The Promise By Damon Galgut

 

The Promise

By Damon Galgut

 4 stars.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Outsiders by S.E. Hinton

Image
  The Outsiders by S.E. Hinton One of my favorite book tropes is the adolescent or pre-adolescent boy with psychological or social trauma and self-discovery. Some of my favorite books involve this theme: Catcher in the Rye , I Know This Much is True , and The Perks of Being a Wallflower , to name a few. The Outsiders is another book that carries this theme, following Ponyboy Curtis and a gang of greasers in the mid-20th century. Ponyboy and his two brothers navigate a world of delinquency and violence, though the three of them are smart and savvy in there own ways. The greasers and the socs have turf wars and throughout the story Ponyboy discovers that even though the two groups are very different, they are both beset by there own problems, both societal and psychological, and that they can be taken down by the prejudices of their respective social groups. After a tragic incident involving Ponyboy, his friend Johnny, and two socs, Ponyboy and Johnny go on the run to escape a murde...
Read more

In the Woods by Tana French

Image
 In the Woods by Tana French In the Woods is a solid crime procedural novel about a Detective on the murder squad investigating a case of a murdered little girl and the personal stake he has in solving the crime. The characters are incredibly well fleshed out, with likeable personalities, even when they are being awful to one another. I was totally invested in the main mystery and liked how the investigation unfolded. I have to say, I knew who the killer was the second they hit the page, but I didn't know why they had done it. It was satisfying to learn the answers; the underhanded and manipulating psychopath involved was a delicious addition and really pushed the characters to their limits, which I liked. One thing I have to knock points off for for In the Woods is that the Detective Ryan past plot line wasn't resolved in a satisfying way for me. I would like to have seen some real answers to that case of his two missing friends. I was invested in his backstory and was disap...
Read more

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