Category Archives: Book Review

Review- Mischling

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Mi41c0ib7y4l-_sy344_bo1204203200_schling by Affinity Konar

5/5 stars

“We don’t always know ourselves, who we can become, what we may do, after evil has done what it likes with us.”

Pearl and Stasha are twins, connected by their minds and able to feel each other’s emotions. They are very similar, but Stasha constantly wishes that she was Pearl. She tries her best to be exactly like her sister in hopes that, one day, maybe she will just become Pearl herself. They both realize that one twin wouldn’t be herself without the other. Pearl and Stasha are taken away to Auschwitz and separated from their mother and grandfather. They are placed in special bunks filled with other pairs of twins and ‘anomalies’. The girls become part of an evil doctor’s experiment, one that tests their ability to stay connected even when they’re far apart. How much can one twin be altered in order for her to stay identical to her sister?

As soon as this book hit the NYT Best Sellers List, I knew I had to get myself a copy as soon as possible. I hadn’t read a book about the holocaust since I studied WW2 in high school a few years ago, so this felt like a very new subject. Affinity Konar absolutely blew me away. Pearl and Stasha were so naïve; it was painful to recognize the horrible situation they were in but not be able to tell them. “Do not trust this doctor that is trying to win you over! He is trying to hurt you!” I wish I could have screamed this to them through the pages of this book. I wish I could have done something instead of helplessly reading about a group of medical professionals lie, manipulate, and experiment on them. Reading Mischling broke my heart.

I will never forget how much love I read in the 338 pages of Mischling, despite all of the sadness and horror surrounding the twins. Pearl and Stasha survive off of their tremendous love for each other, their parents, and grandfather. It keeps them going. Pearl and Stasha tell each other that, as long as they can envision their mother’s paintings, she is still alive and rooting for them. It is beautiful to realize that children can find strength, even through the darkest times, in love.

I did a little bit of reading on Josef Mengele, the twins’ doctor, after I finished Mischling. I don’t even know how to voice my thoughts on such horrible actions this man performed on real, living people. I commend Affinity Konar for this phenomenal book on such a dark subject.

Mischling was amazing. I want to gift this book to a few people for the holidays because it’s just that good. Pearl and Stasha’s story may not be for the light of heart, but I do think everyone should read it at one point in their lives.

Review- Graveyard Quest

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Graveyard Quest by KC Green

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5/5 stars

I received my copy of Graveyard Quest through the Paper Street Books monthly subscription box! I highly recommend it, as my October/November box had so many awesome spooky gifts.

The protagonist of this graphic novel is a gravedigger—he’s the owner of a family business that his late father passed down to him. Unfortunately, the gravedigger’s father will not leave him alone, even in spirit form, and subjects him to frequent visits and negative speeches. The gravedigger’s only solace is his mother’s bones. He talks to her skeleton every day and finds comfort in telling her all about his thoughts and mishaps. One day, the bones are gone and the gravedigger knows he must journey into Hell to get them back from his father, a man who seemingly gets all of his pleasure from making his life miserable. The gravedigger meets a lot of interesting creatures in the underworld, some who want to stop him and some who depend on him. Those bones are the only things that the gravedigger truly cherishes in his gloomy life, so he knows he must retrieve them.

WOW, I loved this graphic novel. It was easy to get through, but full of hidden treasures. The gravedigger meets many different types of people, animals, demons (?) and many of them were really cute.The illustrations were so fun and made the story even more enjoyable. I especially loved the mole, who helps the gravedigger along the way with his extraordinary sense of smell. Now that I think about it, I actually would like a retelling of the story in the mole’s POV…

My favorite part of the graphic novel is a section that shows the gravedigger on a boat with a hooded tour guide. I have a condition where anytime someone is going across a body of water with another person giving directions, I HAVE to point out the Dante reference. This time, finally, I wasn’t being unrealistic. The Dante reference is clear, as the gravedigger is literally being lead across a river to Hell. If you can’t tell, I really, really like Dante’s Inferno.

