Lydia Polche
Staff Writer
Currently I’m reading, “We need to talk about Kevin” by Lionel Shriver. I watched the movie a few years ago and had the urge to read the book about a month ago. The story centers on a woman named Eva and her life being the mother of a convicted mass murderer. It’s really interesting because there’s more information about Eva than in the movie adaptation, which makes her more fleshed out. There’s complex feelings and concepts that are encapsulated perfectly by Eva that make the book a cathartic read. The narrative is done through letters written from Eva, which are littered with intrusive thoughts and taboo. The narrator being this pessimistic makes the unfolding of story events a mentally extensive process as you also have to account for her biases and sporadic contrarian outbursts. I haven’t finished the book yet but so far I love it.
Joella Dumers
Club Member
The book I have been reading is “Windows on The World Complete Wine Course” by Kevin Zraly. I have been picking at this book since Christmas when I got it. My boyfriend’s father is a wine connoisseur. Whenever I go to my boyfriend’s house to see his family, I ask his father many questions about wine, since the process is such an interesting topic. This book explains everything about wine. Between the wine pairings, how to smell wine properly, which glasses to use for different types of wine and the history of wine in each famous region. I recommend this book to anyone intrigued by this interesting beverage to better their knowledge of wines.
natalie St. Denis
Editor
Currently I’m in the last 25% of a book my sister gifted me for Christmas: “The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo” by Taylor Jenkins Reid. I’m really bad at reading books in a timely manner, if I even get to finish them at all. But the pace I have kept up with reading this novel is impressive for my track record, which speaks to how good this historical drama is. The story follows a famous, jaw-dropping actress in the ‘50s who shuffles her way through, as the title suggests, seven husbands. The book is broken up into sections for each husband, during which the reader quickly learns of the troubles Evelyn has had to face in her various marriages, all while battling a voice inside her telling her to speak her truth and embrace who she truly is. Another important part of this book is that the reader is looking through the same lens as a journalist named Monique, who is interviewing Evelyn to write a book about her life story. The catch is that Evelyn specifically requested that Monique Grant, a nobody reporter at “Vivant” magazine, be the only one to write the story. “Why her?” is the looming question throughout the whole book.
Hayden Sadler
Editor
Right now I am reading “Dune” by Frank Herbert. I had originally read it about 10 years ago in my freshman year of high school, but retained so little. Now, after watching the new movie, I am in the midst of a surprisingly long “Dune” obsession. I am almost done with the book though, so the time for me to move onto something different is approaching quickly.
Rosemarie Jacob
Staff Writer
I’m reading two books right now, one of them being “When Women Were Dragons” by Kelly Barnhill. It’s about a time when women and girls started disappearing in “mass dragonings,” where they would turn into dragons and fly away from their often stifling lives in the 1950s. It feels like a fresh take on feminism and is wonderfully written.
The other book is “Mornings in Jenin” by Susan Abulhawa. It follows the life of a young Palestinian woman living in a refugee camp in Jenin after her ancestral home was stolen in the 1948 Nakba, the mass displacement of Palestinians and violent dispossession of their land during the Arab-Israeli war. During this catastrophe, the young woman’s infant brother was stolen to give to an Israeli soldier’s barren wife, and she details the immense pain inflicted on her family by these traumas. The book is hauntingly beautiful, but it’s difficult to read the everyday realities of someone living through one of history’s biggest horrors.
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