Regular Rumination

Review – Under the Skin by Michel Faber

Lu — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 12:00:21 +0000

“Isserley always drove straight past a hitch-hiker when she first saw him, to give herself time to size him up. She was looking for big muscles: a hunk on legs. Puny, scrawny specimens were no use to her.” (page 2)

Under the Skin is about Isserly, a woman who drives around Scotland looking for hitchhikers. She will not pick up a woman, only men. They must have plenty of muscle on their bodies and no family. Isserly herself is a strange looking woman, but the men she picks up can’t help but notice how disturbingly erotic she is. Under the Skin is strange and suspenseful, every page reveals something else about Isserly’s unusual existence and her mission. Each turn is as unexpected as the last.

This novel is bizarre. Everything about it is odd, but it’s also wonderful. The ending was pitch-perfect and every page before that expertly crafted. This novel, in the hands of a less skillful author, could have taken a turn for the worse. Faber, however, has created a novel that is so unique, I’m can’t think of anything I have read that is quite like it.

Faber reveals just enough information about Isserly and the strange company she works for too keep you interested and guessing, and when the truth is revealed, slowly, page by page, you go from curiosity and suspicion to pure horror. There is allegory, commentary, and suspense. It’s violent and there are gruesome scenes throughout this book, so be warned, but don’t let that turn you away from the book, because that is one of its strengths. The gruesome nature of the prose is well-done and necessary.

Under the Skin is on a lot of must-read lists and it’s easy to see why. This book is one that is dying to be discussed and talked about. Please pick this one up so we can talk about it! There’s so much here that I haven’t included in the interest of avoiding spoilers, because this is one you have to discover on your own time.

Other reviews:

Erik is (so not) Dead! (Contains spoilers, but I had so many of the same questions!)

Did you read and review Under the Skin? Let me know in the comments and I’ll link to your review.

TSS – Mini Reviews, Woolf, Holiday Book Swap!

Lu — Sun, 15 Nov 2009 12:00:59 +0000

Hello! I apologize in advance for the lengthiness of this post! I just have a lot to say because last weekend I sadly missed the Sunday Salon, but for a good reason. I was celebrating my birthday and all the wonderful birthday comments just made my day! Thank you everyone who left me a message There are just a couple of outstanding reviews that I’m having trouble finding inspiration for, so I am just going to do a few mini reviews to catch up.

Push (Precious) by Sapphire: I saw the trailer for the movie “Precious” a couple weeks ago and really want to see the movie. I picked this up at the store and read it in one sitting (yes, I confess, I’m one of those people that sits in bookstores and reads! I can’t help it). It’s part poetry, part narrative about the life of Precious, a teenager who is pregnant for the second time by her father. Her mother, also physically and sexually abusive, claims the children for her own to get more money from the government, but does nothing to help raise them. Precious, overweight and 16 years old in the 8th grade, is kicked out of school for being pregnant. But the guidance counselor, feeling guilty for robbing Precious of her education, leads her to a special school for people who need help learning to read to get their GED. There she is inspired to not only learn to read, but write about her life. Push is what she writes. It’s a really moving and upsetting novel, but one that everyone should read. Highly recommended.

Ash by Malinda Lo is another book that I read a while back, but never got around to reviewing. I really enjoyed it. Ash is a retelling of Cinderella in which Ash, as she is called, does not fall for the handsome prince, but his beautiful, strong-willed Huntress. The fairytale is extended even further than that to create a world that is unique and well-formed. Ash’s desire to be with a woman and the reciprocation of that desire is not perceived as abnormal in this world, it is accepted and approved of. It is a hopeful look at what our own world could look like one day, maybe without the fairies and huntresses and kings and princes. Though I wouldn’t mind some fairies. Lo had me convinced from page one, and I think this is a great read.

I read and loved Life as We Knew It, the first book in the Moon Trilogy by Susan Beth Pfeffer a few months ago, so I was really looking forward to reading The Dead and the Gone. Well, I would start it, and then I would put it down. Then I would pick it up again and give it another shot, but I never did get into it. Finally one day I sat down and made myself finish it. It was… okay. The things that were re-hashed from Life as We Knew It felt just like that, instead of feeling new in a different setting. Everything was the same, but not as good. I think that the diary format worked really well, and I would have liked to see that again. Though perhaps it would have seemed even more repetitive. The characters were particularly unmemorable and I didn’t understand them. I did appreciate a broader look at the situation and a different religious reaction to the event. There were things that I seemed to remember happening to New York in the first book that didn’t happen in the second one. I might be making that up, but I had that sense the whole time. Overall, I was disappointed, but I’m still going to read the third one in the series. It was not an awful read and it was a decent continuation of the series. I find that the second book is usually my least favorite (exception: Chamber of Secrets), so I’m still looking forward to number three!

