theanitaalvarez's Reviews (1.77k)

Another confession (I seem to be very fond of them lately): I’ve yet to watch this incredibly famous and great film, for which the amazing Meryl Streep won an Oscar.

I will. I promise.

Right now, let’s just go with the book. I actually began this in the Holocaust Remembrance Day, which ended up being quite appropriate (and then, one of my brothers and I watched Schindler’s List, just to keep the mood).

As a lot of people, I knew which was Sophie’s choice. And I expected the book to be very different from what it was. The novel opens in the voice of a young writer, Stingo. As any respectable struggling author, he’s starving and basically homeless after being from his job. So he moves into a cheap boarding in Brooklyn (again, as any respectable writer). There, he’s thrown in the midst of the turbulent relationship of his neighbours: Nathan and (finally!) Sophie.

Both of them are incredibly interesting (of course, any author worth their weight is always drawn to interesting people), and Stingo is fascinated by their dynamics. Basically, by how they fight and reconcile in a matter for hours.

Slowly, throughout the book, Sophie gives Stingo the story of her life. This is one of the most interesting aspects of the book, as Sophie is a bit of liar. Okay, a huge liar.

Only in the very end does she tell Sting the whole truth. Though she always tells a story that could be true, there are a lot of details which she lives behind. She was taken into Auschwitz for smuggling meat for her dying mother and her children; the titular choice refers to one a Nazi doctor forced her to take. She has to choose which of her children will be gassed immediately and which one will be sent to the camp (to die later). She chose to have her daughter sent into the chamber, the decision haunts her entire life and shapes her later life. Her relationship with Nathan (who is Jewish, but born and raised in the US) is one of the unhealthiest I’ve ever read (including Twilight). They fight and insult each other all the time. And he treats her awfully, but she thinks she deserves it so she doesn’t fight back.

Throughout all the book, Sophie talks only about the boy, but in the climax she finally reveals having

a boy and a girl

. Despite her choice, she never got to learn what happened with her son and doesn’t know even whether he made it out of Auswitchz.

I liked how the book develops Sophie’s story, little by little. As she gave small bits, it made the book very interesting, because it makes you want to keep reading. You want to know what happened and why she’s so broken. The parts where Stingo talks about his life were the most boring. I’m sorry, his first world problems were completely irrelevant next to Sophie’s tragedy. I want to hear the story of a freakin’ Auswitchz survivor. Those are important things. He wanting to have sex was just filler.

Anyway, I can recommend it a lot. It’s good and keeps you going, so that’s always a good thing.

I’ll admit I have little to zero knowledge about French Classic Lit. So, I began this book without any idea of what I was going to read, besides the blurb in the back.

If I remember correctly, Balzac was a realist writer (apparently, according to Wikipedia, I remember perfectly) and this novel, of course, is full of details. He gives a lot of description of setting and clothes, which helps to give the book a more realistic tone. At least, they helped me picture 19th century Paris more vividly. That’s one thing I really like about Realism, if you ask me.

The story centers around the Hulot family. They have a poor cousin (Bette, of course), who spends most of her time in their home (now that I come to think about it, it was a little odd. She didn’t like her family at all, who spend so much time there?). She’s forty-two and still single, which has embittered her quite a bit (maybe an understatement). She finally implodes when her cousin Hortense, a pretty young girl, falls for Wenceslas Steinbock, a polish refugee Bette has saved from suicide earlier. Bette actually has reasons for thinking this way, as Hortense thinks Wenceslas was Bette’s beau and she wanted to steal him from her.

Actually, the family was pretty shitty.

After Hortense and Wenceslas marry, Bette decides to let her fury win over and begins planning her revenge. She takes advantage of M. Hulot’s constant infidelities, by asking one of her friends (Valerie Marnett) to seduce him, in order to drain the family’s money. She also asks her to seduce Wenceslas and Crevel, a family friend. Oh, and Montés, a Brazilian baron.

Throughout the book, Bette conspires to make the Hulots miserable and succeeds to do so. The family is utterly crashed by their debts and the decaying moral ambience around them. Then again, the whole family pretty horrible characters. Even the mother, who is supposed to be some sort of saint, thinks it’s a good idea to make Bette suffer. I don’t mean to say that they deserved Bette’s crazy plot. They do deserve some shit, not the crapload Bette throws at them.

The most decent human being in the family is easily the mother, Adeline. She suffers her cheating husband, supports her daughter after she leaves Wenceslas, and so on.

AND THEN SHE DIES.

To add insult to injury, her husband gets married to a maid just after she dies. What an asshole, really. I’m not his fan. I mean, half of the problems of the family come from him not being able to put it into his freaking pants. He should have died, not his decent wife. I almost threw the book to the wall at this point, though it was almost in the final pages.

