World Religions: Islam – Lecture 8: Contemporary Resurgence of Islam

The following bits represent my notes and thoughts as I watch The Great Courses, “Great World Religions: Islam” by John L. Esposito.  A few things are worth noting:

1. I encourage those with an interest to seek out the original source material.  You can do that on The Great Courses website.  My notes are just a pale shadow of the whole course but they might whet your proverbial whistle.
2. These are just my notes and not an attempt to encapsulate the whole course.  As such, it should be painfully obvious that I’m no expert and at times prone to oversimplification and outright error.
3. There is no third thing.  I just can’t stand having only two things in a list.

Lecture 8: Contemporary Resurgence of Islam

Note: This lecture is an extremely boiled-down version of the history of the 20th century Middle East and very informationally dense even before I try to summarize it.  As such, the reader is encouraged strongly to seek out the source material directly.  This is the most currently relevant and interesting lecture to date but I cannot really seek to do it justice.

The current political states of the Middle East were created, for the most part, by European colonial powers after World War I.  These states were put together with little regard for history or demographics of the area and so it should come as little surprise that decades later they rebelled to form their own governments that more accurately reflect the people being governed.

Historically, these states have fallen into two basic groups

• More secular governments were favored by the West and looked upon as more ‘Modern’ and easier to deal with.  As is typical, the West confuses “better” with “more like us”
• Muslim governments are looked down upon as backwards or antiquated and fall out of favor with the west unless there’s some direct economic benefit to be had by dealing with them.

In 1967 the third Arab-Israeli War, or Six-Day War, tripled the size of Israeli-held territory while Arab forces from Egypt, Jordan and Syria were soundly defeated.  Even more importantly, Jerusalem, the third holiest city in Islam was no longer under Arab control.

In the Muslim community this set up a bit of an identify crisis.  Why had Allah abandoned the faithful?  This war become the rallying cry for a massive movement to reject Western identity and replace it with a stronger affirmation of the Islamic past and traditional values.

Over the ensuing decades, a quiet non-military revolution ensued in many countries in which educated Muslims rose to political power and replaced their previously secular governments.  Those old governments had been supported by the Western powers that had helped established them in the first place and met with resistance from their own militaries as well as old allies.

Despite being legitimate democratically elected governments, they also came under fire from Muslim extremist groups who considered them still too liberal.  Meanwhile Western powers feared them simply because of their religious backgrounds and resorted to a sort of secular fundamentalism.  Western governments seemed all too willing to support governments of any sort as long as it’s economically beneficial to do so.

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Series Guide

View back-to-back on the YouTube Playlist
Lecture 1– Islam Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow
Lecture 2 – The Five Pillars of Islam
Lecture 3 – Muhammad-Prophet and Statesman
Lecture 4 – God’s Word-The Quranic Worldview
Lecture 5 – The Muslim Community-Faith and Politics
Lecture 6 – Paths to God-Islamic Law and Mysticism
Lecture 7 – Islamic Revivalism-Renewal and Reform
Lecture 8 – The Contemporary Resurgence of Islam
Lecture 9 – Islam at the Crossroads
Lecture 10 – Women and Change in Islam
Lecture 11 – Islam in the West
Lecture 12 – The Future of Islam

Books for the week of 6/14….

The week was a pretty diverse one…. As always, I received these via some free outlet or other in exchange for a review. Despite the joy of getting a free book, I’m absolutely honest because… well, anything else would be a pretty poor showing on my part now wouldn’t it?

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A World Without Boundaries: A story of human atrocities, despair, migration, and interconnections by Ge Xiong

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

The nutshell view on this book is that it details the author’s escape from war-town Laos until he eventually finds himself in the United States speaking not a word of English. The narrative is a detailed and honest retelling of this grim life transition.

To the positive, the author omits nothing. During the tale the narrator takes the time to make comments about farming methods or family history even while the chaos of war is breaking out around him. It is very much a stream of consciousness story and anything that did happen is related in detail to the reader. It’s a rather refreshing approach to the historical narrative.

To the negative, at times this can become cumbersome. There is a LOT to go through to get to the heart of what is being discussed. The reader must go along narrator’s idea of proper pacing and immerse themselves in the detail.

