Twig finished reading Foster by Claire Keegan
Foster by Claire Keegan
A small girl is sent to live with foster parents on a farm in rural Ireland, without knowing when she …
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A small girl is sent to live with foster parents on a farm in rural Ireland, without knowing when she …
A small girl is sent to live with foster parents on a farm in rural Ireland, without knowing when she …
The aspect of If Beale Street Could Talk which most deeply hit me was realising that James Baldwin's novel was set in the early 1970s - and published in 1974 - yet it appears to be just as illustrative of Black America today as it was then. Nothing has improved with regards to police racism, in fact, from the news reaching me here in the UK, things may even have gotten worse.
Baldwin's sharp prose throughout If Beale Street Could Talk kept me glued to the story from its first page to the last. I loved how deeply he portrayed his characters, within what is a relatively short novel, and how those people interacted so realistically. The young 'Romeo and Juliet' couple at the centre, Tish and Fonny, should be at the happiest point of their lives together - they are planning to get married and Tish is expecting their …
The aspect of If Beale Street Could Talk which most deeply hit me was realising that James Baldwin's novel was set in the early 1970s - and published in 1974 - yet it appears to be just as illustrative of Black America today as it was then. Nothing has improved with regards to police racism, in fact, from the news reaching me here in the UK, things may even have gotten worse.
Baldwin's sharp prose throughout If Beale Street Could Talk kept me glued to the story from its first page to the last. I loved how deeply he portrayed his characters, within what is a relatively short novel, and how those people interacted so realistically. The young 'Romeo and Juliet' couple at the centre, Tish and Fonny, should be at the happiest point of their lives together - they are planning to get married and Tish is expecting their child - but for the prejudiced realities they face every day. I got more and more angry at the unfairness and injustice they encounter as the novel progessed, partly fuelled by how Tish and her family took everything in their stride so pragmatically. Their normality should not be normal for anyone!
If Beale Street Could Talk was the first of Baldwin's novels I have read and I admit that I did not expect his work to be so shockingly relevant after almost fifty years. He is such an observant author and I was impressed at how naturally he made his points within the story. This is brilliant political fiction.
A time-traveling, futuristic saga of a family trying to outlast and remake a universe with a power unlike any we've …
Martin Hench is 67 years old, single, and successful in a career stretching back to the beginnings of Silicon Valley. …
"Our Dragon doesn't eat the girls he takes, no matter what stories they tell outside our valley. We hear them …
Content warning Spoilers.
This is solid fantasy book. I give it four stars for the magic, for the good (female!) protagonist, and the Slavic-fairy tale-theme.
For the first hundred pages, I was exited about this book. It felt new and interesting, and I loved the mystery of the valley, the theme of roots. But then around page 100, the protagonist marched into the dangerous wood to free her best friend. She does what nobody has done before, unlocks some powerful magic - and then nothing? The girl she moved earth and sky for is just a mute presence for the rest of the book. This could have been a story about friendship, but there was no connection, no shared moments, nothing. I will have to admit that I was rooting for a love story. I had Chris Riddell's illustration of Neil Gaiman's "The Sleeper and the Spindle" in my head the whole time. But I was disappointed. Instead of the witch-loves-wooden-girl-story we get the powerful, grumpy, oh so mysterious wizard? Oh come on. It wasn't done too badly, but still. The second aspect of the novel that I found frustrating was the protagonists naiveté. In the Temeraire series, Novik wrote suble, complicated politics, even though the protagonist wanted none of it. Here, it was just so simple, so naive. Oh well. One can't have it all.
There were good things: I loved the way the author twisted expectations, mixed in fairy-tales, and the (pseudo-)slavic spells and setting. And whenever the book took place in the valley, it was beautifully written.
Keegan's writing is poetic, yet simple. There's always a sense of impending doom, of magical mystery, yet the stories are oddly comforting. I kept wanting to highlight sentences; I only wish I had actually held this book in my hands instead of reading on my phone.
Favourite story: Love in the tall grass. Least favourite story: Antartica.