The story is plenty heavy but never unbearable. And there are moments of levity, and of hope, and joy, for both Jane and Phúc, even as their circumstances make life a little darker for them than for others.
Tag Archives: Food for thought
‘True Account’ Combines the Ordinary and Wonderous
I’ve enjoyed reading more collections pushing boundaries—topically or in form, or both—but The True Account of Myself as a Bird is a much more meditative and deceptively simpler animal that has left me with a greater appreciation for the seemingly ordinary things around me.
‘Whalefall’ a Better Drama Than Thriller
Whalefall is billed as a survival thriller like The Martian, but that creates some false expectations. This is a criticism more of the marketing of this book than the book itself, because what the book actually is, is a novel-length version of the “Men will literally do X instead of going to therapy” meme.
‘Foul’ a Tale of Revenge as Bloody as the Bard’s
There’s something transgressive to watching this fast-paced, consequence-lite rampage. What makes it feminist is perhaps the freedom these four female characters feel in behaving badly—a realm that the male characters felt entitled to do before their bloody ends.
An Overlooked Character Gets Life in ‘Other Bennet Sister’
Yes, there’s a romance in The Other Bennet Sister, but, crucially, it comes as neither the product or instigator of her inner discovery and change. The emphasis is again and again on Mary as a person.
‘Tastes Like War’ A Compassionate Take of Food and Memory
In under 300 pages, Tastes Like War tackles complex family relationships, trauma, poverty, mental illness, sense memory, and displacement and imperialism, to start with. Even at the tensest moments, though, Cho addresses all with sensitivity and, above all, love.
‘The Future’ A Chilling Story of the Near-Present
A lot of the elements within The Future are easy to find in today’s headlines. It makes the world that Alderman unfolds eerily familiar, and that familiarity functions as a tether through the jumping, crisscrossing, and otherwise shuffled times and places through which we unpack the story.
‘Good Bones’ a Charming Family Horror
The house is haunted in Good Bones, but the supernatural danger is far more interested the people than the structure in which they reside. Although, you know, that’s important, too. This is, after all, a haunted house story.
Subtlety and Atmosphere Give ‘Hunt’ Wings
If you’re just looking for an atmospheric autumn read, A Wild Hunt delivers on that front. That said, I doubt any of it will give you nightmares. It may, however, haunt you in more metaphorical ways.
‘Fuzz’ Prompts a Different View of our Animal Neighbors
The clash between humans and the fauna we surround ourselves with—and are surrounded by—is both frequent and frequently deadly for one or the other of us. How do we treat our fellow animals, and how can we treat them better? Roach has a few ideas, and while none of them are easy or convenient, they’re worth considering.
Ring Reads 