There are just a few words to describe this graphic novel: weird, mind trip, bizarre, strange, maybe-awesome. I say maybe, because I honestly have ZERO idea what happened here, but I think I liked it. Plus, I really can’t wait to read more Gilbert Hernandez.

The only reason that I’m not doing a full review of this book is that I read it during read-a-thon and I just don’t think I could do it justice! It was awesome, amazing and an excellent follow-up to The Knife of Never Letting Go. I really really really really really (5 reallys, at least) can’t wait to read the next one. Thank you Patrick Ness, for creating this world. It’s wonderful and I love every minute of it. But MAN, everyone in this book made me want to climb in the pages and give them a good face slap for being STUPID. It was realistic and I can totally see how they would have made the mistakes they did but I must have screamed, out loud, “NOOOOOOOOOOOOOO” several times. Making She jump and stare at me.

WHEW. Glad I got those off my chest! Hope you found something good there to read!

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In other news, Frances of nonsuch book and Emily of Evening All Afternoon have announced Woolf in Winter, a read along where we will be reading four Virginia Woolf books in January and February. Hello! Isn’t that the most beautiful button you’ve ever seen? I can’t wait. I’ve already put all of the books on request at the library, one on audio, and I might add in a reading of A Room of One’s Own because I happen to have it and want to add it to the list. Here is the schedule:

Sarah – Mrs. Dalloway (January 15)

“Did it matter then, she asked herself, walking toward Bond Street, did it matter that she must inevitably cease completely; all this must go on without her; did she resent it; or did it not become consoling to believe that death ended absolutely? but that somehow in the streets of London, on the ebb and flow of things, here, there, she survived, Peter survived, lived in each other, she being part, she was positive, of the trees at home; of the house there, ugly, rambling all to bits and pieces as it was; part of people she had never met; being laid out like a mist between the people she knew best, who lifted her on their branches as she had seen the trees lift the mist, but it spread ever so far, her life, herself.”
Emily – To the Lighthouse (January 29)

“So now she always saw, when she thought of Mr. Ramsay’s work, a scrubbed kitchen table. It lodged now in the fork of a pear tree, for they had reached the orchard. And with a painful effort of concentration, she focused her mind, not upon the silver-bossed bark of the tree, or upon its fish-shaped leaves, but upon a phantom kitchen table, one of those scrubbed board tables, grained and knotted, whose virtue seems to have been laid bare by years of muscular integrity, which stuck there, its four legs in the air. Naturally, if one’s days were passed in this seeing of angular essences, this reducing of lovely evenings, with all their flamingo clouds and blue and silver to a white deal four-legged table (and it was a mark of the finest minds so to do), naturally one could not be judged like an ordinary person.”
Frances – Orlando (February 12)

“But, above all, he had, he told Orlando, sensations in his spine which defied description. There was one knob about the third from the top which burnt like fire; another about the second from the bottom which was cold as ice. Sometimes he woke with a brain like lead; at others it was as if a thousand wax tapers were alight and people were throwing fireworks inside him. He could feel a rose leaf through his mattress, he said; and knew his way almost about London by the feel of the cobbles. Altogether he was a piece of machinery so finely made and so curiously put together (here he raised his hand as if unconsciously and indeed, it was of the finest shape imaginable) that it confounded him to think that he had only sold five hundred copies of his poem, but that of course was largely due to the conspiracy against him. All he could say, he concluded, banging his fist upon the table, was that the art of poetry was dead in England.”
Claire – The Waves (February 26)

“I shall walk on the moor. The great horses of the phantom riders will thunder behind me and stop suddenly. I shall see the swallow skim the grass. I shall throw myself on a bank by the river and watch the fish slip in and out among the reeds. The palms of my hands will be printed with pine-needles. I shall there unfold and take out whatever it is I have made here; something hard. For something has grown in me here, through the winters and summers, on staircases, in bedrooms. I do not want, as Jinny wants, to be admired. I do not want people, when I come in, to look up with admiration. I want to give, and to be given, and solitude in which to unfold my possessions.”

