There are many things Kazuo Ishiguro does brilliantly, but one he does perhaps most uniquely—especially as we move past the glut of thrillers using Gone Girl and/or The Woman On The Train as a comp title—is create a thoroughly unreliable narrator. Unlike the tipsy or mentally ill women who have largely come to define theContinue reading “‘Klara’ Shines like the Sun”
Tag Archives: Would talk about at a party
‘Iraq + 100’ Gives Unique View of Future
For longer than I’ve been alive, Iraq has been either at or adjacent to war. In fact, writes editor Hassan Blasim in the introduction to Iraq + 100, “Iraq has not tasted peace, freedom, or stability since the first British invasion of the country in 1914.” A century of war makes it hard to imagineContinue reading “‘Iraq + 100’ Gives Unique View of Future”
‘Felon’ Doesn’t Disappoint
If there’s one thing this pandemic has given me (besides diminished social skills and a lot of loaves of failed sourdough), it’s an increased appreciation and appetite for poetry. Just before everything shut down, I picked up Joyce Sutphen’s Carrying Water to the Field and was enchanted; that enchantment has led me to discover Tracy K.Continue reading “‘Felon’ Doesn’t Disappoint”
‘Two Truths’ Questions Fact and Fiction
I take in a lot of crime-related media. Hours of podcasts, stacks of true-crime novels, loads of documentaries, and although maturity and a growing awareness of current events has curbed my appetite for police procedurals, I still watch a lot of crime TV. All of which is to say I feel that I’m somewhat ofContinue reading “‘Two Truths’ Questions Fact and Fiction”
Hockey and Pies Make for a Delicious ‘Check’
Apparently I missed out on Check, Please when it was being released as a webcomic, which is actually slightly surprising because I feel like I spend a lot of time reading webcomics and talking about webcomics, but I’d never heard of this before a glowing review of the volume 1 book release put it onContinue reading “Hockey and Pies Make for a Delicious ‘Check’”
‘Women’ is Enraging, but in a Good Way
I had a hard time writing this review. Not because I can’t think of much to say about Caroline Criado Perez’s Invisible Women: Data Bias in a World Built for Men—just the opposite. As I’ve read it over the last couple of weeks, I’ve hardly been able to shut up about it. But it’s notContinue reading “‘Women’ is Enraging, but in a Good Way”
‘The Answers’ Raises Questions
Something I’ve noticed in a lot of millennial literature, as it were, is a thread of dystopia interwoven into what begins—and often ends—with the illusion of being contemporary or realistic. Like Ling Ma’s Severance, about a young woman who keeps her dead-end job after the rest of her office flees in a deadly pandemic inContinue reading “‘The Answers’ Raises Questions”
This ‘Book Club’ has Teeth
There are so many things I want to talk about with The Southern Book Club’s Guide to Slaying Vampires but every time I start, I realize they’re almost all spoilers. Which is funny, because from the title, the basic premise is pretty clear: a book club, comprised of middle-aged mothers, who slay vampires. But it’sContinue reading “This ‘Book Club’ has Teeth”
‘Outlaw’ Lets Characters Ride Free in the Old West
I opened Anna North’s Outlawed expecting a leisurely and thoughtful exploration of misfits forced into a life of crime in the days of cowboys and covered wagons. Outlawed has misfits forced into a life of crime. It has cowboys and wagons a-plenty. But while it does explore misfits of various stripes, it does so in,Continue reading “‘Outlaw’ Lets Characters Ride Free in the Old West”
No Punches Pulled in ‘Indians’
In the opening chapter of The Only Good Indians, Ricky, one of the titular “Indians” has stepped outside a bar to take a leak when a massive and possibly hallucinatory elk appears, stomps on a bunch of cars, and leaves him to the mercy of a bunch of drunk white guys who mete out swiftContinue reading “No Punches Pulled in ‘Indians’”
Ring Reads 