Reviews and Comments

sidra

sidra@bookwyrm.social

Joined 1 year, 3 months ago

I read sometimes.

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Elena Ferrante: The Lost Daughter (2008) 4 stars

Review of 'The Lost Daughter' on 'Storygraph'

5 stars

I picked this up after I came across the trailer in a LitHub Newsletter. I haven't read anything in a loooong time so regardless of whether I liked it or not, it at least made me read something. the protagonist isn't likable but I understand what she's going through. Children are a lifelong commitment, nothing else is. You can get out of a course, a job, a relationship, whatever, but once you have a child there's no turning back. There were so many instances in the book where you can feel the anguish of the narrator. While I understand, and it's apparent, that the narrator is unlikable, she also is expected to be a certain way and it is this expectation, which leads to her unpleasantness.

So anyway, I really liked the book AND the trailer. 

How do we see the world around us? The Penguin on Design series includes the …

Review of 'Ways of Seeing' on 'Storygraph'

No rating

The relation between what we see and what we know is never settled. Each evening we see the sun set. We know that the earth is turning away from it. Yet the knowledge, the explanation, never quite fits the sight.

Review of 'Undressing' on 'Storygraph'

No rating

There were some really good poems in this collection. His writing is beautiful and sad and I'd have to come back to this collection later to really understand some of these.

reviewed Firstborn by Louise Glück (American poetry series -- 26)

Louise Glück: Firstborn (Ecco Press) 3 stars

This is the first collection of poems by Louise Glück, who was born in 1943 …

Review of 'Firstborn' on 'Storygraph'

3 stars

From these shallows expands 
The mercy of the sea. 
My first house shall be built on these sands, 
My second in the sea.

 — PHENOMENAL SURVIVALS OF DEATH IN NANTUCKET

I've only read A Village Life by Glück so far, which was published almost after 40 years of Firstborn. The difference between the two is palpable. Firstborn is quite grim and personal, and I was amazed to see Glück following a form for her poems. I'll definitely say that she's improved, not that Firstborn was bad. I just think it didn't work as a collection.