I don’t normally take advice from the interwebs, but when I took a short “what should you read next quiz” that was posted to the CBR book chat page, the resulting recommendation intrigued me. Home Fire was described as a retelling of Antigone set in modern-day London. I haven’t read any Greek tragedy since high school, so I thought this could make an interesting study, to compare the classic with the modern. I have to confess, Greek tragedies were never my thing. I ate up all manner […]
A 5 star book with a major caveat.
Every Last One is about a mother with three teenage children. They all have very realistic teenage concerns and dramas. There’s depression in the mix, an eating disorder, relationship problems, very well-written dynamics between the kids and their friends and significant others and how they all interplay. Mary Beth’s marriage isn’t really the point but there’s also some very subtle but very real commentary on being married for a long time. The parents are each doing their best to figure out how to effectively parent […]
Lady, what are you hollering?
Well, I started the year off with a whimper. This book was glowingly recommended to me by a good friend who has led me in the past to some good stuff, so I jumped on it. I was disappointed, but the let-down was actually a little freeing, because I had just started another book she recommended, and my disappointment in Taking What I Like allowed me to give myself permission to put the other one down.* This is a book of short stories tied together […]
I’m a fountain of blood in the shape of a girl…
Patricia Engel has published two other books, the short story collection Vida and the novel It’s Not Love, It’s Just Paris. Even though I haven’t read either of those books, I felt that I needed to read her new novel, The Veins of the Ocean. Not only because the reviews were intriguing (and very positive) but also because I don’t remember ever reading anything by a Colombian American novelist. The Veins of the Ocean is the story of Reina Castillo. When we first meet Reina […]