But I liked, overall. I mean, there are lots of infuriating moments, but the book is really good and it keeps you going. That’s not a small feat for a classic lit piece (although I have to say that I’m an English Major, so my standard may be different from other people’s). So give it a read, at least once in a lifetime.

I have a bit of a problem with Dickens: he tires me. I like him, but I always finish his books feeling exhausted. There are some of his books which I devoured (like Little Dorrit and A Tale of Two Cities), but there are others that drag on forever. This book is closer to the second class than to the first, to be honest. Not that I didn’t like it, but I had hard time reading it. Maybe I wasn’t in the right mind to it.

Overall, the plot develops around the inheritance of a fortune. As the heir apparent turns up dead

or so he seems to

, the money goes to Mr. Boffin, a poor and nice man. Soon, he hires a secretary, John Rokesmith and his wife basically adopts young Bella Wilfer. Bella was born poor, but was promised to marry John Harmon, the heir to the fortune (you know, the one who appeared dead). After that, she’s basically left without nothing, but the Boffins take her under their wing. At first she seems to be quite snobbish, as her only concern is the money; but she slowly warms up to Rokesmith, and ends falling for him.

Mr. Boffin, as the novel goes on, seems to change a lot. While in the beginning he’s very nice and treats everyone fairly. He becomes uppity and cruel, showing that his money has changed him. I started rooting for him, but as the story goes on I wanted to give him a good kick in his butt. Specially, because his wife is so adorable. Seriously, she was my favorite in the whole book. At some points I wanted to But here comes the plot twist:

He’s acting for Bella’s benefit, or rather, for Rokesmith’s. Do you remember the dead guy? Well, he isn’t dead. In a true Dickensian twist, John Rokesmith is John Harmon, and threw this whole thing to get to know Bella, his betrothed. And to teach her a lesson, of course. This is Dickens, after all.

Of course, Dickens being Dickens, it’s obvious that the novel portrays the different social classes in London in the 19th century. We get to see the most miserable and horrible parts of society, like the orphanage where Mrs. Boffin tries to adopt a boy, who dies later.

The novel also deals with how people are changed by money, and how it can corrupt you into not seeing the good parts of life. He shows rich families that are mocked and ridiculized for their attitudes and their way of living. Dickens is really good at showing different realities and his world view in his novels, and it’s one of the things I’ve always enjoyed about him.

If you like Dickens and stories that show society’s vices and that deal with mistaken identities (a Victorian favorite!), this might be the book for you. But if you can’t stand novels with lots of characters, convoluted plots and really depressing stuff, maybe it’s better that you stay clear of it.

I first encountered Sandra Cisnero’s prose in my first year of college, and fell in love with her (if you want to know, it was her short story “Eleven”. It’s gorgeous). She’s honest and passionate and she has an incredible talent for writing.

Her poetry is also really good. It’s not exactly the same as her prose, but I can see what I first loved about her: that there’s a voice. I can listen to her lyrical persona (yes, I get to use fancy literary terms. Deal with it). And that’s brilliant. At least for me, that’s what makes a poet a good one. When you can hear a different voice when you read their poetry.

This book is basically what being a woman is for her. Whether she’s talking about love, sex, or family, she does it sincerely and unapologetically. She sounds really proud to be a woman and it felt empowering to read about her views on womanhood. I especially loved the poems that dealt with sexuality, and it’s amazing to read about it. Sexuality is one of those things you should accept and embrace. Sandra Cisneros allowed me to see myself and my body in a completely different light, and I’ll always be grateful for that.

One of the best things Cisneros has: how she mixes English and Spanish. She’s a Chicana author (Mexican/US people, in short. It’s a really interesting community, and a lot of awesome writers have come out of it), and has lived her entire life bilingually. So in her poems she mixes English and Spanish, because that’s the way she’s always talked. And it helps to make these poems sound very natural and realistic.

She uses her languages to express very intimate feelings. I’ve always heard that your first language is the one you can express your emotions with in a rush. The first one that comes to your mind when you’re feeling angry or very happy. Cisneros’ language is clearly that mix between English and Spanish, and it’s very beautiful to read. Poetry is best when read out loud, and her particular language is very nice to hear and pronounce. I loved feeling these words rolling in my tongue (yes, I’m very weird when it comes to poetry, deal with it). Cisneros’ world is a world of sound, passionate and fierce, just like she is herself.

One of the big themes here is sexuality, as I said before. Cisneros is open about desire and passion. It really seems as if she enjoys her body and sex, which is amazing to read. It’s always good to read a woman writing about sex without shame and in such an open and welcoming voice.