In summary, this is an exceptional snapshot of place and time. The author’s descriptions are vivid and detailed and really take the reader back in time mentally but it is a fairly intense labor to get there. You have to be patient and willing to get the full effect from the book. Otherwise you are left with a rather empty shell of the experience.

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Le Tomcat Diaries: Lies, Fries, & Blue Skies in the South of France by E.A Menches

My rating: 2 of 5 stars

The story is written in first person from the viewpoint of a family cat and from a narrative standpoint it follows the basic pattern of a character displaced from their familiar surroundings and forced to set up shop in a new and unfamiliar place.

To the positive side, the narrator is amusing and extremely cat-like. He behaves and thinks in exactly the way any cat owner would sometimes suspect their pet to be thinking based on their apparently irrational behavior. Dead birds are gifts. Owners must be trained to do the right thing and the cat is absolutely always right and in some ways completely in charge. Having been around a cat or two, this seems pretty close to their own self-image. From a writing standpoint the text is solid, simple and very straightforward.

To the negative, this is fun for about 30 pages. After that it just becomes somewhat repetitive and trite. What was funny at first becomes rather laborious and you just want it to end. This is no “Watership Down” I’m afraid.

So all in all, it’s a cute idea but just didn’t quite do it for me. The optimal target audience for this book is probably that group which shares the most in common with the protagonist and his owners. If you’re in the south of France and you’re a cat lover then have at it. I think everyone else will probably be only lightly amused.

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The Actor by Paul A. Wunderlich

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

The nutshell summary of this book is that it gives us the inside view of the greatest actor of his age, the smiling face that moves the Texalifornia propaganda machine forward from one weekly episode to the next. The tone of the book is partly Orwell’s 1984 and partly Mike Judge’s Idiocracy.

To the positive side, I really like where the author is trying to go. The concept, though at least partly derivative, has a fresh take on the dystopian horrors that await us after after a nuclear exchange. Seen from the viewpoint of one of the cogs in the propaganda machine, this isn’t a narrator that we’re at all accustomed to seeing in this sort of novel. I think the concept could be extended greatly into a quite a series. The author has found a great concept to wrap words around. There is also an extremely visual element to the book that the author uses to great effect. Many of the author’s descriptions will stick with me for quite a while.

To the negative side, the novel really had me struggling in a couple of areas. Firstly, the mix of Orwell and Idiocracy was hard to swallow. While it is possible to mix dark social commentary with farce, it’s exceptionally hard to get away with and I found the author’s more comedic images to be a distraction from what I assume he was really trying to say about society and culture in general. Textually, the book struggles as well. I’m hopeful that my copy was an early release because the typographical problems scattered like cockroaches from every page. The misuse of common words was distracting and the almost constant repetition of certain phrases such as “inch-thick layer of makeup” was at fairly maddening.

In summary, I had a hard time settling on one rating for this book. The concept has wonderful potential but the execution boggled my mind at times. Wunderlich has done a unique job of cobbling together various elements of the standard Dystopian genre and making it his own. I do wonder how much better it could be with a good sound drubbing by a professional editor, however.

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Sunny The Snail- And a Colorful Crayons: Inspiring Children’s Book about being creative by Karmen Sanda

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

This is a kids book, of course, so rather than the standard format I’ll just jot down a few notes as I go.

* Illustrations are fun and whimsical and fairly colorful.

* A few problems with the text. Colorful is misspelled in the title page and the passage “…help his beloved mommy to finally distinct who is who between his brothers” isn’t … well, just isn’t quite English.

* This book has a solid message though; I approve of any book that teaches people they can (and should be!) different from others and to not be afraid to make their mark in the world.

* The coloring page at the end to ‘make your own snail’ might be a touch difficult to execute on with the eBook.

