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Libertie by Kaitlyn Greenidge
“I saw my mother raise a man from the dead. It still didn’t help him much, my love, she told me. But I saw her do it all the same. That’s how I knew she was magic.” I was hooked by Libertie’s opening paragraph. Set during and after the American Civil War Kaitlyn…
1860s, 1870s, 19TH CENTURY, 1st pov, Adult, America, American, AMERICAN AUTHOR, Black & Black heritage authors, CHILDHOOD, colonialism, colorism, coming of age, cultural dissonance, doctors, drama, f/f side, female authors, feminism, friendships, GRIEF, growing up, HAITI, HISTORICAL FICTION, identity, illness, Kaitlyn Greenidge, lgbtq+ side, Libertie, LITERARY FICTION, loneliness, Longing, MARRIAGE, mothers & daughters, music, published in 2021, queer side characters, RACE, read in 2021, slavery, social issues, UNIVERSITY/COLLEGE -
Crime And Punishment: A Novel in Six Parts with Epilogue by Fyodor Dostoyevsky
Dostoyevsky’s The Idiot is a favourite of mine so I was expecting Crime And Punishment be right up my street…aaaaand I hated it. Many consider Crime And Punishment to be one of the most influential books of all time…and I have to wonder…how? The Idiot, although certainly flawed, tells a far more cohesive and compelling…
1860s, 19TH CENTURY, 2 STARS, 3rd pov, big books, cat and mouse, class, CLASSICS, CRIME, Crime and Punishment, drama, endless monologues, existentialism, feverish, Fyodor Dostoyevsky, HISTORICAL FICTION, illness, madness, male authors, MELODRAMA, men who do not seem to know how to write women, morality, MURDER, murder investigation, murderers, philosophical, Poverty, prostitution, psychological, published in 1866, ramblings, read in 2020, RUSSIA, russian author, russian classics, Saint Petersburg, Siberia, TRANSLATED FICTION -
The Luminaries by Eleanor Catton — book review
“A person’s fortune always changes in the telling of it.” Turns out that reading The Luminaries was a phenomenal waste of my time. Eleanor Catton writes well, and the concept behind her novel had the potential of being interesting, but on the whole The Luminaries seems to be little more than a dull rehash of…
1860s, 19TH CENTURY, 3 STARS, 3rd pov, Adult, astrology, big books, bombastic style, BOOK REVIEW, Booklr, BOOKWORM, CRIME, drama, Eleanor Catton, female authors, HISTORICAL FICTION, Hokitika, ISLAND, LITERARY FICTION, man booker winner, murder mystery, MYSTERY, mystery puzzle, new zealand, New Zealand author, prostitution, published in 2013, READ IN 2019, REVIEW, sensation fiction, ship, The Luminaries -
The Idiot by Fyodor Dostoyevsky
The Idiot by Fyodor Dostoyevsky ★★★★✰ 4 of 5 stars “I actually had the idea, when you asked me for a subject for a painting, of giving you a subject: to paint the face of a condemned man a minute before the guillotine falls, while he is still standing on the scaffold and before he…
1860s, 19TH CENTURY, 3rd pov, 4 STARS, Adult, big books, CLASSICS, endless monologues, existentialism, Fyodor Dostoevsky, HISTORICAL FICTION, identity, illness, madness, male authors, morality, philosophical, Prince Myshkin, psychological, published in 1869, read in 2018, Religion, RUSSIA, russian author, russian classics, The Idiot, TRANSLATED FICTION -
The Moonstone by Wilkie Collins
A surprisingly entertaining novel that brims with a polite sort of humor that is nevertheless appealing to the modern reader. Various characters give their account in regards of a missing diamond worn by Rachel Verinder on her eighteenth birthday. This yellow diamond, also known as ‘moonstone’, we are told has been stolen from India by…
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This House is Haunted by John Boyne
This House is Haunted is written in a way that recalls the period in which the story takes places using some of that time’s turn of phrases and other expressions. Both the dialogue and the narration seem over-the-top, punctuated by exaggerations as to keep in faith with the period of the story making the whole…