Just in case I didn’t repeat this enough: Cisneros is AWESOME and I love reading her. And you should do so. Seriously, read her. Both her prose and her poetry are brilliant. She’s talented and speaks to you as a woman, so there’s some points there. She deserves more love (not that she’s unknown, but more people should read her).

I read Angela’s Ashes a long time ago. I’m always very drawn to immigrants’ stories (maybe because part of my family also immigrated here). Frank McCourt talks about his difficult life as an Irishman living in the early-twentieth-century US (they were treated awfully, with people refusing to hire or even board them). He had to work in really crappy jobs, earning very little and struggling constantly to make a living.

He also managed to put himself through school and college, and got a teaching job in a public school. All this at the same time he was sending money home and trying to bring his siblings and mother to the US.

Having everything I could ever need in life, I can’t avoid admiring people who are able to change their lives with hard work and constance.

Besides, it is always interesting to read about regular people living through decisive parts of history. When I was in school I used to complain about how we only got to learn about “important” or “public” people. I wanted to hear how everyone else lived. McCourt was drafted for WWII, and fought in Germany before going to university.

So, I enjoyed this book. I loved McCourts voice and how compelling he makes his own story. Of course, that’s a thing that may be taken for granted, but it’s important to mention when someone is a good narrator. Give credit where credit is due.

McCourt’s life was very hard and it shows in the book, though not in a “please, pity my crappy life”. While it’s not nearly as sad as Angela’s Ashes, ’Tis also has a lot of emotional moments. His relationship with his mother and siblings is very touching. Just think of how much he worked so they could live better lives (or what they thought were better lives) in the US.

As I mentioned before, he does not really dwell in the sad and complicated parts of his life. That’s probably what I enjoyed most about this book. McCourt is very matter-of-fact about his life, and seems to be really positive on the subject. He doesn’t let his past define him, which I think it’s a brave and incredible thing to do. These experiences shaped him, of course, but they are not the only thing that did. His family, his friends and all that also made a huge impact in his life. He’s clearly more than just his pain and suffering. He is a brave man and that’s the important thing

I also loved that he doesn’t really paint himself as a hero. He talks about his marriage and how he ended up leaving his family when the relationship turned sour. He actually compared his leaving with his own father abandoning them.

The book ends with the death of both his parents: she in New York, and he in Ireland. The brothers had to deal with the two funerals and so on, which was one of the most poignant moments in the book.
It’s a really good book, and you should totally read it.

To be completely honest, I’ve never been much into vampires. Even in the midst of the Twilight craze (which caught me in my late teens). I really liked Dracula and enjoyed Polidori’s Vampyre, so this book was the one that I needed to cover my classic vampires. A friend talked to me about this one a long time ago, but I never really cared about it till last summer, when I found the webseries Carmilla I decided to read it finally.

The book is really interesting and intriguing, as it works mostly with the psychological aspect of the characters. Laura, the narrator, talks about her life with her father in their family castle in Styria. She’s mostly a lonely girl, as there are not other girls her age around. But her father promises her that one of his friends will come with his own daughter, who is about Laura’s age. Sadly, this girl dies and Laura is still left looking for a friend.

Soon after, however, a woman and her daughter arrive at the castle after having some sort of accident. The woman asks if the girl can stay, because she needs to go away for something very important and the girl is sick.

Yes, she is the title Carmilla.

Laura’s father lets her stay, and the girls soon become friends. They share a connection based on a dream they had when they were little, of a woman/girl that appeared in their rooms. Carmilla is also very mysterious: she sleeps for most of the day (though I have to contest this, sleeping is THE BEST), eats very little and hates anything religious.

Later, Laura finds a picture of one of her ancestors who looks exactly as Carmilla, though she’s called Mircalla (I know, what a hard code to crack!). Laura’s health begins to decline and has lots of nightmares about being bitten in her sleep. Her father decides to find out what is going on, so they go to Karnstein (where the woman in the picture came from). On the way there, they meet the captain (the one with the dead daughter). He tells them his story; that a young girl and her mother met them at a party. And since then, his daughter began to waste away.

So, they finally crack the code. Carmilla is Mircalla! And she’s undead (duh, she lived centuries ago and is still walking around). And they decide to finish her off.

The book is probably known mostly for the “lesbian”vampire. It’s actually really interesting to read this in the light of how women who didn’t need men were seen in the 19th century. Carmilla is not only dangerous for being a vampire, but also for how she encourages young women to establish relationships that exclude men. She’s more dangerous because of that than because how she shows that men are not needed. In the same way that Dracula represented all the things Victorian society thought they were scared of, Carmilla is scary because she is a threat to the most basic units in Victorian ages. Especially regarding women’s roles.

