Monday, June 21, 2010

I LOVE this journal:

PANK Issue No. 4. I've been leisurely working my way through this journal, thoroughly enjoying the stories, and while I'm not finished with it yet, I'm so excited and moved and thrilled by what I've read that I decided to go ahead and tell you about it. My faves:

"Funhouse" and "Superman And Jesus" by Katherine Grosjean
"October of Brief Empire" by Craig Davis
"Fallen" by Alicia Gifford
"Unzipped" by Aaron Burch
"Babies On The Shore" by Ethel Rohan
"Struck Dumb" by Nick Sansone
"The Twelve Times Cristina Paz Quoted Tupac" by Ryan Dilbert
"But You Don't Really Care For Music, Do You?" by Angi Becker Stevens
"When A Heart Is A Bull's Eye" by Steven J. McDermott

Look at all these great stories! And I still have a ways to go! It's well worth your time to pick up a copy and enjoy it for yourself.

Tuesday, June 1, 2010

Great read:

I have just finished reading The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold and my reaction? Wow. I love, love, love it when I'm able to lose myself in a fictional world, when the characters are so real, so engaging, when the storyline is so compelling that I find myself dwelling on it even when I'm not reading it. Such was the case with The Lovely Bones.

I loved this. What I loved most was the idea of it, the story being told from the murdered child's POV, and how bits and pieces of "her heaven" were weaved in. Very creative. I have to say, also, that watching the gut-wrenching pain of a family struggling to deal with the horror and devastation of losing a child/sibling was tough. And gripping. What a testament to the author: it was so well done, the prose so delightful, so honest that I fell into the story, feeling what these characters felt, living their nightmare. The mom's pain, in particular, and how she dealt with it was rendered beautifully. That's not to say that the father's pain was any less; no, it was tender and just as painful. But there was something about the way the mother handled it -- being numb, avoiding it, never looking directly at it, running away physically, long after she'd left emotionally, coming back 7 years later to finally, tenuously, begin to heal -- that felt so real, like how I might react. So unbearable and yet you must go on.

I thought the reunion with Ray was masterful.

This was a great read. Very poignant, very moving in all the best ways.

Have you read it?