It’s funny that I just happened to read Speak and Cloud Atlas within a few weeks of each other. (Omg, I’m so far behind on reviews!) I went into both not knowing much about them, but they’re so similar in structure and tone that it feels like serendipity. Like Cloud Atlas, Speak doesn’t have much of an overarching plot and has multiple narrators spanning centuries. Although Speak is less gimmicky in its structure, both books connect the characters through personal records and intertwining themes. I […]
The Only Thing Constant In Life Is Change
“What wouldn’t I give now for a never-changing map of the ever-constant ineffable? To possess, as it were, an atlas of clouds.” I literally tried and failed 3 times to get into this book over several years, but I didn’t succeed until the 4th try. I have to say that it was definitely worth the effort! The problem was that in a book with 6 narrators, it begins with the least interesting and least accessible storyline. If you can just make it through the difficult […]
A Good Book At The Wrong Time
I wanted to connect with this book so much (I loved the movie adaptation a few years ago), but just couldn’t get there. It’s was an easy book to admire and a hard one to love wholeheartedly. Isherwood is no slouch when it comes to prose. The writing is truly stunning. Unfortunately I spent most of my time reading it thinking about how beautiful the writing was instead of losing myself in the narrative and characters. A Single Man is light on plot and instead […]
Good Plot, Good Characters, Great Setting
Hey look, it’s an urban fantasy that actually takes place in a realistic urban setting. There are people of many ethnicities and the city has pockets of different cultures. These writing choices by Daniel José Older really lend the fantastical elements a heavy dose of realism. It’s refreshing. That realistic setting and Older’s imaginative world building made Half-Resurrection Blues a very enjoyable read. Carlos Delacruz isn’t really alive, but he’s not quite dead either. He’s an inbetweener, someone who lives between the world of the […]