greatwordsmonger

[greatwordsmonger]

Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov

Shotgun Summary: Man likes girl. Man marries girls’ mom to get closer to girl. Creepiness ensues. Okay, I actually hated this book, but not for the reason it’s banned. I have come to the conclusion that this book would have faded into obscurity if it weren’t for the controversy surrounding it. Not only is the main character/narrator creepy and unlikable, it’s kind of horrible and miserable…

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Cuckoo Song - Frances Hardinge

Shotgun Summary: (Ooh, this is a hard one without spoiling it…) Girl wakes up with distorted memories, just obviously recognizing something is… wrong… and so she spends the next week trying to correct it with her younger sister. Where to begin when it’s such a good book but I don’t want to spoil any of the twists and turns? I can honestly say I’ve never had this much trouble reviewing a book,…

[greatwordsmonger]

Reading Boring Stuff

Everyone sometimes has to read stuff that, let’s be honest, sucks, especially as the school year starts up once again. School age children everywhere are about to pick up books they’d just as soon use as a footstool than read. Even the avid readers like me who would rather read than just about anything else comes across this. The reality of the situation, though, is that most of them will be good…

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Beloved - Toni Morrison

Shotgun Summary: This novel puts together the story of Sethe and her children, particularly Denver, as they escape from slavery and live their own lives. This really is a compelling and interesting book. One thing I had to come to terms with is that this story uses more fictional aspects than I am used to when it comes to books about slavery. This book forces the reader to take the assumption…

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The Awakening - Kate Chopin

Shotgun Summary: Woman has mediocre, loveless marriage. Woman discovers there’s more to life. Woman has affair. Woman dies. I don’t quite know what to write about this book as I am still coming to terms with it in spite of reading it twice now. On one hand, I want to appreciate the narrative of a woman finding her own self and becoming more independent, and the unfortunate ending that lead to.…

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The Great Gatsby - F. Scott Fitzgerald

Shotgun Summary: Boy likes girl. Girl married someone else while he was away. Boy wants girl back. Things fall apart. The story is written from the point of view of Nick Carroway, who I would almost argue would have been a more interesting character psychological profile than most of the others presented in the story. He seems torn between liking people and wanting to think the best of them, and…

[greatwordsmonger]

On Note-taking in the Margins

I would like to start by admitting that for so long I was one of the people who thought that writing in a book was basically defacing it (and I guess that can still be true if it’s inappropriate/unrelated doodles, but we’ll just disregard that for now). When I got off to college, however, my concept of this was challenged. I was in a couple deep philosophical literary classes, that well, to be…

[greatwordsmonger]

The Singer of All Songs - Kate Constable

Shotgun Summary: A restless young woman comes across a mysterious man, who she ends up helping travel the world to fight a power-hungry villain. I did greatly enjoy not only the world development, but also the concept that song is the basis of all magic, or enchantment, as they call it. It seemed so simply obvious, enCHANTments being created by chants, that even though we were brought into a…

[greatwordsmonger]

Here Lies Arthur - Philip Reeve

Here Lies Arthur – Philip Reeve

Shotgun Summary: This is the story of Myrddin/Merlin and Gwyna/the lady of the lake/Gwyn as they travel Britania and do the most fantastic magic possible – storytelling. This is a fun interpretation of the classic tales I already enjoy. It’s honestly a more realistic version of what probably did really happen to create the great king Arthur legends we do have today and is at least a creative…

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In the Time of the Butterflies - Julia Alvarez

In the Time of the Butterflies – Julia Alvarez

Shotgun Summary: Follow the story of one family and their roles in the resistance movement in overthrowing the dictator El Jefe. This is historical fiction, as is acknowledged in the postscript. So while this story is based on historical facts about the revolution in the Dominican Republic and the lives of the Mirabel sisters, creative licenses were taken in the writing of this story. That being…

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The Tiger's Daughter: Even Gods Can be Slain - K. Arsenault Rivera

The Tiger’s Daughter: Even Gods Can be Slain – K. Arsenault Rivera

Shotgun Summary: An Empress and her close friend both kick butt as they slay a tiger at age eight, and face demons as they travel together. I have an advance reading copy (shoutout to BCU’s language department for passing these copies along sometimes), which I do hope went through at least one more round of edits before it hit final publishing. Although admittedly there were not as many errors…

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#WordPrompt - Green

#WordPrompt – Green

The most obvious response to this month’s word prompt would be about our current ecological crisis. So many people are turning towards efforts to ‘go green’ with mostly good intentions. The problem is that this often simply trades one problem for another. Trash pollution can be picked up and thrown away, but still ends up in a landfill somewhere, at best. At worst it just takes an extended trip…

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Separating the Art from the Artist

Separating the Art from the Artist

This is in response to Frappes and Fiction’s post, but from my point of view as an (aspiring) artist. I’m just gonna jump right in and agree that topics like politics can be very divisive, and it can be easier than ever to find others’ opinions on such topics, but the complete separation of art and artist can be hard. Oftentimes, these opinions take at least a hidden role in writing. So while it…

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"Would the Index Kill Close Reading?"

“Would the Index Kill Close Reading?”

I was just reading the London Review of Books (V. 43 no. 18 – I know, I’m way behind), and I came across Anthony Grafton’s article contemplating this very issue. I was initially shocked by just how untrue this felt to me, since anything I normally read with an index is for research purposes, which means I just the index just to find points to read through to see if it’s even worth reading the…

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#WordPrompt - Bridges

#WordPrompt – Bridges

Just to start with an explantaion; WordPress is starting to put a word prompt in with each month’s newsletter. Since I’ve recently re-committed to making this blog the best it can be, I decided to jump on board and share whatever comes to mind for me. Now, because of this, I can’t promise just how relevant they will be to my normal reading/writing material, but we will see what happens…

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Do Your Research Before You Judge

Do Your Research Before You Judge

I’ve recently been digging into Wicca and witchcraft, partially to do a character justice in a story I’m working on writing, and partially due to the fact that’s a culture/religion/whatever-you-want-to-call-it that I’ve found intriguing and have always gravitated a bit towards. Well, in doing my research, I knew I would come across plenty of common misunderstandings and misconceptions that that…

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The Rules of Work: A Definitive Code for Personal Success; Expanded Edition - Richard Templar

The Rules of Work: A Definitive Code for Personal Success; Expanded Edition – Richard Templar

This book assumes that everyone is only really interested in climbing the corporate ladder, to the point that it even tells the reader to “bow out now” on pg 16 if you’re not ready/willing to literally give 24/7 commitment.  This does not even consider everyone’s goals don’t revolve around their professional or work lives.  Although I will admit that about halfway through, it does get to be a bit…