I became interested in American Dervish because I wanted to read something from a different perspective: in this case, a novel by a Pakistani author reflecting on a young American Muslim boy’s experience. The story opens with Hayat Shah when he is college-aged, as he attends an Islamic Studies class. The professor, with whom Hayat is friendly, makes statements that are blasphemous to some of the other Muslim students in attendance, but Hayat himself has a somewhat blasé attitude toward his professor’s claims. Afterward, a friend […]
“I want everyone to meet you. You’re my favorite person of all time.”
I want everyone to read you, Eleanor & Park! I have so spoiled myself over the past few weeks, reading brilliant wordsmiths like Rainbow Rowell and Laini Taylor whose emotive descriptions are devastatingly apt. This book is ADORABLE. It seems like almost everyone I knew in high school fell in love exactly like this; teenagers have a way of each feeling uniquely disenfranchised, and meeting someone else who complements your weird and loneliness feels like finally the universe has done you a solid. Eleanor and […]
“To really be a nerd, she’d decided, you had to prefer fictional worlds to the real one.”
To me, this book was perfect. Between Rowell’s flawless turns of phrase, her on-point descriptions of adapting to college, and her loving nods to fandom, I tore through this novel and loved every moment. The premise is this: Cath and her identical twin sister Wren had been, for most of their lives, mega-fans of the Simon Snow series (a Harry Potter analog.) Both were avid fanfiction writers and consumers, and they were also involved with cosplay, creating and sharing fanart, the works. Upon entering college, […]
“Compared to geology, we barely exist.”
I really enjoyed this novel, a character-driven SciFi story about Earth in the aftermath of its sudden enclosure within what became known as the Spin membrane. Inside the membrane, on Earth, time progresses as normal, while outside the membrane time advances as relativistic speeds — billions of years pass by in space over the span of a couple of decades on earth. Our protagonist is Tyler Dupree, close childhood friend to siblings Jason and Diane Lawton. One night, the three are outside stargazing, when the […]
Every day isn’t exactly the same
Every Day is about “A,” a quantum-leaper who, every day, inhabits a new body and peeks in the window of a new life. A doesn’t have a full name or a true identity, but s/he does have a basic code for living and a pretty healthy sense of empathy. There are a few rules to the “jumps” that A makes; namely, A only jumps into the bodies of geographically nearby people who are about the same age as A is (about sixteen), and the jump […]
“…the cliche you have adopted for yourself isn’t working.”
The Radleys is a vampire novel that isn’t a vampire novel. The family are vampires, to be sure, but vampirism here is a metaphor for identity in general. The novel, then, explores the consequences of denying one’s true self; the facade erected by the Radleys alienates the family members from each other, and the family unit from society at large, ironically, as the facade is constructed for the single purpose of fitting in. The Radley parents, Peter and Helen, are abstaining vampires — they don’t […]