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Song of a Captive Bird

February 19, 2018

song

Remember its flight, for the bird is mortal.  -Forugh Farrokhzhad I was looking forward to learning about a time and culture, far away from my own, but I never thought I’d be so thoroughly seduced by Jasmin Darznik’s debut novel, Song of a Captive Bird. It is a fictionalized account of Forugh Farrokhzhad, the first woman in Iran to defy her country’s cultural bias and ... Read More...

1 Comment
Filed Under: Book Reviews, Fiction Tagged: Ballantine, book clubs, cultural, debut, historical fiction, Iran, literary, women

The Great Alone

February 16, 2018

great

  Well, this is a little bit awkward. I’m one of the hordes of readers who raved about Hannah’s last book, The Nightingale, and yet I have to report that with only 80 pages left (out of over 400) I abandoned her latest, The Great Alone. I had simply gone as far with the novel as I was able to go and despite being in the midst of some high drama I didn’t care what happened ... Read More...

4 Comments
Filed Under: Book Reviews, Fiction Tagged: coming-of-age, mental health, social issues, St. Martin's Press, teen years

Asymmetry by Lisa Halliday

February 14, 2018

asymmetry

  Asymmetry is a novel split into three separate and seemingly unrelated parts. I know, sounds like short stories, but there is supposed to be a thread connecting the three. The question is whether I was able to find it or not. The first section is Folly, wherein 27-year-old Alice meets Pulitzer Prize winning author, Ezra Blazer, in Central Park. They talk and after ... Read More...

7 Comments
Filed Under: Book Reviews, Fiction Tagged: contemporary fiction, debut, family, Iraq, literary, Manhattan, relationships, Simon & Schuster

Surprise Me by Sophie Kinsella

February 12, 2018

surprise

With Valentine’s Day coming up this week it felt like the perfect time to review a new novel about marriage from an author I love. Surprise Me  by Sophie Kinsella is about a couple who have been together for ten years. In the course of getting their yearly physicals for insurance purposes their doctor, who’s a specialist in longevity, informs them that they’re both going to ... Read More...

4 Comments
Filed Under: Book Reviews, Fiction Tagged: chick lit, humor, marriage, Random House

Turtles All the Way Down by John Green

February 9, 2018

turtles

  Turtles All the Way Down is my first experience with John Green and it left me mostly with…nothing. On the one hand, I applaud him for writing such an unsympathetic character, but on the other, I didn’t want to read about her. Her is Aza, a teenager with severe OCD. She has a loving and supportive mother, a good psychiatrist, and a drug that helps her—when she feels ... Read More...

5 Comments
Filed Under: Book Reviews, Fiction Tagged: Dutton, mental health, teen years, young adult

Hollywood Women: The Girls in the Picture

February 7, 2018

hollywood

  Mary Pickford was one of the first Hollywood stars, having acted from the time she was a child to not only maintaining her film career when silent moves became ‘talkies’, but going on to create her own studio, giving her and her partners the creative control actors didn’t have at the time. Frances Marion was a screenwriter, one of the first women in the business, who ... Read More...

6 Comments
Filed Under: Book Reviews, Fiction Tagged: Hollywood, pop culture, women

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