Review: Each Vagabond By Name

Review:  Each Vagabond By Name

By Margo Orlando Littell

Is it possible for a book to be both quiet and explosive all at once? If so, this author has managed to do it.

I went into this book pretty blind, which is what I tend to do with a lot of books. I enjoy the story more that way without having any expectations. Each Vagabond by Name was published by Uno Press and I was thrilled they sent a copy my way for an honest review. 

It's not often that I can say that I loved a book from beginning to end but this one I did.  This is about a small quiet town full of people that trust each other and know every one by their first name. Our main character is Ramsy, who runs the local tavern and serves the locals on a nightly basis. The peacefulness of this town is soon destroyed when a group of gypsies start looting people's houses and terrifying the townsfolk and what ensues afterward when anger and revenge start to tear their ugly heads. 

 This story is about loss, heartbreak, rage, losing hope and finding it again, forgiveness and compassion. 

I encourage everyone to pick up this book if you enjoy quiet but passionately written stories. This is definitely an author I want to check out more of in the future. 

My rating:

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ 

Review ~ The Lesser Bohemians

Review: The Lesser Bohemians

Author:  Eimear McBride

Series: Standalone

Publisher:  Hogarth

How I got it: Blogging for Books

Pub Date:  Sept 20, 2016

Pages:  320

Genre: Fiction, Contemporary

Format: Hardcover

ISBN:  9781101903483

My Rating:  ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Amazon Description:  

Shortlisted for the 2016 Goldsmiths Prize

Shortlisted for the 2016 Bord Gáis Energy Irish Book Awards Eason Novel of the Year

The breathtaking new novel from Eimear McBride, about an extraordinary, all-consuming love affair

Eimear McBride’s debut novel A GIRL IS A HALF-FORMED THING was published in 2013 to an avalanche of praise: nominated for a host of literary awards, winner of the Bailey’s Women’s Prize for Fiction and the inaugural Goldsmith’s Prize, declared by Vanity Fair to be "One of the most groundbreaking pieces of literature to come from Ireland, or anywhere, in recent years," McBride’s bold, wholly original prose immediately established her as a literary force. Now, she brings her singular voice to an unlikely love story.

One night an eighteen-year-old Irish girl, recently arrived in London to attend drama school, meets an older man – a well-regarded actor in his own right. While she is naive and thrilled by life in the big city, he is haunted by more than a few demons, and the clamorous relationship that ensues risks undoing them both.

A captivating story of passion and innocence, joy and discovery set against the vibrant atmosphere of 1990s London over the course of a single year, THE LESSER BOHEMIANS glows with the eddies and anxieties of growing up, and the transformative intensity of a powerful new love.

My Review:

What an enjoyable surprise!  

It took me awhile to get going with this book because of the writing, but once I got the hang of it, I loved it.  

If you're not used to reading a book like this, you may feel the same.  It's written in a kind of stream of consciousness prose and can be confusing.  One thing that helped me was reading some of it out loud and the other thing that helped was watching and listening to a YouTube video of Eimear McBride reading this book at a public event.  Once I did, it made it easier to figure out how it should be read.

This is a story about a girl who has arrived at drama school in London and is beginning a new life for herself.  She meets an older fellow actor and they enter into a relationship.  The age gap of course causes issues, seeing as how he has been through and seen much more of life than she has.  

This is a tale about passion, growing up, and coming of age.  I loved everything about it and look forward to reading McBride's first novel A Girl is a Half Formed Thing and any work she comes out with in the future.  I give it 4 stars only because of the difficulty I had in the beginning getting used to the writing style and it took me much longer than normal to get this book read.  Other than that, I loved it.

 I received this book from Blogging For Books for this review.

More about this book

About the Author

Review: Children of the New World

Review: Children of the New World 

By Alexander Weinstein

  

Publisher: Picador

Pub Date: September 13, 2016

Pages: 228 

Genre: Short Stories, Fiction, Science Fiction, Dystopia, Fantasy, Adult

Format: Paperback

ISBN: 978-1-250-09899-3

My Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️

Goodreads Description:

AN EXTRAORDINARILY RESONANT AND PROPHETIC COLLdECTION OF SPECULATIVE SHORT FICTION FOR OUR TECH-SAVVY ERA BY DEBUT AUTHOR ALEXANDER WEINSTEIN

Children of the New World introduces readers to a near-future world of social media implants, memory manufacturers, dangerously immersive virtual reality games, and alarmingly intuitive robots. Many of these characters live in a utopian future of instant connection and technological gratification that belies an unbridgeable human distance, while others inhabit a post-collapse landscape made primitive by disaster, which they must work to rebuild as we once did millennia ago.

