This YA novel, inspired in part by the life of Edie Sedgwick, follows the meteoric rise and precipitous fall of Addison Stone, an 18-year-old art phenom from Rhode Island who makes a huge splash on the NYC art scene before her untimely death. The story itself is bold and fast-paced (much like Addy) if a bit far fetched at times. Set in the current day, emails, Instagram photos of characters, and pictures of actual art works are peppered throughout the narrative, giving it a surprisingly […]
A Serial Killer Haunts Post-WWII Italy
Bojhalian takes us on a visit to Italy’s beautiful Tuscany during one of the most horrifying periods in that country’s history, when the German occupation had splintered the nation between the resistance, the collaborators, and the majority caught in between who mostly struggled to survive without selling their souls to the devil. But beyond a thought-provoking examination of choices and consequences under wartime conditions, Bojhalian also throws us into the middle of a hunt for a serial killer 10 years after the war’s end, a […]
Why should a woman be more like a man?
The Greeks knew that the mask in the theater was not a disguise but a means of revelation. This is a mind blowing novel about a woman who decides to have three men exhibit her art as their own creations as part of a larger art project she calls “Maskings.” Our protagonist Harriet “Harry” Burden wants to expose how perceptions influence the way the public views art. She believes that, had she shown her works as herself, as artist Harriet Burden, she would have been […]
If You Love Something, Set It Free. The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt
What does it mean to love something? Donna Tartt’s The Goldfinch is mostly about love and what we will do to have it, in all it’s many manifestations. This story is not about right or wrong, good choices or bad, at it’s heart, The Goldfinch is about what we will do to hold near the things we love. The Goldfinch is a wild (though sometimes overlong) ride through a life of frivolous delinquency, unintentional criminality, lapses in honesty, breaches of ethics, and misunderstood attractions. For Theo Decker, there is no thing so […]
A love story wedded to a tale of horror
Novels on the Holocaust are always difficult reading on an emotional level, and this one was no exception. Richman’s writing is simple and evocative, intimate and universal, and I got lost in the world of her two tragic lovers while sobbing at the horrors she depicted in the Nazi concentration camps Terezin and Auschwitz. Although told as a love story, Richman gives us a tale of genuine heroes, Jewish artists and musicians who struggled to keep their humanity amidst inhumanity, and who fought to […]
Once upon a looking for Donna time….
Oh DONNA! First you blew my mind, then you broke my heart. And now, with only your third novel in 21 years, you have managed to do both. An intriguing plot and a promising start give way to bloated navel gazing for nigh on 800 pages. Full review is on my blog here.