4.5 stars I can’t believe it’s been nearly a month since I read this book. Because of my massive backlog, I’m going to resort to my favourite short-cut, stealing the blurb from Goodreads: A murder…a tragic accident…or just parents behaving badly? What’s indisputable is that someone is dead. But who did what? Big Little Lies follows three women, each at a crossroads: Madeline is a force to be reckoned with. She’s funny and biting, passionate, she remembers everything and forgives no one. Her ex-husband and […]
Existentialism and friendship in contemporary Japan
This novel was my first taste of Murakami, and while I found it a fascinating (and not Japan-specific) foray into the minds of 20-30 somethings, I found Murakami’s story rather emotionally chilly. Of course, any book which devotes at least half of its pages to death, death wishes, and repressed sexual urges, is bound to be more than a little chilly, even downright depressing, but the book is saved by a combination of sometimes lovely prose, a mystery that kept me turning pages almost despite […]
Books Set in Australia are Best on Audiobook
I recently listened to the audiobook of Liane Moriarty’s Big Little Lies, and it was wonderful. First, I love Australian accents, and I could happily listen to the narrator all day. Second, the book is just so dang well written . The relationships between all the characters is just wonderfully depicted, and I love how distinct the narrators’ three voices are. After finishing this, I had to immediately go out and get more of Moriarty’s books.
Objectivity is for the weak.
I’m going to try hard to be objective and coherent in this review, but I make no promises because I love this book to a ridiculous degree and it’s hard not to just post, “ZOMG I LOVE IT, READ IT AND TALK ABOUT THE FEEEEEEELS WITH ME.” But since I really do want people to read this book (and the rest of the series!), I will give coherency a go. Blue Sargent is sixteen years old and the only girl born into her family with […]
I really could use a pair of magic jeans myself sometimes
Four fifteen-year-old girls, life-long best friends, are about to spend their first summer apart. On the night before three of them go away, they discover a pair of second-hand jeans that Carmen, the original owner, was planning on getting rid of. They discover that despite their varying heights and body types, the jeans look awesome and super flattering on all four of them, and decide to use the jeans as a device to keep in contact throughout the summer. They make a pact that they […]
You Should Be So Lucky to Have a Woman as a Friend
Published in 1973, Toni Morrison’s second novel Sula is a short but incredibly rich story about friendship and community, and about the ways that fear and hatred can bring people together and tear them apart. Morrison’s characters can be enticing and alluring, powerful and defiant in the face of poverty, prejudice, disappointment, and death. The title character Sula is a rebel amongst her community in Medallion, Ohio. As a black woman in the 1920s and ’30s, she refused to be confined by the limits society […]