I feel like I’ve written this blog post before. It was when I read Fredrik Backman’s other runaway bestseller, A Man Called Ove. In that post I explained why the novel was sentimental crap not worth reading. So you’re asking yourself ‘okay, if you didn’t like A Man Called Ove, why read Bear Town?’. Legit question, friend. Legit. Continue reading
Every Thing, Every Thing: Making Reading Great Again (in a novel that is terrible)
There really must be something about young adults and being trapped in the house. Maybe it’s about imagining things that are inaccessible? Or butting up against societal constraints on self and expression? Or probably in response to years of being grounded? Whatever the case this is the third YA novel I’ve read with the protagonist trapped in the house: this time it’s not agoraphobia, but instead SCID – an auto-immune disease that makes our protagonist, Madeline, a ‘bubble girl’ who has to live her life in the bubble of her house. Continue reading
Filed under Bestseller, Fiction, Young Adult Fiction
Lost in September: I predict a Giller nominee.
One of the skills I developed during my undergraduate degree was finding connections among the books I was reading for different courses. I’d hear about an idea in one course and take that idea and put it to work in another; or I’d notice themes from one novel resonating in another course that might be distant in time or geography. I’m not sure whether this cross-reading was intention on the part of the program (I’m pretty sure not) but the consequence was that I took personal pleasure in finding these moments of connection or overlap. I’d probably have made for an excellent thematic critic. Alas. I raise all of this because even now with the combination of my terrible memory and my appetite for reading I often find myself midway into a book and certain I’ve recently read something similar, or surprised that everyone seems to be writing about X topic (which probably owes more to how I select what I read than the novels themselves…). Continue reading
Filed under Canadian Literature, Fiction, Historical Fiction, Prize Winner
Truly, Madly, Guilty: The Unexpected Pleasure
I don’t believe in diets. In fact I’m pretty vocal about how ridiculous and counterproductive they are. Part of the reason is because of the fast-binge cycle: your body isn’t built for nutrient deprivation and so you get hungrier and hungrier until you find yourself crouched over the tub of icecream in the middle of the night wondering for what purpose you ever started out. Continue reading
Filed under Bestseller, Fiction
Literary Vice 