The figurative language of Kevin Wilson….

Reading time: Just over 1 minute

I like to share interesting pieces of figurative language I encounter in my reading. I write today about a series of similes from American writer Kevin Wilson….

I wasn’t sure I was going to enjoy a novel in which two of the main characters (both children) were able to spontaneously combust when they were upset, angry or worried. Seemed to nonsensical to me — a bit too close to sci-fi or fantasy for my taste.

But Kevin Wilson (pictured above) is a remarkably skillful writer and in Nothing To See Here, not only does he pull off the kooky plot — making it seem utterly normal and believable — he displays a fine eye and ear for figurative language as well. Here are my favourite examples:

  • She was married to an older man, a senator and she had a little boy whom she dressed in nautical suits and who looked like an expensive teddy bear that had turned human.
  • She held out her hand, her nails painted a faint pink, like the nose of a bunny rabbit.
  • When the sandwich was prepared, she placed it on a plate that looked like something you’d use at a wedding, like it would break if you breathed on it.
  • I walked as close to Madison as I could without it being a three-legged race, and we found Timothy lifted into the air by Senator Roberts.
  • We sat on the sofa, and it was like sitting on a cloud, the exact opposite of my ratty futon, which felt like getting stuck in a hole in in the floor, just trapped there for all eternity.
  • “Of course, sweetie,” Madison said, but before she could say anything else, there was Jasper Roberts, wearing linen suit, looking like a preacher about to say the Lord’s Prayer before the start of the Daytona 500.
  • His eyes were so large that they seemed to take up seventy-five percent of his face, like a collectible figurine in some old lady’s house.
  • She was rigid, and so was Roland but the fire was just rolling across them, yellow and red, like what you’d draw with a limited supply of crayons.
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