Category: Book Reviews

Recently, I read a flash fiction titled “Possessions(s)”. It was about the aftermath of losing your wife, and I found it interesting because when I think of a widow, a woman automatically comes to my mind. So, I was enticed to read this flash fiction and discover how a man feels when they lose their significant other. The first line instantly drew me in because it was shocking and compelling. The “great first line” rule of flash fiction was definitely accomplished by this piece. There is not necessarily a progression of time in this flash fiction; time is left ambiguous. It does not let you know how long the wife has been dead or the time span between the beginning and end, which I liked very much. It made it easier to focus on the thoughts, emotions, and surroundings. This piece was very emotional and thought-provoking because it just made me wonder. I felt what the widow was feeling in every sentence, metaphor, and image.

Some things I like about this story is the structure: the punctuation use, choppy sentences, and unfinished thoughts. It goes well with the theme of subtle detachment. There are many great lines. “… hanging from a pole sagging with the weight of remembrance” (Smolens). This is one of my favorite uses of figurative language used by the writer. The style of the writing gives the theme, tone, and concept so many attributes. Another thing I enjoyed about this piece is the comparison of possession and possessions. That was an intelligent concept used, and it worked very well; it also contributed to connecting the title with the story. My favorite line is “Fuck you, Stephen Spielberg; death has no special effects” (Smolens). It added a lightweight tone to the extremely heavy subject. It served as a breather for me. There was also a mix of brevity and specifics which was cool to see. Although I enjoyed this piece, there were some aspects of it I have to disagree with.

A characteristic I found distracting was the fragments. They worked in some places and others felt forced. It was overused. However, it still did not affect the quality. The ending was not as strong as I thought it would be. At the end, there was a very unique metaphor introduced, and the author continued to use it until the conclusion, but it was a poor execution. The last line could have been exponentially stronger compared to the rest of the story. The format of the text was intimidating, and I spotted many places that could have been benefited with a paragraph break.

Overall, I loved this flash fiction. It did very well with being consistent and emotional but not full of pity. It was full of great imagery and other figurative languages. I love reading works that use personification, and it was prolific in this story. This is now one of my favorite pieces, and I plan to read more from the author. If you would like to read it, click here.

The story “The Story of an Hour” by Kate Chopin is about a woman who thinks her husband is dead and she begins to go through the stages of grief along with hallucinations that things are happening that aren’t actually happening. The main character basically is married and she’s in love with him, having a great future for them in mind. Her friends then come over to the house to tell her that they think her husband died in an accident. She then goes to a room by herself and locks everybody out, sitting in a chair in front of an open window, and crying desperately. It’s also pointed out that she has heart problems and her friends wanted to give her the information delicately so she wouldn’t have a heart attack.

This entire story focuses heavily about how when you are in love, you have to face grief when your spouse passes away, especially whenever it is unexpected. What I’ve noticed while reading is that the writer loads this story with filler words and figurative language. The filler words is basically her reaching for elegant sounding descriptions of things, but it just sounds choppy and unappealing, also making it difficult to read. The figurative language in this story is the only saving grace of this story, even though it doesn’t make that much of a difference. During her time of crying hysterically and trying to comprehend that her husband is dead, she begins to convulse violently, like she’s having a heart attack. I believe that she started to have a heart attack while sitting down, but she managed to control the attack and calm down. Kate Chopin uses great descriptions in this time, making the reader think about everything they are reading, having to concentrate on every little word that was in the story. After the main character was finished with her grief and contemplation, she left the room and noticed that her friends were worried about her, their ears were against the door. After she talked with her friends for a bit, her husband entered the house and she died from a heart attack from seeing that he didn’t die.

