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Showing posts from April, 2013

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Infinite Country by Patricia Engel | Thoughts

   Published : 2021   ||    Format : print   ||    Location : Colombia ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆   What was it about the country that kept everyone hostage to its fantasy? The previous month, on its own soil, an American man went to his job at a plant and gunned down fourteen coworkers, and last spring alone there were four different school shootings. A nation at war with itself, yet people still spoke of it as some kind of paradise.. Thoughts : Infinite Country follows two characters - young Talia, who at the beginning of this book, escapes a girl’s reform school in North Colombia so that she can make her previously booked flight to the US. Before she can do that, she needs to travel many miles to reach her father and get her ticket to the rest of her family. As we follow Talia’s treacherous journey south, we learn about how she ended up in the reform school in the first place and why half her family resides in the US. Infinite Country tells the story of her family through the other protagonist, El

The Sunday Salon: An Impromptu Long Break

Hello? Anyone there? I'm still here. Boy, it's been about three weeks since I posted anything. Last I hollered over here, it was to announce a trip we were making to Miami and Orlando, to check some beaches out and to drink Butterbeer. Something came up during the trip that took away my interest in books and reading but I think it's all finally returning back. Poor little thing - it must be tired of its boring job of posing in photos. The Florida trip was quite fun. The husband's brother just got a job in Miami but when we went there, he was just being interviewed. We spent a couple of days going around Miami - love the beach over there. We went one morning to the Gator Park to check out some gators and take a bragging rights photo holding an alligator (their skin feels creepy! all leathery and scaly). The Universal Studios was even more fun. Some of the rides were downright madness - we did the Hulk roller coaster ride at least two times. It's be

The Magic Circle by Jenny Davidson

Ruth, Anna and Lucy are three young women studying/teaching at Columbia University. They are quite addicted to games and the theories of games and enjoy spending long hours talking about various aspects of game-making. At the beginning of this book, they are working on a game that's Ruth's brainchild. The idea of the game is to provide a virtual experience of a mental institution that used to be located exactly where one of the current Columbia University buildings is situated. While that's happening, Anna comes up with her own idea of a game which involves some occult-like rituals in front of several supporters. But when Anna's brother Anders becomes involved, things begin to go wrong terribly. I gave up on this book. I don't typically review DNF books unless I have something to say, which in this case is a lot. I actually gave this book a lot more tries than I usually would with a book that's not piquing my interest. At many points during my reading exp

Where I'm Heading to Now

This is where I'm heading to, this weekend. Tropical trees in Miami (I haven't seen these in a while) Miami And on the return, I can't wait to visit this place: Hogsmeade in Universal Studios, Florida And drink this: Butterbeer

When you want to put a book down but can't...

And I'm not talking about the enviable situation of being in the middle of an engrossing book but have to think about the other humans (or animals) in the house or even have to consider basic hygiene. There are books that do that and then there are those that you can't wait to toss. Right now, I'm reading a book for a blog tour that is on the verge of throwing me into a rut. The book is about gaming, something I enjoy reading about, and it has some themes that make excellent topics to read about - prison, mental institutions, growing up in foster homes, plus the locale is a university setting - one of the few universities I actually have been to. But it's filled with elements that irritate me - long trivial conversations, characters who are described one way and then act differently, characters whose primary worry of the day is a missing lipstick, a plot in which so many minor things happen that I don't know which of them will become significant later and whic