Literary Brilliance

I’m a self-appointed book critic with enormous emphasis on the “critic” part. In my grand opinion, bookstores are littered with shelves of wasted trees laden with flat characters, contrived plots, preaching authors, mind-numbing prose...ugh. The name Picky Nicki was well deserved.

Every now and then, though, I stumble across a book—or better yet, an author—that/who floors me. Sue Monk Kidd is one of those authors.

I like to fancy that I can write, but “The Mermaid Chair” bashed that notion into fine dust. She can write. Oh, can she write.

Her prose reads like poetry, woven through with gilded imagery, and she has this way of peeling back the callused skin of life and piercing right into the marrow of things.

(Disclaimer: This book is honest, so those of you who find yourselves easily offended may want to steer clear.)

I devoured (yet savored) this novel, cover to cover, in a single evening. It’s that good.

Go dust off your library cards, folks.