A life of books . . .
I picked this up back in 2016 and it’s languished on my TBR Austen/Brontë shelf ever since. It came up on my random book generator spreadsheet when I was packing books for our vacation back in February but it was the last one on the list and it kept getting delayed.
So FINALLY I made myself read wedge it in between ARCs this month and realized I should’ve read it weeks ago because it could easily be read in one sitting.
Continue reading “Book 932: Young Jane Austen – Lisa Pliscou”
Aaannnnndddddd we have a new entry into the creepy AF, almost could be true speculative fiction world that has a lot of potential to really explode. When the publisher reached out I was vaguely interested until I read it was about freckles/moles determining the future of girls and women I HAD to read it.*
I have a ton of freckles—including what I call my angel wings that spread across my back down my arms—and found the idea terrifying that the future could be told in markings on your body. And I’m not talking palm reading, which the book discusses, but like actual fated fact. Shudder . . .
Continue reading “Book 800: Body of Stars – Laura Maylene Walter”
Jim Grimsley is probably one of the most depressing writers I’ve ever read, and yet I keep going back to him every 5-10 years. Depressing may not be the correct descriptor, he just writes such desolate books and truly embraces the southern gothic style and maybe that’s what draws me to him?
This was my first time reading My Drowning and it was very different from Winter Birds and Dream Boy but at the same time very similar (mostly through that southern gothic style). In addition to the style, he really excels at writing children’s voices.
When I picked this up from the library, I had some preconceived notion that it would be more along the lines of Bloom than what it ended up being. I’m not sure why I thought this. They did often appear on Best (LGBT+) Graphic Novels of 2019 lists together, but that shouldn’t really have made me think they’d be as similar as I thought they would be.
I was drawn to the illustration style on the cover as the limited use of colors reminded me of Bloom and the illustration style reminded me of Alison Bechdel’s style in Fun Home (or maybe it’s just the glasses on Lou?). Walden’s story follows Bea as she’s running away from home, we’re not told why at the beginning and Lou, a distant family friend doesn’t ask any questions. A random cat shows up (Diamond) and then the story gets really weird, like magical realism weird. [SPOILERS after the jump, including the recommendation.]
Continue reading “Book 669: Are You Listening? – Tillie Walden”
I stumbled across this illustrated biography of Charlotte Brontë after one of my google alerts (“Boston” and “Brontë”) alerted me to this article in Seven Days, Vermont’s Independent Voice publication. I’ve been meaning to read an actual Brontë biography forever really, but specifically since the 2017 release of To Walk Invisible on PBS and my visit to the Parsonage in 2018.
I read The Mother of the Brontës last year which covered a good portion of this and some of the inspired works cover similar time periods because they were all so young. The downside of the Brontës and Austen are how short their lives were and we can only glean so much from the few letters and drafts of their works that exist, but there are instances where a little creative license and ingenuity can make these well known facts and situations seem new again. And that is the case with this Fawkes work.
Continue reading “Book 668: Charlotte Brontë Before Jane Eyre – Glynnis Fawkes”