reviews

Flights, Free Love, and Faithlessness in Africa  Author: Paula McLain Recently touted on the Book of the Month Club’s website, Circling the Sun caught my immediate attention by capturing two of my favorite fictional formulas: the novel was set in Africa and about an independent, I-live-my-own-way trail blazing woman. What’s not to love? The answer: quite a lot actually. Taking the true story of Beryl Markham, record setting aviator (and one of the first females to earn a horse training license) and third wheel in the love triangle later immortalized in Isak Dinesen’s Out of Africa, Paula McLain weaves fact and fiction into a low-key, [...]

Barbara The Slut – And the Underbelly of a Sad Society Author: Lauren Holmes Advertised as edgy and raw with the capability to peel back the layers on the most complicated, and torn female anti-heroes, Barbara the Slut first captured my eye when it was featured as a Book of the Month pick. Zany with a hint of desperation and a sweeping undercurrent of depression, stories range from a gay teenager trying to come out to her absentee mom, a whiny tween attempting to break-up with an overzealous boyfriend, a frantic foreigner discovering he’s contracted AIDS from a prostitute, a rebellious woman [...]