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Stuck in the Passing Lane by Jed Ringel

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I’ll admit that when I received this book I looked at the cover and thought… ok… then I looked at the back and suddenly my expectations went straight into the cellar. This isn’t really a book that’s going to immediately grab you by the hair and make you pay attention to it. In fact, the first 20 pages I kept thinking, “ok, how much of this do I have to read before I can legitimately give up…?” But around page 30 or so, it finally took its hold. The simple nutshell on this book is that it’s the intimate no-nonsense view from the inside of the brain of a pretty common everyday guy who finds himself in the online dating world. And it’s not one of those in which he blames every woman he breaks up with for this or that. He goes through all the same thoughts that real online daters do (not that I had years of experience with that myself, *ahem*) in which they ask themselves not only what happened but also that most common of repeated mental phrases, “what’s wrong with me?”

So to the positive side of things, Jed writes like a man who has really figured himself out. Well, has figured himself out as much as any guy ever really figures himself out. He may not know the answers to the big questions of relationships but he has at least figured out what the questions are. His take on things is completely honest and unassuming and while some readers may find his tendency to jet off to Singapore a bit perturbing, especially if they don’t have the assets to jet off to Singapore themselves, I think that anyone who’s done the online dating bit will find a lot that’s familiar in this book. Lastly on the positive side, the author has a very good balance between too much detail and not enough. I find in many memoirs that the reader is forced to grind away endlessly for hundreds of pages to find the real meat in the proverbial salad but Ringel’s all meat, if he will forgive me for the unfortunate analogy. *ahem again*

On the negative side, many readers will be, I think, at least somewhat disappointed that the narrative doesn’t really end up anywhere. Essentially, the author starts at his divorce and goes through relationship after relationship in chronological order. There is no grand denouement; there is no final smoking gun or any sudden revelation of truth; there is no shaft of light down from heaven. Things just stop and you’re looking at the back page. I’d argue that’s OK though because that’s the way life is. Until, of course, life isn’t. But by that time you’ve stopped reading.

In summary, if you can relate to this book as a mature dude dating again later in life, it’s a real find. If you’re a mature lady dating mature dudes and wondering what’s going through their puny little brains, it’s even more of a find. If you’re neither of these things… well, I’m sure you’re not still reading this anyway.

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Legends and Lies by Bill O’Reilly and David Fisher | Summary & Analysis: The Real West by InstaRead

My rating: 1 of 5 stars

The title of this book is ‘summary and analysis’ but to be utterly frank, it’s 95% summary. The book is these basic parts.

Summary – 10 pages. Essentially, a list of all the characters in the book with a 2-3 paragraph description of what they did and why they’re important.

Main Characters – 3 pages. The same list of characters that appears in the summary but with much shorter descriptions.

Character Analysis – 4 pages. The same list of characters but broken down by subgroup: hero/outlaw – educated/uneducated – performer/folk-hero

Themes – 12 pages. The same characters broken down by what theme they represent: respect for the law, ethics, media sensations, etc

Author’s Style – 1 page. A very brief analysis of the authors.

To say that this is fairly unreadable is to understate things tremendously. It does, I suppose, summarize the book well enough, but it boils out anything approaching entertainment value. It’s exceptionally dry and almost entirely devoid of anything which could be termed analysis.

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Are You Seeing Me? by Darren Groth

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

The tiny nutshell view on this book is that it’s the story of a family trying to find stable emotional ground again after the death of their single-parent father when one member, Perry, the son, is autistic and has to depend on his sister for many of his daily needs. The narrative is constructed from a dual viewpoint so you get half of the story from the daughter’s viewpoint and half from the autistic son’s.

Firstly, this is a YA novel so I give it a different critical eye than I would an adult novel. I ask myself three simple questions. The first of which is: “Is there any reason I wouldn’t want my kids to read this novel?” In that regard, there is a fair amount of profanity but it’s nothing over the top. There is brief mention of sex but nothing graphic. The book is devoid of drug use and has only minimal violence and it’s the sort that kids are exposed to in action movies: car chases and the like. So on that basis I have no negative concerns about the book.

Secondly, I ponder whether there’s anything in the book that would make me WANT my kids to read it. In this case, there are a few positive messages about reconciliation and coping with situations and perhaps understanding a bit more about how the autistic mind operates. These themes don’t leap out and club you over the head but they do represent an example of a family in a tough situation making it through to the other side so children dealing with loss might find it helpful. The book isn’t terribly strong in this regard but its themes are at least present.