The entire storyline of this graphic novel was amazing. The beginning was just enough information to create a mysterious journey and KC Green reveals a little bit more about the gravedigger with each page. I thought the plot was wholesome and the ending made me very happy. I’m a huge fan of the gravedigger and the mole (he’s so cute, I can’t get over it)! I wish there were more volumes of their adventures.

This was a perfect Halloween read. I’m so glad that this book found its way into my hands and I would recommend it to anyone looking for a cute but spooky themed adventure!

Review- Suck Less: Where There’s a Willam, There’s a Way

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Suck Less: Where There’s a Willam, There’s a Way by Willam Belli

61lerla1nal5/5 stars

Willam is an amazing performer that I’ve had the pleasure of meeting a couple of times. He is a drag queen, actor, singer, and songwriter that has been in multiple different TV shows (reality, crime, etc)—just check out his IMDb page. He is known for his quick wit (although in the book, he admits that he’s just a dickhead and people think he’s joking), along with his top-notch drag technique that has been shown again and again on TV, VMA performances, and music videos. Willam has always been a fun person to speak with and I was so excited when I heard he was releasing a book.

In Suck Less, Willam gives tips on how to suck less at various things that he is good at. The sections range from everything between stripping to having a nice home to insulting someone effectively. He also includes a dragtionary that explains all of the drag lingo he uses throughout the book. The pages are filled with high quality photos of Willam as well, some of these demonstrating things like tucking and hair techniques.

Willam gives a lot of valuable advice in the 221 pages of Suck Less. For example, there’s a section about how to suck less at leaving the house. He says, “I always have a garbage bag with me in case someone I meet is ugly. It’s also good for when the weather is iffy and you don’t wanna tote around an umbrella”. It’s humor like this that has made Willam one of the most loved mainstream drag performers. On a more serious note, he gives some really cool tips about things like acne—I had no idea that using a pierced Advil Liqui-gel could make pimples disappear.

I love Willam’s writing because I could hear him reading it in his own voice. If you’ve ever heard him talk, even just one sentence, you’ll know what I mean when I say his voice is very unique. It was so much fun to hear Willam’s tone so well that it felt like he was actually saying all of these tips to me directly. Even if you don’t know much about Willam or gay culture in general, this is a really great book to get advice from a drag queen. ‘Cause, you know, drag queens do most things the best anyway.

I anticipated this book to be 5 stars, and it certainly was. Willam’s fans know to only expect the best of the best from him, and Suck Less lives up to that. I’m excited to see where Willam’s career takes him next because he truly seems capable of bringing his persona to all forms of art.

Review- A Gentleman in Moscow

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A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles

 51g6aenhgpl5/5 stars (I wish I could give it more)

Count Alexander Rostov is sentenced to spend the rest of his life in the Metropol hotel. If he sets a foot outside of the building, the government has the right to kill him. That being said, the count still finds ways to make his life interesting. He develops great friendships at his new job as a restaurant server and spends a lot of his time just observing the hotel crowds. The count also meets a 9 year old girl, Nina, who changes his life in ways he never imagined. This curious explorer takes the count on adventures in the halls of the hotel and they find hidden spots using Nina’s stolen key. During his years in the Metropol, the count meets countless individuals who become very special to him, but perhaps Nina is the most special of them all.

This book blew me away. The last time I read a novel that hit me this deep was All the Light We Cannot See. This book changed me. It changed the way I think about life and the motto “everything happens for a reason”. Before A Gentleman in Moscow, I was unsure about this saying, but now I find peace in it. I wish I could call Towles and personally thank him for writing such a powerful story.

The writing in this book is absolutely phenomenal– it’s beautifully concise. I want to say it’s almost magical, like it puts you under a spell that lingers even after you’ve finished the book. This makes the characters very appealing and alive. I feel like I’ve been with the count through every phase of his life and the whole time I was right there in his hotel room next to him. It’s incredible to feel like you gained a friend (or many friends in this case) just by turning a couple hundred pages in a book.

Last year, I read a lot of bestsellers. Most of them were great aside from the endings that left me feeling like something was missing. A Gentleman in Moscow is not one of those books. I almost grew accustomed to novel endings that let me down and I was pleasantly surprised with this book. Again, I wish I could call Towles up and thank him for this.

