feverish
Symptomatic by Danzy Senna
“Every day in this new city I was trying to live in the purity of the present, free from context. Contexts, I knew, were dangerous: Once you put them into the picture, they took over.” As with her latest novel New People, Symptomatic presents its readers with a claustrophobic and disquieting narrative that becomes increasingly […]
MoreNew People by Danzy Senna
“When she was just a kid, Gloria told her never to trust a group of happy, smiling multiracial people. Never trust races when they get along, she said. If you see different races of people just standing around, smiling at one another, run for the hills, kid. Take cover. They’ll break your heart.” A disquieting […]
MoreAt Night All Blood is Black by David Diop
At Night All Blood is Black is a short yet certainly not breezy read. David Diop’s novel reads very much like the increasingly feverish confession of a man whose every-day reality is permeated by violence. He is both victim and perpetrator, cognisant of the violence that dominates his life yet somehow unwilling to truly consider […]
MoreThe Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman
“But in the places where it isn’t faded and where the sun is just so—I can see a strange, provoking, formless sort of figure, that seems to skulk about behind that silly and conspicuous front design.” First published in 1892 The Yellow Wallpaper is a disquieting short story that has become a seminal piece of […]
MoreCrime And Punishment: A Novel in Six Parts with Epilogue by Fyodor Dostoyevsky
Dostoyevsky’s The Idiot is a favourite of mine so I was expecting Crime And Punishment be right up my street…aaaaand I hated it. Many consider Crime And Punishment to be one of the most influential books of all time…and I have to wonder…how? The Idiot, although certainly flawed, tells a far more cohesive and compelling […]
MoreCardiff, by the Sea: Four Novellas of Suspense by Joyce Carol Oates
As I highly rate Joyce Carol Oates I was quite looking forward to Cardiff, by the Sea, a collection of four novellas ‘of suspense’. While I have only read a few of Oates’ works Patricide, a novella of hers, is a favourite of mine. The novellas collected in Cardiff, by the Sea have more in […]
MoreI’m Thinking of Ending Things by Iain Reid
I should have ended things with this book as soon as I grew irritated by our narrator’s navel-gazing. But, I persevered, hoping against hope that at some point, ideally before reaching the book’s finish line, I would find what I was reading to be even remotely intriguing. At the beginning we have a young woman […]
MoreRed Pill by Hari Kunzru
Once again, I am in the minority as I did not find Red Pill to be a particularly artful or clever novel. To be clear, I do think that Hari Kunzru can write very well indeed, however, his narrative struck me as all flash and no substance. I was amused by the first quarter of […]
MoreEarthlings by Sayaka Murata — book review
“The person who had given birth to me said I was a dead loss, so I decided it really must be true.” A few days before reading Earthlings I read Sayaka Murata’s Convenience Store Woman and I really loved its humour and eccentric narrator. So, perhaps I approached Earthlings with the wrong expectations. Or maybe […]
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