I do not recommend this story. It was uninteresting and every character remained the same. All sentences had a bunch of filler words, reaching for very descriptive images and attempting to sound like an incredibly elegant and greatly descriptive writer. The plot of the story was very one-dimensional, and it was so boring to have to sit through and read. The ending was a very degrading ending for a reader. I didn’t like how the ending was so sudden and all it did was kill off the main character, a cheap cop out for someone who didn’t know how to actually end a story. It’s a disrespectful way to end a story, especially to the reader because the reader spent the entire time reading, hoping for a good plot and a great ending to summarize everything. This story did not give a good ending that gave the plot justice, it just killed the main character off while doing a plot twist that the husband was never dead. Again, not recommended.

Fahrenheit 451 is Ray Bradbury’s first novel. He is normally a poet so the wording and diction of the novel come across with a poetic tone that is simply beautiful. The book deals with the social aspect of literature and media. It follows a firefighter, Guy Montag,  who is tasked to burn books in a futuristic dystopian society.  The reason being that books are illegal. Guy has a sudden realization and has to confront his moral standing on the law.

Montag begins pushing himself further and further into questioning the law. He eventually watches a woman decide to die in her house (which they are burning for her illegal possession of books) and decides that there must be something in books that is worth dying for. Montag eventually gets caught, runs away, and joins a secret society of people who remember literature.

The book addresses important issues about the power of literature and the censorship of them. This is particularly striking due to the relevancy today as more and more of the world leaning more toward technology instead of traditional forms of literature. This issue is posed in the book as part of the gathered exposition, and has led to the outlawing of literature in the world that Bradbury created.

The book also talks about the numbing power of technology on the world. The people in this society are holed up in their houses watching TV programs and always listening to some form of entertainment when not in the room.  (We also see the firefighters playing cards, but the majority is technological based entertainment) This technology has made the people socially capable, but less observant and thoughtful of the rest of the world.  The book addresses this by presenting a juxtaposition between Faber, a lovely old man who indulges in literature, and Guy’s wife, Mildred, who only indulges in technology. Faber is thoughtful where Mildred is dismissive and unintelligent. This issue is particularly relevant because of the recent controversy over technology being harmful for children.

His characters are pretty well rounded and make very human observations and decisions. Such as Guy, Beatty, and Faber.

Guy is what one might consider as the  protagonist. He is the focus of the story and is the focus of the arc. Guy struggles between fear and curiosity throughout the whole story. This makes him more relatable and easier to empathize with while still understanding the reason of his actions, being that he grew up in this society and has no way of knowing better.

Beatty is the antagonist (government and censorship) manifested into a person and Guy’s boss. Beatty is smart and is aware that Guy is struggling with his moral decision to follow the law or defy it. Beatty serves as a source for tension and intimidation. He is complex and relates to Guy during Guy’s hardship. This makes it hard to predict his motives and reasoning.

Faber is cowardly and timid. He serves as a help to Guy, even in pressing times. Guy confides in Faber about literature after overcoming his moral conviction and Faber tries to avoid him. He is static, but puts himself on the line for Guy when it matters most.

The book kept me awake at night and forced me to keep going back to read more or re-read certain passages. The language is captivating and entrancing, yet also demanding the upmost attention. I would definitely suggest this book to anyone who enjoys poetic diction, unpredictable plots, and socially relevant narrative.

(Spoilers)

 

Margaret Atwood, a famous Canadian poet, provided us with The Handmaid’s Tale in 1985 and proposed a problem that is still relevant today.

The book follows a character we come to know as Offred in a dystopian society where women are held with importance, because the birth rates are so low.

Offred has been made a handmaid. A handmaid is under the rule of the higher class men and their wives, is given the job of procreation, and is forced under strict rules and regulations. The handmaids are forced to wear red dresses covering all of their body, and headdresses preventing their peripheral vision.

These outfits create a sense of division within the society. The dresses mark them as property and walking wombs. The handmaids will typically shop for the household and lay with the head of the household.

Offred is particularly interesting because she remembers the world before the revolution that has lead to the reformation of society. She is struggling to keep the details of her previous life, but is losing some, either through repression or simply forgetting.

Offred holds so many of her emotions and impulses in as she attempts to find a way out of the world she is in. Fear motivates her and chaos ensues as she begins to explore the people around her more and more.

