Tag Archives: reviews

A Review: Memory Bones by Sara Claytor

Posted on by
2

The first time I heard Sara read her poems was in Hickory, NC. She didn’t even need the mic as she recited (from memory) a long poem from her first chapbook before reading from her full length collection.

Since then I’ve had the chance to spend time at different events with Sara, including reading with her in Fuquay-Varina, NC. She is a ball of fire and that vivacity comes through in her new chapbook Memory Bones.

Sara has fun telling these stories that are shaped around the bones of her past. There are poems about her “white mother” vs her black mother (the housekeeper) as well as first loves and longer relationships that all have some level of marrow into making us who we are.

The poems flow fairly nicely from piece to piece with a sense of a loose architecture (much like the tendons that hold our bones together even though they don’t often touch), but there are a few that feel slightly out of place such as the final poem in the collection which is actually fantastic but I’m not sure flowed as well as the rest of the collection.

It is hard for me to pick out just one quote to mention, but how about some of the word choices in “Aunt Lena’s House”: until the day the rooster king chased me / screams, attacks, blood puckers on my legs. Yep, that is Sara at her southern, descriptive, dramatic and wonderful self.

Sara is one of the readers in this video I made at Poetry Hickory back in 2009 because you know you need a bit more!

Review: The Book Thief

Posted on by
4

The Book Thief
The Book Thief by Markus Zusak
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This is a long, very poetic story which I’m glad I read. There isn’t much to say about the book itself as it is skillfully put together.

Thinking over the book, however, makes me ask the question again: what is Young Adult literature? I know a lot of young adults read this particular book and I think it is definitely a worthwhile read, but it is also a very powerful book that any age could read. So, why list it as Young Adult? When “Huckleberry Finn” was published was it listed as Young Adult?

Just asking the questions.

A quote from the book: A definition of not found in the dictionary – not leaving – an act of trust and love, often deciphered by children.

View all my reviews

Review: My Reading Life

Posted on by
2

My Reading Life
My Reading Life by Pat Conroy
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

In high school one of my English teachers wrote a Pat Conroy quote on the board. I don’t recall what the assignment was in relation to the quote, but I knew I had to read the book. The quote was from “Prince of Tides” (paraphrase): My wound is my geography. It is also my anchorage, my port of call.

Maybe a 15 year old shouldn’t have been reading “Prince of Tides” but it was the book I needed to read at the time. I had been writing (or attempting) to write in response to the books I loved as long as I could remember, but there was something about the beauty that came out of a dysfunctional childhood in Conroy’s writing that made me feel I had something I could share.

Granted, my teacher seemed kind of annoyed that I read the book. Or maybe that was my perception. Perhaps I gushed too much. Perhaps she didn’t believe that I didn’t have a typical home life since I was in a higher level English class (no I wasn’t physically abused as Conroy discusses in his books and in the reading memoir I’m getting to…) because I had also been admonished that the stories I wrote weren’t real enough, yet, they were almost always autobiographically….

In a round about way what I’m trying to say is that Conroy’s fiction touched me when I was young and I almost came to tears reading how authors like Thomas Wolfe did the same for him when he was young. I also found myself jealous of the amazing teachers he had and the import of those relationships (positive ones).

If you love to read, love memoirs, and/or are a fan of Conroy I think you will enjoy this book. I really found it moving (and physically beautiful – great artwork) and I may pass it on to someone, but I’m tempted to keep it in my greedy, reading loving hands :)

View all my reviews

Review: Suite Scarlett

Posted on by
2

Suite Scarlett
Suite Scarlett by Maureen Johnson
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This was a quick fun read! I have read almost all of Maureen’s books now and this one did not disappoint. Scarlett is a somewhat naive character that you really can’t help but fall in love with. On the writing side, the first chapter should be a great example to writers on how to set up characters. All in all a fun read and I’ve added the second in this series to read.

