2021 in (Book) Review
I read 45 books (and five plays) in 2021. I’ve always been a big reader, but last year was the first time I set out to make a comprehensive list of all the books I read. I was surprised by how many I got through! I read across a variety of genres last year, stepping … Continued
Terrifying Texts
Halloween is coming up and everywhere you look is decisively spooky. If you’re literarily inclined, one way to indulge this seasonal atmosphere is to curl up with a good horror book. Creative Writing students Kenzie Clarke and Erika Parsons are both huge horror buffs, and are happy to share their favourites. Clarke has a broad … Continued
A Review of the Brontë Sisters’ Work
Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre might be a rite of passage for first-year English students at VIU. I’ve seen the university edition being read on the number 40 bus and in the hallways of building 345 before classes start. There are upwards of five copies sitting on the bookswap shelves in the Student Union building—it’s hard … Continued
The City We Became: A Book Review
The business of becoming a city is a long and arduous one, and not even New York emerges unscathed. An otherworldly force, in the shape of the Woman in White, seeks to take advantage of New York City’s insecurity and quash it while it is still too weak to defend itself. Or rather, itselves.
Our Baby Was Born Premature: A Book Review
Our Baby Was Born Premature (the Same Way He Was Conceived) by Paul Alexander is a charming and honest debut novel that showcases the true triumphs and chaos of first-time parenthood. Cleverly constructed in what the back of the book refers to as “super-tweets,” the novel is Alexander’s personal collection of brief paragraphs, starting with … Continued
Book Analysis: Keeper’n Me
Keeper’n Me by Richard Wagamese is the story of Garnet Raven, a three-year-old Ojibway boy. Taken from his reserve and put in foster care, Garnet is isolated from his family and culture and becomes ashamed of his roots. At sixteen, after a lifetime of bouncing around foster care, he leaves on his own. He hitchhikes … Continued
An Astronaut’s Guide to Life on Earth book review
For a man that has been to space three different times, Chris Hadfield is incredibly down to earth. His pragmatic dealings with situations have led to countless opportunities and an understanding of how he has moved from point A to point B. And yet this is a man who is full of dreams, curiosity, and … Continued
The Thing About Dying Book Review
By contributor Spenser Smith Mildred Tremblay’s The Thing About Dying also has a thing or two to say about living; for every haunting line that compares cats to heartless murderers, there is another line that reflects on the grace found in the fragility of beating hearts. The book contains Tremblay’s lifetime worth of experience, molded … Continued
Book Review: Idlewild
Nick Sagan’s Idlewild is a hidden gem in the sci-fi genre and deserves to bring Sagan’s name out from under his father’s shadow. Blending The Matrix and Minority Report gives you the bare bones core of the story, and yet Idlewild stretches to be so much more during the whole story. The main narrator of … Continued