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Midnight at Malabar House by Vaseem Khan
Midnight at Malabar House presents its readers with a fairly promising start to a new sleuthing series. As you may or may not know I am a big fan of whodunnits and golden detective fiction and ever since finishing Miss Fisher’s Murder Mysteries I have been on the lookout for a historical mystery with a…
1940s, 1950s, 20th century, 3.25 stars, 3rd pov, BOOK REVIEW, BOOK REVIEWS, Booklr, British author, colonialism, CRIME, DETECTIVE, HISTORICAL FICTION, India, male authors, Midnight at Malabar House, MURDER, My reviews, MYSTERY, police investigation, published in 2020, read in 2022, reading, Vaseem Khan, whodunnit -
Devil in a Blue Dress by Walter Mosley
that sex scene was 💀 Having enjoyed two of Mosley’s latest novels (Trouble Is What I Do and Blood Grove) I was looking forward to delving into his earlier work. Devil in a Blue Dress is the first book in his Easy Rawlins series and, while it has many of Mosley’s best traits, overall it…
1940s, 1st pov, 3 STARS, Adult, America, American, AMERICAN AUTHOR, Black & Black heritage authors, BOOK REVIEW, BOOK REVIEWS, Booklr, California, CRIME, DETECTIVE, Devil in a Blue Dress, Easy Rawlins, HISTORICAL FICTION, los angeles, male authors, missing persons, missing women, My reviews, MYSTERY, Noir, private investigator, published in 1990, RACE, read in 2021, reading, THRILLER, Walter Mosley -
An Artist of the Floating World by Kazuo Ishiguro
Compared to Ishiguro’s other works An Artist of the Floating World is somewhat slight, both in terms of characterisation and plot. As with other novels by Ishiguro we have a narrator reminiscing about their past, attention is paid to the act of recollecting, and the unreliability of one’s memory. Set in post-World War II Japan…
1940s, 1950s, 1st pov, 20th century, 3 STARS, ART/CREATIVITY, ARTISTS, BOOK REVIEW, BOOK REVIEWS, British Japanese author, favourite authors, HISTORICAL FICTION, japan, Kazuo Ishiguro, LITERARY FICTION, male authors, MEMORY, morality, My reviews, published in 1986, read in 2021, reading, unreliable narrators, WWII -
Build Your House Around My Body by Violet Kupersmith
As per usual I was swayed by a pretty cover. I mean, just look at it! Anyway, as much as I wanted to like Build Your House Around My Body, it left me feeling rather underwhelmed. The narrative seems very much intent—hellbent even—on nauseating its readers, at times adopting a playful tone to do so.…
1940s, 1980s, 2.5 STARS, 2000s, 2010s, 3rd pov, arc, Build Your House Around My Body, confusing for the sake of being confusing, creepy setting, curses, dark humor, DEATH, f/f side, female authors, FOLKLORE, ghosts/spirits, grotesque, HISTORICAL FICTION, HORROR, interconnected stories, lgbtq+ side, loneliness, love triangle, missing persons, missing women, MYSTERY, netgalley, playful style, published in 2021, queer side characters, read in 2021, revenge, sexual assault/abuse/rape, Vietnam, vietnam war, Vietnamese American Author, Violet Kupersmith -
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 -
The Kitchen God’s Wife by Amy Tan
For a book published in the 90s The Kitchen God’s Wife comes across as strangely outdated. And I guess in spite of Tan’s writing—which is far from mediocre or incompetent—I could not look past the fact that her story was the antithesis of female solidarity. At first I was taken by Tan’s storytelling. The first…
1930S, 1940s, 1990s, 1st pov, 2 STARS, 20th century, ABUSIVE RELATIONSHIPS, Adult, America, Amy Tan, China, chinese american author, class, drama, HISTORICAL FICTION, horrible friends, MARRIAGE, MELODRAMA, MEMORY, mothers & daughters, published in 1991, read in 2020, sexual assault/abuse/rape, Sino-Japanese War, story within a story, The Kitchen God's Wife, war -
