Song of a Blackbird by Maria van Lieshout
To be honest, I have a lot of books that get misplaced. I put them in safe places and well, they are so safe even I can’t find them. But there is always a way to find them. And with Song of a Blackbird by Maria van Lieshout that way was the library and interlibrary loan. A powerful and beautifully done story of family and the horrors of war unfolds across the pages. As it is told via a blackbird, things at times become almost […]
The Last Gay Man on Earth by Ype Driessen
CBR15Passport country The Last Gay Man on Earth is both too short and just the right length for reading. And while I did want more, I figure I can wait for the sequel. Ype Driessen allows us to look into his life of crazy, wonderful people, places and his own imposter syndrome (and by the way, he has imposter syndrome about having imposter syndrome). I fell in love with him a few pages in (the work was not going to get done because he was […]
The Book of Revelation by Rupert Thomson
CN: rape, sexual assault, kidnapping. Seriously, this book is very triggering. I remember picking this book up randomly one day in a book store, thinking it was about religion. I cringed when I saw the subject matter: an attractive man kidnapped and held against his will, subject to torture and sexual menace at the hands of women. I looked it up on Goodreads and found it wasn’t considered grindhouse shock shlock, but a literary meditation on gender and power dynamics. I wasn’t confident to buy […]
Anne Frank’s Diary: The Graphic Adaptation by Ari Folman
We talk about books that are not for everyone, well, this is a review not for everyone. I bring up feelings, more than facts here. I have thoughts that you probably do not say today. But I am telling you, the review reader, this book affected me in ways I did not expect. This is my journey being introduced to a story I thought I knew, but came away with a different outlook about it. I have never read The Diary of Anne Frank. Though, […]
CBR10Bingo: Delicious Finding a book for this CBR10Bingo square was oddly tough for me, as nothing in my TBR list really jumped out at me as being obviously about food. When I started pulling my books off the shelf, one by one, and saw those gorgeous yellow cherries on the cover of Dina Nayeri’s Refuge, I knew this was the one. Early in the book, Niloo’s father imparts his life’s philosophy to his young daughter.: “Life in Ardestoon is a shank of lamb so bursting […]
When I first started reading The Last Painting of Sara de Vos, by Dominic Smith, I was pretty sure I didn’t like it. The first chapter felt like it was about dissatisfied rich people and I was not in the mood for that nonsense. Happily, it is not about dissatisfied rich people, nor is it about the theft and forgery of a Dutch painting, which is what I thought it was about after I decided it wasn’t about rich people. Really though, it’s about three […]
