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Greenland: A Novel by David Santos Donaldson
Greenland is characterized by a mordant, erudite satire that I have come to associate with authors such as Zadie Smith, Deborah Levy, and Edward St. Aubyn. David Santos Donaldson’s insight into academia & creative burnout brought to mind the work of Weike Wang, Elaine Hsieh Chou, David Hoon Kim, and Jo Hamya. Similarly to these…
1910s, 1st pov, 20th century, academia, Adult, ALIENATION, America, AMERICAN AUTHOR, belonging, Black & Black heritage authors, bombastic style, books about books, books about writers, Contemporary, contemporary malaise, David Santos Donaldson, egypt, existentialism, experimental, feverish, gay, greenland, Greenland: A Novel, hallucinations, history, identity, lgbtq+, LGBTQ+ Author, loneliness, male authors, masculinity, men who do not seem to know how to write women, navel gazing, NEW YORK, obsession, paranoia, philosophical, psychological, published in 2022, queer, RACE, read in 2022, satire, sex, SEXUALITY, SOCIAL COMMENTARY, story within a story, stylised prose, travel, unreliable narrators, weird -
Sea of Tranquility by Emily St. John Mandel
Cloud-Atlas-esque novels seem to be all the rage in 2022… “This place is precarious, that’s the only word for it. It’s the lightest sketch of civilizations, caught between the forest and the sea. He doesn’t belong here” This is my third novel by Mandel and once again I have rather conflicting thoughts and feelings about…
1910s, 20th century, 3 STARS, Adult, America, ART/CREATIVITY, ARTISTS, beautiful prose, belonging, BOOK REVIEWS, Booklr, books about books, books about writers, canada, canadian author, Contemporary, different styles (1st/2nd/3rd povs), dystopia, Emily St. John Mandel, f/f side, female authors, HISTORICAL FICTION, interconnected stories, interesting structure, lgbtq+ side, LITERARY FICTION, loneliness, moon, morality, musicians, My reviews, pandemic, philosophical, published in 2022, queer side characters, read in 2022, reading, restrained prose, SCI-FI, Sea Of Tranquility, siblings, SPECULATIVE FICTION, time travel -
The Widows of Malabar Hill by Sujata Massey
Cheesy, boring, poorly executed. While there is indeed a murder and the identity behind the culprit is, supposedly, a ‘mystery’, The Widows of Malabar Hill struck me as something in the realms of a third-rate period drama. The first part of the novel introduces us to Perveen Mistry, our protagonist, and works to establish the…
1910s, 1920s, 2 STARS, 3rd pov, abuse, ABUSIVE RELATIONSHIPS, Adult, BOOK REVIEW, BOOK REVIEWS, Booklr, British author, cheating, cheesy, courtroom drama, CRIME, divorce/separations, drama, female authors, HISTORICAL FICTION, India, lawyers, lesbian side characters, lgbtq+ side, MARRIAGE, MURDER, murder investigation, murder mystery, My reviews, MYSTERY, Not Like Other Girls, Perveen Mistry, published in 2018, read in 2021, reading, Sujata Massey, The Widows of Malabar Hill, weak prose, widows, zoroastrianism -
Sula by Toni Morrison
They were solitary little girls whose loneliness was so profound it intoxicated them and sent them stumbling into Technicolored visions that always included a presence, a someone, who, quite like the dreamer, shared the delight of the dream. Toni Morrison’s Sula revolves around the eponymous and fraught character of Sula Peace. Within the novel, Morrison…
1910s, 1920s, 1930S, 1940s, 1960s, 20th century, 4 STARS, addiction, affairs, ALIENATION, America, American, AMERICAN AUTHOR, american classics, Black & Black heritage authors, BOOK REVIEW, BOOK REVIEWS, Booklr, cheating, CLASSICS, DEATH, different styles (1st/2nd/3rd povs), distressing reads, family, female authors, female doubles, female friendships, feminism, forgiveness, friendships, HISTORICAL FICTION, identity, illness, LITERARY FICTION, madness, modern classics, motherhood, mothers & daughters, My reviews, ohio, published in 1973, RACE, re-reads, read in 2018, read in 2021, reading, self-destructive, SEXUALITY, SMALL TOWN, SOCIAL COMMENTARY, suicide, Sula, terrific prose, TONI MORRISON, tragedy, trauma -
At Night All Blood is Black by David Diop
At Night All Blood is Black is a short yet certainly not breezy read. David Diop’s novel reads very much like the increasingly feverish confession of a man whose every-day reality is permeated by violence. He is both victim and perpetrator, cognisant of the violence that dominates his life yet somehow unwilling to truly consider…
