MARION HILL

Rereading The Book of Strange New Things by Michel Faber

"The rhetoric of a sermon was one thing; his wife's grim reality was another. Civilizations did not vanish smoothly and easefully; empires did not set like suns: empires collapsed in chaos and violence. Real people got pushed around, beaten up, robbed, made destitute....

Wisdom From Kammbia Book Review 115: Sula by Toni Morrison

“Outlaw women are fascinating---not always for their behavior, but because historically woman are seen as naturally disruptive and their status is an illegal one from birth if it is not under the rule of men. In much literature a woman’s escape from male rule led to...

Wisdom From Kammbia Book Review 113: Erasure by Percival Everett

Percival Everett is a writer I have wanted to read for some time.  I have come across online articles and social media posts over the past year about his work. Well, I finally did a Goodreads search on his books and chose Erasure for my first Percival Everett...

Rereading Bel Canto by Ann Patchett

I just finished reading Bel Canto by Ann Patchett for a second time today.  Bel Canto is Patchett's most well-known and beloved novel. This blog post is not another review of what I have already written.  But, it is another look at her story and hopefully a different...

Wisdom From Kammbia Book Review 78: The Final Revival of Opal & Nev by Dawnie Walton

"The easiest thing in the world is to be yourself. The hardest thing in the world is to be yourself." Those two sentences were appropriate for one of the two major characters, Opal Jewel, in Dawnie Walton's excellent debut novel, The Final Revival of Opal & Nev....

Wisdom From Kammbia Book Review 50: Parable of the Sower by Octavia Butler

I want to update a review from 2012 for one of my all-time favorite novels, Parable of the Sower by Octavia Butler. Parable of the Sower is the story of Lauren Olamina, a teenager growing up in a grim LA suburb where their gated community provided a semblance of a...

Wisdom From Kammbia Book Review 42: Face of an Angel by Denise Chavez

Rereading a novel can bring different expectations from when you first read it over twenty-five years ago.  This is the case with Face of An Angel by Denise Chavez. Face of an Angel tells the story of Soveida Dosamantes, a waitress at El Farol Restaurant in the...

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