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Review: Lord of the Flies by William Golding

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Lord of the Flies by William Goldman

Lord of the Flies
William Golding
Penguin Books
Published December 16, 2003 (Originally Published 1954)

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About Lord of the Flies

At the dawn of the next world war, a plane crashes on an uncharted island, stranding a group of schoolboys. At first, with no adult supervision, their freedom is something to celebrate; this far from civilization the boys can do anything they want. Anything. They attempt to forge their own society, failing, however, in the face of terror, sin and evil. And as order collapses, as strange howls echo in the night, as terror begins its reign, the hope of adventure seems as far from reality as the hope of being rescued.

Labeled a parable, an allegory, a myth, a morality tale, a parody, a political treatise, even a vision of the apocalypse, LORD OF THE FLIES is perhaps our most memorable novel about “the end of innocence, the darkness of man’s heart.”

My Review

LORD OF THE FLIES is one of those iconic books that gets referenced all the time in our culture, but I’d never read it before. My daughter had to read it for school last year, and she had some anxiety about the content. I decided to read it first so she’d be ready for anything that might be difficult for her.

I read the book last fall as things were heating up before the presidential election here in the US. At that time, I actually wrote an initial review. But because I kept pushing back the date for posting the review, I have updated the review and added some more stuff that I’ve thought about on reflection.

Before I started reading LORD OF THE FLIES, I felt really weird reading all these big name authors talking about how pivotal this book has been for their writing. I think it’s Suzanne Collins who says that she reads LORD OF THE FLIES every year. That seemed really weird to me for a book with such a dark reputation. Every year? I mean, no offense meant. When a book resonates with you like that, I get wanting to read it every year. For a long time I had a book that I read every year, too. I guess I just found myself surprised about people feeling that way about a book that’s often referenced to describe uncontrolled violence or mayhem.

Anyway. So I went into the book with both some dread (expecting violence, which can be hard for me to read), and some, I don’t know, fascination, I guess?

The thing that still stands out to me most about the book is how easily some boys began to think of others as not human, as animals to be hunted. There’s a moment, after one boy has been killed where two boys talk around what happened. One boy comes right out and says that it was murder. The other boy recoils and tries to defend what happened as something else. He tries to explain it away as something not evil and wrong. It doesn’t work, and for a moment they’re both confronted with the horrible truth.

Watching the vigilantism and the violent language increasingly used by elected officials and repeated online while reading LORD OF THE FLIES was really creepy, y’all. Like, it seriously marked me. I would read a scene and feel like, this is awfully close to the way people are talking to each other or about each other right now. Or I’d get to a scene and think, well, surely our leaders won’t sink this low. And then. Stuff happened.

I couldn’t stop– and still can’t stop– thinking about the way the story explores the power of fear. The collapse of reason that happens when people are afraid and respond with that fear and anger. The steady shift toward things that once seemed unimaginable. I knew what was coming because I’d heard enough about the book that I basically knew what to expect. And yet, the violence of it and the dehumanization of it still shocked and shook me.

Reading this book, I can see not only from the story why it endures, but also from the writing. Like, I felt genuinely pulled into the tale. Even when I wasn’t reading, I thought about it. I wanted to know what would happen. Even though I already pretty much knew what was coming, I couldn’t look away from what was happening. It gripped me and paralyzed me with horror. (Much the way I felt weeks later watching the coverage of the January 6 insurrection.)

Honestly, I won’t say I enjoyed it– not like, celebrated reading it. But it really moved me. I think I would read it again. I think I NEED to read it again.

Content Notes

Recommended for Ages 16 up.

Representation
All the boys are British private school students.

Profanity/Crude Language Content
Mild profanity used infrequently.

Romance/Sexual Content
None.

Spiritual Content
The boys fear a mysterious evil they call the Beast. They leave food sacrifices for it, hoping that this will keep the Beast away from them.

Violent Content
At least one racist comment equating Indians with savages. Multiple violent descriptions of hunting and killing pigs. Boys beat another boy to death. A boy falls to his death after being hit with a rock.

Drug Content
None.

