I feel a little bad rating this only three stars, but I rate on enjoyment, and Alias Grace took me two months of slogging to finish. Even though it’s a good book and under different circumstances I might have liked it more (and perhaps I will re-read?), I just was not in the mood for reading it. At all. So, three stars. I mean, seriously, it’s not the book’s fault that most serious fiction makes me anxious right now. Or that all I want to do half the […]
The problem with my life was that it was someone else’s idea.
4.5 stars Aristotle “Ari” is a conflicted teenager growing up in El Paso in the late 1980s. He’s sixteen and a loner, but doesn’t really mind his lack of friends. He’s very close to his mother, whose a high school teacher (not at Ari’s school), but wishes he could talk to his dad, a Vietnam vet about, well, anything really. The youngest of his family, Ari’s twin sisters are much older than him and his brother is in prison, never spoken about by anyone in […]
A solid romance classic
Candace Camp is an author that I used to read when I was a teenager, nicking books from my mom’s special cupboard. I have vague but positive memories of her work, so when I saw that some of the books she published in the 80s were out for Kindle, I thought I’d give one a try. This book was originally published in 1984, and what struck me in particular was how much of a statement it made on the subject of privilege, something that I […]
“He ate little but drank much and vomited proportionally.”
A Dead man in Deptford is one hell of a book. Imagining the fascinating life and early death of Christopher ‘Kit’ Marlowe – Elizabethan playwright, poet and alleged spy – on opening I was a little worried that the language might be too dense (’tis written in the parlance of the time) but before long I was putting off sleep to read more while gleefully noting all of my new favourite olde words and pretty much wanting to roll around in the wonderful writing. While […]
How to be a bad-ass in 1914
I’ve been reading a lot of grim and/or heavy books lately, or grad school textbooks (snooooore), so Girl Waits with Gun was an excellent reminder that books can be fun. I fell madly in love with Constance by page five, and spent the rest of the book wishing we could be best friends. The three Kopp sisters (Constance, stolid Norma, shallow Fleurette) live on a farm in New Jersey in 1914. It’s unusual at the time for women to be left totally to their own […]
Come get some
“So long as there is a kingdom on this windswept island, there will be war.” I started reading Bernard Cornwell’s Saxon Stories just over a month ago. As I’m now on the 4th instalment, I think it’s pretty safe to say that I’m a fan. Uhtred Uhtredsson started the series as the heir to Bebbanburg following the death of his older brother, until his father was killed by invading Danes and he was taken and raised by his father’s killer. Taking advantage of his absence, […]
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