It had a very weak hold on me through the first half, but it lost in the latter half. It was the second-person narration that did it. It was gimmicky and irritating. The random peppering of wannabe "profound" statements didn't help either, and more than once I found myself rolling my eyes at how ...
Another random grab from the library shelves. I'm not sure exactly what to rate this book or exactly what I should rate. The writing is beautiful. I explained to a friend that it is like watching an indie film that is low-budget and uses complex language. The words being said sound so beautiful a...
“I read books because I love them, not because I think I should read them.” -Simon Van BooyIt is a rare thing for me to write or underling books that I’m not reading academically but there were so many beautiful, poetic, truthful lines in this book that I couldn’t not. Initially Van Booy seems th...
“Simon Van Booy’s stories have the power and resonance of poems. They stay with you like a significant memory.”—Roger Rosenblatt“Van Booy is a remarkable young writer. Taste, touch, smell, sight and sound, in spite of their evanescence, are frozen for a moment in these stories and celebrated, alo...
She was lying facedown on the couch. The curtains were not drawn. Her naked body soaked up the falling moonlight and her back glowed. Jennifer was Brian’s mother. When he frantically turned her over, she moaned. Then her arm flew back, viciously but at nothing. Brian told me to call 911, but Jenn...
WHEN I WAS ELEVEN, we learned that my condition is permanent. Doctors at a hospital on Park Avenue showed my parents thin squares of plastic that proved it. We were all disappointed. And even though my body was no different, it felt different, as though part of me had died; a part of me strangled...
Harvey’s room looked out on a Ferris wheel. But Harvey soon found a place she liked in Montmartre. The apartment complex had a birdcage elevator with a sliding grate door. The elevator moved slowly between floors and would not come at all if the grate had not been properly closed by the previous ...
Yi that Fun Weng was a regular, and gave directions to his house. When Mr. Yi got there, Weng brought him into the kitchen, then seated him at the kitchen table in the worst chair. There was dust on the television screen, and Mr. Yi had to resist the urge to get up and wipe it with his handkerchi...