Here’s a bit of a literary quandary for you: can a book still be good if it deliberately skirts controversy, or does the artificially generated controversy only distract from the other qualities a book may have? I’ve been asking myself this ever since I read Wetlands, and I still don’t know. Wetlands, the debut novel of Anglo-German TV personality Charlotte Roche, tells the story of eighteen year old school girl Helen Memel. Helen is obsessed with her bodily fluids; her own and others’. She likes […]
Break down the self, offer yourself up like dust to the universe.
In the Cannonball Read Facebook group, someone awesome posted an article called “The best books of 2016 list you get when you combine 36 “Best Books of 2016” lists.” The Girls is 6th on that list, appearing in 10 of the 36 “Best Books of 2016” lists combined for the “ultimate list.” It’s okay. Here’s what it has going for it: it’s completely real. Here’s what it has against it: it’s not new. The Girls is the story of an older woman reminiscing about that […]
The Hidden Chamber
I got on the library queue for this book because I knew that it contains “The Monarch of the Glen,” which is the novella follow-up to American Gods. I am committed to my American Gods love, and wanted to complete my library of knowledge of all things Shadow. But this book, oh, this wonderful book. It’s a collection of some of the most beautiful poetry and short stories, in perfect Gaiman-ian language, set in dark landscapes that are undeniably his. I could pick these works […]
Demonic boogaloo and the electric slide
This book is a hot mess. And I mean that in the best possible sense. *minor spoilers* There’s a dog that wanted half its body shaved so that it could steal food easier. She figured she wouldn’t be recognized that way. Ronald McDonald eats his own intestines. Jennifer Lopez, Morgan Freeman, and (maybe) Fred Durst are in this book – but not really. The main character, Dave, is bitten by a drug named “Soy Sauce” that John, Dave’s friend, got from a mysterious Jamaican. The […]
Not As Expected
How do you review books that are basically someone else’s life narrative? Fat Girl Walking is Brittany Gibbon’s story, and her owning her story. I respect that, and feel no desire to take it to task. In fact, the writing is crisp and the humor sarcastic. There is little I can point to as flawed other than a few instances of casual ableism. I just didn’t like it. And since I rate by the Goodreads system, that means this book gets a single star. Perhaps […]
This book reminded me that I really need to start watching Masters of Sex
3.5 stars I don’t read a whole lot of non-fiction. What little I do read is usually in the celebrity biography genre. But for my Eclectic Reader Challenge, I needed to read something qualifying as Micro history. I didn’t even know what that was, but the internet was very helpful in clearing up my confusion. Goodreads even has a lot of useful suggestions of what I could read. As Bonk had a fairly high average rating, and was very highly rated by several of my […]
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