An Irishman's Book Blog

My next book review is the amazing and artful The Inexplicable Logic of my Life by Benjamin Alire Sáenz. A fantastic book that will lighten your day.   Benjamin Alire Sáenz also brought us Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe which I will be blogged about later.   Plot Summary: Seventeen-year-old Sal (Salvatore) lives in El Paso, Texas, with his adoptive father, a gay Mexican-American art professor named Vicente Silva. Vicente assumed responsibility for Sal after his mother died, when Sal was just three years old. (The connections between Sal’s mother and Vicente don’t become clear until late in the book, when Sal finally opens a letter his dying mother wrote and left in Vicente’s care.) Although Sal is white, the adoption secures his place in the heart of a loving Mexican-American family, which is headed by the matriarch Sal comes to know as Mima.  As his adoptive grandmother, Mima refers to Sal as her “hijito de mi vida,” and the ...

A story of two twins, Jude & Noah both of whom narrate their intertwined story of love, life and bad decisions in a realistic heart-breaking way.    Source: Bustle.com   Check out the official website of Jandy Nelson  here.   Rather than get straight into the story, just a quick comment about the artistic page scrawlings. Throughout the book some of the important lines are scrawled across the pages (at least in my version; the one with the yellow cover). I really like these, what I call … moments. Like a painting or photo with a shaft of bright light or surprising bright colour, to me, they are an attempt to enhance the story of the twins who are also artists. Another interesting tool the author uses is how Noah files away ideas for future paintings; the author perfectly captures how the mind of some artist’s work. I particularly like this and it reinforces the idea that artists and writers should always carry a notebook with them to jot down ideas and ...