AJ Dunn Reads

  The Secret History By Donna Tartt Richard Papen arrives at a small Vermont college after a couple years of previous higher education and decides to major in the Classics. The professor in charge of the department insists on a small class size and has certain requirements Richard wouldn't meet to be included. But Richard is cunning and a liar when it suits him, and finds his way into the program. He finds there and clever and eccentric group of misfit students, some rich, some pretending, all with their own foibles. Unbeknownst to Richard, most of the others dabble in the occult as a part of their thirst for knowledge, which leads to an unintended murder. When another student finds out about it and uses it as leverage to get them to spend lavishly on him, they decide to take matters into their own hands and make him disappear. To do this, they bring Richard into the fold and come clean about what they've done. Richard, finding he wants badly to belong to this group, agrees to

  Kindred By Octavia E. Butler   Dana and her husband have just moved into a new house in California when she is suddenly ripped out of the modern world and finds herself in the slave-owning south. Dana, a black woman, finds herself in a precarious position. It seems her fate and her time traveling are wrapped up in the near-death experiences of a young white boy named Rufus, who seems to have a connection with Dana. Each time she is pulled back she saves Rufus from impending death. At first he seems welcoming and open-minded. He is in love with a slave girl. But as he grows he changes, becoming harder and much more like his father in mind and beliefs. Repeatedly, Dana is brought back (once with her husband who gets stranded there for many years) and she struggles with Rufus over his changing attitudes. Each time she returns her position becomes more uncertain, with Rufus eventually wanting her to stay by any means. Dana knows the only way she can get back home for good is to either en

  Unsettled Ground By Claire Fuller   In rural England Dot passes away in her crumbling cottage and leaves behind her two 51-year-old twins, Jeanie and Julius. Together, the two of them must learn how to get by on their own. But Dot has left them unprepared to navigate the world without her, having brought them up without much formal education (Jeanie is illiterate) and with a few debts neither of them knew about. Throughout the twins learn that Dot was not who they thought she was. She had secrets. Outside the cottage the world has modernized, leaving Jeanie in particular unprepared. Jeanie learns that getting by in the world depends largely on literacy and finding work outside of the home, while Julius struggles with his own desires that oppose his sister's dependency on him. Both have to find their way and carve out a future for themselves. When another tragedy strikes, Jeanie discovers what she's made of and has to reconcile Dot's secrets with the mother she thought she

  The Dark Half By Stephen King   Thad Beaumont is a writer who built his success from crime books published under the pen name of George Stark after mediocre success writing literary fiction under his own name. But the time has come for Beaumont to take back his career doing work he wants to do, not just work he knows will bring in the cash. So, he kills off his pen name after a fan finds out the connection and before it can be leaked to the media. When Thad was little he suffered seizures and it was found that he had consumed a twin in the womb, a twin who was regenerating and growing in Thad's brain. An operation removed the problem, until George came back. George, essentially Thad's twin in every way but looks and attitude, feels cheated and wants what he thinks is coming to him. George Stark refuses to die. After a mock burial service for People magazine, Stark rises from the pseudo grave and goes on a killing spree, knocking off everyone involved in his demise. Stark

  The Luminaries By Eleanor Catton   Walter Moody is planning to dig for his fortune during the New Zealand Gold Rush of the mid-1860s when he falls into a mystery told to him by twelve men in the parlor of his hotel. As their stories unravel, their connections to one another and the others in the tale lead to Moody defending a case related to the crimes the men tell of. A man has been found dead, another has gone missing, and a cast of characters each have something to do with the proceedings. A fortune has been found in two places, and to whom it belongs forms the backbone of the story told in parts, all bound up with the zodiac, the planets, and their influences over the story. It is a richly layered novel full of fast-paced intrigue that reads like many genres bound into one, with a bit of murder mystery, a drawing room drama, a bit of wild west and a dash of The Pirates of the Caribbean . Add in a hint of courtroom drama and you have The Luminaries . This book was compulsively rea

  The Girl Who Outgrew the World By Zoje Stage Lilly is eleven years old and she can't stop growing. In no time she grows even taller than her father, James, who worries about Lilly's health and the consequences of growing too tall for her heart too handle. James looks for help from a bunch of doctors who want to have Lilly admitted for a series of tests, like a lab animal. When Lilly learns of this she decides to run away to a land she heard about in a poem, where she can be herself amongst others like her. This is a modern fairy tale with Stage's signature unease. It is a brutal portrayal of what it's like to be a girl, to have the fate of your body decided by others, and the objectification that comes with being female. Lilly's height and body changes are the excuses others use to violate her, and what causes her father to not only think differently about her but to fear her as well. This is a book that displays the fear men have of women and femininity, and the

  Wild Swans By Jung Chang Wild Swans recounts the histories of Jung Chang, her mother, and her grandmother in China and their harrowing lives under communism, the Cultural Revolution, and the rise and fall of Mao Zedong. It is sweeping in scope with difficult and often brutal descriptions of what the three women, their family, friend, and neighbors had to endure for decades. I have to admit the writing style was not my favorite, though I found the history interesting. There was a lot of telling, and hopping from place to place and event to event in jarring ways. Though there was some good and often beautiful descriptions, they were interwoven in contexts that often felt displaced. I didn't get on with it. Perhaps a different style would have made it more compelling for me because the torment and struggle Wild Swans recounts should by definition have interested me and kept me glued to the page. But I had a hard time wanting to pick it up. I can only give it 3 stars, unfortunately