People ask me all the time — what kind of stories do you want to tell, Viola? And I say exhume those bodies. Exhume those stories — the stories of the people who dreamed big and never saw those dreams to fruition, people who fell in love and lost.
Viola Davis
Release Date: August 26th, 2021
Label: Capitol Records; ℗ 2021 UMG Recordings, Inc.
She was sweet like honey / And all I can taste is the blood in my mouth / And the bitterness in goodbye
honey by Halsey
Mother. Warrior. Killer. Queen.
Just when I think Halsey is finished surprising me, she releases an album like If I Can’t Have Love, I Want Power. Produced by Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross of Nine Inch Nails fame, Halsey’s senior effort showcases the work of an artist who has come fully into their own. If I Can’t Have Love, I Want Power is lush, cinematic, and crackling with electricity. Its shifting tonality is also quite pleasing, going from the heavy industrial sounds crafted by Reznor and Ross on songs like “Bells in Santa Fe” to the tender guitar-driven lyricism of songs like “Darling”—like chasing salty fries with greedy gulps of ice-cold Coca-Cola.
If I Can’t Have Love, I Want Power is lush, cinematic, and crackling with electricity.
I am not a woman, I’m a god / I am not a martyr, I’m a problem / I am not a legend, I’m a fraud
I am not a woman, I’m a god by Halsey
All in all, H4 is a powerhouse of a record, shattering expectations and assumptions while asserting a confidence borne of both pain and pleasure. Honestly, I’m kicking myself for not preordering the limited edition vinyl. If you know where I can get one, email me. 😭😭😭
“You asked for this”, “honey”, and “I am not a woman, I’m a god”.
If I Can’t Have Love, I Want Power is available to order or purchase wherever music is sold.
Thanks as always for being a faithful reader of The Voracious Bibliophile. If you like what you see, please like, comment, follow, and subscribe to my email list to get notified of new posts as soon as they drop. You can also email me at fred.slusher@thevoraciousbibliophile.com or catch me on Twitter and Instagram @voraciousbiblog. Keep reading the world, one page (or pixel) at a time.
Forest of pixel
-ated ash, doom me with your
fire prophecy
Thanks as always for being a faithful reader of The Voracious Bibliophile. If you like what you see, please like, comment, follow, and subscribe to my email list to get notified of new posts as soon as they drop. You can also email me at fred.slusher@thevoraciousbibliophile.com or catch me on Twitter and Instagram @voraciousbiblog. Keep reading the world, one page (or pixel) at a time.
© 2021 Fred Slusher. All rights reserved.
This place could be beautiful, right? You could make this place beautiful.
Life is short, though I keep this from my children.
Life is short, and I’ve shortened mine
in a thousand delicious, ill-advised ways,
a thousand deliciously ill-advised ways
I’ll keep from my children. The world is at least
fifty percent terrible, and that’s a conservative
estimate, though I keep this from my children.
For every bird there is a stone thrown at a bird.
For every loved child, a child broken, bagged,
sunk in a lake. Life is short and the world
is at least half terrible, and for every kind
stranger, there is one who would break you,
though I keep this from my children. I am trying
to sell them the world. Any decent realtor,
walking you through a real shithole, chirps on
about good bones: This place could be beautiful,
right? You could make this place beautiful.
When I let go of what I am, I become what I might be.
Lao Tzu
Sweat and tears taste the
same if you know what to do
with another tongue
Thanks as always for being a faithful reader of The Voracious Bibliophile. If you like what you see, please like, comment, follow, and subscribe to my email list to get notified of new posts as soon as they drop. You can also email me at fred.slusher@thevoraciousbibliophile.com or catch me on Twitter and Instagram @voraciousbiblog. Keep reading the world, one page (or pixel) at a time.
© 2021 Fred Slusher. All rights reserved.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body love what it loves.
You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
For a hundred miles through the desert repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.
Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile, the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting—
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.
People become attached to their burdens sometimes more than the burdens are attached to them.
George Bernard Shaw
New man on the block
Wet with pride and pride and prejudice
Never young for long
Thanks as always for being a faithful reader of The Voracious Bibliophile. If you like what you see, please like, comment, follow, and subscribe to my email list to get notified of new posts as soon as they drop. You can also email me at fred.slusher@thevoraciousbibliophile.com or catch me on Twitter and Instagram @voraciousbiblog. Keep reading the world, one page (or pixel) at a time.
© 2021 Fred Slusher. All rights reserved.
***Note: This review was originally posted to my Goodreads account in October of 2019.***
Everyone has a lie we’re quietly waiting to believe.
With startling economy of language, Saeed Jones tells his story with such precision that after turning the last page you feel as if you’ve been borrowing his skin.
If you read one book this year, let this be it. Please.
Thanks as always for being a faithful reader of The Voracious Bibliophile. If you like what you see, please like, comment, follow, and subscribe to my email list to get notified of new posts as soon as they drop. You can also email me at fred.slusher@thevoraciousbibliophile.com or catch me on Twitter and Instagram @voraciousbiblog. Keep reading the world, one page (or pixel) at a time.
The Voracious Bibliophile 