As a little bonus “huzzah” for me, A Gentleman in Moscow has a lot of classical references. From Achilles to Odysseus to Anna Karenina, it somehow covers all of my favorite books. Someday maybe I’ll go back through the story and discover all of those hidden pleasures again.

I have nothing negative to say about this book. I would recommend it to any adult, readers and nonreaders alike. I expect this book to remain on the bestsellers list for a long time, as it deserves its spot. I can’t wait for more people to discover the count’s life and fall in love with it just like I did.

Review- High Couch of Silistra by Janet Morris

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High Couch of Silistra by Janet Morris

imgresRating: 4/5 stars

-I would like to give a big thank you to Perseid Press for the paperback copy of this book!-

The men and women living on Silistra are governed by a hierarchy of sexual desire and fertility. Infertility is a widespread issue that allows the most sexually appealing women the greatest power. Estri is among the most powerful in the land—she holds the position of the high couch of Silistra. Estri’s mother died during childbirth and she has yet to know much about her father. She is sent on a quest to find her father and discover the secrets that his kind may hold.

In my opinion, this should be a classic science fiction book, especially for those who love female protagonists. Estri is a strong woman who leads with her body and her wit. She was really fun to join on this adventure across strange lands. I thought she was by far the most interesting character in the book, so I naturally paid a lot of attention to her and was left wanting more. I love strong-minded (and, in this case, bodied) women who don’t take any bs from men to whom they don’t owe anything. Go Estri!

I also thought it was cool to hear about the customs of these different societies that Morris so brilliantly created. Estri visits a few places that each have their own customs. I’m not sure how Morris made them so unique, but she found a way to make them all intriguing.

When I got to some of the first sexual scenes, I was a bit confused. I was thinking that Estri was submitting to men as a way of giving up. I soon realized that I was thinking in the mind of someone from our world, not Silistra’s. In actuality, Estri was pleasing these men as an act of power and domination. Switching into this mindset was very freeing.

I was searching for a good science fiction read, and I definitely found it. High Couch of Silistra is full of new cultures and creatures to study. I can’t stop thinking about how I really want to meet a hulion, a big cat with wings and a mane. I definitely want to read more of The Silistra quartet and follow Estri on more adventures. If you’re a science fiction lover (especially with a passion for female protagonists), you’ll love this book.

Review- How to Talk to Girls at Parties

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How to Talk to Girls at Parties by Neil Gaiman

26372 Rating: 5/5 stars

 Let me start off by saying this is the best book I’ve read in September 2016 and the best graphic novel I’ve ever gotten my hands on. I already knew that Gaiman was a genius, but this still blew me away. I am making this my October staff pick at the book store I work at, as I want to share it with everyone who will possibly listen.

Enn is a teenage boy still learning what life is like after puberty. His friend, Vic, is the same age as him, but does not struggle with this awkward stage nearly as badly as Enn. The duo decides to attend a party (that they weren’t really invited to) and Vic is immediately away from Enn’s side and talking to the prettiest girl in the room. Enn envies Vic, but doesn’t have the same courage to really say anything of substance to a girl—he can barely get a few words out. As Enn wanders from room to room in this giant house, he discovers that not everyone at the party is very…normal.

This graphic novel is very short, but in my opinion it was the perfect length to get the story across without over explaining anything. The writing is absolutely beautiful and the illustration is breathtaking. There are a lot of otherworldly girls in this novel, and the illustrators depicted them as true goddesses. I wish these feminine creatures were real solely so I could see actual photographs of them. I think that means this is truly well done artwork.

Neil Gaiman certainly has a creative mind. I have read 5 of his books and each one is brilliant in its own way. I don’t think I’ve heard of anything quite like How to Talk to Girl at Parties and I don’t think I want to read anything like it ever again; it wouldn’t measure up. I wish I could follow Enn on more adventures, but perhaps being left wanting more is better.

I would recommend this book to any adult looking for shorter read. You don’t need to be a graphic novel enthusiast to fall in love with this book. It definitely is a cover grab too, as the illustrations on the hard cover will make anyone want to get their hands on it. I can’t wait to read more Gaiman graphic novels (I’m looking at Sandman Vol. 1 next).

