What began as a slow and cold (le Carré-esque) waiting game grew into a white hot flash of deceit, anxiety, and dangerous thrills. I cannot claim to know the full horrors and trials of World War II- nor can I draw a true comparison between that dark time and the present, but the world of this book is a different world from our current version. One constant remains: the truth is subjective. In 1940 a young woman is recruited into the fold of MI5. Europe […]
you will falsely remember being told about Melmoth by your grandmother’s mother when you were very small
There is something immediately nauseating – hear me out- about this book. You can be nauseous when you feel ill, when you ride a roller coaster, when you are nervous, or when you eat too many sweets. There is a feeling of hopeful dread that climbs over you (and all of the characters within) before you have finished reading the first page. There is a feeling that you have been here – in a cafe in Prague, under an overpass in Manila, in a field […]
Ringing in the New Year with Inspector Gamache <3
Well, CBR10 was an epic disaster for me (I think I reviewed one book? maybe?), but we’re going to give ‘er another go this year. And what better way to kick things off than with the latest instalment in the Inspector Gamache series. There are very few books that I pre-order and am willing to pay full price for the hardcover immediate release. This series is one of those exceptions. This is the 14th book to date, and I can’t stress enough that you should […]
My Chemical Renaissance
I am an English teacher and, as such, I regularly teach Shakespeare to high schoolers. This is nearly always met with varying degrees of trepidation; even the ones who like literature and who have a good grasp of the English language find his works somewhat daunting and often boring by default. And I get it, I do, but it’s such a shame. Once you get the hang of it and manage to pierce through the – admittedly often dense – language, Shakespeare was an absolute […]