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 […]
“It’s not me but the world that’s deranged.”
Where do I even begin to describe a book like 1Q84? This was my first Murakami novel, and though I felt, at times, that certain minutiae for which he is apparently infamous (food preparation, repetitive dialogue and re-iteration of expository detail) contributed unnecessary padding to the 1157 pages, overall I found myself quite swept away in the lyricism of the writing and the surreal but precise detail in observing the world of 1Q84. The central characters are Tengo, a cram school (assuming this is an […]
Creating Your Dream Guy Isn’t All It’s Cracked Up To Be
If you’ve never been in the position our heroine finds herself in – 30, single, and at a family wedding being smothered by pitying glances and “it’ll be your turn someday”s – then her decision to make up a boyfriend might sound a little ridiculous to you. That’s alright; that’s reasonable. But let me just add in a couple of factors for you, see if they help clear things up a little. Not only is Grace Emerson single & semi-desperate, but her ex-fiance has just […]
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