Quickies, Issue #1
If I am ever to catch up in reviewing what I read, I must learn to write shorter less time consuming, soul divulging reviews. I will, I will, I will… stay-on-topic.
You may have also noticed that I only give glowing reviews. Well, that’s because I end up only taking time to review the books that really make me glow.
Towards correcting both issues, I give you “quickie” reviews!
Always heard this one was “the” women’s lib book to read. And it’s written by a southern author who turns out isn’t southern. Chopin married into a New Orleans family and later used the Creole culture in which she’d been immersed as setting and personality for her writing. I wanted to like this so much, but found the writing style boring and dry, a similiar problem to Wilkie Collin’s The Woman in White. A short, but ultimately sad story, The Awakening had me waiting for the epiphany that would prove universal to the lives of women and especially the relationship between men and women. It never came. Between that disappointment and the main character’s demise, I was left boggled by how this book could ever be lifted up in support of a feminist movement. Yes, Chopin was certainly brave in telling the tale and bringing the topic of adultery to paper, but if this book speaks of anything, doesn’t it warn against the dangers of women following their true hearts?
I was a captive audience of one. Science fiction that I love, a female author so rare, setting close to my heart. It started off great, sort of like a really awesome Star Trek: The Next Generation time travel episode. I mean, man, what a premise! Modern black woman goes back in time to rescue an ancestor and slave owner from a death that would lead to her having never being born. And I was totally absorbed in it, until the realization that the highly charged, emotional and traumatic beginning had a lame ending. She dropped the ball. How I could go from caring to apathy for what happened to her characters is beyond me. I like to care! Oh well.
The Vagina Monologues
by Eve Ensler
You probably couldn’t have paid me to read this book once upon a time. I was once quite the prude. And yet ten years later, I read it willingly and adored the entire thing. This one succeeded whether the first two books (see above) failed. The emotions carry throughout the whole book, building to a crescendo that makes you want to cheer out loud as you flip the last page and then promptly march out and sign yourself up for the revolution! (I almost did the cheering bit, but was reading on night shift and thought it better that my patients continue sleeping.) This book reminded me of Anita Diamant’s novel The Red Tent for it’s frank honesty in speaking about sex, anatomy and the discrimination, violence and abuse that women face in some parts of the world. Highly recommended for every woman and especially to those of who may, like I once did, have hidden feelings of shame about your body. What beauty there is in hidden places.
The Lost City of Z
by David Grann
<gasp!> NON-fiction. Take a trip to the Amazon and Victorian Britain to hear the tale of a real life Indiana Jones by the name of Colonel Percy Harrison Fawcett. This book was endlessly fascinating for the perspective it gave on history, archaeology, geography, biology, social mores of long ago, the changing of the seasons at the birth of the 20th century and the impact of British colonialism throughout the world. I was entertained, educated and deliciously lost in wilderness in this fast summer read. So glad I picked it up!
Yes, I took the plunge. My love for the Bones television show gave me no choice. I had to try one of Kathy Reichs’ Tempe Brennan novels. The fact that it qualified for the library’s summer reading program twas only a thin veil to disguise my already piqued interest. I was to find that the characters between the show and the books are not one and the same. However, I was really just looking for the same thrill ride, and personality differences are allowed. Only her writing style truly irked me. One review on the back called it “witty,” and it certainly is that. Funny at times as well, but overall jarring. I felt yanked out of the story by my surprise, the flow of the tale interrupted. And the story itself mediocre at best. Perhaps it’s a good thing that Reichs hasn’t become my newest obsession for there is so much fine literature waiting on my nightstand.
Here I go…
ps. The first three were choices I read for the Women Unbound Reading Challenge, 
the later two for my local library’s Destination Jungle summer reading program.
Robyn
cecilia
Kalanna