Atwood presents an interesting  structure of plot, sending us from the present to the past and back again, over and over. This keeps us constantly informed with the way Offred’s mind has slowly altered as time has carried her further into her new position in life. She is constantly recounting her lover before the reformation, Luke, her time at a camp that was meant to train her to be a handmaid, her best friend, Moira, and her daughter. She is trying to hold onto these memories as she is faced with new and challenging obstacles in her household.

The obstacles force Offred into a precarious place where she is sneaking behind the commander, the head of the house, with the guard, Nick, under Serena Joy’s, the commander’s wife, order. She is also sneaking around with the commander under Serena Joy’s nose. Offred is trying to gather herself and gain a foothold into some way to get free.  Offred is also becoming closer to her walking partner, a handmaid named Ofglen, who is involved with an underground resistance.

The issues that the book propose are heavily embellished with controversy over abortion, maternity, rape, and gender superiority. All of these things are present in modern day life and have raised controversy within the general population on the social and political front.

Atwood presents us with incredible characters, who are dynamic and real, incredibly poetic diction, wonderfully chosen dialogue, and a narrative that can touch anyone who is willing to read it.

The novel is a socially and politically awakening piece that forces the reader to pay attention, come back for more, and address the problems involved with empathy and sincerity.

“I squeezed Kevin’s wrist in pulsing units, three pulses, then two pulses, then three pulses. I was trying to invent a physical language that could enter his sleep. But after a while I realized I wasn’t even squeezing his wrist, I was just pulsing the air. That’s how scared I was; I was squeezing air” (July).

For this month, I have decided to write on the short story, “The Man on the Stairs” by Miranda July. When I originally found the story, I expected a somewhat horror themed flash fiction; however, the story turned out to be nothing like any of the previous reading choices that I’d become so familiar with. It was a very abstract plot line that contained a lot of sidebar thoughts, and although the story did leave me confused, I find the need to commend the story for the connections the author made within the text as well as the way she was able to tie so many of them together. Ms. July gives so many characteristics of the main character that it feels as if in the midst of an intense situation she is almost comfortable having casual conversation, and really draws a clear picture of the protagonist’s mindset as well as the character’s reflection s on herself.

My favorite sections of the story are moments when she adds detailing in comparing herself to the intruder. Ms. July does a really phenomenal job with the polar opposites connecting and having such an abstract for of similarities. I also enjoy the details written about her boyfriend, but in some ways, it seems as though the main character is more connected to the intruder than the man she is with which I found very odd yet interesting. This story all in all really took me for a loop as the reader. Even as a writer, I found myself constantly thinking, I wonder where she got this idea from, and I wonder how she came up with this comparison.

I do believe there are areas that could have been edited that would improve the piece as a whole, but for the blogs sake I will spare the in-depth detailing of what I would suggest as specific changes. I’ll simply state that the ending, in my opinion, fell short of what it could have been seeing as though the entire piece had a constant build up that missed its mark on ending strong. Although the ending lines do add to the story, the plotline just swerves in a way that was not for the best. I also believe the explicit content within the piece is somewhat unnecessary. Yes, the minor section of content shows the protagonist’s inner thoughts, but it doesn’t necessarily add detailing to the story to make the plot move forward; it simple gives detailing to the protagonist’s boyfriend who isn’t focused on very much in the story anyhow.

Even though I found certain elements changeable within the piece, I still nevertheless believe this piece is a good read. It is most definitely a change in tone of my previous suggestions.

If you would like to read this short story, please click here.

When Anthony Swofford wrote Jarhead, I doubt he knew how much praise it would earn. Jarhead is a non-fiction book that details Swofford’s service in the United States Marine Corps during the Persian Gulf War. It is a gritty, raw story that may be hard for some to read, as it graphically depicts scenes of war, sexual content, and frequently uses profanity. In this, the book is true to its content, as war is never a pretty thing. It is full of death, violence, abuse, insanity, and horror, but in retelling this, Swofford also managed to incorporate his sense of humor. He describes aspects of war and life after experiencing the terrors involved in such description that I often found myself close to tears or looking behind me to ensure that no one was going to attack me. Swofford spent no time trying to paint a positive picture of himself, in fact, he often seemed arrogant and full of himself, as many young people who are high on adrenaline usually are.

