Gluten Free Brötchen: Book Reports

 Finished: 25/2/25 Between Two Fires was another birthday present (like my last two entries), and I enjoyed it. This was a horror book, and I was excited to go back to my roots: I was really into horror books and media as a teenager before I got into Victorian Era literature. There's also a huge Christian theme in Between Two Fires ; even though it's set in the medieval period, I felt like the approach to the main messages of Christianity were very modern while still being believable for characters living through the black plague to have. I feel like I don't have to so much to say about this book because my critiques are very light, but in turn, I feel like there was a lack of a deeper meaning and message. Getting into the analysis: I'm going to start off with my critique of the plotline and the story. Some of the most transformative books I've read have this overall vibe of "this can be felt but not shown," which is why the story being told is a book and...

Finished: 2/3/2025 Before getting into the analyses, I should explain all the years in the title and the background of the Arthurian legend. The Once and Future King is a collection of four different books that were written around the years 1936-1941 (the title has the publishing years). These books are The Sword in the Stone , The Queen of Air and Darkness , The Ill-Made Knight and The Candle in the Wind . These books are in chronological order of the different stages in King Arthur's life, starting from him as a child, and going all the way to his near death. These were compiled in 1958 and put into one book called The Once and Future King . The Book of Merlyn was written around 1941-1942 and was to be the last part in the series of five, detailing the death of King Arthur and other major characters. However, this last part wasn't published until 1977, almost a decade after T.H. White's death. The Book of Merlyn has a strong anti-war message that the English speaking ...

  Finished: 13/12/24 Flying to Nowhere was a relatively short book, less than 100 pages and small, so I finished it in just a couple of days. I don't feel like those days were wasted since this book has been on my "to read" list for a while now, but I'm glad to have gotten it over with and out of my life. This book was not good. I think the writing was really lazy and the supposed "allegory" of this book was very surface level stuff; and completely overshadowed by the sexualization of young girls! I had to look up if the author of this book had any sexual crimes in his past because the sexualization was just getting so constant, it was almost to the point of obsession. To start off, the synopsis on the back of  Flying to Nowhere  states that this book is an "allegory." I do not, whatsoever, see this book as an allegory. When I think of an allegory, my mind immediately goes to the classic Plato's  Allegory of the Cave . Every aspect of Plato...

Finished: 9/12/24 I abandoned the book I was originally reading for Piranesi instead. I think the next couple of books I'm going to read will be fantasy books like this one, instead of realistic fiction. Fantasy books help me take my mind off things which I need right now. I also read this book because I heard it's similar to one of my favorites: House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewski (which, I'll be abbreviating as HoL  for the rest of this report). For the most part, I did really enjoy Piranesi, but there's a glaring plot hole that I didn't realize existed until I was in the shower the night after I finished it. -I come to some great conclusions in the shower. I want to do a little bit of house-keeping here first: I recently turned 24 (yay for me) and in this new year of my life I want to make some changes to how I go about doing reports. These reports have been taking me longer and longer because I keep having to force myself to do them instead of wanting to d...

  Finished: 30/10/24 This was my "spooky book" for the month of October, however it was less spooky than it was disturbing, but in a purposeful way. From what I know, a lot of Toni Morrison's work is about the black experience during slavery and the Jim Crow period in American history. It's not meant to be light reading, it's meant to stick with you and hold the image of suffering close to your face. I really like Toni Morrison's focus on women as the protagonists and how no punches are pulled when talking about how women feel and experience life. For this summary I'm not going to follow the course of the book. In Beloved , two stories unfold at once, one being the present, and the other being the past that explains the present; it's a really cool literary choice, but a bit hard while relaying a summary. I think I will reiterate Beloved in chronological order because the present of Sethe's story is hard to understand without the past being clear....

  Finished: 16/10/2024 Since this is a short story, the report will be shorter too. I bought a collection of Edgar Allan Poe's short stories a couple of months ago and I've only read a handful of them. I've heard that The Fall of the House of Usher is pretty influential in the horror media world, so I thought I'd give it a shot. Like most of Poe's works, in my opinion, it was overhyped but still not bad. I also want to talk more about Poe's personal life later in this report because I have an opinion I'd like to share. To start with the summary, an unnamed protagonist rides his horse to the house of Usher, which is a giant, dull, dark mansion. The protagonist received a letter from Roderick Usher, his childhood friend and owner of the mansion, telling him to come over for a while because he needs some company. Right from when the protagonist walks through the door, it's clear to him that Roderick is in a bad way. Roderick's things are scattered all...