Review- The Invisible Life of Ivan Isaenko

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The Invisible Life of Ivan Isaenko by Scott Stambach

 Rating: 4/5 stars

28221009 “’I think the monsters are already in you’.

‘How do I kill the monsters?’

‘I don’t think you need to kill them.’

‘Then what?’

‘I think you invite them. And let them stay. And learn to live with them. Then when you die, they stop being monsters.’”

 -I received a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review-

 Ivan is a 17 year old boy living in the Mazyr Hospital for Gravely Ill Children. He has lived there his whole life, as he does not know his mother’s name or even his own birthday. Ivan was born without legs and only one arm that bears two fingers and thumb. It is believed that this condition was a result of radiation from a nuclear reactor. Ivan does almost the same thing every day—eat three meals alone and use the TV three hours. He goes to bed at the same time and has a set routine for getting his clothes on in the morning. Ivan believes he has each patient figured out until a girl his age walks in into the hospital. This girl, Polina, has beautiful hair that will soon be gone due to chemotherapy, as she has leukemia and was sentenced to the hospital after both of her parents died. Ivan’s entire world is turned upside down and his daily routine is shattered as he tries to figure out Polina and learn what it’s like to have a real friend and possible love.

This book was great, but it was really, really depressing. The story reads as Ivan’s diary and the language is very raw. Ivan does not sugarcoat his life of a legless boy confined to a hospital full of other ill children. He shares in great detail what it’s like trapped in that building with nurses who don’t care and patients that don’t make any conversation.

I really enjoyed the first quarter of the book because it’s when we really get to know how things work around the hospital and the other characters through Ivan’s voice. He tells us about Dennis, the boy born without a soul. Dennis spends his days rocking in his bed at a steady pace, a pace so steady that Ivan can use it to count time. We also learn about the ginger twins. These twins don’t say a word to each other, or anyone else for that matter, but somehow communicate well enough to do everything at the same time.

Polina enters the story about a 1/3 way through the novel and, although it is a very interesting plot line, I was actually more curious to hear about daily hospital life. I did think that the growing relationship between Ivan and Polina was very cute, but it didn’t grab all of my attention like I was hoping. Still, I was definitely rooting for them and the inevitable end made me very sad (sadder than I already was reading this depressing diary).

From the reviews that I’ve read, I gather that The Invisible Life of Ivan Isaenko is very similar to The Fault in Our Stars. I haven’t read the latter novel, but I’d say if you enjoy John Green books you’d probably like this one as well. A big thank you to St. Martin’s Press for a copy of this wonderful book! I really enjoyed this read.

Review- Edenborn

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“No one ever proved to me why we’re so fucking great. Why should we be at the top of the food chain? If we die out, some other animal just takes our place. That’s as it should be. Maybe it was our turn to go. But we didn’t. Maybe our existence ruined Nature’s plan.”

3/5 stars

Pandora, Haji, Penny, and their families all live on Earth after a disease called Black Ep killed the last generation of pure humans. Now, everyone left on Earth is formed through cloning or artificial wombs. Many of the adults spend their time researching a cure for Black Ep that may make the planet habitable for natural life forms in the future. These individuals tell their children that they are always only one mutation away from being infected by the disease. What if that one mutation is already in the works? How can the population survive in a world where a plague is one amino acid combination away from killing all of them?

As I try to summarize this book, I’m realizing that I’m not quite sure what it was really about. There were a lot of storylines going on and the book wasn’t long enough to let them properly intertwine and piece together. On the other hand, if it had been much longer, I probably would have just put it down. It wasn’t interesting enough to be more than 350 pages.

Maybe my problem with Edenborn is that I haven’t read it’s prequel, Idlewild. I say maybe because every review I checked before picking up this novel told me that I didn’t have to read the first in the series to know what was happening. I guess I’m just making excuses for a mediocre book.

I don’t have much to say about Edenborn. I was hoping for a great science fiction read with a hint of feminist rhetoric and ended up with a story with great potential that fell short of the mark. A+ idea, C- execution.

 

 

Review- Joe Gould’s Teeth

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Joe Gould’s Teeth by Jill Lepore

Rating: 4.5/5 stars

“Torment had never stayed his pen: Gould was an artist, a bohemian, suffering for his art, suffering for their art, suffering for all art.”

