I decided to step outside my comfort zone and pick up Crazy Rich Asians by Kevin Kwan in anticipation of the incredibly-cast movie coming out this year. (Constance Wu in ALL of the things!) After a brief prologue story to set up just how crazy rich these families are, we get to our main characters: Nick Young and Rachel Chu, enjoying their relatively simple lives in New York City. Two professors at NYU (history and economics, respectively), they’ve been dating for 2 years when Nick […]
Book Club Discussion Post: A Wrinkle in Time
Here we go, time to discuss A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L’Engle! For many of you, this was a reread of a childhood book. For others, it was your first time delving into L’Engle’s worlds; but we’ve all heard the title over the years, and it’s been a bastion of Science Fiction since the sixties. Science fiction has often been used as a way to explore “otherness” as a theme. Alien beings and distant worlds offer us a way to think about different cultures […]
Boulders, Heartstrings, and thoughts on The Prisoner of Azkaban
Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban by J. K. Rowling, narrated by Jim Dale
*Note: This review was completed in 2017 before the author’s views towards our trans siblings began to be widely known. My reading experience was what it was and these reviews will remain up, but it should be noted that I find her TERF values abhorrent, which have only become more clear over time, and her doubling down in Summer 2020 has made the decision to walk away from her as a creative force the only acceptable choice for me. I will no longer be supporting […]
they discern/what equilibrium they can recover
Well, it’s not like Cate Blanchett would choose to star in the adaptation of a bad Patricia Highsmith novel. I haven’t actually seen the film, but the trailers and still photographs project a certain sort of aesthetic that I found intriguing–rich colours, gleaming cocktails, and soft lights; crisp coral lipstick on a smile that says come hither and f**k off. This is the first novel of Highsmith’s that I’ve read; as Val McDermid points out on the cover of my edition, it has “the drive […]
True Stories are Often MUCH More Interesting than Fiction (take that Melville!)
I was vaguely aware of the sinking of the whaleship Essex, and its role as the inspiration for Moby-Dick when I heard that there was going to be a movie about it staring one of the many Marvel Chrises and that the movie was based on a book* of the same name. In the Heart of the Sea is a book about 19th century history, sailing, oceans and a story of survival for some but not all? I was in. In case you are similarly […]