View all my reviews

Review: Two of the Missing: Remembering Sean Flynn and Dana Stone

Posted on by
5

Last review for a while as I started a new pile of books! I was also out of Non-fiction so I actually got to order books!!!
Two of the Missing: Remembering Sean Flynn and Dana Stone
Two of the Missing: Remembering Sean Flynn and Dana Stone by Perry Deane Young
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I picked up this memoir after hearing the author speak at the NC Writer’s Conference in July of 2011 in Asheville, NC. It says something for how interesting he was as a speaker that I picked up a memoir about Vietnam – a topic I’ve never read much about even though my father and his brothers served in the Navy during the war.

“Two of the Missing” is a pretty quick read. The memoir recounts the partying and daredevil activities of several reporters/photographers during the war. The author was also over there covering the war, but you don’t really learn a lot about the author. He is more like a fly on the way recounting the escapades of his two friends: one of whom was the son of Errol Flynn.

This mix of memoir verus biography makes this book a little hard to peg and I wondered what kind of review or perspective I could give on a topic that is so far from me. Then I thought: what would it have been like if I had written a memoir when I was quite young (this was originally published in 1975) about my formative years? Would I have also jumped around a bit in the narrative? I think of my first full length book of poetry . . . and yes, we all grow.

“Two of the Missing” makes me want to do a bit more reading about the war. I’d like to pick up a few books written from different perspectives. Suggestions, in any genre, are appreciated :)

View all my reviews

Review: Spill

Posted on by
5

Goodreads doesn’t have the beautiful coverart for Malaika’s book but here is a link to another review where you can see it.
Spill
Spill by Malaika King Albrecht
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Malaika’s second collection of poems Spill (2011, Main Street Rag) is just as open and fearless as her first collection Lessons in Forgetting (2012, Main Street Rag).

Spill is separated into two sections: Tributaries and Rapids followed by Waterfall and Ocean. Not surprising, water appears throughout these poems from the devasting scene of baby mice drowning in a bucket to the swollen, dangerous rapids of mother daughter relationships and the quest (the journey down the river so to speak) of finding yourself.

There were quite a few poems in this collection that I stopped to read twice such as “Another Look at Meduse” where Malaika writes in the voice of Medusa, “Quick as cobras spit, / she said, The only stone’s / my own thick tongue.”

The only reason I have a 4 instead of 5 star review is that I found the last 10 poems or so didn’t quite resonate as much as the earlier work and I actually think “Ode to Weeds” may have made a stronger ending than the poem that was eventually chosen for the final poem in the collection. That is mostly the editor in me talking. It can be difficult, when working with a narrative arc such as this book has, to find the right poem to end on.

This collection, however, is still one I’d strongly recommend. Malaika is a wonderful poet whose poems seem so very simple on the surface but thei word play and connections once you read them again are just amazing.

View all my reviews

Review: The Wilder Life: My Adventures in the Lost World of Little House on the Prairie

Posted on by
5

The Wilder Life: My Adventures in the Lost World of Little House on the Prairie
The Wilder Life: My Adventures in the Lost World of Little House on the Prairie by Wendy McClure

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This is one of those almost a 5 star review!

McClure’s writing style, initially, felt a little bit choppy for me. It seemed there were abrupt transitions in the first 20 pages or so, but once I fell in with her style of writing I had a hard time putting the book down.

Also, from a teacherly standpoint, I love her love of colons (the grammar kind).

I don’t think you have to be a fan of the Little House books (or TV show) to find this memoir appealing because it is that – a memoir. The book travels with Wendy (can I call her Wendy now) as she investigates the “real” sites where the Little House books took place.

I, of course, read the Little House books when I was a pre-teen, but I haven’t been back to read them. I don’t think I was quite involved enough (or with the show – although I wanted to be Melissa Gilbert the actress cause she was small and a brunette) that I’d want to track down the sites myself so this saves me from having to do that. In fact, this book had me wondering – is there anything I’ve read, watched, done that I find so enthralling that I’d have to go on this kind of quest?

One of my favorite reflective moments in the book happens towards the end when McClure writes, “Maybe the Little House books have always been a way to “unremember . . . To me unremembering is knowing that something once happened or existed by remembering the things around it or by putting something else in its place.”

Isn’t that what we writers, and avid readers do? Don’t we want to remember something that relates to ourselves or remember something that never happened to us so we can fit better into the world?

Well, that’s what I hope we do :)

View all my reviews