Category: Literary Criticism

Book Critic, Book Review, Books, Literary Criticism, Reading

Review: The God’s of Heavenly Punishment by Jennifer Cody Epstein

by The Lit Bitch1 Comment on Review: The God’s of Heavenly Punishment by Jennifer Cody Epstein

Yoshi Kobayash is a young fifteen year old girl living in Japan like many others when one night her life changes forever.

The Doolittle regiment dumped napalm on her city, changing her life inexplicably–thousands are dead and her city is in ruins.

The book opens with the courtship and marriage of Cam and Lacy in New York and then shifts to Japan where we meet Billy Reynolds, an American boy whose father designs public buildings in Japan.

Billy’s mother gives him a camera for his birthday which is a central theme in this story. We then meet Kenji and Hana Kobayashi and their daughter, Yoshi.

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Book Critic, Book Review, Books, Literary Criticism, Reading

Review: The Invention of Wings by Sue Monk Kidd

by The Lit Bitch5 Comments on Review: The Invention of Wings by Sue Monk Kidd

Hetty and Sarah have grown up very differently. Hetty (“Handful”) was given to Sarah on her eleventh birthday as a slave.

Sarah is from a wealthy family in pre Civil War South Carolina….one of the ‘first families’ in fact.

Though she tries to free Hetty, her parents remind her that she is expected to own salves and she must simply make the best of things.

So the two girls who are similar in age grow up together.

The story of these two girls is told in two separate narratives. We learn a little about each of the girls families and upbringing as the story goes along.

Sarah and Hetty grow close and share secrets and learn from each other as any other young girls would. Continue reading “Review: The Invention of Wings by Sue Monk Kidd” →

Book Critic, Book Review, Books, Literary Criticism, Reading

Review: Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier

by The Lit Bitch14 Comments on Review: Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier

In the exotic vacation destination of Monte Carlo, we find a quiet and insecure woman on holiday. The young lady is a companion to a wealthy eccentric woman.

While in Monte Carlo the young lady meets a dark, mysterious widower named Maxium de Winter.

They fall in love and marry almost immediately. Maxium is a wealthy man who’s wife just passed away back in England.

The circumstances surrounding her death don’t sounds sinister in nature but they are horrific. Supposedly the first Mrs de Winter was killed in a boating accident.

Many years his junior, the new Mrs de Winter returns with Maxium to his country estate of Manderley on the British coast. She arrives to find the ghost of Rebecca haunts the estate….not literally but figuratively.

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Book Critic, Book Review, Books, Literary Criticism, Reading

Review: Mastermind: How to Think Like Sherlock Holmes by Maria Konnikova

by The Lit Bitch2 Comments on Review: Mastermind: How to Think Like Sherlock Holmes by Maria Konnikova

Sherlock Holmes blew Victorian England’s mind with his powers of deduction in Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s classic detective novels!

Who hasn’t wanted to know how to be as observant as Sherlock Holmes? Well after reading Mastermind, you might have a few new tips and tricks to help you be more observant!

Sherlock Holmes has been and will continue to be one of literature’s most popular characters. His wit and intelligence being two of the driving forces behind that popularity. His abilities aren’t super human–meaning anyone of us could learn his trademark deductive skills.

So needless to say that’s why I picked up this book for review. Who wouldn’t want to know how to be as observant and intelligent as Holmes? I don’t review a lot of non-fiction on my blog but with this I made the exception.

I was hoping that this book was going to be pretty straight forward, lots of break down and research about Holmes’s deduction and observation process. And while there was that basic structure, it was a bit overwhelming at times.

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Review: The Time Regulation Institute by Ahmet Hamdi Tanpınar

by The Lit Bitch2 Comments on Review: The Time Regulation Institute by Ahmet Hamdi Tanpınar

Set in post-Ottoman Turkey, we meet a host of colorful and eccentric characters struggling to adjust in a rapidly developing modern world.

This book is full of allegorical references and presents a colorful and unique view of Turkish culture and society.

The book describes the setting up of the modern bureaucratic state. At the center of the story itself is our charming antihero, Hayri Irdal.

He has been described as infectiously charming and be becomes entwined with some interesting people–a television mystic, a pharmacist who dabbles in alchemy, a dignitary from the lost Ottoman Empire, a clock whisperer-at the Time Regulation Institute.

The Institute it self is described as a “vast organization that employs a hilariously intricate system of fines for the purpose of changing all the clocks in Turkey to Western time”.

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