notanotherbookreview

Jex Blackwell Saves the World (Pelekinesis, May) by P. William Grimm was both refreshing and a complete surprise. Grimm an American writer and fillmaker, has written novels and short story collections-- The Seventh and Counselor, Valencia Street and Sick Sense of Hubris. He 's published in lit blogs, like Eclectica Magazine and HTML Giant . His influences are Kurt Vonnegut, Joan Didion, Charles Bukowski, Raymond Chandler, Dashiell Hammett. So he likes the truth, outrageous or otherwise, and a mystery with soul and style. Grimm's final inspiration is  Encyclopedia Brown, a series of kid's books about a boy genius. Grimm thinks of Jex Blackwell as a "Dadaesque homage" to that series. So this is kind of an adult YA mystery, written like an underground graphic novel with a heroine (not unlike orphaned Anne of Green Gables or headstrong Jo in Little Women ). Jex is aware of her potential and completely invents herself at aged 16. She wants to do good in the ...

KIM GORDON'S GIRL IN A BAND AND PAULA HAWKINS' GIRL ON THE TRAIN ROCK MEMOIR AND THRILLER --EXCEPTIONAL WOMEN IN POST FEMINIST WASTELAND plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose . The more things change, the more they are the same.   This proverb is an ironic subtext for the two exceptional women in these otherwise dissimilar books. Rock memoir and thriller both have soulful narrators, searching for truth buried in the wreckage of their marriages. Blindsided at huge emotional cost, they need to figure out what really happened to become whole again. The answers have much to do with the status of women and the status quo of male expectations. GIRL IN THE BAND, Kim Gordon's memoir is a history of punk, post punk, wave, no wave 1970-80's rock music and her roles as iconic rocker, visual artist, wife and mother. She adds writer, after this entertaining and philosophically rich look at the life of an original, who says she became so almost by default. Gordon w...