reviews

Love, Transformation, Water Gods, and Revenge Authors: Guillermo Del Toro and Daniel Kraus Let’s just start this out right: I’ve never seen the movie. After reading this book though, I admit that I kind of want to. The Shape of Water, as many of you already know, follows Elisa Esposito, a janitor at a top-secret research facility in the Post-Cold War era. Elisa lives a lonely, silent life – a mysterious orphan now grown and on her own. A woman who remains mute but enthralled by the beauty of the world around her, the possibilities in the ugly, belittling nature [...]

Making sense of a broken world Author: Jonathan Santlofer None of us gets through life unscathed. This is why I love reading memoirs. I want to know how people look suffering right in the face and then figure out a way to survive their hardships. To watch a man or woman unearth a nugget of courage and piece together a reliable support system is endlessly inspiring. “Could I do that?” I ask myself. “How would I get by if that were me?” Case in point: if my husband died on our living room couch while I watched paramedics try (and [...]

"We're none of us normal. Not in this country." Author: John Boyne If, when you think of Ireland, you picture ruddy-faced chaps drinking pints of Guinness at a pub in the countryside, you wouldn’t be off-base. But in his gloriously epic novel, The Heart’s Invisible Furies, John Boyne blows this bucolic Irish tableau to shreds. He shines a bright light—dead-serious, astute and witty—on the injustices Ireland wrought for so long on those considered different, namely unwed mothers and gay men. Boyne dedicated The Heart’s Invisible Furies to John Irving, which is a delicious touch. Irving, after all, is the master [...]