Sarah O'Connor

Book Review: Woman, Eating by Claire Kohda

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December 7, 2022

“Neither the void or the cliff above it look the same to me as they do to normal people. The void, for me, has stuff in it, so it’s not a void anymore; and the cliff is engulfed by a black and measureless haze,” (Khoda 17).

Twenty-three year old Lydia is living alone and away from her mother for the first time. Recently putting her mother in a long-term care home, Lydia has just moved into a studio space in London and is about to start interning at a famous art gallery. But she’s hungry, and the only food that will keep her fed is blood, because Lydia and her mother are vampires. Long since shamed into surviving only on pig-blood, which her mother identifies as a filthy animals, Lydia yearns to eat the sashimi and ramen that her Japanese father, who died before she was born, ate and spends her time not working on art watching YouTube eating videos. Struggling with her mixed-ethnic identity, Lydia struggles for how to be in the world on her own. Continue reading

Book Review: It Looks Like Us by Alison Ames

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November 30, 2022

“The Victoria Station burns so ferociously that the man with the binoculars can feel the heat from his perch in the helicopter,” (Ames 1).

Anxiety-ridden Riley Kowalski is spending her winter break in Antarctica after answering an advertisement that popped up on her Instagram feed. Sponsored by SladeTech, one of the world’s biggest tech companies owned by billionaire Anton Rusk, Riley joins five other student volunteers, a chaperone, and a scientist to prove that micro-plastics are in the ice and snow of the Antarctic. But there’s something else in the open, deadly landscape, something that flickers and disappears out of the corner of Riley’s eye. She feels in her gut that somethings wrong, but is she able to trust herself when her head often tells her to expect the worst? Continue reading

Book Review: The Weight of Blood by Tiffany D. Jackson

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November 28, 2022

“‘It all started with the rain.’ That’s what the people of Springville say whenever asked about the fatal Prom Night that occurred over a decade ago, leaving a town in complete ruins,” (Jackson 15).

A decade before tragedy struck the town of Springville on Prom Night, leaving many dead, and the survivors and bystanders can agree on one thing: Maddy did it. It’s up for debate on just how she did it, but everyone knows she was responsible. Maddy was bullied frequently, an outcast raised by her abusive religious father when a rainstorm reveals she’s biracial. The bullying only gets worse, and popular girl and class president Wendy decides that the best course of action that would fix everything is to combine proms with the Black and white students and that her Black boyfriend, football star Kenny, should take Maddy to prom. Maddy deserves one good night, and what bad could really happen at prom? Continue reading

Book Review: Doctor Sleep by Stephen King

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November 22, 2022

“The empty devils are on the land like a cancer on the skin…They eat screams and drink pain. You had your horrors at the Overlook, Danny, but at least you were spared these folks,” (King 257).

Decades after a horrific winter in the Overlook Hotel, Dan Torrance drifts through life and alcohol, desperate to escape his father’s legacy of violence and abuse. He settles in a New Hampshire town, joins an AA group, and finds work at a nursing home where he is called “Doctor Sleep” as his “shining” allows him to bring the dying comfort in their final moments. Then Dan meets twelve-year-old Abra Stone, who shines brighter than he’s ever known. But Abra’s shine has caught the attention of a group of people who travel by RVs known as The True Knot, seemingly harmless, except that they look for those who shine and feed off of them, and Abra could keep them fed for a good long while. It’s The True Knot versus Dan and Abra, but can Dan keep the ghosts of his past at bay or will they consume him as they used to? Continue reading

gritLIT – Meet Our Contest Winners – November 19th

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November 4, 2022

Wow, more fun announcements, look at me go!

Anyone remember 2020? It sure was one heck of a year. Well, at the beginning of that year (before everything else happened) I found out my story “What Happened to Natalie?” was an honourable mention for gritLIT’s 2020 Writing Contest! It was very exciting because 1) I was an honourable mention and got $150 for it and 2) I was supposed to do a LitLIVE reading as part of the festival.

313132151_659321592467514_6225782587580977897_n That obviously didn’t happen…UNTIL NOW!

After sending a gentle reminder and question email to gritLIT, myself and other contest winner Shelly Kawaja will be reading our works on Zoom as part of the 2022 Fall Program of gritLIT. I am beyond excited for this opportunity and can’t wait to read my work!

The event is free, but if you’re interested in reserving a spot for the reading you can do so here.

Book Review: The End by Katie Goh

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November 3, 2022

“The end of the world has been happening, and subsequently not happening, since people could make shit up,” (Goh 3).

Katie Goh’s short book of essays on apocalypse fiction is timely and masterfully executed. Offering insight into many different examples of apocalypse fiction, it’s clear that Goh is passionate about this subject and put all her care into this book. Continue reading

Authors On Eighth 2022 Prose Winner!

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November 2, 2022

You read that title right, my short story “On the Rocks” won in Dawson City’s Authors on Eighth Prose category!

I found this out way way (way) back in August when Visit Dawson City’s Instagram posted this photo from the Authors on Eighth Walking Tour with my name (then misspelled, now spelled correctly). I hadn’t gotten an official email, and being superstitious and unlucky decided to message and email them to confirm that I was the prose winner. Continue reading

Book Review: No Farther Than The End of the Street by Ben Niespodziany

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November 1, 2022

I received this book from The Next Best Book Club in exchange for an honest review.

“I was waiting for its eyes to open, and when they did not, it felt like slowly sewing shut the sky,” (A Picnic [1], My Off-the-Market Magic Carpet, Niespodziany 57).

One day I will know how to review poetry. I’ll know what right words to use to say how a poem made me feel something, what the metaphors meant to me, the images the author was able to put into my head with their words.

Unfortunately, I’ll have to stumble through it until then. Continue reading

Book Review: The Shining by Stephen King

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October 31, 2022

“Dying was a part of living. You had to keep tuning in to that if you expected to be a whole person. And if the fact of your own death was hard to understand, at least it wasn’t impossible to accept,” (King 312).

After losing his teaching job, Jack Torrance is grateful when his former co-worker finds him a job at a remote mountain resort during the off-season. Even better, his wife Wendy and young son Danny can come and live with him in the infamous Overlook Hotel. As the family settles into the hotel and the snow starts falling, the Overlook’s past reveals itself to Jack. It seems the Overlook is more sinister than it initially appeared, and it wants the Torrance’s.

SPOILERS BELOW, STOP AT YOUR OWN RISK!!! Continue reading

Book Review: I Am The Ghost In Your House by Maria Romasco Moore

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October 17, 2022

“We are restless people by nature. We roam, from one house to another, one city to the next. There is a limit to how long we can stay somewhere before people start to notice,”(Moore 13).

Seventeen-year-old Pieta, or as she’s called Pie, is invisible. Not in the metaphorical sense, but really truly invisible. She is a soap bubble, ice, a girl of glass seen through by everyone and her mother is the same. In fact, it’s just been Pie and her mother for her entire life, sleeping on trains and living in a variety of homes: from the great outdoors to mansions with rooms upon rooms that the occupants never visit, travelling across the world finding a place for themselves if only for a little while. It’s a lonely existence, and Pie wants more. But just as they are entering Pittsburgh Pie’s mother disappears right before her eyes, invisible becoming more invisible and Pie must try to navigate the world without her while trying to find her. Continue reading