Guest Book Review: As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner

By Eddie V

I read somewhere that William Faulkner is one of Cormac McCarthy’s favorite authors, and because I loved Blood Meridian so much, I decided to read one of Faulkner’s novels.

Book Review: The House on Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros

I am not a poetry person. I mentioned to my husband not long ago that I don’t know if I’m not a poetry person because I don’t understand poetry or if it’s just the simple fact that I don’t like it, like some people don’t like genre fiction or young adult. I think maybe that conversation was what made me pick up this book, but also what sort of made me regret picking it up at first because it bored and lulled me to sleep the first couple of times I tried to start it.

This is a very short book, though, and I decided to fight through the drowsiness and get to the end because while the writing style wasn’t too much to my liking, the story itself was very captivating. After the first 20 pages or so the writing stopped being so distracting and I could finally appreciate the power of this novel, which made for a very personal reading experience.

Emphasis on the personal!

Guest Book Review: Blood Meridian, or the Evening Redness in the West by Cormac McCarthy

Hello, everyone!

As part of those new features I mentioned I wanted to add to the blog a few weeks ago, I bring you: Guest Reviews! In which I make my husband write reviews about the books he's reading and bring some variety into my little corner of the internet, since we read very different things most of the time.

Without further ado, here's the first Guest Review of Joie des Livres!

Book Review: Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury

December of Classics ends on a weird note because I have so many mixed emotions about this book. The writing is so choppy, but the message is so important! There was such insight and depth, but the main characters were just so unlikable! It’s a beloved classic and though I came away with a myriad of quotes I want to write all over my walls, I was still a little underwhelmed by the whole experience.

Book Review: The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath

Real talk: Are all classics depressing? Two for two and I feel like I'm ready to drink myself into oblivion… and I don't even drink!

I'd been meaning to read this book for about a month now, ever since I heard it mentioned in Aziz Ansari's new show 'Master of None' because the fig tree analogy caught my attention and I thought the rest of the book would go along the same lines, talking about choices and consequences...

In a way, it kinda does? But mostly it doesn't. At all.

Book Review: The Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka

Welcome to December of Classics! A thing that I just made up because I inadvertently have been reading a lot of classics this month? So now it’s a thing and for the remainder of the month, I’ll be catching up on all those classics I was never forced to read in high school, and bettering my understanding of about 75% of idioms and phrases that most of the American population uses and that usually fly over my head.

First up, The Metamorphosis! Also known as the book that cemented my hate for humanity.