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.
Tag Archives: Lovely prose
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.
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.
‘Hollow’ a ‘Bittersweet’ and Magical YA Mystery
Bittersweet was fun, and sad, and mysterious. Juniper’s world is full of love, and a whole lot of unanswered questions, and magic aside, that’s what it feels like to be a teenager a lot of the time. Pearsall’s worldbuilding, and the obvious love she has for all her characters, is what really brings this story home. Sometimes, I could almost feel the sticky heat of summer or taste the family’s famous lemon bars.
‘Legends’ Warm Enough to Melt Any Heart
Nothing about Legends & Lattes is going to change the world, but it’s comforting and uplifting. It made me smile. Apparently, it makes a lot of people smile, and that’s plenty valuable all by itself. Then again, maybe it can change the world, just a little.
‘Heavens’ a Disorienting Tale of Dreams and Reality
A lot of things are working in The Heavens, but it feels like those things sometimes have to work hard to compensate for other elements in the book.
‘Crane Husband’ a Critical Look at Love, Art
The Crane Husband is a meditation on responsibility and art and what love actually means, and so beautifully written that even with material like this you may still feel that you could fly away when you reach the end.
‘Shutter’ a Mystery Marred by Blur
Shutter has the makings of a fantastic story that takes its character far beyond the tropes of a typical murder mystery protagonist, but by the climax, I only felt exhausted.
‘Rose House’ Chilling in its Plausibility
This is not a horror novel, but its premise manages to be spine-tingling for the picture it paints—not bleak, exactly, but pragmatic to the point of irrationality, yet difficult to argue with.
Ring Reads 