You have found the Starving Artist blog about books, writing, and publishing. Please follow the drop-down menus to navigate around the page (lots of reviews! some news) or just scroll down to read the blog. And why the moniker? See the first two blog posts from 2012.
Thank goodness I have finally returned to reading decent books. That’s not great books. But it’s an improvement over bad books. Which means, yes, I thought that Small Great Things by Jodi Picoult was a decent book. Not a great book. And thankfully not a bad book. It’s definitely a book club kind of book,…
I really hate doing this, but it’s so bad. Mine is not a universal opinion, not even universal in my book club (though it is also not unique). But while I was interested in what was happening and kept turning the pages, the writing style was just way too much. And the plot was all…
A Good Man Is Hard to Find by Flannery O’Connor is bleak and difficult stuff. I was just drooling over it for its clarity, cleanness, style, innovation and trend-setting… but was dying inside due to its content. Satirical down to the word, nothing and no one in the world of the South in the early…
If you had told me several years ago that I would start reading romance novels, I would have scoffed at you. While I read nearly every genre out there, there are some genres that I just don’t. (Okay, so I always make exceptions for great literature, no matter the genre—I guess unless it’s too hard…
The Astronomer by Brian Biswas is several things. It is a magical realism-verging-on-speculative novel, though it is comprised of short stories that have been strung together and bracketed with other short stories that give a Victorian-style faux-outsider perspective. The story (which contains everything from Greek mythology to existential considerations) is told in short bursts that…
I think we’ll wait a month to come out with our summer reading list, though that may be a mistake. Look for that in a few weeks. For now, we’ll wrap up the school year and the more-unpredictable weather with Mother’s Day suggestions and a number of books-to-movies and books-to-series. We’re gaining on halfway through…
Sure, a fever dream. Absurdism, related—in time and space and feeling—to DeLillo’s White Noise, which I read last month. But sometimes clear, or clear enough. Hell, I Love Everybody: The Essential James Tate was not a collected book of poetry like I would expect. I mean, its meanings were hidden enough (sometimes so deep I…
This won’t be a long review. I don’t have that much to say about A Million to One by Adiba Jaigirdar. Just in and destroy and out. I jest. But do I? I did not like this book and I did not think it was well written. That’s the nice way of putting it. Josepha…
One of the trends I see on social media is ADHD. Since the Pandemic, especially, many adults have been diagnosed with ADHD (especially women) and they are coming to terms with these diagnoses with memes, reels, articles, and books. Yes, the book market has risen to the challenge, and I find myself suddenly overwhelmed by…
May I be so bold? It’s a no, thank you. Here’s the rub: Native voices and Native perspectives are really important to me, have been for my entire life and I consider them to be woefully underrepresented. So, there is no way I am going to tell you not to read Wandering Stars by Tommy…
The Unlikely Escape of Uriah Heep began a series of disappointing books that I would read from March into April. While there are things to like about this book, especially for old-style bookworms, the writing is often confusing and distracting and the book is entirely too long. I enjoyed reading it, despite its many faults,…
I had quite a wild ride with Stay with Me by Ayobami Adebayo. It is not a long book but I went in knowing next to nothing and it took some time for me to acclimate to the setting and the style and the structure. And then I was tempted to DNF the book but…
I couldn’t help but like Angeline Boulley’s Firekeeper’s Daughter. It ticked some enormous, interest boxes for me, so even if it was just okay, I would have been engaged. But it was better than okay. It’s a good read and a well-done YA thriller (light on the thriller but heavy on the YA). I enjoyed…
I know that technically Easter will have passed by the time it’s April this year (by one day), but that’s not normal, so it’s no wonder I missed it when I was writing the What to Read in March blog. I suppose it doesn’t matter much, anyway, as I have almost no books to recommend…
Do you like cultural satire? Do you like absurdism? How about the 1980s? How about existential musings? Don’t mind it when there isn’t much of a plot? Yet dramatic things happen? If this is you, run don’t walk to read White Noise by Don DeLillo, if you haven’t already. I mean, it’s been around since…
Halfway through The Great Believers by Rebecca Makkai, I was already confident that I was going to like it enough to recommend it. I trusted the voice and was so impressed that even if the ending was not satisfactory, there was still much to praise. I put it on my best reads of February blog,…
There are reasons people list to say that Stay True by Hua Hsu should not have won the Pulitzer (memoir). I think the most compelling (if also backwards) of those reasons is the anticipation that it builds, which this book cannot live up to. If it didn’t have that Pulitzer hanging over its head, I…
Let me tell you, defending my opinion about this book at book club—despite the gal way across the circle who was one-hundred percent with me—got heated. Literally, my face was super hot, uncomfortably hot. Some people really love this book, turns out, and are willing to contradict anything I say in order to defend it.…
I’m not sure that A Long Petal of the Sea is Isabel Allende’s most lauded work. I have been meaning to read her, but I started here only because it was a book club thing. This is one of Allende’s more recent books (2019, out of the 28 listed on her site; she’s published four…
I have seen five movies in the past couple months which are related to books in one way or another. Since the Oscars are creeping up on us and two of the movies have Oscar noms, I thought I should go ahead and put my two cents out there for you. The first—and arguably most…
the starving artist 