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Review: How We Fall Apart by Katie Zhao

Book Review and Content, Mystery/Suspense/Thriller, Young Adult/Teen 12-18, , , , , , , ,

How We Fall Apart
Katie Zhao
Bloomsbury
Published August 3, 2021

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About How We Fall Apart

Students at an elite prep school are forced to confront their secrets when their ex-best friend turns up dead.

Nancy Luo is shocked when her former best friend, Jamie Ruan, top ranked junior at Sinclair Prep, goes missing, and then is found dead. Nancy is even more shocked when word starts to spread that she and her friends–Krystal, Akil, and Alexander–are the prime suspects, thanks to “The Proctor,” someone anonymously incriminating them via the school’s social media app.

They all used to be Jamie’s closest friends, and she knew each of their deepest, darkest secrets. Now, somehow The Proctor knows them, too. The four must uncover the true killer before The Proctor exposes more than they can bear and costs them more than they can afford, like Nancy’s full scholarship. Soon, Nancy suspects that her friends may be keeping secrets from her, too.

My Review

One of the things I feel like this book captured really well or conveyed really well is the high-pressure experience of being a student at an elite school. Nancy not only feels the pressure of her school program and being a scholarship student surrounded by rich kids from privileged families, but also feels intense pressure from her parents to do well and make all their sacrifices worth it.

At first I found it difficult to connect with Nancy because she’s bitter and aloof. As I started to see more and more of her life, I felt like it made a lot of sense that she acted the way she did. Her relationship with Jamie was complicated and pretty toxic, but it made sense that they stayed kind of bound up in each other. So that was another thing that I ultimately felt was strong about the story.

Some of the scene changes felt abrupt to me. It sometimes felt like the writing was a little rushed, so I read the beginnings of scenes sometimes more than once trying to figure out if I’d missed something. Or maybe there was a flashback or timeline change that happened quickly. Sometimes I struggled to follow those, but maybe that was just me.

I think all in all there are some really strong things about the story– and I really enjoyed the experience of reading a suspense story with an Asian cast. Hopefully HOW WE FALL APART does really well and paves the way for other books like this!

I think readers who enjoy suspense stories will like this one, especially early high school readers, like freshman and sophomores.

Content Notes

Recommended for Ages 14 up.

Representation
Major characters are Asian. Two female characters are in a romantic relationship.

Profanity/Crude Language Content
Strong profanity used very infrequently.

Romance/Sexual Content
Kissing between boy and girl. References to sex. Kissing between two girls.

Spiritual Content
None.

Violent Content
Some descriptions of bullying. References to a girl found murdered. Description of a confrontation that leads to a head injury. A fire causes injuries.

Drug Content
A girl offers her friends a drink of juice and puts vodka in it without telling them. They realize what she’s done and drink the juice anyway.

Note: This post contains affiliate links, which do not cost you anything to use, but which help support running this blog. I received a free copy of HOW WE FALL APART in exchange for my honest review.

Review: The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie by Alan Bradley

Book Review and Content, Coming of Age, Historical, Mystery/Suspense/Thriller, , , , , , ,

The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie (Flavia de Luce #1)
Alan Bradley
Delacorte Press
Published April 24, 2009

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About The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie

It is the summer of 1950–and at the once-grand mansion of Buckshaw, young Flavia de Luce, an aspiring chemist with a passion for poison, is intrigued by a series of inexplicable events: A dead bird is found on the doorstep, a postage stamp bizarrely pinned to its beak. Then, hours later, Flavia finds a man lying in the cucumber patch and watches him as he takes his dying breath.

For Flavia, who is both appalled and delighted, life begins in earnest when murder comes to Buckshaw. “I wish I could say I was afraid, but I wasn’t. Quite the contrary. This was by far the most interesting thing that had ever happened to me in my entire life.”

My Review

A long time ago, after I reviewed and enjoyed a mystery featuring a young narrator, someone suggested the Flavia de Luce series to me. I borrowed THE SWEETNESS AT THE BOTTOM OF THE PIE from the library but only got maybe halfway through before having to return it. I liked what I’d read, but got sidetracked by other things and didn’t pick it up again until now.

