Years ago, as a teenager I took the Raven Ring out of the public library, and instantly devoured it. Twice. Before Katniss Everdeen and Hermione Granger, I had Eleret, a mountain warrior woman who couldn’t grasp city mannerisms, but who could memorize anything spoken to her and throw knives with the best of them. I loved that book so much that my friend almost stole it from the library because even 13 years ago, the book wasn’t easy to find. However, one of the great things […]
Nope. Not for me.
* Please be warned, this book is probably a masterpiece of some kind, but I really just didn’t like it and I am incredibly annoyed that I spent so much time slogging through it. That annoyance may have coloured my review a little bit. Or a lot. * I am so sure that The Goldfinch: A Novel says amazing and incredibly deep things about art, delinquency, addictions, etc., but I was far too bored to pick up on them. I wanted so badly to like […]
Dreams of Gods and Monsters
Sometimes writing reviews are much harder than reading. Sometimes you have to figure out how to write a review for a book that you just hated, or a book that you loved so much that it’s hard to see past your own enjoyment to write something remotely intelligible. Other times, you’re stumped because the book hit you in a strange place and it just wasn’t what you were expecting. All three books in the Daughter of Smoke and Bone Sage fall into the category of […]
This is How You Lose Her or my favourite book so far this year
Our relationship wasn’t the sun, the moon and the stars, but it wasn’t bullshit either. Yunior is a character who stays curled up in the back of your mind when you’re taking a break from reading, and he lingers there for awhile when you’re finished his book. His voice is hard and jagged and experienced, and you just can’t quite shake him. This story isn’t unique; it’s the story of so many boys raised in cultures dominated by machismo. Of so many people who just […]
Mr. Penumbra strikes again
Walking the stacks in a library, dragging your fingers across the spines — it’s hard not to feel the presence of sleeping spirits. I suspect that a large chunk of Mr. Penumbra’s 24-Hour Bookstore‘s popularity is the title. There is just something about the idea of a 24 hour bookstore, and the name, ‘Mr. Penumbra,’ has a certain gravity to it that would pull in any bibliophile. However, make no mistake about it, this is not a book about literature. For a story with a […]
Yet another Book Thief Review
Every so often you find a story that pulls you in and holds you tight in the grip of anxiety. Spoilers aside, we all know what it is we’re afraid of in any story about a German family hiding a Jewish man in their basement during World War II. We’re terrified something will happen to him, or the family hiding him. We’re terrified of concentration camps and public beatings. We’re terrified of saying the wrong thing to the wrong person. We’re terrified of indoctrination and […]
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