Every week you will find Color Me Brown Links. We all have a story. This week's round up is fantastic (well, every week is) and I hope you'll check them out. If you read a review of book you think is slipping under the radar, drop me an email.
The Street of a Thousand Blossoms by Gail Tsukiyama at The Reading LifeReading a review by Mel rivals reading a well-written novel. If you haven't been by The Reading Life, get ther.
It is the story of the lives of two orphaned brothers living on The Street of a Thousand Blossoms. We see their lives develop from the horrible days of World War II, through the seven years of the occupation of Japan by the Americans up to the beginning of Japan's period of great prosperity.
Bloodchild by Octavia E. Butler at Tia's Book Musings. I read a lot of Butler and my first experience with her work was Kindred. That book left me exhausted and wanting more of Butler. Her collection of short stories gave me more of her brilliance in snapshots. Tia sees her the collection differently and I find value in hearing others' perspectives.
It's an interesting collection of works: three traditional high science fiction stories, one story in the "real world," one story that falls in between, an autobiographical essay, and an essay on writing. I prefer books of short stories that are intended as a cohesive unit, so although some parts of Bloodchild were interesting, I felt less affected by the book as a whole.
The Blood of Flowers by Anita Amirrezvani at Arch Thinking. I like Lorin. I admire her work and her take on world issues. I like that we have things in common and there are other areas that I know nothing or little about that I can discover when I visit her blog.Set in seventeenth century Persia, it is the story of a young village girl who, with her mother, is forced to move in with her uncle and cruel aunt in the capital, Isfahan, after her father dies.
Sugar by Bernice McFadden at Rhapsody in Books. I trust Jill's reviews. She has a real talent for sharing with readers the best of a book and identifying with evidence when a book doesn't work. She's clear and concise. Jill is the kind of reviewer who makes me consider reading books that I wouldn't have picked up on my own.There is so much I recognized in this book: grief, fear of love, cruelty, dignity, pettiness, compassion, and all kinds of strength in women who didn’t even know they had it.
5 comments:
Thanks for reading! I always get such great book ideas (and information) from you, and I'm eager to try the other books mentioned in this post.
Thanks so much for commenting on my blog-I greatly appreciate it
The first, and only-so far, book I've read of Octavia Butler is Fledgling. I picked up as an impulse a few years ago. I'd never heard of her before. It was a good book. My dad passed on an omnibus of her work, but it's in a box somewhere from my move. I'm still looking for books after I moved (ahem, a year ago!)
I loved Fledgling. It would work as a YA crossover.
I loved Women of the Silk by Tsukiyami. The book should come with a warning. "You will have a heart felt cry at the end of this book"
I didn't really like The Street of a Thousand Blossoms
I think the issues of power and the sexual dynamics in Fledgling are complicated and wouldn't be fully understood by a YA audience. Those relationships made plenty of adults uncomfortable. While teens often behave and have the attitude they are mature enough for sexual and emotional relationships, my experience is they aren't ready and don't comprehend the complexity of relationships.
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