3.5 stars. After growing up watching The Parent Trap (both versions, but especially the Lohan version) and wanting so badly to have that camp experience as a kid, I’m drawn to camp stories as an adult. The Lost Girls of Camp Forevermore tells the story of a camp experience that goes very badly and then revisits each character in their adult lives to see where they’ve ended up and how that experience affected each of them. Their experience together was truly traumatic and yet, Fu […]
Lizzie Borden took an axe?
4.5 stars. I’d been eyeing this fictionalized account of the Lizzie Borden story for a while so when it was long-listed for the 2018 Women’s Prize for Fiction, I snagged a copy from my library. After reading it, it’s easy to see why it was longlisted. Schmidt is not fucking around with her prose. See What I Have Done is an incredible piece of writing, especially considering that it’s Schmidt’s debut. This is definitely a work of fiction, but there are huge overlaps with actual […]
Ahead of the Curve
3.5 stars. Attica Locke is simply the best. I really wish I hadn’t read The Cutting Season first though. It’s always hard evaluating an author’s other work fairly when you know they’re capable of the absolute best. If a book is better than most, but not quite living up to their best work, how do you rate that? My gut response is to rate a sense of disappointment. Taking a few weeks to write this review, I’ve come around to appreciating this book for what […]
Well now that is some fucked up shit
Massive trigger warnings for: child abuse, pedophilia, sexual abuse, assault, animal abuse. This book was real fucked up. Maybe the most fucked up. I have mixed feelings. Surprisingly mostly not because this book is so fucked up, but rather because I feel like it didn’t follow through and stick the landing. I feel a bit cheated by the ending, like it was an easy out. Not quite “it was all a dream” but close. If you’re going to start out with such a powerfully fucked […]