Flavia is spunky and whip-smart. She has an interesting relationship with her two older sisters which mostly consists of giving each other a hard time and playing tricks on one another. There’s an undercurrent of protectiveness and caring in there, too. Sort of the only-I-can-mess-with-my-sister type of thing. It was kind of sweet.

I thought Flavia cleverly followed the thread of the mystery, having her own child-like moments here and there between highly analytical research, experiments and deductions. I feel like it should have been harder to believe that she’s eleven years old, but for some reason, I wasn’t really bothered by that as I was reading.

One section shows her listening to a long recounting of her father’s life at school. It’s interesting because it’s some of the only real interaction we see between them, but it goes on for a long time and sort of shifts the focus of the story to be about him from there on out.

Another thing to note is that there are a couple of racially insensitive (at best) situations or comments in the story. I’ve listed them below in the contents. To be honest, these are the kinds of things I have the most trouble with as a reviewer. This book is set in the 1950s and published in 2009 (which isn’t that long ago). I feel like the face-painting and Flavia’s comment could have been easily left out. They may have been historically accurate representations of ideas at the time, but including them feels insensitive to me, and none of them were critical to the story.

I enjoyed the mystery elements, and felt like the characters are believable and interesting. I wish it hadn’t included those few references.

Content Notes

Recommended for Ages 12 up.

Representation
Takes place in England.

Flavia’s father and a friend had a performance routine in which they dressed up as a Chinese man using make-up and an unflattering accent. Flavia later makes an off-hand comment about colonization “civilizing” the indigenous people– though it’s unclear if she says this sarcastically. These things may have been historically accurate representations of feelings and behavior at the time the story takes place, but are at the least racially insensitive and prejudiced.

Profanity/Crude Language Content
Mild profanity used infrequently.

Romance/Sexual Content
Flavia sees a young man kiss a young woman.

Spiritual Content
None.

Violent Content – Trigger warning for bullying, suicide and murder.
Flavia is the youngest of three sisters, and her older sisters boss her around and bully her sometimes. Flavia also commits pranks against her sisters. She also learns of a student her father knew who was bullied.

Description of a man throwing himself from a rooftop. Flavia discovers the body of a stranger in the garden who appears to have been murdered.

Contains situations of peril. Two scenes show Flavia tied up and locked away.

Drug Content
Adults drink alcohol socially.

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Review: The Wickerlight by Mary Watson

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The Wickerlight (The Wren Hunt #2)
Mary Watson
Bloomsbury YA
Published November 26, 2019

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About The Wickerlight

It’s been two months since Laila was found lifeless on Kilshamble village green, not a mark on her. Rumour says she died of an overdose. Or maybe it was suicide? The autopsy found nothing, but somebody must know what happened.

Now Laila’s sister Zara is ready to pick up the trail. But retracing her sister’s footsteps takes her to David, a Judge at the dangerous heart of an ancient magical feud. All too unwittingly, she begins to tread the same path that led her sister to the village green .

Mary Watson’s sequel to THE WREN HUNT is an eerie, magical thriller about a dead girl, her sister and the boy who can unlock the truth of what happened the night she died. Perfect for fans of Frances Hardinge and Emily Bain Murphy’s THE DISAPPEARANCES.

My Review

In the book THE WREN HUNT, the story follows Wren, a young Augur who’s caught in the middle of the war between her people and the Judges, her enemies. THE WICKERLIGHT is told by two people: one of the Judges who hunted Wren named David (and get ready, because there’s so much more to this guy than you thought there was in the first book!) and an outsider named Zara who simply wants to know what happened to her sister.

I had a much easier time connecting with the story this time through– I think maybe because I was already a bit familiar with the story world. I also LOVED getting to see a whole different side of David, who was in the first book. And seeing the community from an outsider’s perspective also gave the story a lot more intrigue, too. Right off the bat, the reader knows so much more than Zara does, and it added a lot of tension to many of the things she did, because we knew the danger she was placing herself in, even when she didn’t.

Some of the other characters from THE WREN HUNT appear in THE WICKERLIGHT, too. Cassa Harkness, Wren, and Tariq all appear on the page here and there. It was cool to read about them again and find out what had happened to them since the end of the first book.

