Book report 22
By A. Bae Hel
Fruit Fly
Josh Silver
Malory is truly awful. No deeming qualities. And something is deeply wrong with her. She lives in a fantasy world that is completely unrelatable. Do people actually care this much about what others think?
The narration vacillates between her being a horrible narcissistic individual, suggestions of her mental illness and perhaps a controlling husband. Which is the truth?
A one-time best-selling author, unable to write her second book, Malory becomes obsessed with gay trauma porn life stories as a means to writing her second best seller. Willing to use and manipulate the trauma of an addicted rent boy for her own personal fantasy success story, she has no idea of the reality of life on the wild side. How is she an adult in today’s world with no knowledge of your own ignorance of the dirty dark side of humanity? Do people really have these stories in their head about connections with famous people?
Much of the writing is stream of consciousness style told from the perspective of either Malory or Leo the man she has decided to use as her means to success once again. The characterization of this vague, idiotic woman crashing through life is so vivid you will vacillate between rooting for her and cheering for her demise. Did I mention how awful she is?
Salt
Mark Kurlansky
In my younger days I would read whatever was at hand. Cereal boxes a breakfast favourite, and have in fact read the yellow pages when desperate. The yellow pages were surprisingly, not horrible reading material. So, a book entirely about the history of salt could be seen by some as right up there with the yellow pages. That would be wrong.
Salt is a comprehensive historical description of the role of salt throughout human history. And it is surprisingly more complex and relevant than you might imagine. It is also a very long book.
Now a book where you can learn about how to preserve foods and get recipes along with a history of colonizing capitalism based on one product might to some seem very niche, but it is surprisingly well done and is a fascinating story.
