The hype house update#

Somehow including all of that doesn’t weigh the book down and only enhances it. I haven’t fully processed all of my feelings towards this book because it hits at major themes including war, cultural differences, coming of age, LGBT romance, and family and that’s a huge combo. The plot was not always linear, there were folk tales and Biblical lore surrounding the plot, but the story always moved forward. I loved the variations of storytelling this book followed.

Read a Book Set in Africa, by an Author from Africa: This book really took me from appreciating graphic novels to really connecting with them as a storytelling device. This wasn’t the first graphic novel I read during the year and it wasn’t the last but it was definitely the most beautifully illustrated. The stories pray on our own insecurities and fears and still stick to popular legends and tales so while new, they seem familiar. There’s an image of a wall that should be simple but it says so much. The art in “A Lady’s Cold Hands” was so good at contrasting the claustrophobic feeling of parts of the plot with the vastness of the project that lays before the narrator. The book is just 5 short stories and each story has its own artistic style.

Through the Woods fits the spirit of those stories but it’s paired with hauntingly beautiful art. Like most kids raised in the 90s, I had an obsession with Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark. It helped me feel some things I had tried to push aside and helped me acknowledge how messy death (and life) can be. I read this book after my grandmother died earlier this year. Some favorites: “The Gate”, “Practicing”, “Without Music”, and of course, “What the Living Do”. The poems are narrative but by the end go out on a hopeful note. There are four real parts: a broken childhood, the loss of a brother, the loss of a friend while coping, and the loss of a loved one in the midst of it all. I took time to savor some poems, reading them aloud.Įach poem is straightforward but not quite simple.

The book stayed in my mind all night and day and when I sat down with it again, I read the entire thing. I read the first part, an introduction to the family and their dynamics, then put it aside and went to bed. I tried to sit with this book and slowly read it. Read a Contemporary Collection of Poetry: Combine those qualities with the plot and it’s a fantastic read from Octavia Butler. The people and their relationships with each other really showed you how loyalty, love, and trust can be tested.

People can be ugly, they can be brave, they can sacrifice, and they can push on. This book has an incredible and gut wrenching plot but beyond that this is a book about people. I really wanted to know how it could meet all that criteria and honestly I was hooked from the very first sentence. I went into this book blind, knowing only that it was supposed to fulfill my feminist sci-fi book of the year, was highly rated, and written in the 1970s.

The hype house update#

Here’s my first update if you want to see books 1-5 in the challenge. As a reminder, this challenge is supposed to push my boundaries and help me find books outside my comfort zone that still appeal to me. I’m more than halfway done with my 2016 #BustleReads Challenge. By julie No Comments Reading Challenge – Update #2