Set in a contemporary North Carolina town that has been deteriorating for some time, No One is Coming to Save Us is a thoughtful novel about coming to terms with one’s past and building a future. It is about thwarted dreams, dreams that characters expected would “save” them had they been realized. What does one do with the shards of broken dreams? The story opens with JJ Ferguson’s return to Pinewood, NC, which once had a booming economy, but jobs are dwindling as the furniture […]
Banned Book? Well, Banned Author, Anyway
I’m kicking off banned book week with a book that has gotten a lot of attention, both positive and negative, in Catholic circles. Is it a banned book? If it isn’t yet it probably will be. The author has been banned from several Catholic speaking engagements because of it. But he has also received support from prominent bishops and wouldn’t have been able to publish without support from his order, the Society of Jesus (Jesuits). This book, considered incendiary by alt-right Catholics, is not really […]
If you think about it, we all have a fairy tale kind of life
This Is How It Always Is is a sort of fairy tale about a mom who wished for a daughter, a dad who tells stories, siblings who watch out for each other, and how even if you do everything just right, life is never easy. This is the story of parents doing their best to raise their transgender child in a world that fears and rejects those who don’t fit cultural norms. It is clever, funny and heartbreaking, and enlightening. Frankel happens to be the […]
My Big Ol’ Spoiler-Filled Review
Never Let Me Go is one of the strangest books I have read this year and in order to try to make sense of it, I’m afraid I’m going to be engaging in some plot spoiling. Actually, this may not be overly spoiler-y, as the reader figures out most of what I’m going to reveal early on in the novel. Ishiguro wants it that way, I think, because his characters experience the same thing. They know what is going to happen to them, and yet…. […]