Thirdly, and somewhat less importantly, will the kids enjoy reading it? In this case, I’m not really convinced. As an adult I found it interesting from more of an intellectual standpoint, getting inside the head of this autistic child and seeing their family dynamic. Unless the YA in question knows a person in this situation I think it might be difficult to engage their interest completely.

So to the positive, the book is clean and has some weak lessons to teach. I was reasonably entertained and zoomed through this title in a few hours so it’s a quick trip to be sure. The family dynamics are well rendered and the characters vivid (as you’d expect since the author lives with an autistic son).

To the negative, the action does seem to flag about three quarters of the way through as evidenced by my sudden nap at about that point. Also, some of the segments from the autistic son’s point of view leave the reader rather wondering what exactly happened. His perception of events (or retelling of them) is sometimes warped by his autism so some part of the real story is rather unknowable.

In summary, this is a solid afternoon read and safe for the kiddos but it’s not on my “if you only read one book this month” list exactly.

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Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Written in the form of a letter from a father to a son, “Between the World and Me” is a detailed crystallization of the state of racism in our country today and its historical roots throughout the entire history of our country.

My normal review format is to prattle on about positive and negative aspects of a book but in this case I think it’s really more important to the potential reader that they understand what exactly it is that they’re getting.

For those who want a light breezy primer on racism… this is not it. This is profound and erudite and is the sort of book you could pick apart sentence by sentence for a year and at the end of that year just shake your head in despair. What Coates has done, like I’ve never seen before, is passionately and profoundly lay out the sad state of race relations in this country. The book reads like a PhD thesis as it patiently and methodically makes its points and then proves them.

The book is also infinitely quotable. I read a few passages aloud to my fiancee and her wide-eyed reaction was to simply mouth the word “wow”. Coates strings words together in a most elegant tapestry that forces the reader to think carefully and internalize the grim realities of life as a victim of racism in this country. Read so that ye may weep and know the truth.

The Monuments Men – Over-dramatized victim of Hollywood (3/5)

We went to this movie with high hopes because, well, what movie wouldn’t be awesome that has John Goodman and Bill Murray in it. I mean really. Unfortunately, Laura and I came away from this one rather disappointed.

The premise of this one can be summed up pretty simply. World War II is winding down; the Germans know they’re losing so they set out to destroy as much of the world’s great art as they can before they go. Only one thing stands in their way: motley bunch of aging artists. Dramatics ensue from there.

On the positive side, the film does a great job of portraying the importance of the period of history we’re talking about. A thousand years of human art and culture really is on the line. Other reviewers complain about the protagonist’s pontifications but this is the whole point of the film. The Nazi’s weren’t just out to destroy the Jews or rule the world. If they were going down they wanted to take as much of the world with them as they could no matter the price. This story is the ultimate example of “play by my rules or I’ll take my ball and go home.” So all those prolonged speeches aren’t in the way of the real action of this war movie, they are in fact its only reason for being.

To the negative, as a connected narrative this movie was just hacked to bits. It could have made a meticulous and moving 6-hour mini-series but cut down to movie size the whole thing is a disconnected mess. There are, at various points, three distinct story lines but the relationships between them are unclear then suddenly they’re all slammed together in a barely sensical manner. Further, the movie suffers from Hollywood over-drama just for the sake of drama. It’s almost as if they tried to make an action flick out of a story that wasn’t one.

In summary, sadly disappointed. Those looking for a movie about a war… won’t really get one. Those looking for a moving portrayal of an important historical event won’t get what they want either. The whole thing is at times sentimental but never really manages that either. It’s almost as if the movie tried to be 10 things at once and never really accomplished any of them with any deftness. Quite a shame, really.

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War Brothers: The Graphic Novel by Sharon E. McKay

War Brothers: The Graphic Novel by Sharon E. McKay

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

By now you know the spiel; I received this book through a GoodReads giveaway. Even though it was free I’m not above giving a crushing review to a free book. As further preamble, I don’t seek out to read graphic novels but I will look at anything put in front of me, so here we go.

