reviews

Monstrous Beauty by Elizabeth Fama

This story was beautifully written and the history and legends involved were intriguing. The curse was definitely an interesting part of the story, it made the story so much better. Without the curse it would have just been another mermaid story where a mermaid falls in love with a human and wants to become human to be with him, but the curse added another interesting layer to the story. The characters were all interesting and I really liked Syranka. The book goes back and forth between Syranka's story which takes place in the 1800's and Hester's story which takes place modern day. I typically don't like it when a story does that because I get so interested in one character's story and then it switches to another character. In this case I was way more interested in Syranka's story and what was happening with her and I keep getting frustrated when they kept going back to Hester's story. I didn't really get into Hester's story until near the end when she started figuring stuff out about her family. Overall I really liked the book and give a 4 out 5 stars.… (more)

Flagged

VanessaMarieBooks | 40 other reviews | Dec 10, 2023 |

Men Who Wish to Drown: A Tor.Com Original by Elizabeth Fama

Beautiful.

Flagged

beentsy | 5 other reviews | Aug 12, 2023 |

Monstrous Beauty by Elizabeth Fama

CW: Rape of mermaid

2.5 Stars

Flagged

Mrs_Tapsell_Bookzone | 40 other reviews | Feb 14, 2023 |

Monstrous Beauty by Elizabeth Fama

How did I manage to read another book this year where a guy goes from the past to the present via magical means and makes out with the great-great-great-granddaughter of his previous love interest? Once again no one acknowledges how creepy this is.

As for the rest of the book I liked the mermaid and supernatural stuff ok, but overall I just wasnt that into it. I guessed what was up with the mystery pretty early on and then proceeded to get frustrated with the other characters for not catching on. Unfair of me but thats the way my brain was working I guess.

There was also quite a bit of unpleasantness...a pretty graphic and unexpected rape scene, multiple scenes of sexual harassment/assault, and some grisly deaths. The sexual violence bothered me a lot more than the murder.… (more)

1