Book Review
of Sandcastle and Other Stories Hosted by Virtual Book Tours
Publisher - Convenient Integration
Release Date - May 8, 2012
Website - www.justinbog.com
Purchase Link - Amazon
Release Date - May 8, 2012
Website - www.justinbog.com
Purchase Link - Amazon
Book
Synopsis:
The ten literary, psychological, and suspense
tales collected in Sandcastle
and Other Stories are nothing short of an escape into
a roiling sea of emotion. You will meet an old man twisted by fate and a
lost love . . . a young girl playing on the ocean shore who becomes
entangled in the nets of a mercurial god . . . a divorced man
mired in his troubles who is pressured into taking a singles cruise . . .
a Hollywood actor in a night time television drama who is always typecast
as the bad boy . . . a family on the edge trying to live with a troubled
daughter who they believed they'd never have to coexist with again . . . a
young adult bruised and torn by a secret past who watches the world around
her teetering on the brink of chaos . . . a new mother of twins who finds
it difficult to say no to the pushy, energetic President of the local
Mothers of Twins Club . . . a child kept awake by night terrors, and a
woman who hides her secretive personality from everyone on the beach one
sunny day. Upon reading, you will meet several more people who view life
as a constant struggle, and others who resist this mindset, some with
grace, some with humor, and others with acts of hubris. The genuine voices
of the characters, mixed with a clear-eyed tonal simplicity, make this a
series with mesmerizing psychological interplay. All of the stories span a
broad depth of human understanding and build a bridge between the deepest
chasms of pain and the highest portals of joy. Read Sandcastles and Other Stories and
you will stand witness to unspeakable hate sitting with cozy wile right
beside unconditional love -- a true fictional study of the human
condition.
Visit Jean's website at:
Visit Jean's website at:
Link to Tour on Main Site - http://www.virtualbooktourcafe.com/3/post/2012/05/sandcastles-and-other-stories-by-justin-bog.html
Excerpt :
From Sandcastle
From a beach towel space
away, Brenda took the scene in. The beach was crowded, but the background noise
didn’t bother her at all; Brenda believed she could hide in a crowd, and
wondered why being alone was something she deserved. She found herself enjoying
the discomfort in the mother and daughter’s close conversation; she almost
laughed out loud when Jane’s mouth opened like an outstretched bow. The kid
deserves what she gets, Brenda thought. She tilted her head away to make it
look like she wasn’t paying attention, but only just slightly. She saw
everything.
“But
. . . I want my balloon.”
Brenda,
her pistachio-colored beach chair squeaking when she moved slightly,
noticed
a string of saliva dribble from Jane’s mouth and down her chin. Jane’s mother
pushed her octagon-shaped sunglasses into the hair above her forehead and
stared, her eyes somehow cold and reflecting nothing, at her daughter. “What
did I just say to you, Jane? Forget the goddamn balloon. I told you I didn’t
want to buy it for you . . . you’re blocking my sun. If you don’t leave me
alone and go play, you’ll find yourself at home right now. Be a big little girl
for Mommy. If you can do this, I promise I’ll give you another swimming lesson
later. Your dog paddle is coming along fine. Go play.”
Brenda
tried to smile, but couldn’t, as she thought about her life and what it
would’ve
been like if her baby had lived, would this new presence in her family be
capable
of healing a prickling rift under her heels, make her husband’s boots stop
flailing about – always making contact by accident, didn’t mean to do that, you
know me, you know me, you know me. Her life could be broken down into a twisted
children’s rhyme.
Right,
Brenda, first comes love, then comes marriage; then comes miscarriage, and her
goals and planning stopped there. She hated the simple way her life unfolded
and the way it seemed so goddamn planned. Ever since she was little she’d been
under someone else’s control. When she was twenty, almost two years away from
graduation at the community college, she met Jake and they moved in together.
Brenda’s parents never trusted Jake; they could tell the first second they
spotted him hoisting himself off his motorcycle, then slicking back his
sun-bleached hair and finally tugging at the devil-pointed goatee that he was
just putting on a big show (her father’s words). They wouldn’t speak to her for
months until her twenty-first birthday when they relented and finally knew Jake
would, for better or worse, be a part of their daughter’s future. They stopped
asking Brenda if she was going to finish college. All they could do was warn
her when Jake wasn’t around, try to undermine what was happening all along. “Is
he hitting you again, Brenda?” her mother would whisper to her when Jake and Father
were in the living room watching the Sunday football extravaganza, neither of
them speaking to the other, just grunting from their Lazyboys, the kind with
the built-in beer holders on the arms. All her parents could do was watch and
say “I told you so” later, which they did all the time.
