First Line: Ready Player One
“Everyone my age remembers where they were and what they were doing when they first heard about the contest.” –Ready Player One, Ernest Cline
Writer in the Wild: Your Friendly, Preptober Reminder
It’s that time of year again here on The Starving Artist and also in the writing world. Sure, I know plenty of writers don’t participate in NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month)—some of you even thumb your noses at the idea—but we are supportive of Nano, so there. And I know that Nano is in November,…
Writing Podcasts Reviews
The truth is, I can’t always have a book in front of my face. Sometimes I do things like drive, and reading a physical novel while driving would be dangerous. I discourage it, for the record. So, in steps podcasts. While I am not the world’s biggest fan of audiobooks, I will listen to them…
Repost: Writer’s Fatigue
A couple weeks ago, I was listening to a writing podcast (Write-Minded) and there was an interview with an author (Tzivia Gover) who uses dreams to write (and teaches classes on using your dreams to write). In the course of the interview, the interviewer and interviewee touched on the subject of writer’s block, a subject…
Writing Prompt: Eavesdropping
Go to a public place, like a coffee shop or a garden. Eavesdrop on people’s conversations. Takes notes or sketch and when you have an idea, write the person’s story (even if it’s just a snapshot moment). You can also do this around your own home if you live with any people or even pets.…
Quotable: Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde
“…and it fell out with me, as it falls with so cast a majority of my fellows, that I chose the better part and was found wanting in the strength to keep it.” -Robert Louis Stevenson, Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde
Book Review: Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde
Did you know that Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (technically Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde) is a short story? A novella, at best? The version I read (a trade paperback volume by Signet Classics containing an introduction by Stephen King and also Dracula and Frankenstein) runs to 75 pages. Which makes this…
The Artist Recommends: What to Read in October
I have started to do some regular posts in order to 1) beef up the posts on The Starving Artist and 2) be more clear about what The Starving Artist is. One of these regular posts is “The Artist Recommends,” which will be posted before seasons, holidays, sometimes months or new years… Just to give…
Book and Movie Review: The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society
I do not prefer the epistolary form, and I am wary about having two authors on a book cover, as well, so The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Shaffer and Anne Barrows had two knocks against it from the beginning. But I had liked the movie. So one knock for.…
Book Review: The Graveyard Book
Finally, a Neil Gaiman book that really agrees with me. Everyone else seems to admire his work so assiduously, but me… it either wasn’t my flavor (American Gods) or I thought it was not very good (The Ocean at the End of the Lane). While I had no idea what was coming to me with…
Book Review: Meander, Spiral, Explode
This is a book for writers. I suppose it could also be a book for readers, especially those in the academic, literary criticism vein. At any rate, it had been zinging across my path like a ping pong ball, for something like a year, as every writer around me read it and talked about it…
Trilogy Review: Shadow and Bone
I went into Shadow and Bone with very high expectations. Written after Leigh Bardugo’s Six of Crows series but meant to be a prequel of sorts (though including none of the same characters), I figured this would be at least as good as Six of Crows and Crooked Kingdom (the duology). I was a little…
Two Writing Movie Reviews
YOU HURT MY FEELINGS I am quite behind on my posts, here, due to some major life changes. And the summer is always busier than one anticipates, isn’t it? But back in the early summer, my husband and I went to the theater to see a smaller movie titled You Hurt My Feelings. Since it…
Book Review: Never Let Me Go
Never Let Me Go is science fiction, British, and YA (even though it is frequently also read and enjoyed by grow-ups). It is also written by a widely lauded author (Kazuo Ishiguro) and seems to always be around, “your next read.” But while I expected to like this book as much as, say, The Perks…
Book Review: Friends, Lovers, and the Big Terrible Thing
Friends, Lovers, and the Big Terrible Thing by Matthew Perry was pretty popular, for a little time anyhow: another book floating down the stream of famous people memoir/exposes that rose to the top for one reason or another. Since Friends was one of the most popular TV series of all time and Perry’s battles with…
Book Review: It Ends with Us
While catching up with reviews, I am surprised that this is still in queue; I feel like I wrote and posted it already. But from my notes and memory, I will let you know that while Colleen Hoover and It Ends with Us is gracing the window dressing of bookstores across America, I was not…
Book Review: People We Meet on Vacation
I read a lot of literary stuff, but as I get older I also read a bit of fluff. When I am on vacation, I reach for at least one fluffy book, and Emily Henry has become a staple for those moments (though she only has four adult, romance books at this time, so I’ll…
Series Review: Percy Jackson & the Olympians
I’m sure to catch it for this review, but I was not at all impressed or even very entertained by the Percy Jackson & the Olympians book series. In the original five books that put the otherwise-teacher and -father Rick Riordan on the map, his famous Percy Jackson goes from age twelve to age fifteen…
Book Review: Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine
As with many of the other books I’ve read lately, I am divided in my opinion about Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine (2017) by Gail Honeyman. It has been a popular book and its Goodreads rating is at 4.25—which is very impressive—but I both liked it and didn’t like it. Eleanor is engaging, one hundred…
Book Review: A Monster Calls
A Monster Calls (2011) by Patrick Ness is a sad, somewhat difficult YA book that borders on a novella and, in the end, is rewarding. It is also magical, but avoids the obnoxiousness of overly-fable-y books to drive home some very real points about coming of age, death, and guilt, while the backstory about this…
the starving artist 