Sweet fruit, sour land is a dystopian tale of two friends as they meet at lavish parties in London. Both of them are poor, living on food rations and have only been invited due to their skills; Jaminder plays the piano and Mathilde is a skilled seamstress. Both of them are strangers as immigrants to England, but also to this high society. At these parties they are exposed not just to unfamiliar foods and lifestyles, but to a much more sinister realization that the rich […]
And when Eleanor smiled, something broke inside of him. Something always did.
CBR10Bingo: Home Sweet Home Growing up in Nebraska, Willa Cather was required reading. I loved loved loved My Ántonia in junior high, but I soured on her after reading O Pioneers! and hating the bummer of a preachy ending. When I first saw the Home Sweet Home square, I thought I might have to give one of her other books a try until I remembered I have a new favorite Nebraska author, thanks to CBR: Rainbow Rowell! Eleanor & Park went right to my wishlist […]
A Familiar Scent Rose Up Into the Air, and I Remembered Something Special From a Long Time Ago
Rebecca is atmospheric, spooky, and sometimes downright scary. In it, our unnamed narrator meets the handsome widower Maxim de Winter while in Monte Carlo. They build a sort of friendship which eventually leads to a marriage (there’s no romance involved, as far as I can see), and he takes her back to his estate, Manderley. There she learns more about his first wife Rebecca, who was drowned in a sailing accident, and struggles to find her place as the head of the household. Her problems […]
Life is just a bowl of (sour) cherries
CBR10Bingo: Delicious Finding a book for this CBR10Bingo square was oddly tough for me, as nothing in my TBR list really jumped out at me as being obviously about food. When I started pulling my books off the shelf, one by one, and saw those gorgeous yellow cherries on the cover of Dina Nayeri’s Refuge, I knew this was the one. Early in the book, Niloo’s father imparts his life’s philosophy to his young daughter.: “Life in Ardestoon is a shank of lamb so bursting […]