If you want to cleanse your… brain? palate? brain-palate? of the hellstorm that was 2017, this book is an excellent way to kick off the new year. Everything Here Is Beautiful is the story of two sisters, Miranda and Lucia. Since childhood, Miranda has been the careful and responsible big sister, Jie, while Lucia has been the cheerful and impulsive little sister, Mei. But Lucia occasionally has episodes where she has violent mood swings, hears voices, and becomes increasingly paranoid. Miranda, frightened at what could happen to her […]
Nice Guys and Bad Boys in Victorian England
I’ve only read three of his books now, but I kind of love Thomas Hardy. Because he gets it. He gets how shitty social and moral conventions are to women. Does Hardy have an avid following like Austen or Dickens? Because he totally should! I demand more Hardy adaptations! Bathsheba Everdene – what an awesome name – is a beautiful, intelligent, confident, and fiercely independent young woman. Upon inheriting her uncle’s farm, she moves to Weatherbury, where she attracts the attention of three very different men: loyal shepherd Gabriel Oak, reserved farmer William Boldwood, […]
The Real Housewife of Yonville
Clearly the only way I can get myself to read one of the books in my continually growing to-be-read pile is for there to be a movie coming out. Get on it Hollywood, there are about 60 books I still need to get through. Disclaimers: I read a translation due to my French being nonexistent, but the original is supposed to be exquisite. I don’t have to warn about spoilers in a review about something published in 1856, do I? Madame Bovary is one of those classics in which the elements that […]
If a picture is worth a thousand words, how much are gifs worth?
So, what did I think of The Infinite Sea? I want to leave it at that, but apparently there’s some stupid word minimum for reviews. Goddamn it. Anyway, a friend saw I was reading this and asked how I liked it. I said, “I’m about 2/3 of the way through and so far, nothing has happened to justify its existence.” She said, “High praise indeed.” But it’s true. The Infinite Sea fails to do what any competent sequel does, i.e. expand the universe and raise the stakes. Off the top of my head, here […]