Such a fun book! The story is told through two perspectives: Laia and Elias. Laia is a slave whose grandparents were just murdered in front of her and whose brother was just arrested for treason. Laia barely makes it out alive and only has the rebels to turn to for help. In return for helping her, she makes a deal to infiltrate the Empire’s greatest military academy as a servant for the most sadistic leader working there. Elias is unhappily the school’s best soldier-in-training and […]
Creepily Delicious
4.5 stars. I inhaled this slim David Mitchell novel in just a few hours yesterday. I was so pleased by Cloud Atlas earlier this year that I nearly jumped for joy when I heard he was putting out a haunted house story just in time for Halloween. I hardly ever dabble in the horror genre, but I’m glad I made an exception. While this book was definitely creepy, it wasn’t overly scary. It propelled me to keep reading and find out what happened next, but […]
Real Life Role Models
A historical look at the relationship between the notorious RGB and Sandra Day O’Connor? Yes please. I’d been looking forward to this one ever since I heard the premise and it didn’t disappoint. Hirshman delves into the childhoods and legal careers of these groundbreaking women and leaves the reader with a concrete impression of them as real people with strengths and flaws. I never realized just how different Ginsberg and O’Connor are from each other. O’Connor was one of Reagan’s few palatable options for Supreme […]
Mind the Gap
I was seriously afraid that I’d be wasting my time on yet another damsel in distress story where the awkward boy gets to find himself and be the hero, but I was pleasantly surprised to find that Bone Gap played with all those expectations and tropes in an unexpected way. This was shortlisted for the National Book Award, so I was hoping it’d be good. It was! Bone Gap is a strange town with some serious secrets. Finn and Sean are two young men/boys just […]
An abusive boyfriend that lives inside your mind
A friend lent this book about eating disorders to me so I could better understand certain aspects of her struggle with food and body image. While 100 Questions & Answers About Eating Disorders was a great generalized introduction, Life Without Ed got into the nitty-gritty of trying to escape the grasp of this mental illness. Although this is one woman’s story and it’s not going to represent every ED sufferer’s experience, I’ve been told that most would identify with at least some of Schaefer’s experience. […]
How to tell meaningful stories
Out on the Wire is a must read for anyone who does creative work, even if it’s just as a hobby. I guess it’d be helpful if you listen at least occasionally to podcasts or NPR-type radio too, just so you have context. Abel basically spent a year interviewing and observing the creatives at 99% Invisible, The Moth, Planet Money, Radio Diaries, Radiolab, Snap Judgment, and This American Life. Somehow she took all that information about the process of telling stories via radio and distilled […]
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