I thought it would be fun to do a little Flashback Friday post since I'm gone on vacation this week. For a while during my teens I was addicted to reading mystery novels--- specifically older British mystery novels like Agatha Christie and M.M. Kaye (whom I still love to this day). The following scene excerpt … Continue reading Scene: Dinner for Nine
Where do you stand in a world looking only for exotic names, skins, and avatars? Where do you stand when you're just bland milk with a brain and thoughts that do not fit? It seems to me the world wants bland, uniform innards coated by a colorful shell. It doesn't want bland on the outside … Continue reading Exotic Milk
A look of distraction passes over my friend’s face in the middle of our girls’ date at a local chain restaurant. Her brows pinch together, and her whole expression slips into distress. Alarmed, I glance over my shoulder, but see only a black clad waiter carrying a wheat-colored, napkin-covered basket of breadsticks. My friend and … Continue reading The Looking Glass
By Kazuo Ishiguro ⭐️⭐️⭐️ First thing's first: This was a page turner. I did appreciate the artistic choice of starting this strange novel by pretending that everything is normal. The slow realization that the characters live in a very NOT normal world is what keeps the pages turning. At first, I was very intrigued by … Continue reading Review: Never Let Me Go
Her spirit would rail against him at times, as if his comforting arms had become shackles. She couldn’t understand where her philosophy and his diverged. Sitting across from him at the cafe table— any cafe table, it’s no matter— a thought or fancy would flit into her mind like a little bird. She would soar … Continue reading The Crash of Flight
The Politics of Catastrophe by Niall Ferguson ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ I soaked this book up! Unfortunately, I'm a shallow sponge, and I will probably have to revisit it at some point to really process all of the information here. This was a good book to read on the Kindle where you can export your notes and highlights … Continue reading Review: Doom
When I was a child, I was fascinated by abandoned things. Houses, roads, plots of land, store fronts— whole towns. It didn’t matter. My imagination exploded whenever I came across the empty, the broken-down or the grown over. To this day, vivid memories— like snapshots— live on in the back shelves of my brain: a … Continue reading The Fault Lines of Nostalgia
⭐⭐⭐ & 1/2 By Tess Gerritsen I would call this book "cute"--- as in, it did everything that it was supposed to do and stayed comfortably in its lane. The story was compelling. It entertained. It had a good historical angle. It just never really "blew my socks off"--- to borrow a cliche. The story … Continue reading Review: The Bone Garden
The sky hangs low and gray. Raindrops sputter down— an intermittent mist. In Geneva, there is a one-way street in the middle of town. It is crisscrossed above by strings of bulbous lights, and as the gray sky descends toward brooding charcoal twilight, the bulbs flash on, merry and yellow. The street is lined by … Continue reading Next Time
By L.M. Montgomery How have I never read this book before!! From page one I kept thinking: I would have loved (cannot bold that word enough) this book as a thirteen year old. The story--- as many of you know--- follows the formative years of Anne Shirley, an orphan who is mistakenly adopted by brother … Continue reading Review: Anne of Green Gables
Seeking Prose 