I recently finished reading Gillian Flynn’s Gone Girl. I wanted to read it before I saw the David Fincher film. In a way, I wish I had seen the film first, as the book was so fresh in my mind, and so riveting a read, that I may not have been as blown away by the movie as I could have been. Gone Girl is structured as a “he said,” “she said” novel. It would not be giving too much away to say that both the he and […]
Like sands in the hourglass, these are the Games of our Thrones …
Both book and television spoilers lurk within … A Dance with Dragons, the fifth novel in George R. R. Martin’s epic A Song of Ice and Fire series, was published in 2011, after a five-year gap between it and the previous entry, A Feast for Crows. The series started with A Game of Thrones in 1996. The series has had an interesting evolution. Originally intended to be a trilogy, Martin soon realized that his fictional world of Westeros and beyond was expanding and would require first, four, than six, now […]
Ticking like a Time Bomb
A return to Crazy: Gone Crazy by Shannon Hill If you like cats and mysteries, or even only tolerate cats but like mysteries and small-town social dynamics, this one’s for you. Full review at Radical Daffodils.
How to Open Up and Let It All Go
I am continuing my journey to relax and enjoy life more and a friend recently suggested that I read The Untethered Soul: The Journey Beyond Yourself, by Michael Singer. Written in 2007, the book is still profiting from excellent word-of-mouth, and was even profiled recently on Oprah’s OWN network. The book is designed as a guide to helping to suppress one’s ego and seek true enlightenment. It is the sort of book that one may want to go back to again, and again. Singer uses easy-to-understand […]
Time to Get Happy
I have been reading a lot of books lately about clearing out the clutter of one’s home (and mind), for an easier life. A friend suggested I might want to check out The Happiness Project: Or, Why I Spent a Year Trying to Sing in the Morning, Clean My Closets, Fight Right, Read Aristotle, and Generally Have More Fun by Gretchen Rubin, so I gave it a try. I can’t say that there was anything new or startling in its pages, but it was a quick, mostly […]
No Frills
This book was on many Best lists in the year it was published. Published two years after Room, it would be tough not to say Donoghue’s utterly excellent novel didn’t influence McCleen, as here we are with another narrator who also happens to be a damaged child with no concept of the real world she happens to live in. There though, all comparisons end. Judith’s mother died shortly after giving birth to her and she has been raised by her father alone. As devout Jehovah’s Witnesses, Judith […]