Browsed by
Author: Josie

Plain Bad Heroines by emily m. danforth

Plain Bad Heroines by emily m. danforth

Comments 0 comment

Plain Bad Heroines by emily m. danforth is a mishmash of different genres: we’ve got supernatural horror, historical fiction, queer romance and a modern riff on fame and the movie industry. Plain Bad Heroines is also meta-fiction as it is about a book that sets off a chain of events in the past that are written about in a book in the present that is being turned into a movie. I can see why people would be drawn to this novel, because it does sound interesting on the face of it, but I would have liked it better if I had not been so annoyed by the narrative voice employed by the author and if it did not have such an abrupt ending.

…

Read More Read More

Normal People by Sally Rooney

Normal People by Sally Rooney

Comments 0 comment

Sally Rooney’s Normal People is a novel that has been buzzed about since it came out in 2018, and then there is the TV miniseries that aired in 2020 that, again, people seem to not be able to stop talking about. I came across Normal People the novel while I was browsing books to buy on Bookoutlet.ca and decided to give it a read, but I tempered my expectations because I find that heavily hyped books usually do not turn out as good as I hope. With Normal People, though, I was surprised to find myself totally engrossed by it. It is an interesting story about two flawed characters with emotional and behaviour issues. These characters often wish they were “normal people”, but Normal People has me ruminating on the concept of the “normal person”. Is there even such a thing? We all have our issues, which we mostly keep hidden from other people, so maybe we all are “normal people”?

…

Read More Read More

This Savage Song by Victoria Schwab

This Savage Song by Victoria Schwab

Comments 0 comment

Victoria Schwab (or V.E. Schwab) is a popular writer of supernatural and fantastical YA fiction. I read her Shades of Magic trilogy a few years ago because it was well received, but I was not particularly impressed by it and thought it was just okay. And then I read The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue, which leans more into adult fiction, and I absolutely loved it. This made me decide to give Schwab’s other books another try, and so I read This Savage Song. Like the Shades of Magic trilogy, I thought This Savage Song was just okay. I think I need to move on from reading YA supernatural fiction.

…

Read More Read More

Bewilderment by Richard Powers

Bewilderment by Richard Powers

Comments 0 comment

Bewilderment is a novel that I think everyone should read, but I know they will not. For some people, it may seem like a strange book, but it tackles important subject matters, such as raising a child on the autism spectrum, raising a sensitive child who is very much aware of the problems with our world, climate change, mass extinction of animals, the erosion of democracy, and our bewilderment in the face of all this. It would seem like Richard Powers is prophesizing our future in Bewilderment, if it were not for the fact that what he writes about is very much happening right now.

…

Read More Read More

Family Trust by Kathy Wang

Family Trust by Kathy Wang

Comments 0 comment

If you have read and liked Crazy Rich Asians by Kevin Kwan, then you may like Kathy Wang’s Family Trust. I have read Crazy Rich Asians and I thought it was just okay. I really wanted to like Family Trust because it sounds like an interesting novel, but I thought it was also just okay (I guess I should not be surprised). My biggest problem with Family Trust is that nearly every single character, except maybe one, is not likeable and therefore I did not enjoy reading about them (the quote on the cover is a lie; this book was not a joy to read from start to finish).

…

Read More Read More

Empire of Pain: The Secret History of the Sackler Dynasty by Patrick Radden Keefe

Empire of Pain: The Secret History of the Sackler Dynasty by Patrick Radden Keefe

Comments 0 comment

If you have not seen it yet, I highly recommend you watch the TV miniseries Dopesick. It is about the opioid crisis in the US and how it was started by one family, the Sackler family, the owners of Purdue Pharma which is the maker of Oxycontin. Dopesick the TV show is based on Dopesick the book by Beth Macy. I decided to read Patrick Radden Keefe’s book Empire of Pain instead because it came out just last year and has been well received, and its focus is on the Sackler family rather than the opioid crisis in general. I was curious to know what has made the Sackler family so ruthlessly greedy that they do not care at all that they have caused the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people in the US alone since Oxycontin was introduced in 1996.

…

Read More Read More

My Top Five Reads of 2021

My Top Five Reads of 2021

Comments 0 comment

I cannot believe that 2021 is already over, and that 2021 turned out to be just as bad, if not worse, than 2020. But at least I got to read some great books last year. These are my top five books of 2021:

5. The Rose Code by Kate Quinn – another riveting WWII mystery by Quinn. I really enjoyed this one!

4. Matrix by Lauren Groff – completely not what I was expecting from Groff, but this novel was mesmerizing.

3. Cloud Cuckoo Land by Anthony Doerr – fantastic novel with three intersecting timelines, this one will be a reread.

2. Klara and the Sun by Kazuo Ishiguro – I will never forget Klara’s story. The world does not deserve her.

And number 1 is…

Fight Night by Miriam Toews! I cannot believe how much I enjoyed reading this novel. I actually laughed out loud, which does not happen that often when I read. Toews is a great writer!

There are reviews for all five of these books on my blog. Hope I have inspired you to read some of them!

Everyone Knows Your Mother Is a Witch by Rivka Galchen

Everyone Knows Your Mother Is a Witch by Rivka Galchen

Comments 0 comment

The last book of 2021! I was pleasantly surprised by Rivka Galchen’s Everyone Knows Your Mother Is a Witch, so I am glad to finish up the year with a good book. Everyone Knows Your Mother Is a Witch is based on the real-life Katharina Kepler, mother of famed Imperial Mathematician Johannes Kepler, who was accused of being a witch in early 17th century Germany.

…

Read More Read More

The Light of Days by Judy Batalion

The Light of Days by Judy Batalion

Comments 0 comment

It took me a long time (yes, two weeks is a long time for me) to finish reading The Light of Days for two reasons:

  1. I have been very tired this December. I do most of my reading before bedtime, and lately I have barely made it through one chapter before I fall asleep on the couch with the cats.
  2. This book can, at times, be difficult to read. There are some passages in this book that depict the most inhumane, depraved human behaviour I have ever heard about, that it was nauseating for me to read. I almost did not finish reading The Light of Days because of this.
…

Read More Read More

Infinite Country by Patricia Engel

Infinite Country by Patricia Engel

Comments 0 comment

Infinite Country is a heartbreaking portrait of living undocumented in the US and of a family living in separate countries. The novel tells the story of 15-year-old American-born Talia, who has been raised by her abuela and her father, Mauro, in Colombia, and who must escape from a correctional facility so that she can fly to the US to be reunited with her mother, Elena, and her older siblings, Karina and Nando. Infinite Country also tells the story of how Talia’s parents ended up in the US, why her mother and siblings are still there, and why Mauro and Talia are on their own in Colombia. It explores why people immigrate to the US and how (white) Americans are so callous in their treatment of immigrants.

…

Read More Read More