In “The Cartographers,” the main character works for a company that creates and sells virtual memories, while struggling to maintain a real-world relationship sabotaged by an addiction to his own creations. In “Saying Goodbye to Yang,” the robotic brother of an adopted Chinese child malfunctions, and only in his absence does the family realize how real a son he has become.

Children of the New World grapples with our unease in this modern world and how our ever-growing dependence on new technologies has changed the shape of our society. Alexander Weinstein is a visionary new voice in speculative fiction for all of us who are fascinated by and terrified of what we might find on the horizon. 

My Review:

I was excited going into this book because it had been floating around on booktube and seemed fairly popular.  I have to say I was a little bit disappointed.  While I did like quite a few of the stories, there were some that I didn't care for or just were too much.

This is a book of short stories revolving around the future of technology and how it impacts people's lives. I went into it a little bit blind, which is what I do with alot of books, but maybe I shouldn't have with this one.

Ratings for short stories:

5⭐️~ 2

4⭐️~ 2

3⭐️~ 5

2⭐️~ 4

DNF~ 1

So over all I give this 3 stars. The stories were interesting enough but there just wasn't enough  there for me. 

Thanks to Picador for sending me a copy of this for an honest review!  

Short and Sweet Review~ The Merciless

Review ~ The Merciless by Danielle Vega

This book was just good ol' creepy fun at it's best.  No, it's not a deep, thought provoking story but it will definitely keep you entertained.  Some blood and gore to be warned about, if that's not your thing, but nothing you wouldn't see in a mainstream horror flick.  I really liked it and look forward to the 2nd and 3rd books!

I gave this book:  ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

The Clay Girl by Heather Tucker

The Clay Girl

Title:  The Clay Girl

Author:  Heather Tucker

Series:  Standalone

Publisher:  ECW Press

How I received:  Requested from ECW

Pub Date: October 11, 2016

Pages: 352 pages

Genre:  Fiction, Magical Realism, Coming of Age, Mental Illness

Format: Paperback

ISBN #: 9781770413030

My Rating:  ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Goodreads Description:

Vincent Appleton smiles at his daughters, raises a gun, and blows off his head.  For the Appleton sisters, life had unraveled many times before.  This time it explodes.  Eight-year-old Hariet, known to all as Ari, is dispatched to Cape Breton and her Aunt Mary, who is purported to eat little girls...With Ari on the journey is her steadfast companion, Jasper, an imaginary seahorse.  But when they arrive in Pleasant Cove, they instead find refuge with Mary and her partner Nia. As the tumultuous '60's ramp up in Toronto, Ari is torn from her aunts and forced back to her twisted mother and fractured sisters.  Her new stepfather Len and his family offer hope, but as Ari grows to adore them, she's severed violently from them too, when her mother moves in with the brutal Dick Irwin.  Through the sexual revolution and drug culture of the 1960s, Ari struggles with her father's legacy and her mother's addictions-testing limits with substances that numb and men who show her kindness.  She spins through a chaotic decade of loss and love, the devilish and divine, with wit, tenacity, and the astonishing balance unique to seahorses.  The Clay Girl is a beautiful tour de force that traces the story of a child, sculpted by kindness, cruelty and the extraordinary power of imagination, and her families-the one she's born in to and the one she creates.

My Review:

 Wow. My book is so tabbed up with post-its because of this great story.  There are so many parts and passages that I want to go back and read that I had to mark them all.  

I loved all the characters in this story, even the evil ones!  The author, Heather Tucker, did an amazing job describing and fleshing each one out and they all took on a life of their own.  

This book deals with coming of age, mental illness, alcoholism, abuse, triumph and even a bit of magic.  I'm so glad I read it.  Pick it up!  You'll be happy you did. I look forward to reading anything this author writes in the future.

Thank you to ECW Press for sending this amazing book to read and do an honest review!

