Ages ago, I listened to a podcast series out of Princeton applying LSAT logic to everyday arguments and news. The host would end each episode by asking, “Who’s right? Who’s wrong? Who cares? We’re more interested in the journey than the destination.” The podcast ended during the Obama administration, but I found myself considering thatContinue reading “‘Counterfeit’ a Thrilling Morality Test”
Tag Archives: Have already recommended to someone
‘Marvellous Light’ A Magical Mystery
Regency era gets so much love, pun intended, when it comes to romance and reimagined history. The Victorians get all the credit for every beautiful—and weirdly oppressive—thing from the turn of the century. But in A Marvellous Light, author Freya Marske pours glamor, manners, magic, and more than a little longing into the Edwardian era.Continue reading “‘Marvellous Light’ A Magical Mystery”
‘Tiger’ Brings High Stakes to Growing Up
The “coming of age” story usually refers to a teen growing up, but real life doesn’t have just one of those moments. And in my experience in young adulthood, finding out who I was happened much farther into my twenties than I’d like to admit—if it truly happened at all. In that way, the mainContinue reading “‘Tiger’ Brings High Stakes to Growing Up”
‘Sea of Tranquility’ Dizzying and Beautiful
I’ve heard raves about Station Eleven for years, as well as, more recently, The Glass Hotel. But my first attempt into Station Eleven didn’t get me far so I just assumed Emily St. John Mandel wasn’t a writer for me. I’m not sure how to quantify how wrong I was. Because within pages of Mandel’sContinue reading “‘Sea of Tranquility’ Dizzying and Beautiful”
‘Iron Widow’ Smashes Expectations and Patriarchy
There are some books that are quiet, meditative pieces on, say, the nature of love. The meaning of life. The depths of loneliness. How hope can soar and crash and rise again. Xiran Jay Zhao’s Iron Widow is none of these things, and it’s proud of it. Zetian has lived to make herself as unattractiveContinue reading “‘Iron Widow’ Smashes Expectations and Patriarchy”
‘Spindle’ Lovingly Splinters Fairy-Tale Tropes
There’s been no shortage of fairy tale retellings or mythology reinterpreted lately. Alix E. Harrow‘s A Spindle Splintered is proof positive that another addition to a well-populated genre can still be done uniquely and oh-so-effectively. Zinnia Gray is doomed to die. She’s one of the last surviving members of an unfortunate club of kids whoContinue reading “‘Spindle’ Lovingly Splinters Fairy-Tale Tropes”
‘Tomorrow’ A Video-Game Tale Rooted in Reality
The tension of “will they or won’t they” has done a lot of heavy lifting for stories through the ages, including many that wouldn’t have been nearly as intriguing otherwise. In the case of Gabrielle Zevin’s Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, that question is a touchpoint throughout the years for its characters, but the answer isContinue reading “‘Tomorrow’ A Video-Game Tale Rooted in Reality”
‘Survivor Song’ a Prescient Tale
I had to stop multiple times while reading Paul Tremblay’s Survivor Song to check whether it had been written before or during the pandemic. And then check again, and again, because the way his fictional society reacted to his fictional outbreak felt far too close to reality circa March-April 2020. But Survivor Song was publishedContinue reading “‘Survivor Song’ a Prescient Tale”
Barker’s ‘Women’ is a Dazzling Return to Troy
Thousands of years after the fall of Troy and long after the Greek gods’ influence faded, the stories and myths from that golden era still persist. Pat Barker’s The Silence of the Girls revisiting of that era by unspooling a single mention of a Trojan woman, Briseis, who was given as a token in aContinue reading “Barker’s ‘Women’ is a Dazzling Return to Troy”
‘Song for the Unraveling of the World’ Strange and Compelling
The first story in Brian Evenson’s collection Song for the Unraveling of the World is less than two pages long. That page and a half, though, is a good litmus test. If you don’t like it, you can confidently move onto some other short story collection. But if you find yourself intrigued and uneased, there’sContinue reading “‘Song for the Unraveling of the World’ Strange and Compelling”
Ring Reads 