Review: MUSIC FROM ANOTHER WORLD by Robin Talley

5 Stars

LGBT

Sometimes I am so blessed by a book, when it moves me, moulds me, and changes or improves my perspective.  MUSIC FROM ANOTHER WORLD gave me all that, in addition to a long stroll down Memory Lane coupled with seeing those memories of history through others' perspective. Yet at the same time the characters' emotions so powerfully resonated with me, not just the YA protagonists (Sharon, Tammy, Peter) but of some of the adult characters as well such as Tammy and Peter's single mother. I just fell into this story immediately and never wanted to surface. I "lived it," I "was right there," thanks to a very gifted author,  Robin Talley.  It's an enormous pleasure to encounter a novel so touching and thought-provoking and eventually life-changing.

Review: WHERE THE CRAWDADS SING by Delia Owens

5 Stars 

My immediate thought when I  first commenced WHERE THE CRAWDADS SING,  a selection of the Rising Stars Book Club at Writing. Com, was to remember BASTARD OUT OF CAROLINA by Dorothy Allison, a novel also notable for the power of its Setting.  Indeed, in both novels Setting is a character in itself,  and this is overpoweringly true of WHERE THE CRAWDADS SING, which opens and closes and is rife throughout with the importance of Setting. Ar times, I felt as if character were unimportant,  as Setting carried the day in every instance.  I think this is a novel of which Thoreau would be proud.