The plot of this book is simple enough. On the eve of his ninetieth birthday, our unnamed protagonist–an undistinguished journalist and lifelong bachelor–decides to give himself “the gift of a night of wild love with an adolescent virgin.” Actually reading the book there is much more to the simple plot. The ninety year old man has paid for sex his whole life and now wants to pay for sex with a virgin. While these two characters never have sex, he does start to fall […]
We Open at the Close…
I’m not sure why it took me so long to finish Neil Gaiman’s Sandman series, after the first volume grabbed my attention and imagination so thoroughly. But slowly, as I read through more instalments, I saw that the series was scattered with highs and lows. The tenth and final volume, The Wake, is a somber affair, regarding the events immediately following the “death,” of Morpheus, the Lord of Dreaming. But just like Despair before him, his death is more of a regeneration, if you will, […]
Not with a bang, but a whimper.
What would happen if the rotation of the earth slowed? Beyond the physical effects on the earth, what changes would occur socially? How would a young person moving into their teen years deal with both the transition to adulthood and a crumbling society trying to stay afloat? This book came highly recommended but ultimately left me a little cold. I thought it fell short of its full potential. The science fiction geek inside wanted a little more meat to conflict set up regarding earth’s […]
The Raven Boys – Solid paranormal YA.
Full disclosure: I love YA. If I manage to make it through this year and challenge, I’m willing to bet that the majority of my reviews will fall into that category. No shame! The Raven Boys has been on my list of books to read for quite some time. I finally got a copy and, at first, wasn’t sure what to make of it. It jumped around between three or four characters a lot in the first few chapters, but once it finished the set […]
Dystopian fiction rarely goes this deep
There has been enough digital ink spilled over the past couple of years about our culture’s current fascination with the apocalypse and dystopian visions of the future that it sometimes seems that the apocalypse is going to come not when our ice cream machines can take no more of people insisting that “birthday cake” should be a flavor for anything, but from the keyboards that are so tired of conveying the idea of the end of the world that they decide to just get on […]
ElCicco #CBR6 Review #1: Jeeves and the Wedding Bells: an Homage to P.G. Wodehouse by Sebastian Faulks
PG Wodehouse fans should be delighted by this novel. Faulks revives our favorite duo, Jeeves and Bertie Wooster, for a fun summertime romp at Lord Henry’s country estate. At stake is the happiness of Bertie Wooster’s friend Woody. His engagement to Lord Henry’s daughter Amelia is in jeopardy due to a combination of misunderstanding and financial crisis. Complicating the situation are Amelia’s beautiful and lively cousin Georgiana and a hilarious plot contrivance that requires Bertie to play the valet Wilberforce to Jeeves’ Lord Etringham. If […]