I used to say that Alice Hoffman was one of my favorite authors. “Used to” as in have always, ever since I first fell in love with the book “Practical Magic,” which is SO much better than the movie, which is really damn good it its own right, but for the record, only covers about 1/3 of the content of the book. Initially in my late teens I read her books with a voracious appetite, and regularly recommend her to others. There are elements of […]
Just read it
Probably because I’ve read them both in the last month, I kept hearkening back to Lincoln in the Bardo. It certainly isn’t the best comparison, but the themes of grief and loss are persistent in both and very keenly unearthed by both authors. If anything, I went into this one knowing less and with more discovery awaiting me. It didn’t do as much more me (I still really, really loved the experimental nature of Lincoln), but I did really enjoy it. It’s like the book is haunting me. […]
A magical unresolution to refugee realities
Another great pick from my Internations bookclub, Mohsin Hamid’s Exit West left me with seriously mixed feelings. On the one hand, I love books that make me question my own paradigms and face my short comings, and this book has definitely scored high points in this category. I also enjoyed the way the author escapes from the commonplace formula of boy meets girl – boy falls in love with girl – they overcome difficulties of their own doing and live happily ever after. Nothing of the sort […]
Just a few long-leggedy beasties
I was 100% not in the mood for this book and probably should have put it down as soon as I realized that. The thing is, it’s hard to put down a new release library book knowing you’ll have to go to the back of the lengthy hold queue. Still, I wasn’t in the mood for something whimsical and slightly cutesy, so I didn’t enjoy Beasts of Extraordinary Circumstance as much as I think I might have at a different point in time. The plots […]
Black girl poetic magic
Electric Arches is collection of poetry by Eve L. Ewing. Her poems muse on the black experience. She reveals painful moments of racism she encounters and add in handwritten font her imagined replies to the N-word. She writes odes to her musical heroes in “Appletree [on black womanhood, from and to Erykah Badu] and “On Prince”. Each poem describes how their music touched her soul. She uplifts the ordinary with her words adding a fantastical gloss of wonder. “so in this world, grease is a compliment, no […]
I did not enjoy it.
And I’m pretty bummed about it. I wanted to like it. I liked the first half, in which nerd genius Laurence and young witch Patricia meet in middle school and become half-assed friends. I liked its many, many beautiful lines. I liked young Patricia and to a small degree, adult Patricia. I liked that it was a book by a trans woman that got mainstream attention without her trans-ness being the reason. I liked the cover art. I liked that a nonbinary character who used […]
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