I might not finish them all, but I can’t wait to dive right in. Thank you for organizing this! I love you all! (I might just have huge, secret blog-crushes on ya.) That I guess aren’t so secret anymore?

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I’m sad I didn’t get the information about the Book Blogger Holiday Swap out sooner, but I wanted to send a thank you to all the organizers and participants for all the hard work you’re doing! Thanks so much guys, I’m super excited!

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Well, thanks for reading all that, kids. I know it was a long one! Today I’ll be reading Under the Skin, The Pluto Files and some stuff for school. What will you be reading?

Kristin Lavransdatter, Sigrid Undset, Simone de Beauvoir

Lu — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 12:00:19 +0000

I am, unfortunately, very late to the Kristin Lavransdatter party. I finished the first book a few weeks ago, but did not have any inspiration for what to post about. The Wreath was a well-written medieval tale that made that the time period come to life unlike any book I’ve read. I fell in love with the setting and enjoyed the story, but outside of that, I didn’t quite know what to say.

On Tuesday, inspiration struck during my literary studies class after we read and discussed “The Second Sex” by Simone de Beauvoir and it put a completely different spin on The Wreath. More or less contemporaries, there are certainly similarities to be found.

But it’s an artist that I want to be, a woman artist, and not a pen-wielding lady.

Undset wrote those words in a correspondence with her friend. I think she lived up to that. Kristin Lavransdatter is nothing short of an epic, that not only brings into question what it meant to be a woman during medieval times, but what it meant to be a woman in the 20s. I can’t speak for Undset, obviously, and her intentions, but whether the reflection of her own tumultuous, post-WWI Europe in the medieval was intentional or not, the similarities are impressive. There are frequent references to the changing times in Norway that breeds an ominous tone throughout the whole first book.

But, the first thing that struck me about the novel was the sheer beauty of the description in conjunction with the simplicity of the language.

There were forest-clad mountain slopes below her in all directions; her valley was no more than a hollow between the enormous mountains, and the neighboring valleys were even smaller hollows; there were many of them, and yet there were fewer valleys than there were mountains. On all sides gray domes, golden-flamed with lichen, loomed above the carpet of forest; and far off in the distance, toward the horizon, stood blue peaks with white glints of snow, seeming to merge with the grayish-blue and dazzling white summer clouds. But to the northeast, close by – just beyond the pasture woods – stood a cluster of magnificent stone-blue mountains with streaks of new snow on their slopes. (pg 13)

Though there is beautiful language throughout The Wreath, there is also a darkly ominous side to it. I was surprised by that dichotomy that was present as soon as the first chapter. The relationship between young Kristin and her father is lovely, but there is always that underlying knowledge that there is going to be the betrayal later on, that Kristin will go against her father’s wishes. There is so much foreshadowing in the beginning of Kristin Lavransdatter.

Good days can last a long time if one tends to things with care and caution; all sensible people know that. That’s why I think that sensible people have to be satisfied with the good days – for the grandest of days are costly indeed. They call a man a fool who fritters away his father’s inheritance in order to enjoy himself in his youth [...] But I call him a true idiot and fool only if he regrets his actions afterward, and he is twice the fool and the greatest buffoon of all if he expects to see his drinking companions again once the inheritance is gone. (49)

At those times when one needs either prayers or advice one usually has no mind to learn or understand. (49)

There is a lot of mention of Catholicism and religion in this novel, but also of paganism. More duality! What stood out for me was the constant referral to woman as witch, or the “mysterious woman” that de Beauvoir talked about in “The Second Sex”. Undset outright contradicts this assumption: “It could be that the woman knew more than was good for the health of her soul – and yet one should not forget that ignorant people often spoke of witchcraft as soon as a woman showed herself to be wiser than the councilmen” (55).

These “ignorant people” that Undset refers to are the “masculine hearts” of de Beauvoir’s essay. She says:

Few myths have been more advantageous to the ruling caste than the myth of woman [...] Of all these myths, none is more firmly anchored in masculine hearts than that of the feminine “mystery.” It has numerous advantages. And first of all it permits an easy explanation of all that appears inexplicable; the man who “does not understand” a woman is happy to substitute an objective resistance for the subjective deficiency of mind; instead of admitting his ignorance, he perceives the presence of a “mystery” outside himself: an alibi, indeed, that flatters laziness and vanity at once. A heart smitten with love thus avoids many disappointments: if the loved one’s behavior is capricious, her remarks stupid, then the mystery serves, then the mystery serves to excuse it all. (1409)

Simone de Beauvoir wrote critically about it and Undset wrote it into her novel. It did not necessarily seem to be Kristin that, thus far, has given anything to contradict the tendency for the representation of women in literature, but rather Aashild, her Erlend’s aunt. I wonder if Kristin will continue to act this way or if she will change with the rest of the novel.

