July 2020 – ROSES AND REVIEWS

July 18, 2020December 10, 2022

Lore Olympus and Color

Lore Olympus was such amazing comic! My dear friend Ciara recommended this to me, and once I got around to reading it I couldn’t put it down! I bought the last 2 episodes because I had to know what happened.

I also took screenshots of all my favorite scenes so I could remember them all. LOL

My favorite characters were Hera (I was surprised by how much I liked Hera!), Hermes, and Hecate as a lawyer! I had NO IDEA Hecate would be in it so much, she is one of the more elusive Greek gods that I would like to know more about. It was very cool to see her have a larger role in the story. Continue reading “Lore Olympus and Color”

July 14, 2020December 10, 2022

Lost Horizon by James Hilton: The Origins of Shangri-La

40 Best Lost horizon images | Lost horizon, Lost, Ronald colman

It was 2013 and I was browsing old paperbacks in a local bookshop that sadly no longer exists. I remember the shop well, it was one of those cozy narrow stores that was crammed full of leaning stacks and overflowing shelves. I liked it because they had low prices on classics, and bought used books for store credit. So I shopped there a lot, always looking to add something to my collection that I didn’t already have. I had never seen or heard of this book before, but when I saw it and had to have it.

I honestly couldn’t place what drew me to Lost Horizon. Perhaps the stunning vintage paperback art style and the striking sprayed pages? Maybe it was the smell of old book that greeted me every time I flipped a page? Or simply that the short tale captured my imagination and took me on an adventure. At the time I was really into hiking and maybe I was drawn to the mountainous cover art, or maybe my wandering soul craved the isolated utopia I found within the book. I guess it was all of it, the experience as a whole.

Lost Horizon is best remembered as the origin of Shangri-La, a fictional utopian lamasery located high in the mountains of Tibet. Though I had heard of Shangri-La before, I never really thought about what it symbolized or where it came from. Until I found Lost Horizion.

July 11, 2020December 10, 2022

Quotes from Things Fall Apart

This story follows the rise and the fall of a respected Nigerian Igbo leader as he challenges European colonialism and modernization. We begin to see a changing culture that starts questioning traditions, which threatens the old customs. As new beliefs and institutions are introduced to the community, the Igbo culture collapses and, for our hero, ‘things fall apart’. It is a classic tragedy and is regarded as a milestone in African literature. This copy has been with me since high school english, but I didn’t really understand the implications until I had to re-read it for African Lit. There is a lot to unpack in this book but it is incredibly influential and definitely worth reading, at least once.

“Having spoken plainly so far, Okoye said the next half a dozen sentences in proverbs. Among the Ibo the art of conversation is regarded very highly, and proverbs are the palm-oil with which words are eaten.” ―Chinua Achebe, Things Fall Apart

This quote alludes to the highly sophisticated art of rhetoric practiced by the Igbo by comparing food and words. The metaphor of words as food is appropriate, given the agricultural nature of Igbo society. Food is respected in Igbo culture and is regarded as the sustenance of life. They award the same value that they place on food to words, the sustenance of interaction and hence community. In the way that palm oil must be consumed, so must words and conversations.

July 10, 2020December 10, 2022

Internment

Amazon.com: Internment (9780316522694): Ahmed, Samira: Books Silence is Violence was the theme for this emotional book. “If we stay silent, whats next?”

This was a crazy read. It is eerily relevant and totally frightening to imagine. Set in a dystopian future where Muslims are herded into internment camps because of the racist president’s Islamophobia, our main character fights for freedom using the only thing she has left: her voice. I liked so much about this book, because it was very realistic and illustrate the consequences if we as a people become complacent and stop fighting for our rights. Continue reading “Internment”

July 9, 2020December 10, 2022

Nikita Gill

“I will take her to the library, and introduce her to every librarian because they are where Athena lives now.”

I chose this for @book_roast’s #magicalreadathon a few months back (and paired it with her other book of poems, Fierce Fairytales, another really great read!) This one really stuck out to me between the pair of books, and I have to admit I liked it much better. I am a huge lover of Greek myths so I had a good basic understanding of the tales themselves. It was very empowering to see some new interpretations of the stories, all told from the female perspective. Considering that all of the OG myth-tellers were male (Homer, Hesoid, Ovid, Virgil, Herodotus…) this book brings a breath of fresh air to the readings. I really enjoyed the short versions of these myths retold, and I loved how the book was structured―the poems were organized like the gods’ genealogy tree, which I thought was really cohesive and gave a good sense of chronology. featuring hand-drawn illustrations by the author. If you like myths and feminism, you will like Great Goddesses.

“Does the night ever tire of the darkness? Does the sea ever tire of her own depths? Do the trees ever tire of their roots?”

If you enjoy Rupi Kaur you will enjoy Nikita Gill. Fierce Fiarytales offers even more stories of empowerment that have flipped once-upon-a-time upside down. The women in this daring collection of poems, stories, and hand-drawn illustrations are anything but your delicate damsel-in-distress. In the world of Nikita Gill, the princess saves herself.

Nikita Gill is a British-Indian writer and poet living in the south of England. With a huge online following, her words have entranced hearts and minds all over the world. Follow her on Instagram at @nikita_gill.

July 6, 2020December 10, 2022

Analyzing The Old Man and the Sea

The first time I read The Old Man and the Sea was freshman year of high school. I recently won a free e-ARC from NetGalley, which is why I chose to revisit it. But I am always happy to do re-readings because I like comparing and contrasting my notes*. You can read a book one way, and have a completely different experience reading it again. There are so many different ways to read a book, and each reader has a different perspective and interpretation of it. You may even have multiple perspectives of a book you have read before, because you may be a different person than you were the first time you read it. This is true for me, because I was so young and have grown so much from the first time I read The Old Man and the Sea. Continue reading “Analyzing The Old Man and the Sea”