The Radleys is a vampire novel that isn’t a vampire novel. The family are vampires, to be sure, but vampirism here is a metaphor for identity in general. The novel, then, explores the consequences of denying one’s true self; the facade erected by the Radleys alienates the family members from each other, and the family unit from society at large, ironically, as the facade is constructed for the single purpose of fitting in. The Radley parents, Peter and Helen, are abstaining vampires — they don’t […]
Mad about Milan
Historicals aren’t my go-to romance genre of choice, but I sure am drawn to the silk Courtney Milan is spinning. Unlocked is a novella in the Turner series (aka the BEST series) and it’s only tangentially related because some character is casually acquainted with one of the Turners, but no matter. It’s a great little I-hate-you-but-I-love-you story that transcends its somewhat cliched underpinnings due to the strength of Milan’s writing. Plot-wise, it’s very simple: Lady Elaine was the subject of some pretty harsh Regency-era bullying (“Your […]
There will be blood… and angst.
The Vampire Academy series is as follows: 1. Vampire Academy (CBR5 review) 2. Frostbite 3. Shadow Kiss 4. Blood Promise 5. Spirit Bound 6. Last Sacrifice These are pretty mediocre books. I read the whole series because I’m a completist (sadist?) and at this point I’d be hard-pressed to describe exactly where in the overall plot each book began and ended. The whole story goes something like this — and I’ll be as vague as I can to avoid specific spoilers — Rose is a half-vampire who […]
“Crowns do queer things to the heads beneath them.”
Ah, A Song of Ice and Fire… as I mentioned in my review of A Game of Thrones for CBR5, I’m doing that wholly non-Patrician thing where I read the books after enjoying the visual media. HBO’s show is my favorite show currently in progress, and after a destructive internal war over whether or not I wanted to spoil myself, I decided I did. There is, in my mind, a huge difference between a spoiler that comes from some thoughtless dickhead on the internet, and a “spoiler” […]
“It’s not me but the world that’s deranged.”
Where do I even begin to describe a book like 1Q84? This was my first Murakami novel, and though I felt, at times, that certain minutiae for which he is apparently infamous (food preparation, repetitive dialogue and re-iteration of expository detail) contributed unnecessary padding to the 1157 pages, overall I found myself quite swept away in the lyricism of the writing and the surreal but precise detail in observing the world of 1Q84. The central characters are Tengo, a cram school (assuming this is an […]
Read ALL THE PAGES!
FROM THE AUTHOR: This is a book I wrote. Because I wrote it, I had to figure out what to put on the back cover to explain what it is. I tried to write a long, third-person summary that would imply how great the book is and also sound vaguely authoritative – like maybe someone who isn’t me wrote it – but I soon discovered that I’m not sneaky enough to pull it off convincingly. So I decided to just make a list of things […]