Swofford’s descriptions were incredibly unique and gave a fresh look at a topic that’s been explored since the dawn of military activity. He vividly retells details of going through his old stuff and finding his uniform as well as the memories it brought up afterward. Rather than romanticizing military service, as much of the media tries to do, he offers a look into the dark, twisted underbelly of service in which men go insane. A world in which they lay in spider-filled pits in the middle of the deserts, piss themselves out of fear as mortar charges drop all around them, and play with dead bodies as though they were children’s’ toys.

Swofford was a sniper and thus had much experience in the… less savory side of military service. He describes the precision with which he worked in terms civilians can easily understand, but keeps it raw enough to send chills down my spine. At one point in the book, Swofford was prepared to take a shot that he’d been waiting on for quite a while, his stress was running high due to numerous factors of living in the war zone, but he received a call at the last second for him to not take the shot. He broke down mentally, something snapped within him as an airstrike was called to do what he’d been waiting to do.  Swofford likely took a few creative liberties and exaggerated moments of the stories within the memoir, but it was an amazing read nonetheless and kept my attention for the days I spent reading it.

Rather than focusing on war itself, Jarhead focused more on military culture and the behavior of soldiers in times of desperation, boredom, fear, or sorrow. It shows how horrible conditions can get and how badly those conditions can mess with one’s mind. It goes through the bonding of brothers in arms, and the unbearable loss that comes when one of those brothers is lost to war or his own hand.

I highly recommend this book to anyone who enjoys reading military history or memoirs.

This book was a mixture of a love story and a sad story about a boy who had mental health issues. This boy had a way of hiding his mental issues from his girlfriend, who was a bit of a brat to him. She didn’t know what was happening to the boy and took out their issues on him. This may have had a bigger effect on him than what the story told because, in the end, he did decide to take his life.

This story takes place of a mystery, two people trying to find their lost friend. The author of this book is able to portray so many emotions to the reader that the characters are going through. Tim, the best friend of Chris helps the main character but holds a small bit of resistance toward her. While no one really blames the entire thing on her, there are some small difficulties where some of the blame is placed.

The book is in a series of letters addressed as “you”. This is so that Jessie can write to Chris, who no longer exists. She goes to Chris in her mind and in her writing. There are instances where she imagines Chris running alongside her or lying in bed with her. This really shows her love for her boyfriend and her inability to let him go. He is the single most important thing to her in his life.

I love the way that the author brings in the characters in the book. There is no jump between characters, and it always seems to run smooth. Chris and the main character are introduced first with a funny story about how the main character is stripped down almost completely naked in a lake, and Chris pokes her in the back with a stick because he thinks that she is dead. This was ironic and a funny way for the two to meet. Tim gets introduced when he is frantically trying to find Chris. He is frantic and stressed out when he talks to Jessie. Michael gets introduced as Jessie’s gay friend and the one who made Chris run away angry when the two were “dancing.” Tamara was introduced as the mean girl that thought that the entire incident was Jessie’s fault. She called her a fat loser and in all was really mean to Jessie.

This book was in all a book about suicide and depression. The end of the book was a letter and dedication to  Al, a friend of the author. The author wrote this book in memory of a true story. While the characters were not real and the storyline was partially made up, there are very real emotions in the book. The author’s friend had gone missing while running alongside a river, just like the main character’s boyfriend had. This was a heart clinching story, and this book sheds a big light on the issue of suicide. I believe that everyone should read this book, and recognize that it is hard to know if someone is thinking about killing themselves or not.

