Sea of Tranquility By Emily St. John Mandel

 

Sea of Tranquility

By Emily St. John Mandel

 4.5 stars.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara

Image
A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara This is a beautifully written and thoughtful exploration of friendship, love, and loss, and how the trauma of youth never really leaves you. I'm unsure why the author has received so much backlash for the writing of this story, which I see myself reflected in so much. Never did I feel manipulated into feeling a particular way; isn't that what fiction writing is supposed to do anyway? There is also the matter of readers having such strong reactions to this book, some having cried and others revulsed by the graphic depictions of violence. In full disclosure, I only felt visceral reactions twice while reading A Little Life : the first with the scene of violence with Caleb, which I admit was difficult to get through; the second the end of the story where we find out what happened to Jude, but more than what happened to him, Harold's feelings about it, especially on the last two pages. I felt deeply in touch with this book, as if my own experie...
Read more

Mexican Gothic by Silvia Moreno-Garcia

Image
  Mexican Gothic by Silvia Moreno-Garcia Noemí Taboada visits her cousin Catalina at High Place, an old Victorian mansion high in the misty hills of the Mexican countryside. Her father has received a distressing letter from Catalina with cryptic messages and he thinks she may need psychiatric care. he sends Noemí, a society girl used to dating pretty boys and bantering with those in her circle, to visit Catalina and assess the situation. Catalina moved to High Place after marrying a handsome, cold heir to a silver mine named Virgil who lives at High Place with his elderly father Howard Doyle, his aloof and proper aunt Florence, and his quiet and slight cousin Francis, along with three servants. When Noemí arrives she immediately feels unwelcome and learns this family has a thing with pure heredity, as in pure white English heredity, particularly that of their own family. All is not what it seems. The house is in decay and seems to have a mold problem. Catalins, kept in her room mos...
Read more

Beneath the Scarlet Sky By Mark Sullivan

Image
  Beneath the Scarlet Sky By Mark Sullivan This story follows Pino Lella, an Italian teenager, who becomes enmeshed in World War II when he is enlisted as the driver for a high ranking German official. Pino is sent to a mountain getaway/school by his parents in order to keep him safe when the bombing reaches his Italian city. There, he helps to get Jews across the border to Switzerland to escape the Nazis. Afterward, when he returns home and is at the age of enlistment to be drafted into the war effort, he is noticed by General Leyers, who asks for Pino to become his driver, taking him around Italy to various appointments and battle positions. Pino saves Leyers's life a couple times, even though Pino himself is against the Nazis and is working undercover as a spy, relaying information to his uncle who is part of the resistance movement. Throughout the story Pino is forming a romantic relationship with Anna, who is the maid to Leyers's mistress, and a woman he asked out on a dat...
Read more