 Hello everybody! E here. Welcome back to another book review. Today, we are talking about yet another contender for my best book of 2018. So far, we got Araminta Hull's Our Kind of Cruelty, forgot the name there for a second, and Stephen King's The Outsider, and Carolina, Carolina, I always want to say Carolina. Why do I say Carolina? I don't know. Carolina Ketnes' Providence. So this one, number four, fourth book, and the runner for best book of the year, is by Maria Devana-Headley, and is called The Mirror Wife. This is a modern day retelling of the Beowulf poem, which she is also doing a translation for later in the year, next year, at some point in time, I didn't do my research. So, this book, I read Beowulf in school, I can't remember what translation it was, I'm a huge fan of the CGI movie, I think Robert Zemeck is somebody, I don't know who did it, let me know who did it down in the doobly-doo, again, I didn't do my research. But people who like the poem usually despise the film, which I understand, but it's a fun movie. I mean, it's just fun. So The Mirror Wife, a retelling of Beowulf, the writing in here is amazing. I only know probably three other authors that I read that come anywhere near the technical capabilities of this author. Headley does some fantastic stuff, and I'm going to go through and I'm going to read some sections for you. Only because I was just completely blown away, I'm trying to find it. The whole planet is paved in the dead, who are ignored so the living can dig their foundations. That's one thing. Next up, I'm going to go to 244. If you don't like foul language, this one might trigger you. So just go away for a minute, skip ahead, I don't know, whatever. You do you. But I love this for the truth and the poetic nature of it. How can love come from something as nothing as fucking? This is good, I mean this is just good. One more, and then we will get on with the review. I'm trying to make these videos longer. If you don't like the longer stuff, I mean, it's whatever. I like it. I definitely did the wrong, I noted the wrong thing. So it is not 129, let's try this one, 138, nope, that one isn't right either. It's on the next page. She is the one in pain. Her son is a soccer snack orange slice lost on the floor of a minivan down in the wheel well. Now these lines taken out of context obviously are not going to sound great, but in context those lines really stood out to me, especially the poetic one, the one about fucking. There's a passion and a verb here that you rarely see in retellings. First off, I don't like retellings. The only, honestly, I didn't even know it was a retelling of Beowulf until I got deeper into it because I initially wanted it for what? You know me. What did I want it for? The cover. The cover. Sexy as hell. I mean, let's be honest here. The cover's sexy. That's what I saw when I was scrolling through. And it's also published by FSG, and McDonald's books, I think at McD, no, probably not McDonald's. McD books and FSG, FSG stands like Farrier, Strauss and Garou or something like that. That's a fantastic publisher. They did Jock, Jake, Jack, Jims, they did The Grip of It, and they also did Araminta Hall's Our Kind of Cruelty. They have quickly become one of my favorite publishers, along with Atria. Those are my two favorite publishers right now. They are just cranking out the goodness. So did you pick up The Mirror Wife? Did you like it? Did you not? Did you understand the ending? I would love to talk to somebody about the ending. I would love to start a book discussion about the ending and how it stands alone from the poem, but also how the strength of it standing alone with and without the poem. So, well, that doesn't make any sense, but the strength of it standing alone and the strength of it standing beside the poem. What did you think? Please, if anybody's read this, I would love to talk to you about it. But until next time, I have been E, you have been U. This has been another book review. I'll talk to you guys later. Bye-bye!