 

“The Necklace” by Guy de Maupassant is a wonderful short story that takes place in a time when women were viewed only useful for chores and being a trophy wife. In this story, the main character, Mathilde Loisel is the wife of Monsieur Loisel. She is so hungry to be a part of the rich group and that of the upper class in the economy. Every day, she dreams more and more to go to balls and dance with rich people rather than spend time with her husband. She is a very bitter person, and seems to only care about herself throughout the story. Her husband is a very nice and caring individual. He proves that to us as readers, when he walks back into his home with an invitation that is very difficult to get to a ball with only select upper class. Instead of her reacting in a happy and positive way, she tells him that it’s a pointless invitation because the good dress she wears to the movies isn’t good enough to wear to this party. He gives her the money that he has been saving up for a gun for himself, that will also be beneficial for his family, so she can buy a dress. The main character in this story is very unlikable, but it’s definitely a great way to drive the story forward. It keeps the reader’s emotions open and available throughout the entire story. Even though this character is very disrespectful and annoying, it keeps our attention throughout the story.

After the main character buys an expensive dress, she gets sad and again manipulates her husband. She tells him that she doesn’t have any good jewelry for the ball and so she won’t go.  He tells her to go see her rich friend, Madame Forestier for some jewelry to borrow. After she goes, she picks out a nice necklace to borrow. She then goes to the ball and has a great time. She loses the necklace, not being able to find it at all. Her husband and her end up working for around ten years to try to pay off the expensive amount it would have costed. They went from being upper middle-class to poor all because of the main character’s very selfish decision. After they pay everything, we get to see inside of her mind again, and she is still focused on being upper class. After we get that really cool image, she meets her old rich friend, Forestier. It turns out that the necklace that Mathilde lost was just a fake the entire time, they bought Forestier an actual diamond necklace. Loisel never thought to tell the truth, all she did was lie and think about ways to cover up her tracks and opinions about her in the eyes of Forestier.

I think that this story is a really great way to show people that you don’t need to lie to people. Honesty is a good way to just deal with the situation at hand. Lying will just dig you a deeper hole.

“I met her in a cocktail bar, but she wasn’t working as a waitress. She was getting drunk like me at the counter…” (Sheal) This excerpt is a portion of the first few sentences of the piece that caught my attention.

For this month’s good read, I’ve chosen the short fiction piece, “Before the storm” written by Alex Sheal. The story follows the actions of a man getting into what it seems as a “one-night stand” with a woman at a cocktail bar. The story is, in my opinion, very nicely written. I believe a reader will understand the eloquence in Mr. Sheal’s writing especially once the circumstances of the voice of the story is taken into consideration. The story could have very easily been made into a smut piece with poor layout and development; however, the metaphors and very slight and subtle vulgar details gives the piece a great delivery that still has good taste. I must say I love the choices of language Mr. Sheal chose for his main character; my favorite being, “When we burst out the doors, it surprised me to see the hurricane had passed; moreso that not a drop of water lay in the street full of taxi drivers. Then I remembered it was November and a storm hadn’t rampaged through this city in months, years since a proper one” (Sheal). The irony within it is simple, but I admire the connection of leaving the bar and the incoherence of the weather outside without actually stating what is going on. I also admire how the story isn’t necessarily laid out bluntly. The reader catches the gist of the encounter through context clues and strategic detailing. My favorite point of the piece would have to be the very being and the end due to the similarities, and interesting turn of events that begin and end the story.

Although I enjoyed the piece, I do believe there are a few areas that could be altered to make the piece possibly stronger. For one, in my opinion, the author has some areas with excessive wording. The situations in some areas are described repetitively, and it takes away from the unique original description. The piece in my opinion also missed the opportunity to be elongated. The work had the potential to be a much longer piece that could have went into describing emotions or even describing the lack of emotion in the action. The author could have also given more thoughts or events that followed the encounter before he jumped to the twist ending; however, I suppose adding events before the ending would take away from the dramatic effect of it; I digress.

Even with my few thoughts on how the text could possibly be improved, it is nevertheless still a very nice piece to read. I would definitely recommend it as a quick read to anyone looking for a story that is short and full of some great choices in language. If you would like to read this work, click here.