But what all of this boils down to is that I just don’t know what I think of Kristin and Erlend. Yes, Kristin follows her heart and gets what she wants, but at what cost? Is there irony here? That for all of her forward-thinking, Kristin falls into the same trap as all the other women? She frequently talks about how little she wants to be intimate with Erlend, but allows him to. I’m really not sure how I’m supposed to think about this couple and I’m torn between believing that Kristin is an independent woman ahead of her time to thinking that she gave up one kind of servitude for another. If only she’d stuck with Arne! He was the one and it ended in tragedy.

Now she felt that she had grown up from maiden to woman. This was not just because of the passionate, secret caresses she had received and given. She had not merely left her father’s guardianship and subjected herself to Erlend’s will. Brother Edvin had impressed on her the responsibility of answering for her own life, and for Erlend’s as well, and she was willing to bear this burden with grace and dignity. (159)

I’m not too worried, though, Kristin has plenty of time to prove herself as a strong woman as the story continues. I’m looking forward to getting back to the medieval world of Kristin!

Thanks to Richard and Emily for hosting this read-along! Other participants: kiss a cloud, She is Too Fond of Books, nonsuch book, page 247, 5-squared, Rhapsody in Books, Save Ophelia, what we have here is a failure to communicate, Fizzy Thoughts, tuesday in silhouette, Life Is A Patchwork Quilt, This Book and I Could Be Friends.

See you again at the end of the month for Part II!

Review – The Little Stranger by Sarah Waters

Lu — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 12:00:02 +0000

Dear Sarah Waters,

Are we friends yet? We’re three books into this relationship, which I know is not nearly as close as you’ve gotten to be with other readers. I know, I know that I need to read your other novels, your starters, your masterpieces. Tipping the Velvet and Affinity are at the top of my TBR list, so please don’t get too mad at me. But here we are again, I’ve finished reading The Little Stranger and I’m having mixed feelings about this! I wish that I didn’t have to say this in a letter, but I doubt you’d take a phone call from me, considering we’ve never actually met and I’m 95.6% sure that you don’t know I exist. Plus, you probably don’t want my advice because I am a minion and you are SARAH WATERS caps lock. Unless you’ve Googled “Sarah Waters Review The Night Watch” in which case, I am on the first page!

First, let me sing you some praises, because you certainly deserve them. The Little Stranger scared me, and while it’s true that I am a bit of a wimp when it comes to ghost stories, there are absolutely some bone-chilling moments in this book. You also know how to pull a twist so delicate that we don’t even know it’s happening, but it’s been there all along. Kudos. I don’t know how you do it, but you give even the most seasoned plot-guesser a run for their money, I’m sure. Your characters are so realistic that I’m pretty sure I know them. Especially Kay from The Night Watch and Dr. Faraday from The Little Stranger. I am also sure that I’ve been to the Hundreds before, even though it probably doesn’t exist outside of these pages. You’re just so good at putting me somewhere that I lose grip on my own reality, and believe me that is not a complaint.

With every book of yours I have read, it has been like a roller coaster ride of emotion. Between Fingersmith, The Night Watch and The Little Stranger I have gone from mystery, eroticism, WWII, drama, aristocracy, women!, men!, ghosts, betrayals, bombs. There have been moments of pure joy, love, and wonderfulness. But, I cannot lie to you, there are moments when I think you could cut back the pages just a wee bit. I get a little tired sometimes and I just want things to move a little faster. Lord knows, you can spin a yarn and it is good. I’m so torn! I don’t want you to cut back, but I want the books to be shorter, but then I don’t want you to lose your wonderful detail! I want you to trim things down a bit, but I’d be kicking myself if I lost parts of your book. Plus, you put me in a place so convincingly that I wouldn’t give that up for anything. If losing that sense of scene is what it would cost me to fix this problem then forget I ever mentioned it.

