Reviews with TLC

Depart, Depart by Sim Kern  feels all too real and surreal at the same time. In the dystopia Kern creates, there is a moment of that notion that dystopia happens more often than we think. Depart, Depart drives home the idea that a dystopia can be created by local catastrophe and can offer an end point while at the same time driving home how catastrophes live with people and change their lives in ways we can't always imagine because everyone has different needs and different lives. Kern creates characters that slid into my thoughts and didn't let go until the last page and left me wanting more. I cheered for Noah and the friends Noah made. I mourned the loved ones Noah lost. I felt the panic and the despair of the characters leap off the page. I also felt the hope and determination the characters expressed in trying to rebuild their lives. Depart, Depart offers a lesson to all of us about the world we live in and the catastrophes we face through complex characters caught up i...

Larger Than Life: A Novella by Jodi Picoult is, at its heart, a story of mothers and daughters. Picoult explores the expectations of mothers and daughters in a story that draws parallels between mothering styles in humans and elephants. The story explores the roles of both nature and nurture in the mother/daughter relationship all through the eyes of a daughter who can't leave behind a baby elephant to die and becomes its mother figure even as she struggles to reconcile her relationship with her own mother in her heart and mind. Larger Than Life explores how expectations can damage not only a relationship but individuals.  Currently Reading: Braiding Sweetgrass   by Robin Wall Kimmerer The Bad Friend  by Carolline Kepne Harlem  by Eric Jerome Dickey When We Were Friends by Jane Green Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions: The Global Struggle for Palestinian Rights   by Omar Barghouti Popular Resistance in Palestine: A History of Hope and Empowerment by Mazin B...