Wednesday, December 24, 2025

On the Discussion of Literature and the Banned

As we read banned books, we as scholars should be able to discuss banned books after reading them because when they make an educated person uncomfortable, we have to think about the subject and consider the content matter on why banned books make us feel more aware of what we as a community and a group or a society of scholars should feel uncomfortable about before being faced with these kinds of issues.

The curriculum that starts banning books is wrong because these books are a red flag to be aware of.

When I read Donna Tartt’s The Secret History, I felt that these college issues talked about the dangers and causes and effects that come from strangers who have the intelligence to do such dreadful and Satanic rituals such as the rituals mentioned within the book.

We should ask ourselves what the protagonist of the story should have done because it talks about elitism and what some people could get away with in college in Tartt’s book.

We should think about these experiences and examples of deliberate acceptance of the literature and not be limited to excess amounts of academic bias.

A banned book is everyone’s worst nightmare in content and context and yet the literature is all the things we should and shouldn’t do.

It is a test of time for some people who read banned books and who feel uncomfortable such as myself and others who read banned books.

It makes the person think about why we feel uncomfortable with subjects like these. Why do we write banned books about delinquency, domestic violence, abuse, torture and race? It’s because we feel uncomfortable about these things and write it down and then we challenge the reader to think about the possibilities of what we should an de shouldn’t do in life.

Read a banned book and discuss it!

Sunday, December 21, 2025

Once Upon a Broken Heart

Book: Once Upon a Broken Heart

Author : Stephanie Garber

Review: Garber drives us through a compelling fairytale that has two more books within it. Garber makes the protagonist of the story seem like the antagonist. Evangeline Fox is a character who is both heroine and villain where her stepsister Marisol seems innocent and makes the reader wonder who the character of the villain is within the story. Jacks, who is the Prince of Hearts is a Fate who has been exiled from the South by Princess Donatella and Empress Scarlett from the Caraval Series. Evangeline and Jacks have a deal and then everything becomes awry from there. They send Evangeline from Valenda which is South of The Magnificent North where fairytales are history and prophecies come true. Evangeline takes her stepsister, Marisol with her and is in for a sinister surprise as she meets Prince Apollo at Nocte Neverending where Evangeline seems to be in a neverending fairytale adventure.

Star Rating : 5 of 5

Spice rating : 1 of 5

Book Recommendation : Yes/To those who love fairytales in volumes with cliffhangers..

Thoughts:

  • Vampires, witches and fates! Oh My!
  • A prophetic fairytale
  • A book of all the things a fairytale should encounter within its pages
  • The best conclusion to a sequel in a trilogy..

Sunday, December 14, 2025

The Secret History

Book: The Secret History

Author : Donna Tartt

Review: In the calm before the storm in the book, Tartt, is very profound when it comes to writing a psychological and perhaps dangerous prose on the adventures of college experience and college life in general. Richard, a young man from Plano, California goes to Hampden University in Vermont and meets new friends known as, Bunny Corcoran, Henry Winter, Charles and Camilla who are twins and Francis. Tartt writes about college culprits and delinquency in her book. Henry almost seems like the metaphor of the devil. It is kind of like a burn after reading but as I see it, it shows just how the elite and supercilious see their students in light of whatever goes on in college. I appreciate Tartt’s work as an ode to teen Satanic worshipping and the foreshadowing she ignites at given points within the sequence of the book. Although it may be a story about sex, drugs and alcoholism, we can conclude that it is basically about scandals within college society.

Star Rating : 5 of 5

Spice rating : 0 of 5

Book Recommendation : Yes/To those who are interested in the modern Gothic horror genre and psychological plots.

Thoughts:

  • Hell is empty and all the devils are here. -Shakespeare
  • Makes the reader uncomfortable.
  • The Devil pulls the strings which make us dance; We find delight in the most loathsome things.-Charles Baudelaire
  • A mix of scandals.