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Book: "Monologues"

Author.

Genre: short stories

Rating (1 to 6): 5

She was born in the not-so-distant 1969. She works as a respected journalist in more than one media outlet, as well as freelance, and last year we almost elected her as Bulgaria's Vice President. She is Maria Kasimova-Moase, and I again admit what a mistake it is of mine not to read something just because it is popular. 'Notes from Chateau Lacrotte' became a hit and I, of course, refused to reach for it. So this December I read "Monologues" by the lady in question and immediately became a fan.

In her seemingly light selection of monologues, which she wrote for a school play, Maria raises the eternal themes for reflection - the generation gap, parental mistakes, the emotions a child goes through and the "little" childhood situations that stay with us forever.

Just before it, I read (and put down) "Made of Guilt" by Joanna Elmi and the theme of the fragile but primal parent-child relationship was on my mind when I read the book "Monologues" and maybe that's why it felt so real, so simple, in the sense of clear and direct. I felt it at the same time as a child and as a parent, I laughed out loud with some of the stories, and I cried with 1-2. They are real, supposedly from a child's modern life, but somehow timeless, timeless. One tells of a boy's first love in elementary school, another of a dad's new family, a third of first love from a girl's perspective in school, and a fourth of the loss of a family member.