Would I read a third book in this series? Um. YEAH. Especially after the way THE WICKERLIGHT ends, yes, yes, YES! Please tell me more. I can’t wait to dive back into this really delicious, dark Irish storyworld.

Content Notes

Recommended for Ages 16 up.

Representation
Zara and her family are Indian and from Australia. Other characters are Irish.

Profanity/Crude Language Content
Extreme profanity used infrequently by one character.

Romance/Sexual Content
Kissing between boy and girl.

Spiritual Content
Use of magic and curses.

Violent Content
Some graphic violence and brief scenes of torture.

Drug Content
Some reference to experimentation with drugs.

Note: This post contains affiliate links, which do not cost you anything to use, but which help support the costs of running this blog. I received a free copy of THE WICKERLIGHT in exchange for my honest review.

Review: For Such a Time as This by Sharon Risher with Sherri Wood Emmons

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For Such a Time as This
Sharon Risher with Sherri Wood Emmons
Chalice Press
Published June 11, 2019

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The instant her phone rang, Reverend Sharon Risher sensed something was horribly wrong. Something had happened at Emanuel AME Church, the church of her youth in Charleston, South Carolina, and she knew her mother was likely in the church at Bible study. Even before she heard the news, her chaplain’s instinct told her the awful truth: her mother was dead, along with two cousins. What she couldn’t imagine was that they had been murdered by a white supremacist.

Plunged into the depths of mourning and anger and shock, Sharon could have wallowed in the pain. Instead, she chose the path of forgiveness and hope – eventually forgiving the convicted killer for his crime. In this powerful memoir of faith, family, and loss, Sharon begins the story with her mother, Ethel Lee Lance, seeking refuge in the church from poverty and scorn and raising her family despite unfathomable violence that rattled Sharon to her core years later; how Sharon overcame her own struggles and answered the call to ministry; and how, in the loss of her dear mother,

Sharon has become a nationally known speaker as she shares her raw, riveting, story of losing loved ones to gun violence and racism. Sharon’s story is a story of transformation: How an anonymous hospital chaplain was thrust into the national spotlight, joining survivors of other gun-related horrors as reluctant speakers for a heartbroken social-justice movement. As she recounts her grief and the struggle to forgive the killer, Risher learns to trust God’s timing and lean on God’s loving presence to guide her steps.

Where her faith journey leads her is surprising and inspiring, as she finds a renewed purpose to her life in the company of other survivors. Risher has been interviewed by Time Magazine, Marie-Claire, Essence, Guardian-BCC Radio, CNN, and other media sources. She regularly shares her story on American college campuses and racial-reconciliation events. “To Forgive a Killer,” her essay as told to Abigail Pesta published in Notre Dame Magazine, won the 2018 Front Page Award for Essay published in a Magazine, awarded by the Newswomen’s Club of New York .

My Review

When I heard about FOR SUCH A TIME AS THIS, I knew I needed to read it. I remember hearing about the shooting in Charleston and feeling deeply disturbed at the boldness and actions of the killer. Rev. Risher tells the story of her family and her journey through grief toward healing with courage and very straight talk. This isn’t a flowery, feel-good story. It’s raw and real, full of struggle, humanity, and faith.

Risher wades into political waters as she describes her personal evolution into an advocate for sensible gun laws and for racial equality in the United States. Hearing her perspective on why she travels the country speaking and how she developed her message moved me, too. It made me think about the way I have conversations with people.

She suggests beginning with a common ground. What is something that both parties agree on? Find that common ground and then build on it. I’m hoping to put this into practice in my own life as I have conversations about social issues with people I care about.

Risher’s frank discussion of racism in America left me with chills. Her calls to action to learn to have difficult conversations, to keep talking about racial issues even when we’re uncomfortable, stick with me even after the pages of the book are closed. I agree with her, and I want to find appropriate ways to be part of those conversations, too.

All in all, I think FOR SUCH A TIME AS THIS is a must-read for anyone in America. This shooting happened here, perpetrated by a man with abhorrent ideas, ones shared by too many other people. After an event like that, I find myself wondering what to do, or how to respond. I think this book does a lot toward equipping people to do those very things.

