About a year ago, I picked up a stunning book that quickly became my go-to book recommendation. Marilynne Robinson’s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel Gilead was about an elderly, dying pastor. Desperate to leave something of himself behind to his young son, Reverend John Ames composed letter after letter to the boy, talking about his life, his insecurities, his love of family, his faith in God, and his unshakable belief that the world was a beautiful gift. Astonishingly written, Gilead was a meditation on what it meant […]
A Self-Indulgent Mess
What an utter waste of time. Tom McCarthy is fast becoming the Kate Winslet of the literary world-so much of his work is exceptional, so now they nominate him based on the assumption that this book is good too (Yeah, Winslet, I’m coming for you. Nice accent in Steve Jobs) I picked up McCarthy’s Satin Island because it was longlisted for the Man Booker Prize. There’s only been a few times where I profoundly disliked a book that received that honor, but this is […]
Hello Darkness My Old Friend
Anna Lyndsey lives in the darkness. Although she was once an average person with a job, a boyfriend and a new apartment, in 2005 her skin began to feel like it was burning while she sat in front of the computer. At first she just rigged a fan to her desk. The fan didn’t help. She just got worse, and soon the condition spread and all forms of light affected her entire body. She ended up confined to her bedroom, covering the cracks in the […]
I Do Not Like the Cone of Shame
Back in December 2013, a PR consultant stopped before boarding a plane to tweet at her 170 followers. “Going to Africa,” she wrote, “Hope I don’t get AIDS. Just kidding, I’m white!” When Justine Saccro got off the plane 11 hours later, she had no idea that her life had totally changed. Her tweet went viral, as tens of thousands of people expressed their outrage and demanded (basically) her head. She immediately lost her job and served her 15 minutes as the most hated person […]
More like The WORST Bad Man, amiright! I’ll see myself out.
According to the Internet, I’m the odd person out when it comes to Miranda July’s The First Bad Man. I scanned reviews that called it “heartbreaking” “brilliant” and one of “the best books of the year.” I started to wonder if there was something wrong with me. Because I hated this book. HATED this book. For me at least, The First Bad Man is some twee hipster nonsense masquerading as something deep that like says stuff man, about our society. It’s too outrageous to be […]
The End is the Beginning
Whoa boy. I’ve read all three books of Jeff VanderMeer’s Southern Reach trilogy, and I still don’t know how to describe them. I heard about them after they won some fantasy award, but they’re not quite fantasy. They’re in part sci-fi, dystopian and mystery, but those labels don’t really mean much to the book. The people tasked with solving the puzzle of the mysterious Area X know that they’re never going actually solve the mystery. They’re just hacking away at what they can. And we […]