Somewhere around 1918, Joe Gould began recording every conversation he had with other people living in the United States. He wrote in hundreds of composition journals and filled the pages with quotations and paraphrases from his daily encounters and called it the “Oral History”. Gould insisted that publishers could not publish his work until after he died, as it was not meant for the current generation. In the late 1940’s, Gould was admitted to a hospital that virtually ceased his writing. After that, the journals stopped. After Gould passed away in 1957, the search for the “Oral History” began. Researchers tried contacting Gould’s friends, relatives, and people mentioned in his surviving letters. The story told in the surviving paperwork falls apart upon fact-checking some of the dates. If there is no trace of the hundreds of journals containing the “Oral History”, is it possible that it never existed at all?

Jill Lepore, thank you for writing the biography that got me out of my reading slump. I rarely read nonfiction, much less biographies, but I am so glad I picked up this book.

What I love about this book is the dual-plot structure between Joe Gould’s history and Lepore’s search for clues about the accuracy of the first plot. She tells Gould’s story as previous researchers have told it, but also voices her questions and rediscovers parts of his life herself. Although others have tackled the debate over the existence of the “Oral History”, Lepore certainly conducts her own research and draws her own conclusions. Interestingly, although Lepore outlines the facts she discovered, she allows the readers to form their own thoughts on the issue as well. Lepore says, “After reading everything about Gould I could possibly get my hands on, here are the facts and the story as I found it; do what you’d like with that”. In my opinion, that makes for the best kind of biography.

I also want to comment on the language of the book. The sentences are structured in a clear and succinct way. I have been deterred from biographies in the past because of the superfluous sentences that make the plot boring. I end up wondering why I’d want to read a biography about someone whose life was plainly uninteresting to me, and set the book down. Lepore has a way of keeping each sentence short enough to continue holding the reader, but concise enough to give the information needed. I wish every biography that I tried reading in the past could be rewritten into this sentence format because I am sure I’d pick them up again.

This was a really great read on a subject and person I knew nothing about beforehand. I’m glad I picked it up off of the NYT nonfiction best seller’s table at my town’s bookstore. It was an impulse buy, but a cherished one.

Review- Super Sad True Love Story

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510jnPKfu5L._SY344_BO1,204,203,200_Super Sad True Love Story by Gary Shteyngart

Rating: 3/5 stars

“‘You don’t understand, Leonard’

The phrase I hate the most in the world. I do understand. Not everything, but a lot. And what I don’t understand, I certainly want to learn more about.”

Leonard, or Lenny, Abramov is a 39 year old business man working to make people live forever. He, himself, is not in perfect physical condition, but he travels around the world in search of good candidates. While in Europe, he meets a beautiful, and much younger, girl named Eunice who captures his heart. He journals about Eunice and invites her to stay with him in New York when they both arrive back in the states. Although very mismatched, the couple finds themselves living together a few weeks later. Through Lenny’s journal entries and Eunice’s chat logs with her friends, these two narrate what a complicated relationship truly looks like.

I picked up this book because I saw my friend reading it for his college English class. He actually told me that he really did not enjoy it, but I wanted to give it a try for myself. I genuinely thought I would like this book more, but it didn’t live up to my expectations.

Super Sad True Love Story reads more like a catalogue of events and feelings than an actual novel. Most of the book is told in the format of Lenny’s journal entries which are, to be honest, really pathetic. He is a really unlikeable character whose only redeeming quality is his ability to somehow always see the good in a girl who treats him poorly. I felt bad for Lenny while reading his pitiful diary entries, but not bad enough to actually like him as a character.

Eunice, too, doesn’t have very many good qualities about her. She plays with the heart of a man who truly wants the best for her, uses her parents for money, and seems to lack general maturity. On top of this, it wasn’t even fun to read from her point of view. I skimmed most of her sections.

I gave this book a lot of patience and wasn’t really rewarded in the end. That being said, I did read all the way through it without being put in a reading slump. The quality of writing and narration was there, but I couldn’t get on board with the characters. I wish I had liked Super Sad True Love Story more.