Stephen Leeds is a truly unique individual. There are forty-seven people (and counting) living in his house, each of whom specialize in different things, like botany, biology, security, psychology, handwriting analysis, etc. These people have personalities and talents and fears and all come from different cultures and religious backgrounds. And all of them are hallucinations. Stephen doesn’t really have multiple personality disorder, because he is completely aware of and actively participates in the maintaining of his aspects. He uses them as a sort of extension […]
What if the NAZIs had won?
I will admit to y’all up front that I have no idea what I’m about to say in this review. I don’t want this to become one of those roadblock reviews for me. You know, the ones where you just can’t figure out what to say because the whole book just overwhelmed you, and you can’t even figure out your own reaction, let alone how to sum up the book for other people. I have no idea what my reaction is, or how to sum […]
I feel like this series is tired.
First Among Sequels is the fifth Thursday Next book, a book series which is impossibly to accurately sum up, because it’s so weird, and stubbornly resists classification (on purpose). I suppose in theory you could start reading the series with this book (after all, I had largely forgotten most of the details of the previous four when I started it and it turned out fine for me), but you’d really lose appreciation for the little details if you did that, and a lot of the […]
“Behind every exquisite thing that existed, there was something tragic.”
Welp. That was different. And very unlike the Wilde I have previously known and loved. I enjoyed the story of this book, but I think what I loved most about it were all the underhanded (and not so underhanded) things Wilde had to say about art and artists. I’m pretty sure all of you already know the basic premise, even if you haven’t read the thing. The beautiful and amoral Dorian Gray, who doesn’t age, has a secret portrait that bears all signs of corruption […]
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NB: I received an advanced reader’s copy of this book from the Goodreads First Reads program, but that has not affected the content of my review. What the F star star cunt* did I just read. IIIIIIIIIIIII . . . have no idea how to rate this book. I have no idea how to talk about this book. I have no idea how to think about this book. I mean, on the one hand, I’m so glad something like this — so weird and weird and […]
If you’re looking for a totally immersive reading experience, here you go, but be prepared to work for it.
The first thing to know about S. — J.J. Abrams’ and Doug Dorst’s literary experiment slash ode to the written word — is that you get out of it what you want to get out of it. If you want to get all crazy conspiracy theory and puzzle out a bunch of mysteries, you can. If you just want to sit back and be immersed in the story, with a little brain power, you can. If you want to engage somewhere in between those two levels, […]