book reviews
Reviews of books by relationship gurus, dating experts, and cautionary tale-tellers.
Text vs. Subtext in The Paper Menagerie
As an explanation for this and the many other short story reviews I've been posting recently, these are reading reflections that I wrote for a creative writing class I took at the end of last year. These short story reviews allowed me to gain a better appreciation for narrative through writing and for reading in general, and I am super proud of these short reviews.
By Jamie Lammers5 years ago in Humans
Dialogue vs. Subtext in Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?
Joyce Carol Oates uses dialogue and subtext to her advantage to portray the fear of being sexually abused in her short story “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?” Talking first about what is actually said by the primary characters of the story, we see the fifteen-year-old girl Connie trying to ask this strange boy that arrives on her driveway about why he’s there. This boy, who reveals his name as Arnold Friend, reveals how much she has heard about this girl and how interested he is in her. She dodges the fact that her name is Connie and tries to understand where this boy is taking her but doesn’t get any answers from him. Eventually, her anxiety about Arnold escalates so much that she threatens to call the police on him, and he retaliates by saying he will come into her house if she calls the police. By the end of the story, she unsuccessfully tries to call for help but is eventually taken by the young boy.
By Jamie Lammers5 years ago in Humans
Book Review: "The Midnight Library" by Matt Haig
Matt Haig is one of the great writers of our time. His understanding of the human condition is more than incredible and his writing style never fails to touch your very soul. One thing that is incredibly unique about Matt Haig's writing is that there is a quality to it that makes it very easy to read and yet, it gets into some real depth about what the character is going through. I have found him to sort of resonate the writing of Ian McEwan. When I read Ian McEwan's "Nutshell" - though it was easy enough to read, there was some real depth to the character the reader encounters. This is the same with Matt Haig's writing and especially the book "The Midnight Library" - it is something that touches everyone even though not everyone will certainly experience the same thing. From the very beginning in which we see the character when she is about sixteen years’ old and all the way through the book that is set nineteen years’ later when she is thirty-five years’ old - we constantly get reminded about various aspects of uniqueness about this character and thus, we sympathise with the difficult position in which she has found herself in.
By Annie Kapur5 years ago in Humans
Zona
Zona: The Forbidden Land by Fred G. Baker is about a man named Dr. Grant Taylor who is summoned to Russia after his uncle is presumed dead. When he gets there he finds out things about his uncle that he never knew and falls in love with a beautiful woman named Irina. This book is full of adventure and mystery.
By Tangerinehippiestudios5 years ago in Humans
Desperate Times by Hildred Billings
What’s this book about? Desperate Times is a lesbian romance novel featuring two butches: Tess and Sidney. River Rock is a small town and Tess and Sidney find it hard being the only lesbians in the area. They meet on a dating app, but it does not go well as they look nothing like they do on their profile pictures. It’s almost like a catfish episode without Dev and his team. Despite the bad first date they try to be friends with benefits and like many stories before, it blossoms into romance.
By Chloe Gilholy5 years ago in Humans
Book Review: "Reborn: Early Diaries" by Susan Sontag
Susan Sontag was a great writer and none of us can debate that fact. In her books where she discusses the truths about love and suffering, it hits you hard from the very moment the words enter your mind to long after the book is closed. But these books are all planned philosophical pieces in which she has spent a long time simply crafting the way in which her ideas come across to others. In her book "Reborn", she does none of this. It is not crafted, it is not planned. These are her early diaries from the years 1947 all the way through to 1963 and I have to say that even though it is not a fiction book - we can all see that Sontag has a gift for storytelling. She has a gift with words, using the only the one that fits absolutely with the sentence she is conveying. So instead of reading just her critical pieces, or her fiction - I would highly suggest looking into her nonfiction pieces on her own life. The emotion simply runs off the page, overflowing with a sense of self.
By Annie Kapur5 years ago in Humans
Book Review: 'A Land Like You' Tobie Nathan
In A Land Like You, published by Seagull Books, author Tobie Nathan takes us to an Egypt that will be unfamiliar to most readers. First the book is told mainly from the perspective of Cairo's Jewish community and secondly the events described take place roughly from the end of WWI to the early years of WWII.
By Richard Marcus5 years ago in Humans
In the Dream House
This next read was another mystery book sent to me via Literati, and I will be totally honest with the fact that I didn’t think I was going to like this book. I am not a huge fan of memoir--unless it is a person that I am really interested in--so I started reading this book with a jaded opinion. However, as I kept reading, I found that I was falling deeper and deeper into the story as the twists, turns, and shocks unfolded right in front of my eyes.
By Kurt Mason5 years ago in Humans
"Flambards" by KM Peyton
What is Flambards about? Flambards is a classic British YA novel that takes place in England during the 1900's. It tells the story of a young girl who is uprooted and sent to live with her opulent, abusive, miserable and harsh Uncle Russell and his two sons William and Mark. Flambards is the name of the estate in which the Russells inhabit in Essex, England. Unlike the gentle, kind, sensitive and passionate flyer William, Mark is a narcissistic, drunken and abusive young man who is overly passionate about hunting and horses.
By Talia Devora5 years ago in Humans
Book Review: "The Apple Orchard" by Pete Brown
I love reading books like this. Books that tell you the history, the culture and the stories of mythology surrounding something very specific. I remember reading one about lemons and their importance in Italian history, culture and the love of citrus fruit. The romance between a country, its culture, its history and its food always manages to entrance and enchant me. It’s like someone is writing a love letter to a food that has served such incredible importance in the storytelling history of a nation and a people and that love letter includes everything from the science of growing the food all the way to historical anecdotes and all the way down once again to personal experiences. This is also true of Pete Brown’s “The Apple Orchard” as we explore the timeless and most English of fruits - the apple - we also get an international history wrought with humour, analysis and grand literary control. This book does not just tell the story of the apple, but it helps us to understand its place in history, its place in our country and its place in our hearts.
By Annie Kapur5 years ago in Humans
Lower Class Women
While the plot of Tartuffe is about Tartuffe himself bamboozling Orgon's upper-class family out of their house, a few characters have to fight against him and Orgon because they simply know better. Tartuffe bamboozles Orgon and his family by feigning piety and winning over the head of the household. This comes with the cost of the women in the household having no say in life-altering decisions. In addition to Tartuffe's scheming for money, he also attempts to seduce Orgon's wife and marry Orgon's daughter. Tartuffe's lust for women and money drives his interests, but with Orgon being the person who controls both, everyone in the household is surely doomed. However, all the women in the play do not fit the role of quiet and obedient women. The women in the play resist the roles they are given and work to make sure that their lives are secure.
By Miss Ghoul5 years ago in Humans
