Thought Train to Pusan

“The books that the world calls immoral are the books that show the world its own shame.” – pg 161 Aaaaah, my dramatic boy Oscar Wilde did cause a stir, didn’t he? And it’s kind of ironic that this line was included in a book that then faced so much controversy and was considered immoral, huh? But there are indeed some psychological truths to be found in this novel, even after all this time. I first read this novel a few years ago and enjoyed it then, but upon rereading it now after even just a little bit of time and growth, I came to notice more things than I did upon my first read, and different aspects resonated with me this time. I love it when that happens! And I really do like this book, even if I maybe don’t entirely follow all the rants and theories the characters go off on. It’s a lot. They’re really dramatic. And I live for the drama. In fact, it’s kind of funny to me that all the iterations and adaptations of the character of Dorian Gray that I’ve seen in various thin...

There’s a café in our city with a little “library” that encourages visitors to swap books (leave one, take one), and I’m pretty sure at the moment they have about 4 full sets of all the Twilight series? In any case, on Canada Day, I impulsively did a switcheroo, and got my friend to point at a random book for me to take, which led me to picking up Pop by Gordon Korman. Well, initially it was something like “Vampie Lovers 2” or whatever but I said, I can’t read this if I haven’t read the FIRST one, now can I? But I digress… Pop is a young adult novel, focused on a teenage boy named Marcus, who has just moved into a new, small town and hopes to join their elite and much-loved high school football team. Of course there is the typical ruffling of feathers and issues really settling in to the new town and being accepted from the team which we come to expect from a lot of YA sports stories, right down to him catching the eye of the gorgeous cheerleader who of course is also the cur...

A quick little foray into the world at night, when people exist in almost a different realm. After Dark takes place in Tokyo, over the course of one night, and centers around a small selection of people whose activities all end up interconnected somehow. But it’s not quite so simple, as there seems to be some other kind of… I don’t want to say supernatural, but fantastical elements at play as well. It’s a simple and quick read, that comes across as very gentle and thoughtful, yet I can’t say as I was 100% sold on it in it’s entirety. After Dark features twining stories centered around a number of people, including: a young woman trapped in a deep sleep, the girl’s sister who wants nothing more than to stay away form home all night, an old acquaintance of the two sisters who wants to be more acquainted, three women working at a love hotel, a young Chinese prostitute who is the victim of violence, and the businessman who hurt her. Everyone lives separate lives which all influenc...

Alright, this is a conflicting one. I decided to read this book as I saw it listed on a few of those “100 books to read before you die” or “how many of these essential books have you read: most people have only read 8” lists you sometimes see floating about, and now I wonder… why? Why is it on those lists? Is it really considered a classic? Has it really help up over time? Is there not more scrutiny of it now and given all the developments after it’s release? Which, I really didn’t know about at the time, and am now aware of, and is therefore part of why I find this read a bit conflicting when coming to review it. It’s a little bit of that “looking at the art separately” from the creator idea. In this case, it may be more so considering the time period in which it was written and whether or not over time it holds up. I don’t know, I just found that a lot of what was going on in this novel made me want to ask questions or be concerned, yet nothing was really looked at very critically...

Well this was… an experience. And I don’t know that it was a good one? It’s kind of funny, me reading a novel that is so focused on scent and a man with an extraordinary sense of smell, when I myself have an absolutely horrid sense of smell. Honestly, it has to be incredibly strong for me to ever notice any kind of scent (this started happening when I suddenly developed allergic polyps in my nose a few years ago, but anyways). But this book definitely made me worried about the way that I personally smell, now. And whenever I go to play basketball and the gym stinks I am suddenly convinced that the smell is coming from me and I just can’t smell it all the time for some reason… But I digress! Let’s get on with the book. Perfume: The Story of a Murderer follows the life and work of Jean-Baptiste Grenouille, a young man whose sense of smell is unparalleled. It’s like, a Daredevil-level sense, wherein he can basically see in the dark, smell every individual perso...

This book has been sitting on my kindle for a few years now, after trying to start it on a couple of occasions to no avail (mostly because I ended up getting distracted by different readings for school). But I finally got around to it! Whilst also in the midst of the tv adaptation. Which, I have to say, I am absolutely loving: it definitely expands on the world presented in the book, allowing different characters to be more developed, stick around for bigger parts of the story (rather than being a small blip as some are in the book), and also allow us to see a lot more of the larger story at play that is definitely present in the novel, just more on a sub-level that we do not directly see or get to interact with as readers. In particular, I found the character of Laura Moon to be a bit lacking or not fully developed in the book, but she is being given a lot more breathing and growing room in the show which is absolutely fantastic! But that’s not what this review is about, so let’s c...