Zweig is the author of my favorite short story, “Letter to an Unknown Woman,” so I had high hopes for his novella Chess Story. I got off work, reread “Letter to an Unknown Woman” to get me into a Zweigish mood, picked up Chess Story, and had read the entire novella by 10:45 that night. […]

“Satire is meant to ridicule power. If you are laughing at people who are hurting, it’s not satire, it’s bullying.” – Terry Pratchett Honestly, that sums up my opinions about My Year of Rest and Relaxation by Otessa Moshfegh. It’s a novel about a bully trying to avoid her own emotions through sleeping waaay too […]

 “She repented, as of a crime, her past virtue, and whatever yet remained of that virtue was collapsing beneath the frenzied assault of her pride.” Madame Bovary is divided into three parts, and the first part was nothing short of boring. It was droll and floppy, but thankfully, it’s the shortest part of the novel by far.  […]

The Woman in the Window by A. J. Finn is basically a modernization (or dare I say a knockoff) of Rear Window by Alfred Hitchcock. At times, I thought she was taking too much from Hitchcock, so this book made me question the thin line between taking inspiration and copying. But that was really the […]

I love how last week, I was thinking about how I was craving a book that induced a strong emotion in me, and that very same day, I finished For Whom the Bell Tolls by Ernest Hemingway and quite literally bawled. Seriously, I cried harder than I have for a hot minute. So produce a […]

I usually like to start my reviews with the good aspects of a book before moving on to the bad, but for 1Q84 by Haruki Murakami, the good is rather miniscule and only qualitative in comparison to the boring, brainless, repetitive nonsense of the rest of the book. All I can say is that the […]

I can totally understand the hype surrounding Normal People by Sally Rooney now. I did watch the hulu series a couple of years ago with some friends, which I regrettably thought was influencing my reading when I started the book, but before I got halfway through, the novel was standing on its own two feet. […]

Howdy! It’s been a month. I’ve been busy since I recently moved. The weekend before last, I felt like I needed to get out of the apartment to do something I love. So, I went to a coffee shop to write a little bit and get some other work done while drinking a coffee that […]

I’m really glad I decided to write this 2022 Bookish Year in Review, because I’d kind of forgotten all the books I read this year. It feels like a new perspective to synthesize my year through the books I read, and going through the reviews I wrote reminded me of my adoration I had directly […]

Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad is an incredibly short novel; it’s divided into three chapters, and I read it in three days, one part per night before I went to bed. So it’s a quick read if you want a short classic between chunky, hunky classics.  The best part of the book is arguably […]