Fight Club by Chuck Palahniuk My rating: 2 of 5 stars As I am sitting here with my little laptop balanced on my legs, an episode of Murder, She Wrote playing in the background, chewing on my finger nails and still slightly woozy from the food poisoning I had on the weekend, I find myself at an emotional impasse. How do I rate and review this book? I could just leave it at the good old statement “the movie was better than the book, for once” and move on with my life, but something feels wrong. Let me backtrack a bit and explain why I chose to read this book…
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Northanger Abbey, Lady Susan, The Watsons, and Sanditon
Northanger Abbey, Lady Susan, The Watsons, and Sanditon by Jane Austen My rating: 5 of 5 stars I have now come to the part in my research, which requires me to read Austen’s works, finished and unfinished. I think this was my third or fourth time reading Northanger Abbey and I’m surprised and delighted how every subsequent read is just as entertaining and as fresh as the first read. I have to say, though, that having done as much research on Austen’s life and work, I’m baffled by the harsh critique some critics give poor Catherine Morland. She deserves a lot more credit than I have seen her receive throughout…
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Carmilla
Carmilla: A Vampyre Tale by J. Sheridan Le Fanu My rating: 5 of 5 stars I signed up for a graduate seminar course starting in the fall, perfect timing, called The Walking Undead: Zombies and Vampires in Transatlantic Cultural History, a literature course studying works other than the obvious Frankenstein and Dracula, and thank goodness for that. In anticipation of starting the new semester I asked my prof to provide me with the reading list, unfortunately he only gave me the list of authors, whose selected works we will be studying. I am pretty sure, though, that Carmilla is on the list, considering it is the story that inspired Bram…
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Postcards from the Edge
Postcards from the Edge by Carrie Fisher My rating: 4 of 5 stars I probably listened to this book at the wrong time. It was a terrible time in my life and the wounds of that terrible time are still excruciatingly fresh and raw and made me mature and age about a hundred years in the span of two weeks. My expectations of this book could not have been any different from what it turned out to be and now looking back on it as my growing pains have subsided, I feel I missed the point.The beginning sounded so completely autobiographical and I assume it actually is, but it so…