Twilight
Normally, when a hit series comes out, I make my scorn widely known. Harry Potter, for instance, which I believe are probably great books but everyone and their mother and grandmother have read them. Someone asks me if I'm a fan and I sniff loudly and say I'm saving that series for retirement. I thought Stephenie Meyer's Twilight series would be the same. Massive hoopla surrounds this teen love story of a mortal/vampire love affair staged in the hallways of a rural highschool, and by November when the movie came out, I had already put on my smug face, ready to claim it didn't interest me, too mainstream you know. Then I read Manohla ...Read more
The Monsters of Templeton is a hoax!
I have undertaken to judge books only by their covers. In the hyper-marketed hyper-branded age we currently reside in, the design of everything is specifically calibrated to appeal to a target demographic. Or at least, should be. So I went to my local library and browsed the fiction section. I wanted to find a book based solely on my aesthetic reaction to its packaging. No reading the back cover, no asking the librarian for suggestions, no authors that I had read before. The first to catch my eye was The Monsters of Templeton, a hardback by Lauren Groff. The cover is black white and red and features an intricate tree wi...Read more
Wetlands my Ass!
Wetlands is the tale of an 18 year old girl who detests personal hygiene and is obsessed with the circum-crotchal area. Totally Obsessed. That’s right, the big V and the big A, a whole book dedicated to their secretions, fluctuations, elasticity, scent, display, care and usage. Part pornography and part sixth grade sex ed video (where they show pics of ghonnorea blown up to the size of your teachers head, and that’s just one pustule), you’ll find yourself being turned on and nauseated at the same time...definitely an interesting sensation. Roche has created a 100% real girl who is your average sex object. She reveals what it’s like ...Read more
Intro to the Prose Blog
My name is Simone, and I was named after Simone de Beauvoir. I have a bookshelf tatooed on my upper arm. I own well over 2000 books. I've worked in bookstores or libraries for the last eleven years; I'm 25. I read at least a book a week, as well as a plethora of print and online magazines. I use words like "plethora". I read and speak in English German and Spanish. My Dad read the History of Class Consciousness to me in its entirety the week I was born (septmeber 20, 1983, which makes me a Virgo in the Zodiac and a Pig in Chinese Astrology). I'm the fiction editor, among many other things here at illiterate. Suffice to say that Reading is What I Do. ...Read more