Blaze is a book that holds more than one story. That is not to say it is a book of short stories (because it isn’t). Allow me to clarify: one story is the novel itself; another story is how the novel went from draft to published; and there is another, unrelated, story after the novel portion ends. This may sound confusing, but it’s actually quite simple. I’ll explain.
It is good to begin at the beginning. The cover of the book says that Blaze was written by Richard Bachman, and that it contains a Forward by Stephen King. Most, if not all, Stephen King fans know that Bachman and King are actually the same person. King was writing under the pen name Bachman for a while, and eventually got discovered.
Me Talk Pretty One Day is a memoir, of sorts, that is presented in the form of 28 short stories. Each is funny, unflinchingly honest, and a unique way to look at the world. The stories range from when Sedaris was a child, through adolescence, college years, and adulthood.
They say that you can’t judge a book by it’s cover. This time, though, the cover was the reason why I decided to pick up After, flip it over, and find out what it was about. It shows a teenager with her hair pulled back in a bun, who is wearing sweatpants and leaning up against a wall.
Shopgirl is a fitting title for this book. One of the main characters is Mirabelle, a twenty-something wallflower who spends a large part of her days behind the glove counter at Neiman’s. She is a girl who works in a shop.
“Half my life ago, I killed a girl”. That opening line grabs the reader, immediately. What happened? How did it happen? Suddenly, all these questions popped into my head, and I had to know more about this story.
Pictures of You is a book about two women who are trying to escape their marriages (for entirely different reasons). At the start of the book, readers are inside the head of Isabelle, who has just left her husband.
