The Sunday Salon

My plan for today was to post a review of Down to a Sunless Sea by Matthias B. Freese - unfortunately, I didn't really like it. The book is a collection of short stories whose main characters are all damaged in some way - physically, emotionally, psychologically. The chapters are almost more character sketches than actual stories - some describe a life, some a brief episode, some are just the ramblings of a single character. About halfway through the book, it started to seem that the stories were depressing simply for the sake of being depressing. I also found the language difficult - I feel like I have a fairly strong grasp of the english language, but I needed a dictionary on several occasions. Perhaps the book was meant for a more erudite reader than I. That's okay with me - unfortunately, this collection was a miss for my reading taste.

Later on this week, I will be posting a review of Perfect on Paper by Maria Murnane for her blog tour - this book will be getting much more glowing comments, I can assure you. I'm also hoping to have an author interview at some point, so watch for that hopefully around the tenth.

My mom, who is an english teacher, gave my a very interesting idea for a question to pose to readers - I'm coming up with my own answer first, and then I will share. She's the kind of english teacher you WISH your kid had!

Also, I'm going to start featuring reviews of books recommended to me by my relatives. (Hopefully. So far, I've only had three of them respond to my request - if you are reading this, and you are related to me, I need some book titles!!) I'm lucky to be part of a family of readers, and thought it would be fun to read and review some of the books THEY consider to be their favorites, so look for some Relative Reads coming in the next few months.

I hope everyone had a safe, relaxing Thanksgiving. We had a bit of a blizzard to drive home through, but arrived safe and sound. Have a good week, everyone!