book review Archives

My Dark Vanessa

Lolita Today Author: Kate Elizabeth Russell In light of the #MeToo movement, against the backdrop of a modern-day Lolita, Kate Elizabeth Russell unspools a dark tale of power, lust, and lies. In 2000, 15-year-old Vanessa has a crush on her high school teacher, Jacob Strane, a man who seems to genuinely care about her and compares her dark hair to falling leaves. But is Vanessa, with her bravery and love of the forbidden, getting in over her head? Is she experiencing an epic romance that will define the rest of her life, or is she being groomed as a victim, [...]

Frances Carden2022-10-05T10:06:32-07:00October 5th, 2022|Tags: abuse, book review, dark, Lolita, MeToo#, read, reading|

Tender Prey

Part Horror, Part Thriller: A Mother's Dilemma Author: Julia Grice Sherry Vincent is haunted by memories of her summer as a 12-year-old: of the handsome teacher, the secret meeting with him and her friends, what he did, and what the town did afterwards. It’s something she can never escape, and now as a recently divorced single mother, raising her beautiful 12-year-old daughter Kady, all the fears are coming back. When someone begins to buzz their remote house with a snowmobile, unsolicited and decidedly adult glamour shots of her daughter appear in town, and violent pornographic tapes start to arrive in the [...]

Frances Carden2022-10-01T12:24:30-07:00October 1st, 2022|Tags: book review, horror, read, reading, thriller|

Age of Innocence

A So-So Classic with Unlikable Characters Author: Edith Wharton Newland Archer, former lover of a married woman, has sown his wild oats. He is ready to settle down, yet he hopes that his new wife, May Well, will be open to his ideas. Despite having chosen May and wooed her for her societal prestige, her cosseted goodness, her forced innocence, he has ideas about the liberation of a woman’s mind. He is at war with himself – with what he says he wants and what he really wants. But he realizes none of this. Enter the Countess Olenska, a distant relative [...]

Frances Carden2022-09-26T18:27:42-07:00September 26th, 2022|Tags: book review, classic, read, reading|