1910s, 1st pov, 20th century, Adult, At Night All Blood is Black, Black & Black heritage authors, David Diop, DEATH, feverish, FRANCE, FRENCH, HISTORICAL FICTION, lyrical prose, male authors, morality, published in 2018, RACE, read in 2020, revenge, Senegal, Senegalese French author, stylised prose, TRANSLATED FICTION, violence, war, war related ptsd, wwi -
A Dead Djinn in Cairo by P. Djèlí Clark
This is the third novella I’ve read by P. Djèlí Clark and once again I find myself loving his building but not his story or characters. This novella is set in an alternate 1912 Cairo where djinns and angels are the norm. world happens to be the home to djinns Egypt, . In an alternate…
1910s, 20th century, 3rd pov, A Dead Djinn, Adult, adventure, alternate history, AMERICAN AUTHOR, American History, Black & Black heritage authors, Cairo, DETECTIVE, Djinn, egypt, FANTASY, HISTORICAL FICTION, lgbtq+, male authors, NOVELLA/SHORT STORY, P. Djèlí Clark, published in 2016, queer, read in 2020, SPECULATIVE FICTION, STEAMPUNK, URBAN FANTASY -
The Pull of the Stars by Emma Donoghue
“We all lived in an unwalled city, that was it. I saw lines scored across the map of Ireland; carved all over the globe. Train tracks, roads, shipping channels, a web of human traffic that connected all all nations into one great suffer body.” This is the third novel I’ve read by Emma Donoghue…
1910s, 1918 influenza, 1st pov, 20th century, abuse, Adult, Dublin, Emma Donoghue, f/f, female authors, HISTORICAL FICTION, HOSPITAL, illness, IRELAND, IRISH AUTHOR, lgbtq+, LGBTQ+ Author, LITERARY FICTION, mental health, motherhood, netgalley, no quotations marks, Poverty, pregnancy, published in 2020, queer, read in 2020, sapphic, SEXUALITY, SOCIAL COMMENTARY, social issues, The Pull of the Stars, tragedy, trauma, war, war related ptsd, wwi -
Frost In May by Antonia White — book review
“Do you know that no character is any good in this world unless that will has been broken completely? Broken and re-set in God’s own way. I don’t think your will has been quite broken, my dear child, do you?” After converting to Catholicism, nine year old Nanda Gray is sent by her father to…
1910s, 20th century, 3rd pov, 4 STARS, academia, all girls school, Antonia White, beautiful prose, boarding/private school, British author, british classics, catholicism, CHILDHOOD, CLASSICS, coming of age, convent, england, female authors, female friendships, friendships, Frost in May, growing up, HISTORICAL FICTION, identity, LITERARY FICTION, nuns, published in 1933, read in 2020, Religion -
Maurice by E.M. Forster — book review
“No tradition overawed the boys. No convention settled what was poetic, what absurd. They were concerned with a passion that few English minds have admitted, and so created untrammelled. Something of exquisite beauty arose in the mind of each at last, something unforgettable and eternal, but built of the humblest scraps of speech and from…
1900s, 1910s, 20th century, 3.5 STARS, 3rd pov, academia, bad love, bildungsroman, BOOK REVIEW, Booklr, British author, british classics, Cambridge, campus, class, CLASSICS, coming of age, E.M. Forster, Edwardian era, england, first love, Forster, Greece, greek myths, HISTORICAL FICTION, lgbtq+, LGBTQ+ Author, lgbtq+ classics, LONDON, Longing, m/m, male authors, masculinity, Maurice, morality, philosophical, published in 1971, queer, read in 2020, ROMANCE, SEXUALITY, SOCIAL COMMENTARY, Southampton, UNIVERSITY/COLLEGE, unrequited love -
The Custom of the Country by Edith Wharton — book review
Step aside, Becky Sharp. Move over, Scarlett O’Hara…make way for Undine Spragg, the most unscrupulous anti-heroine I have ever encountered. “[S]he could not conceive that any one could tire of her of whom she had not first tired.” Wharton once again focuses her narrative on a young woman’s unrelenting attempts at social climbing. While Wharton…
1910s, 20th century, 3rd pov, 4 STARS, affairs, America, American, AMERICAN AUTHOR, american classics, aristocracy, bad love, beautiful prose, BOOK REVIEW, Booklr, BOOKWORM, class, CLASSICS, Edith Wharton, favourite authors, FRANCE, HISTORICAL FICTION, Italy, LITERARY FICTION, MARRIAGE, NEW YORK, PRIVILEGE, psychological, published in 1913, READ IN 2019, SOCIAL COMMENTARY, The Custom of the Country, travel
luce [is reading] 