Da da daah! Tie In Tuesday is back!
I’ve been a little less than active on the blogging front lately, but super active active on the reading front, so I’ve built up a small backlog of tie ins for review. Thus, I’m pairing these two together, for, despite being written thirty years apart, they share many similarities.
By Michelle Nathan
Hi all! So, in honour of my third favourite holiday of the year, Galentine’s Day (Christmas and Halloween come in 1st and 2nd, in case you were wondering) I have decided to write about 5 books that depict female friendship, in all it’s glorious complexity. Galentine’s Day is celebrated on February 13th, and is an (un)official national holiday created by fictional character Leslie Knope in my favourite TV show, Parks and Recreation. To quote Leslie, it’s about “ladies celebrating ladies,” a Valentine’s Day for your platonic loved ones.
But I have to admit, I really had to rack my brain to think of even 5 books that have female friendship at the centre of the storyline, or even fictional female friendships that really stood out in my mind as being iconic. I have a list as long as my arm for the same criteria in TV and film, but I clearly need to up my reading game to include more stories that depict memorable, complex, honest, interesting female friends, as I’m sure they do exist, I’m just not looking in the right places. Anyway, let’s get to the good stuff – the books!
by Kate
I read twelve books in January, which is a personal best, with an average rating of 4.5 stars – so it was an extremely good reading month for me. Below are mini reviews for each book (excluding book club picks and ones with longer reviews to come).
Rip Van Winkle and Other Stories by Washington Irving
This is a collection of short stories, each of which is supposedly based on an element of Dutch-American folklore. My least favourite story was actually the title one, I felt it was quite anecdotal and a little bit misogynist – we’re supposed to feel sorry for Rip because his wife is always mad at him, but if he could be bothered to help around the house she wouldn’t be! I enjoyed ‘The Legend of Sleepy Hollow’ the most as this was the story that felt most true to the folkloric nature of the stories, whilst also providing a ‘rational’ explanation. The folklore aspect was definitely my favourite part as I haven’t read many American legends before.
Book Buds 