All posts by Ti

Hi, I'm Ti! I blog about books and life over at http://bookchatter.net
Bookish Talk, Life

The Sunday Salon: Monday Edition

21 Comments

Sunday Salon

I do not know what is going on with my blog. I was told that I was suspended since I was in violation of the service agreement but then I logged in through another browser and I seem to be okay. So this post is really my Sunday Salon on a Monday, but also a test to see if WordPress really did something to my account or if I got hacked somehow. Nothing quite like logging in and seeing a message like that. I just about had a heart attack. So my reminder to you… if you have a blog, take a moment to back it up now. I’ll wait.

Okay?

Good.

Anyway, the weekend was rather uneventful. Which is not a bad thing. We really needed to stay home and just chill out because The Boy has been crazy with stress lately and when he gets that way, he gets loud and obnoxious in that TEEN way of his. The Girl reacts to the nastiness with lots of sobbing which in turn makes me crazy so I kept The Boy in for the weekend which was good. He needed to be reeled in. All I wanted was a little slice of quiet and I think I got enough to feel like a normal person again. In between the reading and the movie watching, we grilled burgers and made stew and got ice cream. It was good.

On Tuesday, the final cast list for Beauty and the Beast will be posted and we have a Jazz Pop performance to look forward to this weekend. The Boy has a solo so he is very excited. He also has a track meet in Santa Barbara which conflicts with the performance. I swear, even with a schedule I have no idea what is going on at any given time. It’s all so confusing and exhausting trying to keep track of it all. He obviously can’t be in two places at once so we’ll see what wins out.

What am I reading? I am finishing up Carrie on audio and I am down to the final pages of The Painted Girls. I just started The Thief of Auschwitz by Jon Clinch. I have reviewed his books here before. I really enjoy his writing and have been looking forward to his new one for quite a while. I am also starting a short story collection titled Survival Skills: Stories by Jean Ryan.

What do you have planned for the week? Are you planning a getaway for Spring Break? If so, where?

Book Review

Review: The Silent Land

25 Comments

The Silent Land

The Silent Land
By Graham Joyce
(Anchor, Paperback, 9780307739827, May 2012, 272pp.)

The Short of It:

Compelling, thought provoking yet utterly joyless in its bleakness.

The Rest of It:

While skiing in France, Jake and Zoe, a young married couple on vacation find themselves fighting for their lives when an avalanche strikes. Buried in snow, they somehow make their way off the mountain only to find that the entire village is completely empty. Not a soul in sight anywhere, not even at their hotel. Thinking that everyone else has been evacuated, they decide to get warm, eat some food and then venture out to see what they can find. But what they find is even more puzzling and as the days go on, and things become more confused, they begin to doubt their existence at all.

As Jake and Zoe stumble around their desolate landscape and the minutes begin to pass at an alarming rate, the reader is left to question what has really happened. There are no people, they can’t get through to anyone by phone and what Zoe sees sometimes differs from what Jake sees, which makes their situation even more puzzling. I think I knew early on what had taken place, but I was in denial and pushed it out of my mind. Easy to do when Joyce throws in little tidbits to keep you guessing.

The silent land that Joyce creates is a frightening one. One in which you can’t count on anything to be real or true; one that makes you question everything. It’s filled with doubt and forces you to consider what is really important. Some might say that the plot is a bit obvious, but honestly…even though I sort of knew what the outcome would be, it never affected my reading experience. In fact, I’d go as far as saying that it made the reading experience even more bittersweet for me.

That said, I am so happy to have discovered Joyce. I’ve not read his work before and I see that he has several novels out. Have you read any of his books?

Source: Borrowed
Disclosure: This post contains Indiebound affiliate links.