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”
The Handmaid’s Tale: Comparing The Novel To The Series
I read The Handmaid’s Tale in high school, and I didn’t ‘get’ it, TBH. I understood it, of course, but it didn’t resonate with me in the way my teacher had hoped it would. It wasn’t until watching the new Hulu adaptation that I was really interested in the story. But I couldn’t understand why my memories of the book were so far from what the show was saying, so I dug out my old copy, still covered in post-its and margin scribbles, and forced myself to give it a second chance. 
With my first reading, for whatever reason, I had a very obscure picture of the world Atwood was writing about. I wasn’t able to imagine what it would be like. But, after watching the series, I was able to really picture the world of Gilead, and it made me want to understand it better. So I decided to revisit the book, and I re-read it while watching the show. It completely changed my opinion of the novel, and now I love a book that I once hated.
Although I loved both the book and the series, I can’t ignore their differences. Though both are important and relevant, they have different missions and different lessons. The ideal would be for audiences to read and watch both; they inform each other, each provides what the other lacks. Continue reading “The Handmaid’s Tale: Comparing The Novel To The Series”
I Wrote This For You And Only You
Author Iain S. Thomas (under the pen name PLEASEFINDTHIS) now has a series of published I Wrote This For You books, including I Wrote This For You, I Wrote This For You: Just The Words and I Wrote This For You And Only You. Find the original blog at http://www.iwrotethisforyou.me/.
They are exactly what you expect: pining love poems, written to an unknown recipient. Readers are granted access into the speaker’s advice to his beloved, and are left wondering what to make of the challenging associations.
The author wrote the first sentence in a spiral-bound notebook by the side of his bed in 2006, and uploaded the first sentence to his blog on the 5th of July, 2007. All subsequent posts encapsulate what has become the I Wrote This For You series, a seemingly never-ended photography-and-poetry project. The digitized and printed series I Wrote This For You was officially released as a book in 2011, but remains accessible at http://www.iwrotethisforyou.me/. Continue reading “I Wrote This For You And Only You”
Orange Is The New Black, Season 5 Episode 7: Poussey’s Library
Orange Is The New Black routinely pays homage to its form, by referencing books throughout the entire Netflix original series. After the first season, the show heavily diverges from the truth of the memoir it was based on, though the show still makes an effort to honor books by including them in the characters lives. Not only do inmates rely on story to get through their incarceration, but their incarceration becomes a story (ie. Orange Is The New Black: A Memoir by Piper Kerman).
OITNB may weave a tall tale, but a tale that is rooted in truth. Although the lives of Chapman and the other inmates depicted on the show are fictitious, they are based on real people in true situations. The show brings to light real issues that exist within the prison system, and educates us while entertaining us.
Continue reading “Orange Is The New Black, Season 5 Episode 7: Poussey’s Library”
Orange is the New Black – Book v. Netflix
The popular Netflix Original Series Orange Is The New Black, based on the memoir by Piper Kerman, returns this June for a highly anticipated 5th Season.
The memoir Orange Is The New Black: My Year In A Women’s Prison by Piper Kerman follows her seven-year long experience with the federal correctional system, chronicling her own experience while simultaneously exposing some of the greatest flaws and oversights of the system. Continue reading “Orange is the New Black – Book v. Netflix”
Patchwork Girl Stands on The Shoulders of Shelley & Baum
PATCHWORK GIRL
Shelley Jackson’s Patchwork Girl demonstrates how intertextual allusions are used as piecework in order to construct new literatures together from various sources of the past. Presented in hypertext format, Patchwork Girl uses intertextual allusions borrowed from canonical texts such as Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein and L. Frank Baum’s Patchwork Girl of Oz to create a new work inspired by and in reference to Shelley and Baum’s works, reinterpreting their ideas and making them modern. The work of Patchwork Girl proves that literature has always been intertextual – writers have forever been influenced by other writers. We are all only standing on the shoulders of giants.
Continue reading “Patchwork Girl Stands on The Shoulders of Shelley & Baum”
Authenticity of Voice in People of Paper: A Close Reading
Salvador Plascencia’s debut novel The People of Paper raises questions regarding authorship and voice in a work. Blurring the lines between author and speaker, the work leaves readers questioning who is really getting to tell the story.
In a world where the victors of war (colonizers, or Saturn) dictate written history, The People of Paper offers a novel wherein the colonized (members of E.M.F.) have the opportunity to dictate their own point of view. This novel forces readers to question the authenticity of what they are reading; how much of the story has been fabricated, misrepresented, or mistold? This novel requires readers to glean their own understanding of truth by sifting through various sides of the same story. Continue reading “Authenticity of Voice in People of Paper: A Close Reading”
ROSES AND REVIEWS 