Tag: Literature

Housekeeping by Marilynne Robinson

This book was haunting in a different way than I usually use the word. In general, I’ve found that I use it when I mean poignant and memorable, but in this case, there’s an actual tinge of fear in my description. I’m not sure if that’s just an intensely personal reaction, but Ruth’s description of …

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2015/09/19/housekeeping-by-marilynne-robinson/

This One Is Mine by Maria Semple

After the wise and charming Where’d You Go Bernadette? I really wanted to delve into this author’s back catalog and be as similarly enthralled. Alas, Maria Semple’s debut novel This One Is Mine lacks the wit of WYGB, instead drawing on a cast of unlikeable characters who spend most of the book being mean or …

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2015/09/11/this-one-is-mine-by-maria-semple/

To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee

I gained an incredible amount of depth and nuance from re-reading this book as a minority member of American society with African-American friends and neighbors and co-workers, with firsthand experience now of their culture and struggles, as opposed to my first encounter with To Kill A Mockingbird when I was a 13 year-old member of …

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2015/08/31/to-kill-a-mockingbird-by-harper-lee/

Lila by Marilynne Robinson

It is so very difficult for me to review Marilynne Robinson’s works, because I always feel like my own prose is inadequate to describing hers. I cried a lot reading Lila, because I understand what it feels like to fall in love with someone even when you don’t trust love or people or existence, when …

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2015/08/23/lila-by-marilynne-robinson/

Big Little Lies by Liane Moriarty

This was over 400 pages, really? It was a total breeze to go through: entertaining without sacrificing meaning, hilarious and suspenseful by turn. I was completely in love with Madeline throughout, even tho she and I differ in one important respect: she adores conflict, but I too often find myself dragged unwillingly into it. I …

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2015/08/16/big-little-lies-by-liane-moriarty/

The Penguin Complete Novels Of George Orwell by George Orwell

Realized after I posted my last review that I hadn’t posted this one of a book I’d read earlier. Apologies. I briefly consider each book in the compendium below: Animal Farm — It’s weird to think that I’ve lived this long, as voracious a reader as I am, and still have never read this slender …

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2015/07/24/the-penguin-complete-novels-of-george-orwell-by-george-orwell/

Good Things I Wish You by A. Manette Ansay

So I’ve long been fascinated by the relationship between Clara Schumann and Johannes Brahms (due to Personal Issues,) but my greatest takeaway from this novel is, in the end, who can explain these things? I’m not sure if that was A. Manette Ansay’s point (and if it was, I completely missed it) but I felt …

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2015/07/04/good-things-i-wish-you-by-a-manette-ansay/

How To Be Both by Ali Smith

So I got the Eye/Camera version, and I’m probably in the minority of people who found Francesco’s side more compelling than George’s, if only because it felt like a whole arc, unlike George’s half, which just sorta ended. But I’ve never been a fan of the grief narrative, as evidenced by my disdain for the …

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2015/07/04/how-to-be-both-by-ali-smith/

Crazy Horse’s Girlfriend by Erika T. Wurth

Margaritte is a 16-year old girl of mixed heritage – Apache, Chickasaw, Cherokee, and white. She lives in the underprivileged town of Idaho Springs, Colorado, and deals with an alcoholic father and an ineffectual mother in addition to the pressures of trying to avoid becoming a statistic. The author speaks with an authentic voice that …

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2015/01/22/crazy-horses-girlfriend-by-erika-t-wurth/

Mud Vein by Tarryn Fisher

I gave this book 5 stars on Goodreads because I got so caught up in it. On the surface it’s a puzzle/mystery kind of story. A female author named Senna Richards wakes up on her 33rd birthday to find herself trapped in a strange house with an emergency room doctor who once treated her and …

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2015/01/17/mud-vein-by-tarryn-fisher/