“Photos soon emerged: heads on spikes outside of rides, corpses floating in detention cells, and viscera decaying in the humid Florida sun. FantasticLand, where ‘Fun is Guaranteed!’, was covered in blood,” (Bockoven 2). Welcome to FantasticLand, promising visitors that “Fun is Guaranteed!” since the 1970s. But when the deadly Hurricane Sadie destroys the Florida coast, a …
“I used pop culture…as a kind of glue to hold me together when I was hurtling through disaster…jamming a piece of pop culture into an absence in my life, no matter how poorly matched, seemed fine. It seemed like the only, no, the best thing to do,” (Sookfong Lee 4). Author Jen Sookfong Lee has always …
I received this book from Playwrights Canada Press in exchange for an honest review. Caroline is the daughter of The Prophet and excited for her Divine Birthday, when the Angels will come and impregnate her. She knows her boyfriend Ian will make a great father; he’s promised her he read all the materials and is fully ready …
“One step forward, two steps back. You think this house is going to be a real windfall and then – boom – it’s haunted,” (Hendrix 153). When Louise Joyner learns her parents have died in a car accident, she’s understandably heartbroken, but she doesn’t want to go back home. She doesn’t want to leave her five-year-old …
“Guilt casts a spell like the one cast by despair. The spells of love and hope don’t linger like the others,” (Johnston). When fourteen-year-old Ned Vatcher comes home from school after the first snowstorm of the season he finds his house locked, the family car missing, and his parents gone. Word spreads across Newfoundland about the …
“I don’t want to talk about the rain or the trees or the…guilt I feel every single minute of every single day. And if I write it all down, I want to do it in pencil so I can rub it straight back out again, erasing that whole part of my life so it smudges …
I received this book from Playwrights Canada Press in exchange for an honest review. Reenie wants to dance just like her mother who worked hard to make a spot for herself on the stage and her grandmother who worked behind-the-scenes making costumes. It’s her legacy, and like the other young dancers in her ensemble Reenie feels that …
” Are you a Christian?’ Ilonka finally asked. ‘No, I am dying.” Anya turned a page. “Dead people have no religion,’” (Pike 4). Ilonka Pawluk has checked-in to Rotterham Home, a hospice for teenagers, typically state wards, who are soon to die. But Ilonka is different, she’s taking better care of herself, and once her …
“People love an idea, even if they don’t know what to do with it. Even if they only know how to do exactly the wrong thing,” (Machado 228). In her memoir, Carmen Maria Machado finds the words, after years and difficulty, to articulate what it was like being in an abusive same-sex relationship. Part fairy-tale, horror …
“I am a delicate mist. No one can look at me or touch me or see me. I do not want to be held, which is fine-no one wants to hold me, and even if they did, it wouldn’t help. I am a murmuration, a lightly undulating spray of particles, moving easily around the earth …
Sarah O'Connor 