As I said in the intro, I’m not a comic books sort of reader in general so right off that puts me at a bit of a disadvantage. I don’t have a whole lot to compare this to. In simple terms it was about a 45 minute read even with the distraction of pedaling an exercise bike the whole time. Being a comic book it’s very easy to read and very accessible. The illustrations were well done, dark and foreboding. That fits well since the topic was itself so dark and foreboding. So as graphic novels go, absolutely no complaints at a technical level.

The content, as you have no doubt surmised from the publisher’s description, surrounds the conscription of young men by Ugandan rebels. Written from the perspective of a young man who is a victim of this conscription, it does tend to tug at your heart strings. In the U.S. there’s not a lot of awareness that this sort of thing goes on so I applaud the book for introducing this hitherto untold story to domestic readers. It tells the story in a heart-felt way but left me as a reader rather wanting more information. The graphic novel genre only supports so much throughput so this isn’t an especially surprising eventuality.

To sum up, an interesting story told in far too brief a format. I wanted more data but what was presented was fairly intriguing. Not the most amazing thing I’ve ever read but certainly a 45 minutes well spent.

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The Almond Tree by Michelle Cohen Corasanti

The Almond Tree by Michelle Cohen Corasanti

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

As is the usual preamble, I received this book as part of a GoodReads giveaway like hundreds of other people. Never before have I seen a book promoted so profusely on GoodReads with a dozen giveaways of 100 books each. I’m relatively certain that anyone who wants a copy no doubt already has one.

To summarize the story, The Almond Tree is the story of one man’s life on the losing side of history. Our protagonist is a Palestinian in Israel who rises above his circumstances through education. As subject matter goes, this book hits the proverbial nail firmly and repeatedly on the head. The content is gripping, evocative and filled with local color and cultural references to things we just don’t have much awareness of in our American worldview. If even half the atrocities portrayed in this book are at all drawn from true events, then the world needs to really rethink its stance on this area of the world. I’m in no position to vouch for the veracity of any of the claims made in The Almond Tree but one tends to suspect that since the author is Jewish that there’s more than a grain of truth here.

Unfortunately, while the content is masterful, the writing is rather lackluster. The author skims over all the events portrayed with an inappropriate equanimity that is rather frustrating; this reader at least wishes more time was taken to provide more details. At 350 pages of large type the book covers a rather long and eventful life but fails at times to fully flesh out the situation. Editing too seems uneven as characters seem to appear and disappear without any real introduction or conclusion to their roles.

In summary, The Almond Tree is the seed of a great idea. I could imagine the novel doing much better at double its current size or even as a protracted series. The story is an important one that needs telling but with a bit more patience and care.

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Books for the first week-ish of November

The Art of War by Kelly Roman

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

As usual I received this graphic novel as a giveaway on GoodReads. As a Graphic Novel “The Art of War” is rather outside my general ken of reading. I don’t scoff too loudly at the genre but it’s not typically one that I seek out with great enthusiasm unless, of course, it happens to arrive free in the mail. Therefore I’ll be the first to admit that I may not be the most qualified person to trust on this topic.

Roman’s offering certainly doesn’t lack for gritty violence. His ample use of weaponized quantum singularities and bio-engineered insects does keep things interesting. The overall story line, while not especially complex, does tie together rather nicely and seems a wonderful example of the genre. As is typical when a book has few negative points, I don’t really have a ton to say about it. It’s a quick and entertaining read but at the same time not something I’d necessarily recommend to others. There’s no life-changing moment here, just a random bit of entertainment well executed both textually and visually.

Habits of the House by Fay Weldon

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I received this book as part of the GoodReads FirstReads program and it was one that I was fairly giddy to have won. As a fan of historical fiction generally and “Upstairs Downstairs” specifically I was more than ready to enjoy this one.

On the good side the book gives us a wonderfully open portrayal of the behavior of the landed class at the time. No secret is too dark, no behavior too perverse to be placed on display. We’re introduced to some of the notable personages of the time and the scene is littered with tidbits of historical amusement from the Boer Wars to steam powered autos. Weldon also treats us to a myriad of period vernacular that causes us Midwestern types to scramble for our dictionaries. If nothing else it’s worth reading just for the language. Organizationally the book’s short (almost tiny) chapters are each date-headed and titled helping the reader keep track of a sometimes tangled chronology. This is the sort of book you can take in small bites if you need to and come back without losing much of the thread of the narrative.