A Kind of Freedom by Margaret Wilkerson Sexton
“That was the thing about people on the outside. They thought it cheered him up to see their faces, but it just reminded him too much of freedom when everybody knew it was better to adjust to the kind of freedom available on the inside.” Heartbreaking yet luminous A Kind of Freedom is a truly…
1940s, 1980s, 2010s, 20th century, 4 STARS, A Kind of Freedom, addiction, Adult, America, American, AMERICAN AUTHOR, Black & Black heritage authors, cheating, Contemporary, family, FAMILY SAGA, fatherhood, female authors, HISTORICAL FICTION, LITERARY FICTION, Margaret Wilkerson Sexton, MARRIAGE, motherhood, New Orleans, prison, PUBLISHED IN 2017, RACE, read in 2020, SISTERS, social issues, war, WWII -
The Travelers by Regina Porter
The cast of characters and locations at the start of Regina Porter’s The Travelers is a tiny bit daunting as they promise to cover a far wider scope than your usual family saga. The Travelers explores the lives of characters who are either related, sometimes distantly, or connected in less obvious ways. Porter’s switches between…
1940s, 1950s, 1960s, 1970s, 1980s, 1990s, 2000s, 2010s, 20th century, 4 STARS, abuse, ABUSIVE RELATIONSHIPS, Adult, America, American, AMERICAN AUTHOR, Berlin, Brittany, CHILDHOOD, class, Contemporary, different styles (1st/2nd/3rd povs), f/f side, family, FAMILY SAGA, female authors, FRANCE, friendships, georgia, Germany, HISTORICAL FICTION, identity, interconnected stories, intergenerational, lesbian side characters, lgbtq+ side, LITERARY FICTION, MARRIAGE, MEMORY, new hampshire, NEW YORK, published in 2019, queer, RACE, rape, read in 2020, Regina Porter, sexual assault/abuse/rape, SOCIAL COMMENTARY, social issues, tennessee, terrific prose, The Travelers, travel, unrequited love, Vietnam, vietnam war, violence against women, war, war related ptsd, WWII -
The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison
The Bluest Eye is an unflinching and deeply harrowing examination of race, colorism, gender, and trauma. Throughout the course of her narrative Toni Morrison captures with painful lucidity the damage inflicted on a black child by a society that equates whiteness with beauty and goodness, and blackness with ugliness and evil.In her introduction to her…
1940s, 20th century, 4 STARS, abuse, ABUSIVE RELATIONSHIPS, Adult, ALIENATION, all of the trigger warnings, America, American, AMERICAN AUTHOR, Black & Black heritage authors, child abuse, CHILDHOOD, CLASSICS, different styles (1st/2nd/3rd povs), family, female authors, female doubles, HISTORICAL FICTION, illness, incest, LITERARY FICTION, MARRIAGE, mental health, modern classics, ohio, Pedophelia, Poverty, psychological, published in 1970, RACE, read in 2020, sexual assault/abuse/rape, SMALL TOWN, SOCIAL COMMENTARY, social issues, terrific prose, The Bluest Eye, TONI MORRISON, tragedy, trauma -
The Setting Sun by Osamu Dazai
In The Setting Sun Osamu Dazai captures a nation in transition. Set during the early postwar years Japan this novella is centred on an aristocratic family fallen on hard times. Kazuko, our narrator, and her fragile mother who are forced to move to the countryside and give up their family home. Gentile Kazuko has no…
1940s, 1st pov, 20th century, 3 STARS, ALIENATION, aristocracy, books about writers, class, CLASSICS, cultural dissonance, existentialism, family, japan, JAPANESE AUTHOR, japanese classics, male authors, modern classics, NOVELLA/SHORT STORY, Osamu Dazai, philosophical, published in 1947, read in 2020, siblings, suicide, The Setting Sun, TRANSLATED FICTION, war, WWII
luce [is reading] 