How
could Brenda reply? Her control had shifted territory, from one of family
questionings
and buttonholes, to the scary realm of Jekyll and Hyde. It was one thing she
wanted to handle alone, without her parents’ interference. Jake was the
sweetest man she had ever met, at first, before the wedding, and wouldn’t even
lay a finger on her neck to caress her. It started after the wedding when he
slapped her on the butt too hard, a prelude to lovemaking he said, and when she
complained, he hit her harder. Of course, he always tried to make it up to her
afterwards. He took her to movies she wanted to see, to the roadhouses for
drinks, and took her shopping, but never at the good stores, just the second
hand malls where he worked in rotation as a night security guard.
Another
thing Brenda hated was the way she often caught her mother scrutinizing
her.
Her mother’s chin wrinkled up, and her eyes opened just almost all the way and
sly, as if her mother had foreseen Brenda’s downfall, as if she was used goods
now and any other man could smell Jake’s lousy scent all over her and she would
never hear the sound of grandchildren. She said to Brenda, with her patented
matter-of-fact tightness, “A lot of women have miscarriages. And a lot of
women, today anyway, fail at meeting the right man.” What her mother didn’t
have to say was “How dare you do this to our family;” the tone of her voice was
enough. At times, Brenda liked to picture her parents, naked, with witch paint
splashed across their bodies, dancing around an effigy of Brenda. In her
daydream, she would force the effigy to come to life and make it bash her
parents’ heads together to let them know they were not always right.
Their
spoken predictions of failure had started when she brought her fiancé home for
the first time, when Brenda was helping her mother cut salad cucumbers and rip
iceberg lettuce, when her mother, in a voice of thinly veiled anger, asked her
how long she’d known Jake and asked her if she was really serious about ruining
her life with a man like that. Now, her mother gives her books on how to choose
your mate and her father still curses her former husband at the dinner table,
even though it’s been two years since the divorce. He looks at Brenda and
chuckles, wisely, and says he told her not to marry the bastard.
Brenda
watched as Jane ran into the water and yelled something to a boy named
Danny
Richards. She didn’t know whether Jane’s mother would’ve actually taken the
girl home, but it did seem as if Jane didn’t want to stick around and find out.
I wouldn’t even bring the whiny girl, Brenda thought, which made her remember
her own lost child, the image of a dashed possibility always close to the
surface, and Brenda frowned even more because she knew she was a liar. There
was a time in her marriage when she fervently believed this surprise baby
could’ve saved her, and that her husband could’ve changed if he only held a
tiny baby in his arms, focus on something good and pure for once — she knew
this was a ridiculous thought. If her baby had lived she would’ve taken her
everywhere and she’d never send her away with an imperious flick of the wrist.
The
mother readjusted her sunglasses on her nose and then lowered her bikini top an
inch, giving anyone trudging by in the sand a tantalizing view. Brenda envied
the woman’s body. It was what her magazines called sumptuous and glandularly
flawless.
Author
Information:
Justin Bog:
“Growing up in the 70s, Stephen King was about to
publish his first novel and John Updike had only published the first of his
Rabbit books. Along with so many cinema buffs, I witnessed the huge change in
the way movies were distributed — from artistic, Director-driven films backed
by huge studios to the dawn of the Blockbuster and popcorn summer films, like
Jaws, Rocky, and Star Wars. I was drawn to the music of these decades as well,”
says Bog.
So it comes as no surprise that Justin pursued an English Degree at the University of Michigan, followed by Film and Music Appreciation classes -- finally graduating from Bowling Green State University with an MFA in Fiction Writing. After teaching creative writing, Justin began apprenticing in a number of bookstores and editing fiction for a midwestern journal. Justin ended up on the management team at Chapter One Bookstore in the Sun Valley resort area for a decade, offering book recommendations to its local celebrities, skiing fanatics, and tourists. Currently residing in the San Juan Islands just north of Seattle, Justin has the opportunity to focus on his own novels and short stories, while contributing commentary and reviews of Pop Culture. Justin continues to engage his lifelong passion for writing in combination with his curious mindset as the Senior Contributor and Editor at In Classic Style.
Book Review
These stories are not for the casual
reader. The stories are convoluted,
confusing, and often upsetting.
Initially I had thought that a collection of short stories would make
for an easy before bed read, when you want to read something but not anything
too long. However these stories are not
relaxing or entertaining. They seem to
be written in a laissez-faire style, but that is misleading. The stories are purposefully pushing the
envelope of acceptable and seem designed to cause conflict mentally and
emotionally.
The stories are well written
technically, but I had a hard time enjoying them as they brought much conflict
and emotional turmoil. When I read
stories, I do so for the enjoyment that they bring not to test my internal or
external code of ethics and personal boundaries. I did that in school. While I may occasionally choose a book that I
know will challenge me mentally, emotionally, or spiritually, I found these
stories to border on irritating.
As I stated the stories are well
written technically and if you are looking for a read that will test your
mental fortitude, emotional balance, and spiritual boundaries then this is the
book for you. However, it was not for
me. I give this book 2.5 clouds due to
the excellence in writing despite my lack of enjoyment of the subject matter.
This
product or book may have been distributed for review; this in no way affects my
opinions or reviews.
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