On the other side, there’s just not quite as much story as one would expect from a period piece. Readers who anticipate a Classical level of detail from this novel are bound to be disappointed. It is a novel very much boiled down to its nucleus, a traveling sideshow rather than a museum piece. Additionally, while our author uses some amusing bits of language they do at times seem forced and inconsistently timed. Her characters whip out a colorful phrase about every 20 pages and then revert to current standard English until it is once again time to find an appropriate period idiom to insert. As the current vernacular so aptly puts it, “go big or go home”; if your characters drawl along in Cockney rhyming slang in chapter 1 then they’d best do so for the duration lest purists like me complain about it in online reviews.

To summarize, Weldon’s novel is a cute period piece but it’s a period piece written for the masses. Bibliophiles who have come to this novel as a modern break from perusing Austen would be advised to understand that this is a novel written for an audience less accustomed to the complexities of Classical literature. Readers are also advised to take a page of notes on the dramatis personae as they are introduced. Personally I had some difficulty sorting out the rather homogeneous nomenclature of the various characters involved.

Bad Blood by John Sandford

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

As usual, I received this book from a GoodReads giveaway. It’s also worth noting that this novel belongs to a genre that is normally not among those I pick up for frequent perusal. Because of this I’m reviewing a bit outside my ken.

In a nutshell, Sandford’s novel is about as pulpy as it gets: gritty, action packed and completely unapologetic about it. Despite the fact that this is not a genre I tend to pick up, and I’m not likely even now to start, I did find myself dragged along quite against my will once having started. Sandford’s style is marvelous and it’s obvious that he’s been doing writing in this vein for quite some time. Easily the best I’ve read in the crime-action genre.

My only real complaint is that he does tend to go over the top. His dramatic conclusion reads more like a scene from a war movie than a police action. If this sort of thing regularly occurs then I’m rather surprised there are any cops left to keep the peace.

That aside, Sandford’s writing is solid and his topic engaging. For those who enjoy work in the CSI realm this is a grand example of the genre.

When I was Young I Flew the Sun as a Kite by Kayla Fioravanti

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Firstly, and as I very frequently note, I received this book via a GoodReads FirstReads giveaway. It’s also worth mentioning that I am not, as a general rule, a reader of poetry books. I have nothing against them but they’re not something I seek out with any regularity whatsoever. I also do not know the author and am providing my absolutely candid feedback on their offering below.

Since I am not one who wanders into the poetry genre very often I can only have one real criterion for judging it and that is, simply, its power to evoke the ineffable. Did the words as laid out by the poet bring to mind some feeling, or concept that wasn’t inherently present in the surface interpretation of the words? Or to put it more simply, did the poet make me feel something?

Fioravanti’s book earns three stars out of five in that regard (it should be noted that GoodReads rating system is irrationally biased towards the positive with three stars indicating not neutrality but a relatively positive result) as many of her poems did leave me with that vague “where did that come from?” sensation. In a few instances she pulled things into my consciousness rather unbidden that I wouldn’t have expected. This is the result of good poetry and should be applauded.

There are a couple of counts in which the author does tend to lose me but they’re not at all surprising and not her fault. She’s obviously a very devout and thankful Christian and since I’m not, I obviously have to give those bits a pass. I respect utterly her journey in that regard but I do not share that so she wanders a bit afield from my standpoint as a reader. Secondly, and even more obviously, she’s sharing her journey through life as a woman/wife/etc and so in some ways I’m not all that qualified (as a man) to relate very strongly to her point of view. Again, I respect it and honor it but can’t say “been there, done that”.

In summary, Fioravanti’s work is a collection of very respectable and well-honed poetry. I congratulate her on her work and think the world of it though since I am so far outside its intended demographic it does tend to fall a bit short of the hoped for 5-stars in my view. I am sure that the majority of other readers will not be so encumbered.