All Forms of Art

  If you’re looking for a book that quietly pulls you in and refuses to let go, The Cursed Friend by Beatrice Salvioni might just be it. I finished it last night—and honestly, it’s one of those books that makes you stay up way later than you should, telling yourself “just one more chapter” over and over again. A Story That Hooks You Instantly From the very beginning, this novel has that addictive quality. It’s not fast-paced in a traditional sense, but there’s something about the tension, the relationships, and the underlying unease that keeps you turning pages. You don’t just want to know what happens—you need to. Echoes of Elena Ferrante (In the Best Way Possible) It’s impossible not to notice the similarities to Elena Ferrante ’s work—and I mean that as a compliment. At times: Francesca really reminded me of Lenù Maddalena gave me strong Lila vibes The dynamic between them carries that same intensity, admiration, imbalance, and emotional dependence you can read in M...

  South of the Border, West of the Sun  was not at all one of my favorites.  After reading so many glowing reviews, I must confess I was genuinely disappointed.  That said, I didn’t stop reading. Not even once. And that, in itself, says a lot about Haruki Murakami as a writer. I didn’t enjoy the book until very close to the end, but Murakami’s prose kept pulling me forward. He has that rare ability to make you continue reading even when you feel, deep down, that the story might be going nowhere. Beautiful Writing, Distant Characters Murakami writes beautifully—there’s no denying that. His sentences flow effortlessly, scenes are carefully composed, and everything feels precise and intentional. But I felt no empathy for Hajime, the main character. I couldn’t identify with him, nor did I particularly care about what happened to him. And it’s hard to love a story when you don’t care about the people living inside it. This emotional distance reminded me, at times, of ...

  When the Ordinary World Turns Hostile Marie NDiaye ’s My Heart Hemmed In begins like a domestic drama and slowly turns into a psychological nightmare.  Nadia, a teacher in Bordeaux, suddenly finds herself shunned by everyone — neighbors, coworkers, even her husband. She has no idea why, and neither do we. It’s a setup that feels almost Kafkaesque — think The Trial or The Metamorphosis — where the real horror isn’t monsters or ghosts, but society itself turning inexplicably against you. A Hall of Mirrors Like in Elena Ferrante’s The Days of Abandonment, NDiaye dives deep into a woman’s unraveling mind, showing how fear distorts perception until reality itself becomes unreliable. Nadia’s paranoia grows, her body reacts in strange ways, and the city around her feels charged with invisible hostility. Reading it feels like being caught between a dream and a panic attack — much like Kazuo Ishiguro’s The Unconsoled, where logic keeps slipping just out of reach. Language That...

  Jennifer Egan returns with The Candy House , a dazzling, interconnected novel that expands on the universe of A Visit from the Goon Squad . While not a direct sequel, this book explores the same themes of time, identity, and technology, offering a fresh yet familiar experience. A World Where Memories Are No Longer Private  At the heart of The Candy House is a revolutionary technology called "Own Your Unconscious," created by tech mogul Bix Bouton. This invention allows people to externalize and share their memories. This leads to profound ethical and existential questions.  Would you trade your privacy for perfect recollection?  What happens when memories are no longer personal? A Narrative as Experimental as Its Predecessor  Like A Visit from the Goon Squad , this novel unfolds in a non-linear, multi-perspective style.  Each chapter introduces new characters—some familiar, some new—who navigate the implications of Bix's technology in unique ways. Fro...

  "This story is about courage, hate, and exclusion." You can read in the final pages of this book. It is true. This book came to my hands by chance, and I never thought I would be so impressed by it. I can't remember the last time I read a book this quickly. I found two different English translations of it, so I'll use its original title in this review. De Crèche tells the story of a group of Jewish children in Nazi-occupied Amsterdam. The children would be separated from their parents. They would go into this institution until it was time to go to the concentration camps. In the middle of such tragedy, these brave young women would go against all the laws to keep them safe.  Elle Van Rijn's narrative is thoughtful and sweet but never disguises the truth - the horrible truth those people were living in.  She makes you care We can't stop reading, you want to know more. You need to know more. The story follows a chronology; you can't avoid feeling a shive...

