Thought Train to Pusan

BIG OOF on this one! As I neared the end of this novel, I noticed a pull-quote on the cover that I originally didn’t pay attention to on account of being in an unappealing font to read (I’m weird about fonts, y’all, it’s part of my job after all). Upon actually looking at it, however, I saw that it was written by someone I very much don’t care for. So in retrospect, that might have been a clue that I wasn’t going to enjoy this novel for a few reasons. But let’s get on with the book!! Bunny centers on a young woman named Samantha (Sam) who is in the final year of a highly selective writing MFA program. The only other members of her cohort in this program are a clique of four women who possess all the stereotypical “girly girl” traits you can imagine, but each with a slightly different style. They call each other Bunny and so, Sam calls them the Bunnies. These four women all seem to be operating on the same hivemind, and Sam hates them. Yet she is also fascinated by them, so when the gi...

A cover showing a woman lovingly embracing a fish AND a title which is my star sign (a sign that I personally extremely exemplify in all manners of my behavior)? Sign me up! Or so I thought. Turns out, despite wanting to know where this would go and thereby finishing it quite quickly, I wasn’t feeling it for a few reasons. And yes, I will get into all of them because I have realized that when I don’t like things I always feel like I have to go into a big explanation of it. As if I’m not allowed to simply not enjoy things unless there is a reason for it. Hmmm… that’s probably something I’ll personally have to ruminate over for a while. In any case! On with the plot: The Pisces follows Lucy, a woman who has been stuck working on her dissertation on Sappho for 13 years, and recently broke up with her boyfriend, Jamie. Despite being unhappy in this relationship, she is devastated and falls into depression. After engaging in a number of erratic behaviors, Lucy’s half-sister insists that sh...

“Reality never changes. Only our recollections of it do. Whenever a moment passes, we pass along with it into the realm of memory. And in that realm, geometries change. Contours shift, shades lighten, objectivities dissolve. Memory becomes what we need it to be.” The Saturday Night Ghost Club is a coming-of-age novel that takes place over one fateful summer where lessons are learned and relationships take on new meanings. Our protagonist is a 12 year-old boy named Jake, living in Niagara Falls in the 1980s. This particular summer, Jake befriends two siblings, Ben and Dove, and the three take part in a “Saturday Night Ghost Club” that is hosted by Jake’s eccentric uncle, Calvin. Calvin runs the local occultorium, and is deeply invested in conspiracy theories and the occult, but is generally a kind and fun, if slightly offbeat man. As the summer goes on, however, Jake starts to wonder if there is something off about his uncle and their ghost-hunting adventures. Interspersed with narrati...