I’ve never read a romance novel. I’ve never even come close to reading one. But, oddly enough, the book that has had the most lasting impact on me was Crime and Punishment, and not for it’s explorations of nihilistic degeneration and the Westernization of Russia, but for the deeply compassionate love between it’s protagonist, Raskolnikov, and Sonya. More than anything, the redemption he receives through their love is what touched my soul, and its gift to me was a feeling that I have long sought […]
“All her streets obscure / Sparkle and swarm with nothing true nor sure,”
This is another review in the vein of “I love the author but I quite like this book”. In this case, more specifically, it’s “I love a book by this author so much that its inky veins somehow run in mine, that I read it once a year at least and every time I notice something new, that its phrasing and insight sometimes shapes how I see a particular kind of landscape, or light, or expression on a face”–but this book I’m reviewing is not […]
The Bleakest PNR I’ve Ever Read
This review is for the audiobook version of Working Stiff by Rachel Caine, the first in the Revivalist series. Bryn Davis was killed on her first day at her new job as a funeral director after discovering that her new boss was selling a black market drug that could bring the dead back to life. After receiving a dose of the top secret drug she joins forces with the team trying to keep it out of the wrong hands. There’s the expected skulking around, spy […]
As Secret Identities Go, It’s Not A Very Good One
The Nightingale is the story of two sisters caught up in Nazi-occupied France, and how they survive – and fight back – in their own distinct ways. Viann’s top priority is survival, for both her and her young daughter, as life gets increasingly difficult as the war continues, while Isabelle, the younger, feistier sister, joins the Resistance and finds a way to fight more actively as the Nightingale. Except their real last name is Rossignol, which literally means Nightingale, so it feels a little weird […]
I Doubt Love is the Word for it, but Like Will Do
Who Do You Love starts with our protagonist’s heartbreak, then rewinds to her as an eight-year-old girl, meeting the boy who, spoilers, she ends up loving. Each chapter alternates viewpoints between Rachel, our eight-year-old with a heart condition, and Andy, the impoverished boy growing up with a single mother, skipping ages willy-nilly until they come together at some undisclosed later time – in their thirties, I guess? Oddly, the timeline is quite clear about aging them up until the last few chapters. The interplay is […]
Maybe it’s me?
I’m not having a great week when it comes to book club picks. Come tomorrow, I’ll be sitting with my coworkers as they gush about the Nyquil-on-a-page memoir Comma Queen (at least that’s my bet. They love all the books I hate). And next week, I’ll be with you excellent Cannonballers, talking about another book that I tried so hard to like, Bollywood Bride. Ria is a Bollywood star, known for playing the ingénue who usually gets married by the end of the movie. She’s known […]
- « Previous Page
- 1
- …
- 53
- 54
- 55
- 56
- 57
- …
- 84
- Next Page »