Illiterarty.com Book reviews and blogs by Bridget

With almost text-book precision, Jonathan Tel captures the essence of the perfect short story in this loosely woven collection of heartbreaks, secrets, humanities and mundanities, backdropped by the mysterious Beijing.

Mildly disappointing, but only compared to the insanely high standards I have come to expect from Mr de Berniéres and his extreme awesomeness as an author.

If this was about a pubescent boy instead of a pubescent girl, it would confirm everything a certain sort of person likes to pretend lurks primarily within the purview of the homosexual mindset. But it isn't, so deal with it, heteros.

Divine Secrets Of The Ya Ya Sisterhood is a book that every daughter should read - an explosion of friendships, lies, honesty, despair, raw emotion, and the complex relationships between generations of women.

Instead of killing himself, Luke Rhinehart decides to give up his life in a different way - to the roll of a dice. The Dice Man challenges the notions of psychiatry, psychology, and how people live their lives.

The Walker family from Thornton, Louisiana, is like any other family—full of love, life, joy, heart-ache, and dirty secrets.

In a generation struggling to come to grips with what the generation before them has done, The Reader is the story of love, betrayal, war, and reading aloud.

If this was a car, it would be going cheap—a DeLorean someone died in. Pay cash, clean it yourself.

When autistic fifteen year old Christopher John Francis Boone discovers his neighbour’s dog, Wellington, dead on the lawn with a gardening fork sticking in his side, he decides to investigate.

In a world where beauty opens every door, can a person be brave enough to be everything they don’t want to be?

If this was a gadget from Q’s laboratory, it would be a flame-throwing bassinet.

It’s 1942, and overnight, Americans of Japanese decent are turned from citizens to enemy aliens. This is a circumstance that will change their lives, not just for the duration of the war, but forever.

If this was made into a film starring Elijah Wood, it probably wouldn’t work very well, because it’s far too good a book. Oh wait, whoops.

Ever wondered about the motivations of a screwed up sex addict with a penchant for making people feel needed and a need to be loved? Choke is a tale of addiction, mothers, best friends, faking the eighteenth century, and weird doctors—with a little bit of religion thrown in.

Flight 2039 has a couple of hours before it crashes into the earth. And on that flight is a man, recording his life story into the black box. Chuck Palahniuk at his finest.

If this was litter, it would be a hundred American dollars in a filthy wad with half an East-European Snickers glued to it.

The Rum Diary is a sweaty lusty booze-filled Caribbean odyssey.

They say that the first sentence of a novel is the most important; most people who pick a book up in a bookstore will head straight to the first page to see what the sentence is as a judgment of whether to read it or not. And I tell you, Chuck Palahniuk is the master of the first sentence. And paragraph, for that matter. You are completely sucked in before you know what’s what.

While certain television shows and movies may strive to make prisons look as realistic and shocking as possible, they still can’t prepare you for the vibe of the whole thing in reality.