The Literary Adventures of an Opinionated Bookworm

Have you ever read a book that, even while reading it, you know it will stick with you forever?  After finishing, Between the World and Me  by Ta-Nehisi Coates, I immediately felt the need to write about it. Coates is a talented writer, there's no doubt about that. I don't want to jinx it but he may be the best writer I've read in 2020! The essence of this book is perfectly encapsulated by the Toni Morrison quote on the back: "I've been wondering who might fill the intellectual void that plagued me after James Baldwin died. Clearly it is Ta-Nehisi Coates. The language of Between the World and Me , like Coates's journey, is visceral, eloquent, and beautifully redemptive. And its examination of the hazards and hopes of black male life is as profound as it is revelatory. This is required reading." This book is beautiful, and heartbreaking all in one, but it is necessary reading for everyone. If you want to know the truth, you need to be willing to hear it and...

Romance novels are a great break from schoolwork; most of the time there is a happy ending, and if there isn't, then the story likely makes you feel good. This is why I love to read them during my study breaks.  During my first week of studying, I decided to pick up The Wedding Date  by Jasmine Guillory for my light, pre-sleep reading, which was unfortunately a mistake. The story did not ease me into an easy sleep because there was not really a story to follow. Drew is about to attend his ex girlfriend's and best friend's wedding solo, when fortune traps him in an elevator with the beautiful Alexa. On a whim, he asks Alexa to be his fake girlfriend so that he does not have to face the embarrassment of the weekend alone, and for some reason, she agrees. But when the weekend is an amazing success for the pair, where are they to go from there? The Do's and Don't's of Romance When you pick up a romance novel, you automatically assume there will be sexual scenes with...

Speechless.  I honestly have no idea how to describe The Yellow Wallpaper  by Christine Perkins Gilman. It was on the reading list for one of my classes, and I know why it was assigned, but wow did it give me the shivers.  Written in 1892, this short story is from the perspective of a woman who is suffering from anxiety and depression, whose doctor/husband has determined that she must be isolated in the nursery of a house they are renting; a room with yellow wallpaper. The main character's thoughts are consumed by the wallpaper, how it affects her and her husband, and the woman she sees in it.  Charlotte Perkins Gilman was a sociologist as well as a novelist, so it is interesting to contemplate the context of this novel, as well as why it may have been written. I have no doubt that my classmates and I will have an interesting time discussing her works. Her writing is incredible, eerily captivating, and enjoyable. I give it 4 stars! As always, I am your Opinionated Bo...

  "After receiving a frantic letter from her newlywed cousin, Noemi Taboada heads to High Place, a distant house in the Mexican countryside, unsure of what she will find." So begins Noemi's epic adventure to save her cousin, in Silvia Moreno-Garcia's newest novel, Mexican Gothic . The plot of this story was surely unique and absolutely terrifying...I have no idea how Moreno-Garcia produces these adventures but I am grateful for her creativity and the excitement it brings to my life! Reasons Against Marriage If I learned anything from this book, it is to never marry into a mysterious family with a grand house that they have named. I'm only joking--partially, I guess. The Doyle family at High Place embodies the sort of family-in-law that anyone dreads marrying into. Deep, twisted secrets inhabit the walls of the old, creaking house; not to mention the ghosts that also dwell behind the wallpaper.  Slow though the first few chapters were, the second half of the book w...

The residents of the village of Chawton are no strangers to misery, the Second World War brought much of it to their quiet world. Sometimes, to cope with such grief and heartbreak, one needs to escape; "And that's exactly what Austen gives us. A world so a part of our own, yet so separate, that entering it is like some kind of tonic" (117). The Power of Austen Natalie Jenner took a whole new look at Austen in her book, The Jane Austen Society , something that is difficult to do, as Jane Austen's works have been made into films, plays and reinterpreted in many ways. At the heart of most interpretations is love, and how Austen helps us learn to love, but Jenner's approach has an unexpected take. Through the stories of "a farmer, a young war widow, the village doctor, an employee of Sotheby's, a Hollywood star, a local solicitor, the anticipated heiress to the estate and a precocious house-girl," Jenner shows us how the works of Jane Austen connect peop...