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Caucasia by Danzy Senna
“It’s funny. When you leave your home and wander really far, you always think, ‘I want to go home.’ But then you come home, and of course it’s not the same. You can’t live with it, you can’t live away from it. And it seems like from then on there’s always this yearning for some…
1970s, 1980s, 1st pov, 5 STARS, ABSOLUTE FAVOURITE, activism, Adult, ALIENATION, ambivalent mood, America, American, AMERICAN AUTHOR, atmospheric, beautiful prose, belonging, bildungsroman, Black & Black heritage authors, Booklr, BOSTON, bullying, California, CHILDHOOD, class, coming of age, Danzy Senna, desire, divorce/separations, elementary school, family, favourite authors, female authors, gay side characters, girlhood, growing up, HISTORICAL FICTION, i don’t think happiness is for me, identity, introspective, it’s about the *yearning*, lesbian side characters, lgbtq+, LITERARY FICTION, loneliness, Longing, Massachusetts, middle school, mothers & daughters, new hampshire, otherness, paranoia, passing, PRIVILEGE, psychological, published in 1998, queer side characters, queer subtext, queer undercurrents, RACE, re-reads, read in 2021, read in 2022, read in 2023, road trip, school setting, SEXUALITY, SISTERS, SOCIAL COMMENTARY, social issues, strong sense of place, the body, the female malaise, toxic relationships, YOUNG ADULT -
Colorful by Eto Mori
First published in 1998 Colorful is narrated by an unknown soul who is given a second chance at life. He will occupy the body of fourteen-year-old Makoto Kobayashi who has attempted suicide and during this ‘homestay’ our narrator has to remember the big mistake he made in his previous life. At times ‘Makoto’ is aided…
1990s, 1st pov, 3 STARS, afterlife, angels, BOOK REVIEW, BOOK REVIEWS, Booklr, bullying, Colorful, Contemporary, DEPRESSION, drama, Eto Mori, FANTASY, female authors, japan, JAPANESE AUTHOR, light reads, loneliness, middle school, My reviews, published in 1998, read in 2021, reading, suicide, TRANSLATED FICTION -
Daughter of Fortune by Isabel Allende
For a work that was first published in 1998 Daughter of Fortune strikes me as something more suited to the 1970s. Don’t get me wrong, I love Isabel Allende’s work and she is one of my favourite authors, however, at the risk of coming across as an oversensitive zillennial, her mystification of China struck me…
1830s, 1840s, 1850s, 3 STARS, 3rd pov, ADOPTION, Adult, adventure, America, California, chile, Chilean American author, China, class, daughter of fortune, doctors, drama, FAMILY SAGA, favourite authors, female authors, GRIEF, heavy on telling, HISTORICAL FICTION, ISABEL ALLENDE, latin america, latin american, latinx author, MAGICAL REALISM, MARRIAGE, MELODRAMA, miscarriage, orphans, pregnancy, problematic, prostitution, published in 1998, road trip, ship, slow pacing, survival, TRANSLATED FICTION, travel, unrequited love, voyage -
Ex Libris: Confessions of a Common Reader by Anne Fadiman
“Books wrote our life story, and as they accumulated on our shelves (and on our windowsills, arid underneath our sofa, and on. top of our refrigerator), they became chapters in it themselves. How could it be otherwise?” Ex Libris: Confessions of a Common Reader is a delightful and uplifting ode to bibliophiles. Anne Fadiman’s collection…
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The Chimney Sweeper’s Boy by Barbara Vine
“I want to be in love. I want to be possessed and obsessed by it, I want the sky to change colour and the sun to shine all the time. I want to long for the phone to ring and pace the room when it doesn’t. I want to be breathless at the sound of…
1940s, 1950s, 1960s, 1970s, 1980s, 1990s, 20th century, 3rd pov, 5 STARS, Adult, Barbara Vine, books about books, books about writers, British author, domestic thriller, england, family, GENDER, GRIEF, LITERARY FICTION, literary references, MARRIAGE, MYSTERY, psychological, published in 1998, read in 2018, Ruth Rendell, SISTERS, SUSPENSE, The Chimney Sweeper’s Boy
luce [is reading] 