Book Reviews in Review Part I
It has been a little over six months since I posted my first book review on this website, I and in that time I have written about fiction, nonfiction, poetry, books I’ve read for fun, books I’ve read for class, and books that fall in between.
There have also been several books that I’ve read this year that I have not reviewed. Some of them weren’t reviewed because they were old and have been reviewed to death (One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel García Márquez), some of them because I read them in Spanish and didn’t have time to read the English (Los Detectives Salvajes/The Savage Detectives by Robert Bolaño), and some of them because I didn’t think I had the time to write the review with the nuance that the book deserved (Exit West by Mohsin Hamid). These are just some examples of books I passed up on reviewing, though perhaps if there is demand I’ll give them a try, along with others I have passed up on reviewing even though I did flip through the pages.
Of the books that I have reviewed there have been some particular favorites that stand out in my memory — The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo, by Taylor Jenkins Reid, which chronicles the (delightfully queer) life of the biggest and brightest star of an alternate version of Hollywood; Born a Crime, the memoir of comedian Trevor Noah; The Hate U Give, by Angie Thomas, a visceral and tragic yet elegant, poignant, and even at times funny fictional account of the all too real phenomenon of extreme police brutality; Stalking God, by Anjali Kumar, a fantastic retelling of her spiritual journey; When Katie Met Cassidy, by Camille Perri, aka the lesbian romance of my dreams; Circe, by Madeline Miller, the “bold and subversive retelling” of a well-known goddess from The Odyssey; not to mention The Song of Achilles, also by Madeline Miller, which recounts the Trojan war through the love story of Achilles and Patroclus; and even more hauntingly, The Silence of the Girls, by Pat Barker which recounts the Trojan war through the capture and rape of the girls and women taken by the Greek men who ravage the shores of Troy, in particular that of the queen, Briseis, who is the prize of Achilles.
For those of you interested in a full list of books that I have reviewed so far, there is in fact a page for that! Click here for a definitive list of the books I’ve reviewed, sorted alphabetically, by genre, and then by sub-genre. The list is not infallible — I’m in grad school and it doesn’t auto-update — but I do get things up and sorted as quickly as possible!
Happy reading!
Cheers,
Talia
