New Reads: Good and The Not So Good

I now feel completely alienated from my gender.

That’s what my friend Kim said after looking through the July issue of Skirt!, a magazine which is not new, but new to Atlanta.  I have to agree. 

On a more positive note, I just read Jenny Offill’s Last Things, which was a New York Times Notable Book of the Year in 2000.  It’s an addictive little book, which I flew through in two days.  What’s unique about this book is the first-person eight-year-old narrator, Grace.  I think there’s often a stigma against child narrators, as if the child filter will make a narrative less adult.  Well, this is certainly an adult book.  Many of the themes are common, but the uncommon voice puts a new spin on it, a new lens through which readers can see the world.  One word: haunting.