And that’s awesome.

So, read it. It’s always interesting to have a different view of vampires. And watch the webseries (it’s on YouTube), because it gives a lot of representation for GSD people. And the second season is coming!

4 stars.

This book is a weird mixture between Gone Girl and Wild. Though the narrator is a lot more sympathetic than Amy (not that hard, really), as Cheryl Strayed, the main character is also deeply wounded and decides to go away to “find herself”. This is some sort of personal trauma narrative, so it has to do with healing your soul.

This is a novel in which the action is very much interior, rather than a lot of things happening. The story focuses in Elyria, a woman whose life is going nowhere. We follow her through her journey to New Zealand and through her past (she narrates her life in flashbacks). We get to meet her family, husband, friends, and so on… She has a pretty normal life, all in all. There’s nothing very extravagant about her, really. She’s a normal woman with normal problems. That makes very relatable, even if her life is very unlike my own. I mean, I’m not married or anything (I don’t plan to do so for the time being). So I can hardly leave my husband to go to New Zealand. But still, I can relate. I have an imagination (Anne Shirley is one of my favorite characters ever, okay?).

One of the things I really liked about this novel is how it gives a real good view of what it is like to be truly depressed. I’ve only read a few accounts that feel accurate. It’s way too easy to fall into clichés and the like when writing depression. It is very realistically written, so I cannot avoid help wondering whether the author has gone through depression herself. And it is also written beautifully, and I truly enjoyed. It is gorgeous, truthful, heartbreaking and wonderful. I loved reading it, really. The action always leaves you wondering what is going to happen next, so even if the book is very sad at points.

I also really liked the fact that Elyria didn’t quite get better by the end of the book, but to be going that way. There’s no magical remedy or person who changes everything. It’s only Elyria and her thoughts, her life. There’s something inside her that can make her feel better. Her whole idea behind her trip to New Zealand is to find herself. I don’t think she manages to do so, but hey… it was only for a few days. And you can’t really do it in a few weeks. So yes, she goes back home, but she doesn’t return to her old life. She is changed and everything is bound to be different. Not necessarily better, but different.

I liked this book a lot, but I know that it might not be in everyone’s alley. It’s very introspective and slow, but it is wonderful. It is one of those books that makes you think about everything, so I’d recommend it. But do not hope for lots of action. That’s not here. If you want inner development, this is your book.

I really like Girls. It’s very funny, despite all the problematic stuff in it, and the privileged vision it shows. After all, Dunham is a white educated woman, who has always lived in a world that supports her.

But I’m not here to talk about girls (that’s what my blog’s for). I’m going to talk about her book, which she published late last year. It’s very quick to read, which is something I can value in a book I read over the summer (southern hemisphere). Light and nice does the trick.

This collection of essays is fun, but it feels a bit inconsequential. I know. She poses herself as “the voice of our generation” (I’m a few years younger, but millenials are millenials). I didn’t really feel represented. She never got to actual insights that describe the problems most millenials go through. At certain points, she felt a little like a whiny teenage girl. What about fears of failure, regrets, unemployment? Not everyone has a family to fall back into. When she talked about relationships, her sex life, and how troubled she’s in those areas. She never got into the real issues behind her problems. She did sound even a little superficial.

If she actually wanted to be “a voice” for a generation, Dunham has to be able to see that most young people are not in her position. She’s able to be funny (which is something I value a lot, because I’m not funny). And she has a good eye to see the fun and weird moments of life. That’s something very good. But there’s more in life than being funny. She doesn’t seem to see the difference between her own “boy trouble” and the fact that young people all over the world being in debilitating debt for their entire lives. I mean, they are not in the same level. And she kind of plays with these two things as if they are even close. Because her problems are most like “I can’t date” than “I don’t have money to live”. I’m sorry, Lena, but you’re NOT our voice. Our generation is more complicated than that. Our generation’s issues are more than body problems and losing our virginities after twenty. Dunham does not represent us.

I didn’t hate the book, despite all what I’ve written here. Dunham is very honest about herself. She is able to talk about her body issues with a sincerity I’ve seen very little. That is wonderful. But she is self-centered and it shows a lot. She doesn’t seem to have a critical view on her own person. I agree that it is very hard, but it’s important if you want to write a book of personal essays. If you’re looking for our generation’s “voice”, I’d say you should look for it somewhere else. If you want to read some essays by a famous woman, go ahead. But keep in mind she’s not representative of any generation. And enjoy it! It’s a good light read.