NetGalley Reviews
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I was quite disappointed in this book. I love sharks, I think they are beautiful and fascinating creatures. I doubt we will ever fully understand their behaviors, so when a book like this comes along I am interested to see what has been learned. This book doesn’t really offer any insight. It reads like someone…
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I absolutely loved Thanh Dinh’s “The Smallest God Who Ever Lived,” so I was very excited to read “Salt & Ashes.” Unfortunately, this book didn’t resonate with me the way “Smallest God” did. I will not say I didn’t like “Salt & Ashes,” there were some beautiful lines and truly moving thoughts. One line I…
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Emily Hauser’s brilliant book “Penelope’s Bones” has a place of note on the shelf beside my copies of Natalie Haynes’ “Pandora’s Jar” and Divine Might.” Hauser has presented her readers with a detailed study of figures from Homer’s works that hover in the background of his heroes’ lives: the women of legend. The women not…
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As a writer and book lover, I was very excited to read Emily Hodgson Anderson’s “Shadow Work: Loneliness and the Literary Life.” While I thought this book was very good and definitely worth reading–especially for writers–I didn’t love it. Some sections failed to hold my interest; however, other sections had me pausing, considering, rereading, and…
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Jane Eyre is my absolute favorite book. I admire the work of all of the Brontes, and I often wonder what else they might have produced had they not died so young. This book is packed with information, some of it new to me and presented from a viewpoint I hadn’t considered previously. The only…
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Poetry is an art form that is personal to both the writer and the reader; each has their own interpretation of the words and thoughts that are written. As a poet, I understand that readers may not necessarily relate to my words in the same manner that I do. That being said, I believe that…
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Gruesome as it may sound, I love the Borden mystery (and I wholly believe that Lizzie did, in fact, murder her father and stepmother.) I was really looking forward to this book; unfortunately it didn’t really convey any emotion or suspense. The writing is very stilted, and the characters very flat. I have no doubt…
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Jen Schneider’s On (Pantry) Stock & (Kitchen) Timers is a unique collection of a stream-of-consciousness essays and poems that you wouldn’t think would work but does in an enchanting, eye-catching, made-you-look kind of way. Schneider’s words are a collage of thought that walks readers through a maze of sensation/emotion/confusion/questing. This collection deserves a re-read to…
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Foreign Fruit by Katie Goh is an outstanding book. I was expecting a microhistory about oranges, or citrus fruit as a whole; I was not expecting an incredibly well-researched social history about culture, society, belonging, searching for one’s place in the world, biases, acceptance, food cultivation, and environmentalism (among other topics). Goh’s book takes readers…
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Murder Ballads by Katy Horan is a treat for fans of Dark Folklore and Gothic themes (that’s a gruesome way to begin a review, isn’t it?). I was already familiar with “The Death of Queen Jane” and “The Twa Swans” thanks to Loreena McKennitt. Horan included a list of recordings, so readers can immerse themselves…
This is the Mask: A Book Blog 