Whether in Kira's struggle with the Soft Blade, the Wranaui and their reliance on replacement bodies, or the mad ramblings of fan favorite character Gregorovich, "To Sleep in a Sea of Stars" is a novel centered around ontology, particularly in its treatment of one's connection to the physical form.
“The Midnight Library” by Matt Haig: The Fallacy of Self-Help
The Midnight Library by Matt Haig is the story of Nora Seed, a thirty-something English woman who attempts suicide and ends up in a library between life and death. Its shelves are filled to the brim with an infinite number of books, all holding a life she could have lived had she made different choices.…
“Dracula” by Bram Stoker: The Vampiric Perversion of Communion
While many are familiar with the story of Dracula, few have bothered to read Stoker’s classic epistolary novel. It follows, through letters and journal entries, the lives of Johnathan Harker─prisoner of the Count’s castle─and his cohorts who will stop at nothing to rid the world of vampiric evil. But it’s not all fangs and fright,…
“The Essex Serpent”: Faith is Not the Absence of Reason
The Essex Serpent by Sarah Perry weaves a strange story of friendship between the most unlikely people. But slithering between the lines of this Victorian tale is a much darker theme—a theme that permeates much of today’s literature and film: that religion is the biggest threat to reason and progress. Set in London, 1893, The Essex…
“Where the Crawdads Sing”: Natural Does Not Equal Moral
"Where the Crawdads Sing" by wildlife scientist Delia Owens is marketed as an “ode to natural world,” but Owens takes the theme further than a simple celebration of nature and into the realm of morality. At the heart of the novel is this presupposition: what is natural is inherently moral. Owens’ story follows Kya Clark,…
Bone of Bones 