Lit List: Short Reviews
By Julie Sara Porter
Bookworm Reviews
Spoilers: I want to apologize for being so scattered with my reviews lately. First, I house sat for my sister while she and her family were in Florida. I was able to get plenty of work done because of their great WiFi but not all projects were completed.
Second, when I returned I had a series of neck and shoulder problems which prevented me from being on the computer for so long. They are gone but now I have a slight ear infection.
Third, the power went off in our house at the same time that my charger was destroyed. The power is back but I still need a new charger so right now I am working on limited time doing as much as I can before the battery goes and I have to borrow someone else's. Let's just say it's been a busy stressful month.
Because of that I have had to condense three reviews into shorter ones similar to what you would find in Amazon or Goodreads. I prefer my longer, more analytic reviews but when pressed for time, it's better than nothing. I may do this from on for shorter works like novellas, poetry books, and short stories. Anyway, here are my three reviews. Hopefully, I should get a new charger by tomorrow and be up to my regular form.
The Girl From Colombia by Julian Rodriguez
Julian Rodriguez's historical fiction novel, The Girl from Colombia is that rare book that writes a love triangle right by giving the Reader three compelling characters so that the emotional investment is on all parties.
In the late 19th century, Joseph Johnson's wealthy cruel father, Samuel is ill. Joseph is set to inherit and marry Elizabeth, an heiress. However, a young mysterious woman from Colombia named Isabel lives in a cottage by the beach. Joseph's curiosity gets the better of him when he finally meets this bewitching beauty. The two fall in love leading to potential scandal and estrangement should they be discovered.
The three characters are very well written. Joseph is someone who has had to suffer under the thumb of a dictatorial father and is torn between his duty to his family legacy which is largely built on exploitation and deceit and his responsibilities to himself and the people around him. With Isabel he becomes very protective and recognizes a better nature in seeing someone who suffered under the decisions that his father made. His struggles raise the questions in whether a legacy should be preserved when it's built by someone else's cruelty and living off of the backs of others.
Isabel is a very passionate emotional vibrant woman, the most interesting character in the book. She is kept hidden from the Johnsons for a long time as if to deny what Samuel did to her and her mother. However, as Isabel grows she makes her presence known. Her first chapter shows her attempting to enter the Johnson house, knife in hand. When she indulges in her affair with Joseph, she sees someone who is also wounded by Samuel's behavior and is kept hidden in his own way.
Elizabeth is a nice surprise. Usually, love triangles are skewered in one person's favor by making the other as horrible or as boring as possible. Rodriguez is smarter than that. Elizabeth not only is a nice person but she actually befriends Isabel on her own. In fact, she comes up with an idea that could benefit all three parties. If not for plot circumstances, it may have even worked.
The Girl from Colombia not only provides a well written love triangle but shows how sins from past generations can ruin the lives of subsequent generations.
Neoliberalism, Globalism, Income Inequality, Poverty, and Resistance by Renaldo C. McKenzie
Renaldo C. Mackenzie's book Neoliberalism, Globalization, Income Inequality, Poverty and Resistance is a sobering account of how the economic and sociopolitical controversies affect the United States and the Caribbean countries, particularly Jamaica.
People who are interested in global and financial transactions between nations will find a lot to read and think about in this book. McKenzie explains how income inequality has shaped the outlook of these countries and how Jamaica's flattened economic growth has been a factor in the poverty of its citizens. McKenzie also states Neoliberalism restructuring has caused a decline in Jamaica's economics. Sometimes the theory has produced chaotic and uneven results. A decrease in a country's economy also leads to increases in illegal activity such as drug manufacturing, selling, and usage, breakdowns in family structure, and increased violence and hate crimes.
McKenzie also discusses how racial controversies in the United States have bled into struggles in other countries. Such controversies as The Black Lives Matter protest, racial profiling, and critical race theory taught in education has altered the views that many have had over other countries that had been colonized by white Europeans but inhabited by indigenous people and people of color. Slave revolutions occurred in Jamaica before the Civil War and in the late 19th century many descendants of slaves moved in an African diaspora to Jamaica. Similar to current struggles in the United States and South Africa, the current status of the Caribbean countries can be learned by owning up and acknowledging the racism in the past and how systemic racism remains.
Neoliberalism, Globalization, Income Inequality, Poverty, and Resistance gives Readers a chance to understand how the problems in one country carry over and parallel the problems in another.
The Bedwetter: Journal of a Budding Psychopath by Lee Alan Howard
Lee Alan Howard's psychological thriller The Bedwetter: Journal of a Budding Psychopath lives up to its name. It is a dark absorbing look into the transformation of a troubled young man into a potential murderer.
Russell Pisarek has a long list of problems. He has nocturnal urinations and is embarrassed by it. He has flashbacks of a manipulative and abusive mother. He works in an animal testing lab but has has a history of dealing and using drugs. Right now he lives with his nagging sister who is concerned about the influence Russell has over her son.
Most of the time he spends playing video games like Call of Duty and muttering under his breath how much he hates everyone else. His only friend is Connors, a man who runs an army surplus store in which Russell buys knives and other weapons. The general impression that Russell gives off is someone who is antisocial and angry but keeps all his worst thoughts to himself but is waiting for the day to explode.
Throughout the novel it becomes clear that Russell is a ticking time bomb. The smallest things like a nasty Craigslist response or having to clean the rabbits cages at work send him off. Most of the time he responds by calling the people around him demeaning nicknames (He calls his mother, Melanie, Melanoma) and using his first person narration to mentally cuss them out. (When his mother mocks him in public, Russell tells the Reader "You're my witness-SHE STARTED IT!")
So far his behavior seems innocuous but it becomes more worrisome the longer the book goes on. He has violent fantasies about a woman in which he is infatuated. He steals ketamine from work to feed an addiction. After his father dies, he remembers his indifference and participation when his mother abused him and can't muster up any sadness or empathy. It takes a long time for Russell to commit violence but when he does, it's not a surprise that it happened just that it took so long.
Howard writes a character teetering on the edge of sanity rather well. We already sense something is going to happen before it does, we are just waiting for the moment that it does. It's like looking outside on a cloudy day, watching the sky turn green, hearing the thunder and seeing the lightning get closer, and watching the rain turn to hail. You just know that a tornado is coming so that by the time it shows, you are relieved because you have been waiting and expecting it for so long.
When Russell finally commits violence, it's not exactly a moment of triumph but it is seen as an inevitable conclusion. The Reader has been reading his dark obsessive thoughts, has seen his fantasies become more unhinged, and his enemy list become longer. We have been expecting this outcome for sometime and are almost relieved that it finally does.
The Bedwetter is a fascinating look at a troubled individual who gets worse. It is among the closest many of us can ever get into the mind of a psychopath and probably the closest many of us want to.
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