In the last book of the series, Lila and Lenú’s relationship remains the center of the novel. A new pregnancy for both of them brings the two women closer again until a tragedy hits them. Freedom from the heart Until the last book, Elena was too attached to Nino, but now he starts to lose his charm. His weaknesses can’t be ignored anymore. He doesn’t look so wonderfully intelligent when Elena starts to be able to see his arrogance. Sometimes, his rudeness towards other people. The spell was broken. Nino is not only selfish but shows a total lack of respect by Elena and other women around him. Slowly, he starts to remind her of his father, the man that abused Elena so many years ago. Elena is now a more mature woman, and maturity brought her some calm and objectiveness. Yet, was she ever happy? Is she now?  Back to the neighborhood and its problems While we were happy to see Elena with a better life and conquering her goals, we miss the complicated intrigues from the neighborhoo...

Those Who Leave and Those Who Stay , (in its original “stori di chi fugge e di chi resta”) is the third book of Elena Ferrante’s saga, started with My Brilliant Friend .  In this Intermediate Time , Lenú leaves her neighborhood in Naples for a new life as a renowned author, mother, and wife.  Since the beginning, her marriage seems a bit empty to the reader. This relationship never fulfills her desires. So it comes as no surprise when she starts to think about Nino, her old passion, again. Maturity and Anguish Throughout this book, we can see a more mature and independent Elena. However, she continues to obsessively compare herself with Lila, the origin of many doubts and anguish. She still sees Naples as a source of violence, especially against women. Yet, even far from there, Naples is always present in her life, and she didn’t reach the happiness or freedom she expected by living in a different town. Her husband is distant, motherhood is complic...

The available time to read is, unfortunately, much less than I would like to. Yet, I try to read every day, even if I can only read a single page at a time.  This time, I chose something in my first language, written by a renowned author.   Fancy writing, poor content I’m not the biggest fan of Portuguese literature. You may find it odd. It would be expected that we would quickly identify with our country, culture, and language. Unfortunately, what I see in Portuguese literature most of the time is a whole lot of beautiful words and fancy sentences, with little ability to make us dream.  Beautifully arranged sentences and highly educated words seem more important than the story itself. It lacks the fantastic ability to transport us to other worlds, to make us live what we are reading, or to feel what the characters are feeling. Despite that, I try to stay up to date on what’s new or considered a ‘must-read.’ I must say, however, and with g...

In  The Story of a New Name , we continue to follow the story of Lenu and Lila, the two childhood friends from My Brilliant Friend .    Time passed for them, not a lot, but enough to widen the abyss between these two friends even further. Growing Up Hurts In this book, we feel like Lenu’s life doesn’t just revolve around Lila anymore, but that makes her feel lost and inappropriate.  This really caught my attention: she’s not the perfect hero we’re used to seeing or envisioning. In The Story of a New Name , we see a girl with an ever-growing sense of not belonging, which hurts her and almost hurts us, even though, rationally, this feeling was completely expected.  Not Here, Nor There Lenu no longer belongs to the misery and violence of her neighborhood, yet she’s still not a part of this new world she is now engulfed in. Her insecurities are glaring, and it almost hurts us readers who have been following each step of her journey to get here, k...

My Brilliant Friend is the first book in a series of four ( the second of which is already sitting on my bedside table) from an author who kept her identity in secret for many years. I had no idea of that, or even any hint of the story, when I started reading it. The book was a birthday gift from a person who seemed to really love it. Since I know she likes good literature, I started reading with confidence, and let me tell you: I was not disappointed! Childhood Friends The story is about two really different friends, living in a poor neighborhood near Naples. They grow up dealing with poverty, lack of education and money, violence surrounding them, and, like any other person, they have their own egos to deal with.  Throughout the book, we’ll see them deal with both forces that unite them and those that tear them apart. The atmosphere around them reflects a reality I had only heard about in my mother’s or grandmother’s stories, but I think that actually helped...

