Mad Honey by Jodi Picoult and Jennifer Finney Boylan is a book that’s hard to put down. It will tug at your heartstrings while also forcing you to question who and what you believe and why…among other things.
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Category: Fiction
Why You (Yes, You) Should Read Romance Novels
Romance novels and rom-com novels get a bum rap and are often considered as “trash,” or as “guilty pleasures”– the books one should be ashamed to read. Typically romance novels are shoved in the back of a closet or are quickly discarded after they’re read, not displayed on bookshelves for guests to see in a home library, in other words. And this, quite frankly, annoys me. Because romance novels can and do offer so much to readers and writers alike.
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Book Review: Just My Type
I read a bit of anything and everything, so my mind stays nimble, while my thinking and writing stay grounded (at least partially) in the real world. I don’t typically read or review that many romance novels each year but might start reading and reviewing at least a few more in the future. Stay tuned for tomorrow’s post to see why, and my thinking behind this; it just might encourage you to see the romance genre in a different light too.
On to today’s book review: Just My Type by Falon Ballard is a romance novel that will make you laugh as you consider your own relationship patterns and vices. It’s an endearing novel that offers a safe and non-judgmental space for introspection.
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Book Review: Birnam Wood
Birnam Wood by Eleanor Catton is quite the page-turner. Catton’s writing style is intoxicating.
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Book Review: The Trackers by Charles Frazier
Ecco Press gifted me an advance copy of The Trackers by Charles Frazier, which will likely be released next month. And it’s definitely worth the read. For those who are both interested and not interested in this book after a first glace of its synopsis: keep in mind that while the synopsis of the book accurately summarizes what happens in the novel, it’s Frazier’s writing style and the cinematic characters and images in the novel that will keep you hooked while reading it.
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Current Reads and Book Reviews [July 23, 2022]
This past week, I finished reading The Love of My Life by Rosie Walsh. I’m still reading Origins of Totalitarianism by Hannah Arendt. And I started reading The Book of Form and Emptiness by Ruth Ozeki. [See the answers to yesterday’s quiz at the bottom of this post.]
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Quiz: Can you match these opening passages to their famous works?
An opening line sets the tone and mood of any piece of writing. Today’s post will inspire you to consider interesting and effective ways to open a piece of writing. Read the opening passages below, then see if you can match them to their well-known works.
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Lessons in timely reading
Have you ever experienced the pure serendipity of reading a book at the precise moment you needed to read it? Perhaps you started reading a book about characters learning to grieve, as you were learning to grieve. Or you read a book with a protagonist overcoming an obstacle that you were also attempting to overcome. Regardless of how it comes about, the impact of timely reading can be life-giving, sometimes life-changing, even if it’s in the subtlest of ways.
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Fictional tenses
Recently I made a big decision. I decided to write the current novel I’m working on in the first person, singular voice. It’s a work in progress, so we’ll see if this decision remains. However, there are still a lot of other decisions I need to make regarding this work in progress. One of them involves fictional tenses.
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A key element behind writing better dystopic fiction
It seems like a lot of dystopic fiction has been cropping up lately. At least, over the past five to ten years I’ve noticed this trend. And this trend is probably due to the fact that it’s starting to feel like we live in an actual dystopic reality most of the time nowadays… But that’s an inquiry to entertain some other day.
Today, I’m wondering: Why is some dystopic fiction better than other dystopic fiction? Are there any key elements dystopic fiction must contain if a writer is serious about writing better dystopic fiction?
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