Book Review: Behold the Many by Lois-Ann Yamanaka

Rating: B/  Behold the Many is kind of a strange book, and one that is hard to summarize and describe, but I’ll try my best to put my feelings about this novel into words. I had never heard of it when I picked it up but I was immediately sucked in by the beautiful cover art, featuring an a black-and-white picture of an innocent-looking Asian girl overlaid with colorful flowers. The image, much like many examples of cover art on the front of novels, has very little to do with the actual story, seeming in this case to have been randomly picked out with little correlation with the plot itself.

Book Review: The Life Before Her Eyes by Laura Kasischke

Rating: B/ Considering that I had already seen the excellent film adaptation a few years before, this novel held few surprises for me, least of all the twist ending alluded to in it’s lyrical title. So it’s a good thing that Laura Kasischke focuses more in her writing on lyricism and less on plot. With the lovely, vivid writing, I still felt like I was getting something new out of the experience of reading the book even though I pretty much knew the story. The Life Before her Eyes is a good book, not a great one. The writing can be meandering and sentimental while at the same time being lush and gorgeous, starting off the bat with a Sophie’s Choice type situation and gradually touching on aging, sorrow, and regret in a bittersweet manner.

Book Review: In a Perfect World by Laura Kasischke

Rating: A-/ Imagine a deadly virus began to spread across the U.S., first gradually, then like wildfire. Society deconstructs. Loved ones and neighbors succumb grotesquely to the pandemic. People go into quarantine. It’s not a particularly original concept, but it is one that captures one’s imagination. How would you react? Would you go about business as usual? Would you wantonly indulge in alcohol and casual sex? Would you lash out at your fellow citizens like a caged animal, looting shops and beating anyone who tries to maintain a semblance of peace to a pulp? This is one of the big questions asked in In A Perfect World, a lyrical end-of-times novel by author/poet Laura Kasischke.