So really, this is just a wishy-washy letter that is me, telling you, that I like to read your books but sometimes they make me tired. Maybe I just don’t have the stamina for your awesomeness, so really you should ignore this all together. But I do have a secret to tell you: I don’t think you’ve written your best book yet. I think you’re keeping it all locked up and secret and one day you’re going to whip it out and it’s going to smack us in the face. Because you’re like that and it will be amazing.

Sincerely, lovingly, adoringly, wishy-washily,

Lu.

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Other reviews: A Garden Carried in the Pocket, Shelf Love, A Life in Books, Fleur Fisher Reads, Farm Lane Books Blog, S. Krishna’s Books

Poetry Wednesday – Naomi Shihab Nye

Lu — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 12:00:14 +0000

At this point, I have shared with you most of my absolute favorite poets. I still have a few that I’m hiding up my sleeve for a rainy day, but I’ve started looking for poets that are new to me to present on PW. That is the case this week, with Naomi Shihab Nye. She is a writer of Palestinian and US descent who writes often of what it is like to be a Palestinian-American. I have not read much of her poetry, but the poem I have today is very moving and I would really like to read more.

Blood

“A true Arab knows how to catch a fly in his hands,”
my father would say. And he’d prove it,
cupping the buzzer instantly
while the host with the swatter stared.

In the spring our palms peeled like snakes.
True Arabs believed watermelon could heal fifty ways.
I changed these to fit the occasion.

Years before, a girl knocked,
wanted to see the Arab.
I said we didn’t have one.
After that, my father told me who he was,
“Shihab”—”shooting star”—
a good name, borrowed from the sky.
Once I said, “When we die, we give it back?”
He said that’s what a true Arab would say.

Today the headlines clot in my blood.
A little Palestinian dangles a toy truck on the front page.
Homeless fig, this tragedy with a terrible root
is too big for us. What flag can we wave?
I wave the flag of stone and seed,
table mat stitched in blue.

I call my father, we talk around the news.
It is too much for him,
neither of his two languages can reach it.
I drive into the country to find sheep, cows,
to plead with the air:
Who calls anyone civilized?
Where can the crying heart graze?
What does a true Arab do now?

Review – City of Thieves by David Benioff

Lu — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 12:00:56 +0000

“We walked alongside the frozen Fontanka Canal, the ice littered with abandoned corpses, some covered with shrouds weighted down with stones, others stripped for their warm clothes, their white faces staring up at the darkening sky. The wind was beginning to wake for the night and I watched a dead woman’s long blond hair blow across her face. She had taken pride in that hair once, washed it twice a week, brushed it out for twenty minutes before going to bed. Now it was trying to protect her, to shield her decay from the eyes of strangers.” (page 56)

City of Thieves by David Benioff is one of those books that I avoided for no good reason. The subject matter seemed boring to me, another war novel, another novel about Russia that I just had no interest in reading. Every once in a while, though, a book just keeps showing up in my life and I just have to pick it up. This was the case with City of Thieves. It was featured at B&N, I stumbled upon it in the stacks and finally it was there at the check-out lane at the library. Then it moved to the top of my TBR pile by chance – it was the only book I had in my car one day. So I started reading it and I’m so glad I did.

The one word that comes to mind after reading this book is absurd. The book is about Lev and Kolya, two young Russian men who are doing their part to defend St. Petersburg/Leningrad/Piter from the Germans. They both end up in prison one night, after Lev loots a dead German’s body and Kolya supposedly deserts the army. Certain they are facing death, they strike up an unlikely friendship that continues to grow after they are sent on a ridiculous mission by the commander: find a dozen eggs. If they can find a dozen eggs for the commander’s daughter’s wedding cake, they will be set free. Never mind that no one has seen an egg in Piter for six months.

So they go looking for eggs. This book balances the tragedy and absurdity of war in an unlikely way. It is humorous but it never forgets its setting; it is grand and it is base. There are moments of laugh out loud debauchery and tear-inducing trauma. I cannot tell you how well this book is researched, in terms of how accurate a representation it is of Leningrad during the German blockade, but it sure feels well-done. It feels impeccably researched, but never loses the narrative in the history. It combines a character-driven tale, a historical back-drop, mythic allusions and manages to be refreshing and original. As for the ending, well, I might have seen it coming from a mile away, but it certainly felt satisfying and I might have cried just a little.

More quotes!

