Very Nice by Marcy Dermansky

Posted by Kate W in Fiction and tagged with , , , , , ,

Satire isn’t my go-to when I want a laugh but I did enjoy this spiky little story about relationship triangles and over-inflated egos.

Marcy Dermansky’s Very Nice is told from the perspective of three characters – it begins with Rachel Klein, who never meant to kiss her creative writing professor. Said writing professor is Zahid Azzam, and he never planned to become a house guest in Rachel’s sprawling Connecticut home, but he does. Rachel’s mother, Becca, never thought she’d have a love affair so soon after the end of her marriage, but when Zahid arrives, she does… Continue reading →

Book vs. TV Series: My Brilliant Friend – The Story of a New Name

Posted by Kate W in Book vs Film and tagged with , ,

I didn’t care for the books, but thought the first TV series (with each episode representing one chapter in the first book) was superb.

The second series – which aligns with The Story of a New Name – is so, so good. It’s demanding viewing because the actress who plays Lila (Gaia Girace), is the master of the overt and the incredibly subtle – her glances, her body language, the slightest tilt of her head says EVERYTHING. Continue reading →

Disturbing the Peace by Richard Yates

Posted by Kate W in Fiction and tagged with , , , , , , ,

It’s time for my AY (that’s Annual Yates, not Young Adult).

I limit my reading of Yates because I find his stories intensely depressing. But I admire them for exactly the same reason.

Given that most of the year has been spent in lockdown, I decided I hardly needed to add a Yates-induced-existenital-crisis to the mix, so chose to re-read one of the first books I read by him (pre-blogging) – Disturbing the Peace. Continue reading →