I decided to loosely translate this book’s title myself because it’s an interesting novel by the Portuguese author João Ricardo Pedro and hasn’t been translated into English. It definitely should be, though. The Context Much of Portuguese literature is marked by the oppressive government, the so-called “New State,” and this is one more such book.  The difference is that it isn’t about that time period, but rather about the following decades and how the political police and the lack of development the dictatorship gave the Portuguese people influenced the next generations. 3 Generations The book is about a family, telling us stories from 3 different generations, all of whom are somehow marked by the dictatorship and the colonial war.  The ones who lived it as adults, the ones who lived it as children, and the ones who just heard stories about it. All of them had their lives shaped by this reality. An Average Portuguese Family We have Chronicles about a t...

I first came across The Fault in Our Stars thanks to my former students—sweet, bright-eyed teenagers who were completely captivated by this emotional teen romance. They spoke about it with such passion, especially about the love story, that my curiosity was eventually piqued. Initially, I watched the Twentieth Century Fox film adaptation. While I found it touching and emotionally powerful, something about it felt a bit… surface-level. I had a feeling the book might go deeper—and it truly did. A Story That Goes Beyond Illness Yes, this is a story about illness. But The Fault in Our Stars is not just another "sick lit" novel . What makes it different is the depth of its characters, particularly Hazel Grace Lancaster. John Green doesn't just give us a teenage girl with cancer—he gives us a teenage girl with a voice , a sharp wit, dreams, fears, sarcasm, and a whole world inside her mind. And that, in my opinion, is what sets this book apart. Hazel refuses to le...

The Discreet Hero is a  2013 book that was translated to English in 2015. The writer  Mario Vargas Llosa  won the Nobel Prize  for literature in 2010. An Unconventional Hero In The Discreet Hero, the protagonist Felício Yanaqué lives his life according to his father's last teaching “Do not let anyone step into you.” as a way to honor his memory. But life is tricky and Felício's principles will be put to the test. An unconventional hero  without the dramatic overtones of the movies but filled with honor, Felício is a real-life hero, one who no one will ever know about. Yet, they can proudly shape their own destiny with honesty. Our protagonist fights against the  status quo , which he thinks is wrong, and never gives up, although  the world around him keeps saying that this is the rule. Two Stories, One Fate But Felício is not the only hero in this book. Along with its pages, we can read two different storylines, unrelated at first...

Dorothy Koomson ’s Marshmallows for Breakfast is, like most of her novels, a deeply emotional and heartfelt story that explores human relationships, trauma, and the power of love in its many forms. With a compelling blend of drama and sentimentality, Koomson weaves a narrative that is both touching and thought-provoking. A New Beginning  The story follows Kendra, a woman trying to escape a painful past, as she moves into a new home and unexpectedly becomes involved in the lives of her landlord's young twins, Summer and Jaxon.  These two children, despite their own struggles, have an incredible ability to bring warmth and hope into the lives of the adults around them. As Kendra becomes more entangled in their world, her own past begins to resurface, forcing her to confront the wounds she has tried so hard to bury. Emotionally Complex Characters One of the standout elements of Marshmallows for Breakfast is Koomson’s ability to create realistic, emotionally complex char...

Heart of Darkness, by Joseph Conrad , is a successful classic and one of the best-selling books ever.  As with all classics, it can become a bit tiring for the modern reader, who is used to the fast pace of movies and TV shows. Despite that, the story is interesting enough to keep us curious, even when we are urged to skip a few pages to discover what will happen next.  The African Jungle It wins us over with its story's evolution, opulent landscape, and captivating characters set in the middle of an African jungle.  The premise is simple: a storytelling sailor, a greedy mercenary, and a troubled journey in the middle of a dense forest shrouded in mist. What's a man capable of in an inhospitable place where no one will discover his deeds? Human is More Than a Word A long, troubled journey aimed at meeting a fascinating man who, after all, was just like every other man—imperfect, weak, and flawed. Heart of Darkness is a book that takes readers on a journ...