Yet more weird titles from the library shelves...
What it is actually about : "Every family lives in an evolving story, told by all its members, inside a landscape of portentous events and characters. Their view of themselves is not shared by people looking from outside in--visitors, and particularly not relatives--for they have to see something pretty humdrum, even if, as in this case, the fecklessness they complain of is extreme. "
What my first impression was : Pedophile. I know that's horrible of me, but the first word that comes to mind is 'pedophile' and I know I'm not the only one! Eww!
[ no cover available :( ]
What it is actually about : [synopsis in Polish]
What my first impression was : Pretty sure if I do that, my arrow is going to fly right back and hit me in the forehead dead. No thanks.
What it is actually about : "In sunny California, the Vietnam War may have just ended, but nine-year-old Helen Johnson’s world is beginning to crumble. Her father, a former POW and Vietnam veteran, has become increasingly distant; her mother, a Japanese adoptee, is struggling with mental illness; and her six-year-old brother is too young to understand what’s happening. Determined to find out more about her mother’s past and with a boldness that belies her timid self-image, Helen writes to her great-uncle Hideo in Japan, beginning a journey that will take her across the ocean and through the imperial legacies of both countries.
As Hideo and his wife recount the stories of his family’s silk business in Hiroshima, their experiences in China and Japan during and after World War II, and the fate of his sister Ume, Helen’s grandmother, they discover that although their lives have been darkened by war, their future can be healed by tending their shared roots. In this beautiful debut novel, Yuko Taniguchi creates a moving story of hope and redemption, of tragedy and resilience, and of the secrets, burdens, and ultimate strength that lie in a young girl’s heart."
What my first impression was : OH SHIT WE GONNA DROWN DON'T OPEN UP THAT CLOSET!
As Hideo and his wife recount the stories of his family’s silk business in Hiroshima, their experiences in China and Japan during and after World War II, and the fate of his sister Ume, Helen’s grandmother, they discover that although their lives have been darkened by war, their future can be healed by tending their shared roots. In this beautiful debut novel, Yuko Taniguchi creates a moving story of hope and redemption, of tragedy and resilience, and of the secrets, burdens, and ultimate strength that lie in a young girl’s heart."
What my first impression was : OH SHIT WE GONNA DROWN DON'T OPEN UP THAT CLOSET!
What it is actually about : "Ezra Gordon is in the disadvantageous position of being refused tenure by an institution he loathes. His love life isn't so much a wreck as a mere stall--he's lackadaisically dating Carol, a lawyer for the college who, not to put too fine a point on it, won't put out. Driving her home from a date, he muses, "Failed husband, failed father, failed poet, failed scholar, and any minute now, failed lover." Ezra looks up a former college chum, Isaac Schwimmer, over spring break, and heads down to Los Angeles for an impromptu visit. Isaac, it turns out, is a wildly successful publisher of pornography, and he introduces Ezra to a world of parties, drinking, and easy lovin'. He also introduces him to Tessa, who rates this eye-popping description:
Her skin was the color of a perfectly roasted Thanksgiving turkey, her copious cascading hair the color of butter. Her body was at once so firmly toned and so bounteously voluptuous it seemed to belong to some other, more evolved species of primate than the people he knew; her abs alone were sufficient to force any thinking person to reconsider the eugenic advisability of passing on his own DNA.
Ah, Herr Professor in love. And under the influence of Tessa's tender ministrations, Ezra discovers the one thing he doesn't stink at: writing utterly filthy porn"
What my first impression was : aka ' Autobiography '
What it is actually about : "Girl with Curious Hair is replete with David Foster Wallace's Remarkable and unsettling reimaginations of reality. From the eerily "real," almost holographic evocations of historical figures like Lyndon Johnson and overtelevised game-show hosts and late-night comedians to the title story, where terminal punk nihilism meets Young Republicanism, Wallace renders the incredible comprehensible, the bizarre normal, the absurd hilarious, the familiar strange."
What my first impression was : This author was likely inspired by 'the girls on Amarillo Blvd' if you know what I mean.
What it is actually about : "When a friend's HIV-positive sixteen-year-old daughter goes missing, investigative reporter Stephen Larkin is enlisted to help find her. Following a trail of warring drug dealers, child prostitution and born-again Christian gangsters, it soon becomes clear that they are not the only ones looking for the girl, and that others don't care if she is found dead or alive. "
What my first impression was : No relation to Candle Cove, I hope ._. ...
What it is actually about : "His name is Jjaks. It was supposed to be Jack, but they got it wrong on his birth certificate. It wasn't the only thing to go wrong in Jjaks's life. The way his brother, Sam, treated him, that was wrong. The way his mother sent him packing when he was eight, that was wrong. The way he just can't seem to get an honest job and stay out of prison, that's very wrong. Only one thing feels right. His brother's new wife, Freddie, feels very right. She doesn't like Sam too much either. So the two of them are ditching Sam and hitting the road, together. But Freddie wants some money. And she knows where Sam keeps it hidden. And she wants Jjaks to go back and get it. And things are going very, very wrong"
What my first impression was : You can't use a Country/State/County as an adjective! "How are you today?" "Oh, I'm kinda feeling Minnesota today." "Sorry, bro, I was feeling pretty Minnesota last week when I heard the Bears lost... again."
What it is actually about : "Only in America, and only since the 1950s, has the watching of television become the communal ground, often the battle ground, of fathers and sons, as well as the place through which the rest of family experience is played out, fought out, remembered, misremembered, and made into myth and trauma -- the shows watched and loved, the shows that became the trigger for resentments, the shows that would be fought over, the box of shadowy caves that washed over mute bodies in the "TV room" (formerly known as the "living room"). In the background, as children fit or did not fit into the family mythology of good and bad TV, their budding imaginations recorded every hurt, near hurt, or imagined hurt which depressed, silent, nearly catatonic fathers could inflict upon them"
What my first impression was : Sadly, this is going to be the memoir every kid in this young generation is going to be writing, or at least it feels like it.
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