![]() ![]() John golfs, and normally he looks like a hale and hearty sixty-four-year-old. I looked at John, concerned, and saw that he did indeed look puny. ![]() In fact, since there are fields all around our property, on clear days I could see the roof of her house, sitting on the edge of Lawrenceton’s nicest suburb. John, who’s retired, had come out with Mother just because he likes being with her.Īs Darius was getting out of his truck, Mother was hugging me and saying, “John isn’t feeling so well, Aurora, so we’re going back to town.” She always made it sound as though Martin and I lived on the frontier, instead of just a mile out of Lawrenceton. Mother (Aida Brattle Teagarden Queensland) had taken a moment from her busy day to bring me a dress she’d bought for me in Florida, where she’d been attending a convention for real estate brokers who’d sold over a million dollars worth of property in a year. My mother and her husband, John Queensland, were just leaving when Darius Quattermain rattled up my driveway, his battered blue pickup pulling a trailer full of split oak. ![]() The day everything went rotten was the day the woodman went crazy in my backyard. ![]()
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![]() ![]() That said, it wasn’t vague enough to bother. ![]() The world-building is slightly expanded on from Neon Gods, but it’s still fairly vague. ![]() They begin as enemies, forced into a marriage of convenience, and I loved watching them fall for each other. Eros is Aphrodite’s fixer, forced to do her dirty work, and believes himself to be a monster. Psyche is a plus-sized social media influencer, who understands how to play Olympus’s power games while still remaining a good person in her heart. The characters are perhaps my favorite part. I have always been a fan of the myth of Eros and Psyche, so I was excited to see Katee Robert’s interpretation, and I ended up really loving it. I finished this book in one day, it was so addictive.Įlectric Idol takes place in the same world as Neon Gods, this time following Persephone’s sister Psyche, and Aphrodite’s son Eros. When Aphrodite sends Eros after Psyche’s heart, he and Psyche need to find a way for both of them to survive the encounter, and everything that comes after. Psyche is Demeter’s daughter and the current target of Aphrodite’s anger. Eros is Aphrodite’s fixer, there to get rid of anyone she deems a problem. Content Warning: violence, death (mention), fatphobia, child abuse //Įlectric Idol is a retelling of the story of Psyche and Eros, in a modern setting. ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() Under the guidance of Principal Kobayashi Sosaku, who practices a non-traditional approach to education, the young Totto-Chan evolves from a problem student in the Japanese education system, to a self-confident class leader at her new school for ‘special’ students. The plot follows the childhood adventures of the author as Totto-Chan and her escapades at the Bus Study Garden, against the backdrop of war. Published in 1981, the novel begins in late-1930s Japan during the lead-up to the Second World War. Looking out the window with Totto-Chan Book Review by Jordon Shinn, for China Daily, August 2016, Beijing.Ī charming and masterful study of the child’s psyche, Totto-Chan, the Little Girl at the Window, is the seminal work by celebrated Japanese author and television personality Tetsuko Kuroyanagi. ![]() ![]() "You can argue all you want about how good books can draw emotions from its readers. Perhaps, as my English teacher believes, I in my youthful ignorance have missed out on a story that offers deep insight into human nature and the universe. ![]() The entire story is about a lawyer whose employee (Bartleby) slowly falls into depression and dies. And when I say that there was no plot, I actually mean it. "This story (and I use 'story' in the loosest sense of the word) was AWFUL. Rather than the only conflict being the fact that Bartleby was lazy and constantly said 'I would prefer not to' as a way of getting out of doing work, and him not leaving the office, I would have liked for there to be more INTERESTING conflict." I found it to be boring, lathargic, unevenful, and in a way pointless. I guess it's good to be able to elicit such strong opinions from a novella, but I hate this book." I know that was partly the point, but it was so good at making its point that I felt violent towards Bartleby. "I know I'm supposed to like Melville because he's an American classic, but wow, this book was amazingly tedious. ![]() ![]() Then he curled up in a corner, while he was in jail, and DIED!!!" ![]() ![]() ![]() “On the very best of days I was their burden, their bête noire, and so, if you considered Newton’s Third Law of Motion, ‘All actions have an equal and opposite reaction,’ and the five of them spontaneously turned into lil’ Baby Face Nelsons and Dimples, they also had to turn into old Lost Weekends and Draculas, which best describes the looks on their faces in that instance.” As a writer myself, I often asked myself how much time and thought the author put into creating her scintillating sentences and paragraphs, for indeed, they are clever, intelligent, often humorous and always, always artful: So we have a convoluted plot, an iconoclastic structure, and absolutely brilliant writing. Pessl reveals Blue, and the plot, in 36 chapters titled after (and therefore suggestive of) famous novels: Wuthering Heights, A Room With a View, Things Fall Apart, proffering a counterpoint to Pessl’s own novel and, for me, often giving pause to consider the metaphor. ![]() The relationship between Blue, Jade, Charles, Milton, Leulah (and their favorite teacher Hannah), are tenuous although of critical importance to the story. She idolizes him intellectually, and forms no real bonds of friendship until high school. ![]() ![]() Gareth van Meer, Blue’s father, an itinerant professor of physics, by hopping from one college to another, in essence orphans his daughter. ![]() |