I’m at a loss for how to review this book. Earlier today on Facebook I quipped that some reviews just boil down to read it if you want, here’s a plot description. This might be one of those reviews. I had received suggestions to read Murakami based on other authors I liked and a sense of getting out of my own rut. Great! The suggestions were warranted. I did enjoy Murakami’s style, I just didn’t necessarily enjoy the fact that it was encapsulated in short […]
Yellow Causes Anxiety
I’m just a bit behind in my reviews, meaning I read this book back in April and now it’s fall, so… Which is probably for the best, because this really isn’t a springtime book. This book needs to be read on a chilly fall day, while you’re under a quilt, with a pumpkin spice latte or mulled wine in your hand. The King in Yellow is a collection of short stories that pre-date Lovecraft and his elder god horror. (In fact, Lovecraft included the mythos began […]
Wasn’t Magical for Me
My adventures in short story reading continue, and I’ve reached the point where I’m convinced they aren’t for me. Not even the glorious, melodious Neil Gaiman reading his own collection, M is for Magic, to me could do the trick. I appear to be broken in some way. That’s not to say that there aren’t good stories in this collection. There are several that are quite good, just not good enough to round the collections overall rating up from a 3 star. The stories in […]
This is how you lose me…(yes, I realize it’s been said before).
I read The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao sometime earlier this CBR, and I was not…exactly…wildly enthusiastic over it. I felt that Díaz was a really talented storyteller, but his characters were unsympathetic and deeply, deeply maddening. But I decided that maybe Díaz’s writing would overcome the kinds of characters he developed in his novel. I am disappointed to report that his collection of short stories suffers from the same kinds of problems as his novel. This Is How You Lose Her is again […]