Reademption Literature

This is honestly a very daunting novel to review, more so to finish reading in the first place, and not just because of its 600+ pages but the quality of its prose which is painstakingly detailed in ways that are often not necessary at all. I can only think of two reasons why I could recommend reading this, and even then I could only recommend it to a specific type of people, and not to your average casual reader. Michael Chabon's The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay  is a 2000 book that is in many ways a historical fiction about the Golden and Silver Age of American comic books. This subject matter is what got me so interested in it when a good friend of mine recommended it (and purchased me a copy as a Christmas gift last year). ~MINOR SPOILERS AHEAD~ The paperback is actually close to seven hundred pages and is divided into six parts which chronicled the lives and struggles of cousins Joe Kavalier and Sam Clay, the titular heroes of this novel. They are asp...

"Some questions will ruin you if you are denied the answers long enough." Any bibliophile knows that there are certain books that often call to us; books that, once picked up, would be incredibly difficult to put down. And long after the spell of its story has been broken, the link can never be severed completely. It would haunt the reader even after that first page has been turned. There are several books that have had the same effect on me, and most of them have been science fiction stories, if not all. I've read at least 12 sci-fi books since 2014, and they have stayed with me, tucked away in the deep recesses of subconscious, both darkening my soul a little as they set me free as well. When I encountered copies of this trilogy, I was mesmerized of the covers, and had great hopes for the promising story within, seeing that it's critically-acclaimed. I curtailed these expectations, however, when I saw a few of users I follow in Goodreads, and whose rev...

Let me start this review by saying that I've read and reviewed Gregory Maguire's most famous and critically-acclaimed work entitled  Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West , which was turned into a Broadway musical hit--and I didn't end up being as impressed about it as I hoped I would be. With that said, I already have extremely low expectations going into this book. It's also noteworthy to point out tha I've read some reviews about it in Goodreads, and they seemed to generally criticize the convoluted plot and subplots, as well as the lack of any clear pay-off in the end. Author Maguire himself has been known to write novels about well-known fictional characters created by other, much like with  Wicked  whose central figure if the supposed villain of the original Wizard of Oz  books. Lost  is the very first time, I believe, that he wrote about an original character. There is a lot about this novel that was entertaining. I honestly enjoy...

T hey say that surrealist author Haruki Murakami captures the 'common ache' of the 'contemporary heart and mind'. I thought this was a pretty spot-on description of some of his best short stories. I began reading Murakami in 2007, and he was a writer whose work and style resonated so strongly for me at that time where I'm confronted with the ambiguities of daily existence. He will always hold a special place in my heart as one of my favorite writers, although I will honestly say that over the years I've grown less affected of his stories than when I was a teenager which I think is for the best.  However, since life is indeed fickle, I once again found myself in another low point last year, and thus continue to heal from that to this day. Reading The Elephant Vanishes  was a most welcome endeavor then, because if there was any author that understands how inexplicable and often unknowable one's self is, it's Murakami-sensei. Composed of seventeen ...

I was curious about Will Self as an author since I've seen numerous copies of his books around, and I found the premise of most of his novels to be both strange and promising. I originally began reading Great Apes  last year but found myself not in the mood for it at all, so I sadly had to put it aside. I finally got around to start reading his anthologies first, and Grey Area , I suppose, was a good place to start as any. Comprised of nine tales, this collection was an incredibly odd mix of the bizarrely mundane, the seemingly sinister, and the unintentionally comedic. Self' prose is quite an extraordinary feat of imagination and discipline; a breadth of ramblings that are far too technical and dry to be ever deemed as any kind of literary eloquence.  Frankly, I'm not even sure I wholly enjoyed the experience of reading this book. I think there were times I was too baffled by the style and command of his language and descriptions to ever just connect with a stor...

I started my Book Diet novels 2015 by reading four Sherlockian anthologies during January, which is also the said Great Detective's birthday month, so I thought it only appropriate to finish this year with a Sherlock Holmes novel once more, and this time it's something written by writer Larry Millet. It's the first time I encountered his Holmes series. In fact, I purchased this book by luck while sifting through boxes of a second-hand bookstore months and months ago. I'm always on the look-out for any Holmesian story I can get my hands on so I immediately bought this and knew I had to read it soon enough. And it wasn't a disappointment. Millet's series, from what I can tell, are focused on Sherlock Holmes' travels and subsequent cases in America, and The Rune Stone Mystery  is no exception.  Once again chronicled in the first person by his constant and faithful friend Dr. John Watson, this story takes readers into Minnesota where a farmer uncovered w...

We lose more than we gain and these losses always resonate. They have very sharp edges and far-reaching sounds. They are both unique to every person, and universal to all. The impact of never having them again is just something we could never quantify. The world we live in is populated with the ghosts of those we loved--those who were claimed by the dark, and continue to haunt us long after they perished. A loss can hurt a person too deep that there is no way to swim back to the surface, even more so when the option of sinking is so tempting. A loss can ignite us with a purpose too. When love is forfeit and must be restored again, others would seek out answers to questions that could never offer closure. The search for that ultimate puzzle piece, the despair in trying to move forward, the grating incomprehension of sorrow and guilt--the weight of it all is far too great, too intangible, too heavy to ever carry ahead, let alone fully understand. But we have to try anyway. ...

This had to be the seventh Murakami book I've read since I was seventeen. Back then, there are only two authors whose works I faithfully consumed. One was Murakami-sensei, the other was Chuck Palahnuik. Both have exceptional writing styles that stay with you and often haunt your days and nights if you allow them. I remember reading a Murakami anthology ( The Elephant Vanishes ) but since it was only a borrowed copy from the library, I never got to finish (I plan on re-reading that next year). This is the second anthology I was graced with and it was composed of six measly short fictions that are, in the truest Murakami sense, irresistibly consuming. The theme for this collection deals with the catastrophic 1995 Kobe earthquake and the lives of his characters who have to cope in its wake.  Each of the stories had protagonists who are already so immersed in wanton longing and abandonment, and it was only after a disaster took that place that they became even more uncomfortably a...

I bought this book first, but the very first Charles Yu work I've read was my next purchase which was  How to Live in a Science Fictional Universe.  I could never begin to tell you just how madly in love I was with it from start to finish. You can read my review about it in case you're curious . Now, if I sit still for a moment and think about it again for a whole minute, I might get lost inside my own head and never recover. The only reason I bought this other book was because of one of the quoted reviews in the back page cited that if I'm a fan of the cult NBC show Community , then this one is definitely my cup of tea. And I can agree with that person...to some extent. The truth is, if it wasn't for that reference to my all-time favorite sitcom, I never would have even bothered looking for Yu's novel in the first place. Also, if I happened to read this first before How To Live , I'm afraid I might just put this author aside which would be a damn shame bec...

"For all men are eggs, in a manner of speaking. We exist, but we have not yet achieved the form that is our destiny. We are pure potential, an example of the not-yet arrived. For man is a fallen creature--we know that from Genesis. Humpty Dumpty is also one. He falls from his wall, and no one can put him back together again--neither king, nor his horses, nor his men. But that is what we must all strive to do. It is our duty as human beings: to put the eggs back together again. For each of us is Humpty Dumpty. And to help him is to help ourselves." I became intimately familiar with Paul Auster for the first time when I read his novella Travels in the Scriptorium  back when I was eighteen and I had wasted the first two years of college skipping classes I don't like and opting to stay inside my dorm room instead just to read books and watch shows. Auster's book was one of these distractions I easily warmed up to, particularly when I found his narrative style to ...