Book Reviews (VI)

Book Review:
17 SYLLABLES: OF LOVE AND LIFE by Adriana Dascalu

Blurb
This short collection of haiku about love and life contains the most subjective haiku poems I’ve written until now. These are the expression of my feelings and thoughts, as perceived at the respective moment. Some are love declarations, some are life lessons understood after analyzing myself and others at different stages in life. I hope you enjoy reading these pieces of my soul and mind.

Biography
Adriana Dascalu is a Romanian poet published both in the U.S. and Romania. Besides reading classic poetry and all sorts of fiction she also has a deep fascination for mythology and folklore. She loves photography, travels and discovering cultural aspects of different civilizations.

You can find her around the web:

Blog: In Between: http://adrianadascalu.blogspot.com/
E-mail: dascalu.elena.adriana@gmail.com
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/adriana.dascalu.50
Twitter: https://twitter.com/DascaluAdriana


MY REVIEW

17 Syllables: Of Love and Life is a record of  Ms. Dascalu's feelings and emotions. The readers will meet here with forty pieces of Haiku on a variety of subjects, each and every one of them excellent in their way. It can't be denied that women artists have always had a special place in the emergence of art and contributed hugely to almost every literature. Women poets over the centuries have struggled for acceptance as artists. More and more in our present days they make their voices heard. The pure and at the same time fierce complexity of her stanzas shows that, on the subject of romantic love, longing and thoughts on life, women are as eloquent as men, if not more so.

The bitter and the sweet mingle as she writes about love, the transience of love and life and beauty.

A collection of stanzas of wonder, sorrow, longing and hope that speak directly to the heart.  My rating: Five stars. 

Reviews (XII)

Wednesday, May 15, 2013

Review Shadows of the Past - by Adriana Dascalu

The book is exactly what the blurb promises to be: a beautiful and touching paranormal love story that plays on the idea that love transcends time and soul mates will always search for each other.

First, I loved the premise of the book: the restless soul of a young nun from the XVth century leads Anne, its present day reincarnation, towards the place where the nun's body has been abandoned centuries ago without being aloud to find peace.

Secondly, I loved the shift between present and past, between Anne's and Genevive's stories and the way their stories are woven together. Carmen plays the visions/apparitions/dreams card and the fact that in spite of telling the story of two different female protags, she manages to create background for both Genevive and Anne.

Thirdly, I liked the descriptions the author used to put everything in place - I'm not usually a big fan of thorough descriptions, but this book is one of the few exceptions.

I'd say Carmen managed to write a beautiful, touching love story that transcends time, about overcoming adversity and one's learning, personal growth and transformation and a second love story about choices.

The end of the book is a happy one if just a little gloomy, which is understandable for such a tragic story (promising more, maybe? - I hope so).

I felt for Genevive's lack of luck, I loved Anne for her strenght and I loved the  book.