Martyrs for a Cause: A Review on Wise Blood by Flannery O'Connor

Hazel Motes has lost his faith. Struggling with his lack of beliefs, he begins to follow the street preacher, Asa Hawks, a blind man whose daughter, Lily Sabbath, works with him, as they proclaim their teachings to those who will listen. In a gesture of his disbelief, Hazel Motes establishes The Church of God Without Christ, only to find himself worse off than he was before. Along with meeting Enoch Emery, Hazel Motes finds himself on a road with an unknown destination and the circumstances of his life spinning out of his control.

Wise Blood is the first novel written by Flannery O'Connor back in 1959 and I have one thing to say about it.

This book gave me the creeps.

Different Kinds of Life: A Review on Housekeeping by Marilynne Robinson

Ruth and Lucille are used to times of change and loss. They've grown up hearing the story about the train that drove off the bridge and into the lake, taking their grandfather with it. They never knew their father and their mother left them in the care of their grandmother before she drove off a cliff and into the same lake their grandfather's train disappeared in. Now, after some struggle, the girls are in the care of their Aunt Sylive, a woman whose habits begin to set the town on edge. As the girls work through their struggles of growing up, the town begins to divide, leaving Ruth and Lucille wondering: should they follow the everyday traditions of the town or should they follow the transient dreaming of their eccentric aunt?

Let it be known far and wide: Marilynne Robinson is one of the leading forces of contemporary American literature. Her first novel, Housekeeping, was released in 1980 and was the winner of the PEN/Hemingway award.

Truth and Consequences: A Review on The House at Riverton by Kate Morton

When a young director seeks out Grace Bradley, looking for answers about her time serving at the Riverton House, a new story begins to emerge. The director is making a movie about the tragedy that happened at Riverton, about a young poet who shot himself, and the two sisters, Hannah and Emmeline, that witnessed the event. But there are two sides to every story and Grace is the last person alive that knows the truth about that terrible night.

I can't begin to put into words the sheer enormity of the awe, or perhaps a better word is admiration, that I feel right now, having just completed Kate Morton's The House at Riverton. I've read the reviews, the ones that say the book moves too slow or that it has too much extraneous information and I have to disagree. The book is long, coming up to a solid 468 pages in the paperback edition, and yet I can't think of any one area that could have been shortened, where the detail that Morton gave to her story wasn't necessary to the effect of the novel in its entirety.

Revolving Door: My Thought Process on the Doctor Who Premiere

***Big WARNING Here!!

If you aren't a fan of Doctor Who, or you're one of those that means to watch the show and just haven't caught up yet, then this post is not for you! It contains information that may be considered SPOILERS so if you don't wish to know then I say come back later this week for my next review. Or if you do want to know and you think SPOILERS are an essential part of life (they're not really, I'm just exaggerating or being over-dramatic, take your pick, they both work) then stick around. Other than that, have fun with the post. To be honest, the reason I wrote it is because it was fun and I wanted to post it here for posterity's sake.

I wasn’t sure if I should make a post about this but I figured I HAVE blogged about films so why not talk about TV shows? In the future I will be posting analyses on various shows as well, just FYI. But first, to start things off, why not begin with my favorite?

The Sanctuary and Languid Pace of Love: An Analysis of Baz Lurhmann's Romeo + Juliet

 When I took my course on Shakespeare and Film this past spring I was told that the short papers we did on each film would have to be tied in to the text of the play and some important aspect of the modern adaptation we would have to watch. It took me ages to come up with the paper topics I had for 10 Things I Hate about You, as I quite literally finished writing that analysis on Kat Stratford ten minutes before the class deadline to send the professor the paper through the class website, and O took forever because in O's case, I found myself extremely unsettled by the film and the teens in it. With Baz Lurhmann's Romeo + Juliet however, there were things there that I thought gave the film major kudos despite all the craziness the movie seemed to contain.

"They Say, Blood Will Have Blood": A Review on The Blood Keeper by Tessa Gratton

Mab Prowd is a wild and stubborn blood witch, living on a farm in Kansas. When her old mentor dies, she decides to dig around in the garden, determined to discover the truth about the roses there after her mentor asked her to get rid of them. Her spell takes a wrong turn and lets loose an old powerful curse, one that manages to rope in the life of Will Sanger, a local boy who is forced into the world of Mab's blood magic. Determined to remedy her mistake, Mab works to cleanse her land and her life of the effects of the curse. However, the curse is stronger than Mab ever considered and it is determined to destroy Will, Mab and anything else that gets in its way.

Have you ever had your cards read? Have you heard about the Death card and what it truly means when its pulled out in a reading? For those who don't know, the Death card can mean transformation, change, end and beginning.

Tessa Gratton's The Blood Keeper is about all that and more.

Update to the Ratings System

If you look to the right, you will notice that the ratings system now officially goes up to 10 Stars. You can read the previous post on the Ratings System for the imagery attached to each star rating.

I just started to think that giving every single book I love a 5 Star rating just doesn't work and dropping to 4 Stars or even 4 1/2 just doesn't cut things down to the right sentiments for me anymore.

So, now I'm going back through my reviews and adjusting their ratings accordingly. Check back this weekend at the latest for 2 new reviews on a pair of YA releases I've been waiting to get my hands on that were just released this past week.