Elevate Difference

Reviews tagged novel

The Kept Man

One thing I don't expect to find in a chick lit-type book* is a line like this: "The thing about fucking on coke is, afterward, there's no rolling over and going to bed." Oh. I'd never thought of that.

The Last Secret

Secrets and lies. Can you ever really escape your past? Or do the mistakes you make when you’re young haunt you forever? Those are the questions haunting Nora Hammond, the protagonist of The Last Secret. Nora is the stereotypical rich, suburban socialite, the woman who has everything; basically, she's the prototypical victim for a literary thriller.

Willing Spirits

What do you do when you’ve followed all the rules that “they” told you would bring you happiness and security?

Between Here and April

Deborah Copaken Kogan’s novel Between Here and April begins with Elizabeth Burns, a modern New York journalist and mother of two young girls, recalling her first-grade friend April Cassidy’s sudden disappearance.

Ten Things I Hate About Me

I was excited when the book Does My Head Look Big in This? came out a few years ago. In that book, author Randa Abdel-Fattah tells the story of Amal, a young Australian Muslim woman who decides to wear hijab and navigates the challenges of expressing her identity as an Australian Muslim.

Fear of Fighting

Fear of Fighting is a short novel about a woman living and working and looking for love. It reminds me, oddly, of Chuck Palahniuk's novels, though it's more comfortable with its queerness.

The Temptation of the Night Jasmine

Lacking familiarity with Lauren Willig’s Pink Carnation series did not detract from my enjoyment of The Temptation of the Night Jasmine, the fifth installment in the series.

Are Girls Necessary?: Lesbian Writing and Modern Histories

Are Girls Necessary? was an astoundingly great idea, exploring the lesbian in nineteenth and twentieth century lesbian-authored literature, even that which is not as explicit as the lesbian novels that make up the heart of the lesbian literary canon. The subjects of Abraham’s examinations are a veritable pantheon of lesbian, bisexual and feminist literary icons: [Willa Cather](http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1844083721?ie=UTF8&tag=feminrevie-20&linkCode=as

Love in a Headscarf: Muslim Woman Seeks the One

Okay, I’ll admit it. When I first heard the title, my immediate reaction was to roll my eyes. “Not again!” I thought.

The Jewel of Medina

There was a lot of manufactured controversy over The Jewel of Medina. As a practicing Muslim, I fully expected to hate it based on the very idea that it is a fictionalized account of a revered woman: A’isha, wife of our Beloved Prophet. The media made a bit of noise about how it took a particular event in A’isha’s life and twisted it into a “sexier” story. Like most Muslims, I expected it to offend me. I admit I went into reading this novel with a bias.

The Blue Manuscript

The Blue Manuscript, featuring an indigo cover laced with gold detail, aesthetically embodies its elusive subject, a legendary medieval copy of the Quran. Al Khemir's novel traces the archaeological expedition in search of the manuscript yearned for by collectors and scholars alike.

Your Roots Are Showing

I really tried to like this book because it has many good points. The plot centers on a painfully honest email that Lizzie, the main character, sends by mistake to her husband revealing the drudgery that her life as a house-bound mother and wife has become. The couple separates and Lizzie is forced to face herself while taking care of the kids, of course. Since getting married, her weight, looks, and physical habits have gone down the drain.

The Private Lives of Pippa Lee

What molding and stretching is required of a woman who chooses to better the quality of life of others over her own? Perhaps this type of self-sacrifice cannot be fathomed from the outside in. To be the devoted wife, the doting mother, the gracious hostess, the caring friend—where and when does she find the time to find herself? Within in her sharply defined world, Pippa Lee is everything to everyone who matters to her—to Herb, her husband thirty years her senior and a prominent publisher; to her grown children, twins; and to a small circle of friends, New York writers and artists.

Bright Shiny Morning

I have no beef with James Frey. I think he’s a talented writer; a zeitgeist of a generation; a younger and less punctuationally-correct Don DeLillo, of a sort; and I believe Oprah is a mean and deceitful ratings leech. I think memoir is a complicated genre at best, and I tend to believe most (if not all) of the story as told in this recent Vanity Fair article.

The Time it Takes to Fall

Margaret Lazarus Dean uses an American tragedy, the space shuttle Challenger explosion, as the backdrop of her charming coming-of-age novel, The Time It Takes to Fall. The heroine of the story is Dolores Gray, who is just entering the 7th grade.

The Delivery Man

The Delivery Man is the story of Chase, a twenty-something guy living in Las Vegas. The book switches between Chase’s present day life and flashbacks from his tragic Las Vegas childhood.

Girls in Trucks

Not many books have been able to capture the social chasm between northern and southern women quite as well as Katie Crouch’s new novel, Girls in Trucks, has. Meet Sarah Walters, a southern debutante born and raised in South Carolina. Upon entering college, Sarah flees north, separating herself from all that she has ever known. Sarah soon discovers how different people, men in particular, in the north are; they are harder, flightier, and often times quick to forget about another person. Thus begins Sarah Walter’s descent into self-discovery.

Lavinia

Ursula K. Le Guin is the author of short stories, essays, volumes of poetry, books for children, and many novels. She has won the National Book Award, five Hugo and Nebula Awards, a Pushcart Prize, and the Howard Vursell Award of American Academy of Arts and Letters.

Legacy

Legacy is a captivating book both sour and sweet. The placement of women puts an ugly taste in readers’ mouths, forcing a need to step back and savor just how decent we live. Sweetness comes in the form of poisonous flowers and a well needed rebellion. The opening line “My mother died before I was born,” followed by an overwhelming “She was fifteen when I was born, the first in a long line of unwelcome daughters,” already expresses the strict starved environment Shannon lives within. In the town village of Legacy this is the case with all child bearing women.
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