The boy sold what people called library candy, made from tearing the covers off of books, peeling off the binding glue, boiling it down, and reforming it into bars you could wrap in paper. The stuff tasted like wax, butt here was protein in the glue, protein kept you alive, and the city’s books were disappearing like the pigeons. (52)

For a few seconds he helped me forget the fear, but it never left for long. I could not remember when I was not afraid, but that night it came on stronger than ever before. So many possibilities, but that night it came on stronger than ever before. So many possibilities terrified me. There was the possibility of shame, of cowering again on the fringe of the action while Kolya fought the Germans – except this time, I knew he would die. There was the possibility of pain, suffering through the kind of torture Zoya suffered through, the saw teeth biting through my skin, muscles and bone. There was the excellent possibility of death. I never understood people who said their greatest fear was public speaking, or spiders, or any of the other minor terrors. How could you fear anything more than death? Everything else offered moments of escape: a paralyzed man could still read Dickens; a man in the grips of dementia might have flashes of the most absurd beauty. (pg 136)

This book was just what I needed when I needed it, highly recommended.

Also reviewed by: Trish’s Reading Nook & Bending Bookshelf

Did you read and review City of Thieves? Tell me in the comments and I’ll link to your review!

Review – Stitches by David Small

Lu — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 12:00:37 +0000

Stitches by David Small is a graphic memoir that covers Small’s life from age 6-16 and then a flash forward to his 30s. It is the visual unloading of tragedy and and Small’s attempt understand everything that happened to him as a child. You can feel his anger in these drawings. There is so much to praise in this graphic memoir. It is brutally honest; Small seems to have left no ground uncovered when it comes to his mother and father. Everything is here, drawn in clean, beautiful lines. Never has the art of a comic moved me as much as it did here. Reading Stitches is not really something you can explain, it is something to be experienced. You will find things here that will horrify you, but also things that will remind you of your own family. There are terrifying and sad moments, but innocent ones as well.

I don’t want to tell you the plot of Stitches, in fact I’m having difficulty talking about it intelligently at all. All you need to know is that it is absolutely stunning, tragic and beautiful, all at once. All you need to do is read it for yourself. So please, get out there and get yourself a copy.

Why, yes, it is my birthday.

Lu — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 06:01:07 +0000

Is it wrong to tell you that it is my birthday today? Like I’m asking for happy birthday comments? MAYBE.

CC Image source: Jessica N. Diamond

BUT IT’S MY BIRTHDAY!!!!!!!!!!

Poetry Wednesday – Spoken Word (2)

Lu — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 18:12:35 +0000

It’s Wednesday once again and today I thought I’d bring you two more spoken word poems. My roommate A showed me these a couple weeks ago and I just knew that I had to share them with you. I’m pretty positive they will make you cry, but each one for totally different reasons. “Hir” is the second video and it is performed by two people. I’ve never seen this before and it’s absolutely stunning. Both pieces are very moving and highly recommended. Please watch!

Too Big for My Skin

Hir

Review – Black Girl/White Girl by Joyce Carol Oates

Lu — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 12:00:22 +0000

I’m having trouble putting into words what exactly I felt about Black Girl/White Girl by Joyce Carol Oates. I didn’t not like it. Neither did I particularly enjoy listening to it. The novel is an untitled manuscript by aging academic Genna Mead about her freshman year at Schuyler College with her African American roommate Minette Swift. We know that Minette passes away from the very first page and that it’s not a mystery why she died. The book instead comes across as a defense of Genna’s actions and a criticism of Minette’s and Genna’s family.

There were moments of clarity in this novel, ones that convinced me that it was worth reading, or rather, listening to. Because of this, I kept at it, I kept listening. I’m not wholly unsatisfied or disappointed that I did. In all honesty, I just don’t know what to make of the characters, with their individual idiosyncrasies that made them as unbearable as they were. I was frustrated with the Genna’s constant need for approval, from her father to her roommate, Minette. I did not understand what meaning I was supposed to take from it, other than the situation was beyond anyone’s control and Minette was responsible for her own death. And that we weren’t supposed to feel any sympathy for her, whatsoever.

There were plot lines that were dropped, there were inconsistencies in narration. It was frustrating. I find that I am often more critical of books when I listen to them, so that is something to take into consideration. I just know that there are better Joyce Carol Oates books out there and this one simply wasn’t for me. Like I said, there were certainly interesting moments in this novel and it was definitely one that made me think. So I can’t say it’s not worth reading, because on some level it is, but I wish I would have listened to something more interesting.

Also reviewed by:

Book Chase

Did you read and review Black Girl/White Girl? Leave me a comment and I’ll link to your review!