Thought Train to Pusan

This book is… heavy. Having seen the film a number of years ago, I obviously knew the main progression of the story, but having so much more added detail and insight into the mind of Eva made the gut-punch at the end all the more devastating (I have no idea how I could have forgotten it!). We Need to Talk About Kevin is comprised of a series of letters that a woman named Eva is writing to her husband, some time after their son commit mass-murder at his high-school. So obviously, while the subject was pertinent at the time of writing the book (early 2000s), it continues to be so today, what with more and more tragedies occurring almost every day. The main focus of Eva’s letters follows the path of her life wherein she decided she wanted to be a mother, and her response to the event of having her son, as well as her relationship with him and the apparent personalities she saw in her son. Being from Eva’s perspective, we see her struggle with issues of guilt as she never really ...

I had high hopes for this book, given the positive reviews I’d seen for it and the fact that, despite being a part of the LGBT+ “genre” the first line is “this is not a coming out story.” Now, I know I’ve talked about this subject before, and I know that these types of stories are important and can be very powerful, especially when speaking of individual’s real struggles and experiences, but man am I tired. Especially with the LGBT+ genre of movies: I’m drawn to these stories and they resonate with me because I myself identify as LGBT+, but 90% of this genre absolutely sucks (also why can’t LGBT+ romances be considered a part of the “regular” genres anyways? What, if a main character is gay or trans and deals with some of these issues but the book/film is simply filed under “romance” or “action” this is somehow misleading to the average audience? Nah). It’s all just struggles and pain and unhappiness and hyper sexuality, and I’m tired tired tired. I don't want to just accept wh...

A new year, and new books to read and review! Yaaay! This book was a part of one of the CBR group discussions last year, or the year before, wasn’t it? I knew it sounded familiar but alas, had not gotten around to it until now. I’ll be honest I had no idea what Station Eleven was about when I started to read it, but I received it as a gift from a friend and I must say, she did a great job choosing something that she thought I would like! It looks like quite a few other people have enjoyed it, too. But let us dive in, shall we? Station Eleven begins with the death of an actor on stage. From there, a deadly flu takes out the majority of the population of earth, and we are left viewing the lives of the survivors. Those we encounter, however, are all somehow connected to this public figure whose death preceded these events. While most zombie/illness outbreak movies and stories that I have seen tend to focus on the immediate downfall or just a few weeks after, Station Eleven deals...

Do you ever read something and just know it was written by a man? Particularly when dealing with the subject of women? Of course, I do know Patrick Rothfuss is male, but I mean, sometimes you just get this feeling of deep knowing in your soul… more on this later.  The Wise Man’s Fear is the second book in Patrick Rothfuss’ Kingkiller Chronicle series, and I feel like the book was really split in half for me in terms of enjoyment: literally, I liked the first half just as I enjoyed the first book in the series, but the second half fell flat and started dragging. Maybe my enjoyment of the first half was because I enjoy Kvothe’s adventures at university and searching for answers to the Chandrian mystery so much, which the first half of the book once again focuses on as an older Kvothe continues to tell the story of his life. As the tale continues, however, Kvothe leaves university in search of patronage from a powerful maer, and then comes to be involved in some work ridd...

I’m not sure if this is just going to be a trilogy or intended to be a longer series? In any case, I just finished reading the three books (so far!) in Holly Black’s Curse Workers young adult series (titled White Cat , Red Glove , and Black Heart ). The premise is interesting, and draws the characters into a world of crime and corruption that I haven’t seen in exactly the same way in other YA books, though some of the typical tropes and characters definitely come out to play. In particular, there is some good commentary that could be related to “outing” people and the persecution of particular groups within society today, in the form of wanting to test everyone so that they can be clearly identified as “curse workers” within this world. I shall explain what this means henceforth: Set in what is the current present day, White Cat begins with us coming to know a teenager named Cassel, who is the youngest in a family of curse workers: curse workers are a small subset of the populat...

This book was recommended to me by my cousin, and I am definitely feeling it and want to continue on with the series when I get a chance. It is an interesting way to begin a story, having a character recount their own story before something else is obviously going to occur in the present of the tale. Filled with new types of magic that I have not really experienced in other books, as well as a dark mystery that the protagonist wants to solve regarding his childhood, the story being told is quite engaging and exciting, and I am so curious as to how it is going to tie into the present characters and what is occurring at the time of the story telling. The first book in what is called “The Kingkiller Chronicle,” The Name of the Wind begins the tale of Kvothe, a man who is working as an innkeeper in a small town that has recently experienced some strange happenings with large, spider-like creatures. Despite seeming to be a regular member of the town, Kvothe seems to know a lot more ab...

I’m not sure how I keep finding these books that result in me wanting to have long personal discussions but, alas, the Amazon recommendations have led me here yet again. Adam Silvera’s young adult book More Happy Than Not is one of those ones that wasn’t amazing, but I still enjoyed and wanted to get through quickly. While the story and progression may have been a touch clumsy at times, some of the universal themes of pain, memory, suppression, and relationships were brought forth well. Perhaps a little obvious at times in the language and dialogue, but I suppose that is sometimes to be expected in books targeted at younger audiences, right? Not always, but you can definitely see some of the messages and ideas being laid out very directly near the end of the novel. But let’s get discussing what this novel is about, and then dive into some of the subjects it brought forth in my mind, shall we? What we begin with is a 16 year-old young man named Aaron, living in s pretty tight-knit...