Review: The Vegetarian by Han Kang, Translated by Deborah Smith

Title: The Vegetarian

Book Info

Author: Han Kang, translated by Deborah Smith

Author Info

Series: n/a

Publisher: Hogarth, Penguin Random House

Publication date: August 23, 2016

Pages: 208

Genre: Fiction, Contemporary, Asian Lit, Adult, Mental Illness

Format: paperback

ISBN: 9781101906118

My Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

My Review:

I had to give this book time to sink in before I could do a full review.  There are many issues at play here and to take them all in, takes a bit of time.

This is a story about Yeong-hye, her husband and her family and takes place in Korea.  She decides after a disturbing dream to become a vegetarian and gets rid of all the meat in the house, which aggravates her husband and so begins the downhill slide.

While it may seem by the title, that this would be the main subject of the book, it is really about several subjects:  mental health, control, manipulation, desire, apathy, mental and physical abuse, sorrow, abandonment and more. It's told in 3 parts but never directly by the main character, Yeong-hye.  It's narrated by her husband, her brother in law and her sister, which is an interesting way to tell the story and also in a way I could appreciate it.

If you are looking for story about the ebbs and flows of life and how mental illness and abuse can differently affect everyone in a family, this is a book for you.  It was translated beautifully and is a story I will keep on my shelves and reread in the future.

*I received this book from Blogging For Books for this review.*

Review: The Hospital Always Wins by Issa Ibrahim

Review:  The Hospital Always Wins by Issa Ibrahim

Series:  Stand alone

Publisher:  Chicago Review Press

Received:  Chicago Review Press for a fair and honest review

Pub Date:  June 1, 2016

Pages:  288

Genre:  Nonfiction, Mental Health, Memoir

Format:  Hardcover

ISBN:  # 978-1-61373-512-1

My Rating:  ⭐️⭐️⭐️ 3.5/5

Goodreads Description:  

Issa Ibrahim’s memoir details in searing prose his development of severe mental illness leading to a horrific family tragedy, his acquittal by reason of insanity, and his subsequent commission to a mental hospital for nearly twenty years.

Raised in an idyllic creative environment, mom and dad cultivating his talent, Issa watches his family’s descent into chaos in the drug-crazed late 1980s. Following his father’s death, Issa, grief-stricken and vulnerable, travels down a road that leads to psychosis—and to one of the most nightmarish scenarios conceivable.

Issa receives the insanity plea and is committed to an insane asylum with no release date. But that is only the beginning of his odyssey. Institutional and sexual sins cause further punishments, culminating in a heated legal battle for freedom.

Written with great verve and immediacy, The Hospital Always Wins paints a detailed picture of a broken mental health system but also reveals the power of art, when nurtured in a benign environment, to provide a resource for recovery. Ultimately this is a story about survival and atonement through creativity and courage against almost insurmountable odds.

My Review:

I felt myself going back and forth about this book.  At times, I really enjoyed it and others, I found myself drifting off and not paying a lot of attention to what I was reading.  This is a memoir about Issa, who is raised by parents, while both into the arts, also like to partake in some Mary Jane every once in awhile.  Ok, who are we kidding?  They smoke ALOT.  It seems to be a habit that most of the family seems to pick up although Issa is more reluctant than most.  From here we are told the story of how he ended up first in a psychiatric center, then prison, and finally in Creedmoor Psych Center for 19 years and his journey with mental illness and the treatment he receives while there, which more often than not is by people that are not qualified or in a profession fit for them.

The writing goes between past and present and I didn't mind this at all and it didn't affect my reading or understanding the story.  I never found myself confused between settings either.  

I can't say that there's a lot I didn't like.  I think I was just left with wanting more.  Possibly more details about rehabilitation and some of the other patient's stories about how they came to be in this hospital.  I understand this story is about Issa but I just felt something missing.  If he happens to do some more writing, I would definitely be interested in picking it up! 

Author's Info:

Issa Ibrahim is an artist, writer, and musician.  He has been featured in an HBO documentary, an award-winning NPR audio story, and in exhibitions the world over.  He has created numerous CD covers and merchandise designs, and his award-winning musical documentary film, Patient's Rites, is showing in film festivals and has been embraced by the mental health community.  He lives in New York City.