McGlue By Julz Levesque | Arts & Culture Editor McGlue (2014) is a short 144-page novella written by Ottessa Moshfegh. It’s set in 1851 in Salem Massachusetts and tells the dizzying story of a sailor who wakes up injured, with his head reeling, and who stays perpetually drunk or hungover throughout the entirety of the…
Category: Book Review
Book Review: Lapvona
By Julz Levesque | Arts & Culture Editor During the summer I had an office job that offered hours upon hours of downtime. With nothing to do and all of my organizational work finished for the day I started to get rather bored. After staring at a computer screen all day the last thing I…
Book Review: The Collected Schizophrenias
By Jess Ward, Staff Writer Mental illness is experienced by 43.8 million Americans every year, and yet, there seems to be a lack of discourse around the lives and minds of those who live with varying mental illnesses. The subject is taboo, stigmatized and neglected, which makes Esmé Weijun Wang’s The Collected Schizophrenias all the…
Book talk: Girls Burn Brighter, a powerful story about hardship
Jess Ward, Staff Writer I would like to add a trigger warning for this book, as well as the rest of this article, for mentions of rape and assault. In her first ever novel, Shobha Rao has accomplished something beautiful; she gives the reader a glimpse into the unwavering and lifelong bond between two women…
Book Review: Prism Stalker, Vol. 1
By Jess Ward, Staff Writer Comic books, for this reviewer, have been one of the most enjoyable ways to read from childhood to adulthood. Combining stunning and innovative art with complex and gripping narratives, comics give the reader heroes, villains, universes and adventures. They often present them in shades of gray; questions of morality and…
Book Review: Washington Black, a deeply rewarding story
By: Jess Ward, Staff Writer Esi Edguyan’s Washington Black offers a brutal and deeply rewarding story of a slave held at the Faith Plantation in the Barbados. Washington Black is a field slave, recounting to the reader his journey to freedom as he becomes a man of science and art. Black must survive everything from…
Book Review: where are all the women?
By: Jess Ward, Staff Writer The silver screen has been both a creator and a reflection of the culture around it for a long period of time. Movies and films become defining moments in time; think of Star Wars’ impact in 1977, and the way it resonates today. Why, then, have only five women been nominated…
Book Review: My Boyfriend is a Bear
By Jess Ward, Staff Writer Navigating relationships is a challenge faced by everyone, but especially those in the throes of young adulthood and growing up. As we move forward in life, we expect to find our perfect person, someone who just gets you. But what happens if that person doesn’t exist? What if every new…
Book Review: The Power, a novel by Nancy Alderman
By Jess Ward, Staff Writer Naomi Alderman’s The Power offers an alternate future reality in which matriarchy has overthrown patriarchy in a violent struggle for power. Alderman prefaces the book with fictitious correspondence between herself and male historian “Neil Adam Armon,” which is an anagram of Alderman’s full name. The letter outlines that the following…
Book Review: Sunburn, by Laura Lippman
By Jess Ward, Staff Writer In a rundown bar off the highway in Belleville, Delaware, a woman spends her summer dancing around her past and entwining it with that of a stranger. It’s this backdrop that Laura Lippman sets her novel, Sunburn, an exploration of personal histories and the way they shape our future. Lippman…