To Read & To Write

“Educated: A Memoir” by Tara Westover, is the harrowing account of one girl’s journey in rebuilding herself as an individual apart from the girl who was emotionally and physically abused during childhood and teenage years. It was Tara Westover’s biological family, who prided themselves on an extreme form self-sufficiency and self-reliance that claimed all government ties as work of the devil, who perpetrated this abuse. Despite this, Tara’s early years were not without beauty. Growing up next to a massive mountain her family nicknamed “The Indian Princess” for its changing colors during the warmer seasons, rural Idaho was an almost sacred landscape to roam wild and free in, as well as a grand backdrop to contemplate existence itself: “Of course I *did* exist. I had grown up preparing for the Days Of Abomination, watching for the sun to darken, for the moon to drip as if with blood. I spent my summers bottling peaches and my winters rotating supplies. When the World Of Men f...

Have you heard this story before? A woman, torn between her feelings for two different men, ends up making the wrong decision and lives a life of pain, suffering, and longing. Does that sound familiar? Though that storyline comprises the basic plot of Samuel Park’s “This Burns My Heart” (2011), I promise that there is something especially distinctive about this story, which I would even go so far as to call an epic saga. The novel is made up of four parts, each one named for a plant organism special to Korean culture; Part 1: Chrysanthemum, Part 2: Orchid, Part 3: Plum Blossom, and Part 4: Bamboo.   Each of these plants represents something specific, which is beautifully explained by Park within the context of the story, but can be said simply to symbolize resilience, strength, and persistence in the face of harsh circumstances. These characteristics align with how Korean society became after the war, during the 1960s. Everyone in “This Burns My Heart” is an embodiment ...

Natalie C. Andersen’s debut novel, “City Of Saints & Thieves”, chronicles the life of a young orphan girl, Christina, who must become a Goonda – a member of a thieving and violent gang in Africa's Congo – in order to survive. She knows next to nothing about her past, and her present is full of vengeance and hatred for a man she believes killed her mother, Mr. Greyhill, one of the richest men in town. “City Of Saints & Thieves” is written like a diary. Christina struggles to come to terms with her past, but how can she when it’s a big huge blur of events both terrible and good? The honesty in this book is wonderful, but there wasn’t as much internal dialogue as there should’ve been for someone going through a childhood full of brutality. Christina, or “Tiny”, as the Goondas call her, has one thing on her mind – seeking revenge, by means of murder, for her mother’s death. It would’ve been a more riveting read if there was more reflection on the mental and emotional instab...

After reading and loving Hack/Slash Omnibus Volume 1, I decided I might as well purchase Hack/Slash Omnibus Volume 2. It was definitely worth my money. I’ve heard that many comics struggle to keep audience attention after their first release. One theory is that perhaps since the second release is, many times, no longer an “origin story”, writers begin to lose the sense of plot, and thus character development suffers as well. This is not the case for Hack/Slash.  Cassie Hack returns with a vengeance, still side-by-side with Vlad, the monstrous but gentle man (if not engaged in a fight) that she calls her friend. There are eleven stories presented in this volume, and they run together seamlessly. Cassie and Vlad continue to fight the slashers (a.k.a. Revenants) as this is their raison d’etre; they would like to save as many people as possible from the hands of these reanimated, angry, corpses. Cassie and Vlad encounter a psychotic psychologist, a rock and roll band that has sold ...

Charlotte Brontë’s well-known novel, Jane Eyre, was published in the year 1847, which is a time that took place during England’s Victorian Era. Brontë’s book is considered by most conventional standards as a work of Gothic Fiction, defined as a mix of fiction and horror, death and romance. Along with elements of the macabre, which make up a part of Gothic literature, there is also Gothic architecture, which defined it also as an aesthetic. Time and place are two very essential parts of understanding literature, and very literally make up the background of a well-written story. The foreground of the story is the characters and their relationships, both to one another and the larger social world they live in. Both background and foreground as presented here will be discussed and will answer two simple questions: 1) Why was Jane Eyre so important when it was published? & 2) Why is Jane Eyre still relevant today? Every era has its societal standards, its status quo. The Victorian E...

"The Revenant: A Novel Of Revenge" tells the story of frontiersman Hugh Glass, a Western legend, who survived the wilderness on his own after he was brutally attacked by a grizzly bear and left for dead by The Rocky Mountain Fur Company. The year is 1823 and the frontier is abounding with Native American tribes, which, for the most part, doesn’t make Glass’s plight any easier, until one kind Sioux tends to his wounds and takes him in.  The author of this book, Michael Punke, writes with clarity and a knack for solid historical fiction, and spins a tale of survivalism driven by the need for retribution. Glass is not upset that his partners have left him – he was severely wounded and a burden; they had tried to carry him on a handmade stretcher over the treacherously cold and snowy landscape (not to mention covered with trees, shallow quarries, fords, mountainous terrain, and the like) for three days. Punke’s interpretation of Glass’s story describes a man driven by rage at...

Sometimes a good object lesson made in story form can be better than something overly dramatic and dripping with sentimentality. The Light Between Oceans is a perfect object lesson about the blurred lines between the usually stark contrast of right and wrong. Morality, no matter how much some might like to convince themselves of it, is never easy. London based, Australian author M.L. Stedman writes her powerful first story, The Light Between Oceans, conveying this complexity in all its perfect dimensions. Tom Sherbourne, well-respected World War I veteran, is emotionally and spiritually wounded after his return from action, especially by the fact that he survived while many of his comrades were brutally killed. The question of why *he* was the one that was allowed to live nags at him daily. Damaged also from a broken home, Sherbourne puts the entirety of his mind and soul into his work. He is detailed and exhaustive in the work he does, and soon he is known as one of the best light...