While the story at hand is fine, there were times when I’d be reading about turbulence in an airplane and then…BAM! A flight attendant with an aged fleshy bosom enters the scene. Does this character have an important role in the events at hand? Not really. Is there something about her body that is relevant to what is occurring? Nope. Well, maybe the author is just trying to paint a word picture for us…why then does he not mention anything else about this person’s appearance? […]
Good. But ugh.
Don’t get me wrong, I like me a dystopian mind blow every now and again to make me feel good about my current situation, but guh-damn. I’ve got to read about a lot of unicorns and rainbows to cleanse my palette after this cluster of darkness. The Handmaid’s Tale is an American version of oppressive societies like North Korea, Saudi Arabia, or anywhere ISIS is in charge. With fundamentalist religious imagery, creepy sex scenes, and people displayed on hooks, I noped my way through this […]
The good ones are often controversial…
Roots is a work of historical fiction written in 1976 by Alex Haley. He begins with the life and eventual capture of his great-great-great-great grandfather Kunta Kinte in Africa. In what follows is a mostly fictional story, except for possibly a few details and Kinte’s lineage. Fiction or not, Roots is an amazing saga of nine generations. The most intriguing part of the book, for me, was the beginning, which focused on Kinte’s life. After Kinte was transported to America to be sold as a […]
If you want to understand deja vu better, this might help…
“Mom, after someone dies and becomes a ghost, do they become a kid again?” My four-year-old asked me this just a day after I finished reading Atkinson’s book, Life After Life. “Well, some people believe that. It’s called reincarnation.” I told him, wondering if his earlier comment about how I should wear a certain necklace “the next time I got married” was related to this conversation. While I’m not sure Life After Life is about reincarnation, parallel universes, or a hybrid of both, it nonetheless […]