Content Notes

Recommended for Ages 14 up.

Representation
Sharon Risher’s mother, two cousins, and a childhood friend, who are all black, were killed by a white supremacist at their church in Charleston.

Profanity/Crude Language Content
Strong profanity used near a dozen times throughout the book.

Romance/Sexual Content
Brief recollection of falling in love and getting married.

Spiritual Content
Risher herself is a chaplain and calls on her faith to help herself and others through deep grief and anger.

Violent Content
Some brief descriptions of the mass shooting at the AME church in Charleston.

Drug Content
Simon and his friends drink alcohol, which is legal at eighteen in Australia.

Note: This post contains affiliate links, which do not cost you anything to use, but which help support the costs of running this blog. I received a free copy of FOR SUCH A TIME AS THIS in exchange for my honest review.

Review: Genuine Fraud by E. Lockhart

Book Review and Content, Contemporary, Mystery/Suspense/Thriller, New Adult 18up, Young Adult/Teen 12-18, , , , , , ,

Genuine Fraud
E. Lockhart
Delacorte Press
Published September 5, 2017

Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Goodreads | Book Depository

From the author of the unforgettable New York Times bestseller We Were Liars comes a masterful new psychological suspense novel–the story of a young woman whose diabolical smarts are her ticket into a charmed life. But how many times can someone reinvent themselves? You be the judge.

Imogen is a runaway heiress, an orphan, a cook, and a cheat.
Jule is a fighter, a social chameleon, and an athlete. 
An intense friendship. A disappearance. A murder, or maybe two. 
A bad romance, or maybe three.
Blunt objects, disguises, blood, and chocolate. The American dream, superheroes, spies, and villains. 
A girl who refuses to give people what they want from her.
A girl who refuses to be the person she once was.

My Review

Wow. I was not expecting this book to be as dark as it was. From the description, I think I expected there to be two points of view, Imogen and Jule. There’s not– the whole story is told from Jule’s perspective. It’s also told in a choppy timeline, where each chapter jumps backward a bit and then runs forward to end where the previous chapter began. (Like the movie Memento with Edward Norton.)

I think the timeline totally worked. It created this choppy, suspenseful story where Jule’s completely in control of the narrative. I suspected a few of the twists before they happened, but some things took me completely by surprise.

Some of the book reminded me a little bit of a poem I read once by Robert Frost, which I think is about a boy killed with an axe. The words create this kind of aloof, calm sense, but somehow that makes what the poem tells all the more shocking and disturbing. That’s how I felt about some of the scenes in the book.

I felt like I couldn’t look away. Even when I didn’t want to know what happened, I felt like I had to finish the story. The writing was pretty compelling. It’s definitely one of those stories that looks at the darker impulses of being human: selfishness, obsession, greed.

If you’re into darker lit, GENUINE FRAUD is probably right up your alley. If you prefer stories where you like the characters and grow to like them more as the story progresses and you understand them more, GENUINE FRAUD is not likely to be the kind of book you’d enjoy. I’d recommend WE WERE LIARS by E. Lockhart instead, or WE ARE THE GOLDENS by Dana Reinhardt.

Content Notes

Recommended for Ages 16 up.

Representation
Jule’s sexual orientation is unclear. At times it seems like she has feelings for Imogen, but it’s hard to tell whether those feelings are sexual.

Profanity/Crude Language Content
Extreme profanity and some crude language used often throughout the book.

Romance/Sexual Content
Jule witnesses Imogen having sex in the pool with her boyfriend. Imogen references walking in on two female roommates having sex.

Spiritual Content
Jule listens to a man singing “God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen” at a bus station and wonders whether she’s too lost for a savior. She concludes that she is.

Violent Content
Scenes show two young women bashed in the head with heavy, blunt objects. In two other scenes, a young woman attacks someone who’s following her. Details are a bit disturbing. A young man is found after having apparently hanged himself.

Drug Content 
Imogen drinks alcohol at a bar in Puerto Rico with Jule (where it’s legal).

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