This review has been a long time coming. Not because I’ve put off writing it, but because it took me so bloody long to read this book: two whole months which is definitely a record for me. At 988 pages, many of those pages including just one long run-on sentence, this book isn’t for everyone….
How do you properly review a book that’s unfinished? Starlight by Richard Wagamese is the novel he was writing when he suddenly died, leaving can-lit lovers like myself in mourning. With his death, we lost a compassionate and wise writer who still had so much to tell us, but with the support of his estate…
As a mother of two young children, I was hesitant to pick up a book about a mother of two young children. Especially when this book is also about an intruder who breaks into the house while the mother is at home with her kids, and her husband is away on business. Have I mentioned…
I’m a big fan of Drew Hayden Taylor‘s writing. His words are funny, empathetic, and entertaining all at the same time. Every book of his I read, I’m more hopeful that Canada’s indigenous population, colonizers and immigrants will one day live in harmony, a mutually beneficial arrangement where everyone is legitimately taken care of (getting…
Did you watch the Giller awards on Monday night? I was glued to the television screen, strangely nervous to see who the winner of Canada’s biggest book prize would be. As you no doubt realized already, Dual Citizens by Alix Ohlin did not win, but I really enjoyed it, despite my negative comments at the…
Let me set the scene for you: two kids live in an extremely isolated cove, their parents die, and they are forced to harvest and catch their own food as a means of survival. That’s it. That’s the book. And in the words of the author-who would want to read about that? I would actually,…
Long title, long book. Small Game Hunting at the Local Coward Gun Club by Megan Gail Coles may scare off people for a few different reasons, one of them being the warning issued at the beginning: “This might hurt a little. Be brave.” But those who are brave will be rewarded. I won’t say I…
Reproduction by Ian Williams, winner of the 2019 Giller Prize is a quirky read. Aside from this book being PAINFULLY LONG, I enjoyed it. It plays with lots of things: format, timelines, even phrasing. That being said, I’m a reader who doesn’t like freaky-deaky experimentation in my books, but I still found this story readable….
There’s always a few jobs out there that one knows for certain they could never handle. Personally, I could never be a teacher because I can barely manage my own two children and I find all their questions annoying (sorry not sorry). But for some reason the monumental task of being an emergency services responder…
Dear reader; I wanted so much to like Lampedusa by Steven Price. At the time I’m writing this, it was announced as a shortlist contender for the Giller Prize, and because so many people in Canada are forming their reading lists based on this prize alone, I may be one of the few who are…
Can I get a hurrah for linked short story collections? Frying Plantain by Zalika Reid-Benta is a quiet yet decisive book that doesn’t gloss over the first and second generation immigrant experience in Canada. And instead of getting a disjointed look at these experiences through a raft of different characters, we follow one person, Kara…
I wasn’t really planning on reading The Testaments by Margaret Atwood for a few reasons; it had been ages since I’d read The Handmaid’s Tale, I hadn’t seen the television adaptation of it, and I figured everyone else would be reading this book, so why should I? But then, I was offered the opportunity to…
