Review of Golphino

[Chiwelite Obioma Mgbeoji]

[Following is an official OnlineBookClub.org review of "Golphino" by Michelle Blower.]

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5 out of 5 stars

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Golphino by Michelle Blower is the story of a woman who felt lost, felt empty, and just wanted to go out of existence. This book portrays a lot of things. It portrays what people are like, and it also describes what the world looks like. It also describes real feelings and desires like misery, intentions, love, heartbreak, and so on.

The book starts with the poet describing what freedom looks like. She explains what society looks like and how it is filled with people who are thirsty for money. She talks about Jorge, Chris, Pablo, Stephan, Harry, and Andre; they were all her Golphino family. She went on to describe her experiences with men. First, it was Rob who always maltreated her and made her feel little of herself. Then it was Carlos who didn’t even care about her and then later abandoned her. Next, it was Pablo. She believed Pablo was the right one. They both stayed at the Golphino hotel. Everything was going well between them until Pablo revealed a big black secret. This secret was also the reason why his ex-girlfriend died.

The first thing I fell in love with in this book was the title. The title was foreign to me; I had never heard anything like it before. I searched online for the meaning, and I couldn’t find anything. I searched the dictionary, but still nothing. I decided to just read the book to see if I would find the meaning in any of the pages. Learning about the meaning of the title changed the way I perceived the book. Golphino wasn’t just any hotel. Yes, it was an abandoned place, but it was filled with a lot of memories of a family who were all “fugitives.” The poet recounted a story using poetry and its elements which I found to be very interesting. I loved the way she went about it. She employed several poetical styles in it, making it beautiful. I loved the way she introduced the characters in her story; she introduced them one after the other. This way, I got to learn most things about them. I love the poet's descriptive skill. It was really amazing how she applied it in this book. It was just like she used words to form pictures for her readers. I don’t know how Michelle did it, but her words showed her real feelings. This allowed me to know what she felt at each point in time throughout the story.

I didn’t like the fact that this story wasn’t separated by chapters or even subheadings, but it was separated by paragraphs or perhaps what should be called stanzas. I know a work of poetry should be done in stanzas, but since this book is like a short story, I would have liked it if the author had separated her work instead of joining it together. I also didn’t understand why Stephan and Jorge acted the way they did toward the end of the book. Apart from these, there was nothing else I disliked about the book. The language used was simple to understand. There were hardly any complex terms in it.

I only found a single error in this book; it’s safe to say that it was professionally edited. Therefore, I rate this book five out of five stars. I didn’t deduct any stars despite the negative aspects I pointed out above because the book was beautiful and engaging. The negative aspects didn’t interfere with my overall satisfaction with the book. I would recommend this book to lovers of poetry and short stories. People who are feeling depressed and also those who feel out of place in this world should also read it.

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Golphino
View: on Bookshelves

[Nicholas Bush]

I love your review for this book and must admit that I love how well detailed it is too. Would be nice to read this book someday adding it to my bookshelf ASAP. Nice review.