Emma's bookshelf: all en-US Sat, 05 Apr 2025 19:47:33 -0700 60 Emma's bookshelf: all 144 41 /images/layout/goodreads_logo_144.jpg Make Me Rain: Poems & Prose 50622419 One of America’s most celebrated poets challenges us with this powerful and deeply personal collection of verse that speaks to the injustices of society while illuminating the depths of her own heart.

For more than thirty years, Nikki Giovanni’s poetry has inspired, enlightened, and dazzled readers. As sharp and outspoken as ever, this artist long hailed as a healer and a sage returns with this profound book of poetry in which she continues to call attention to injustice and give readers an unfiltered look into the most private parts of herself.

In Make Me Rain, she celebrates her loved ones and unapologetically declares her pride in her black heritage, while exploring the enduring impact of the twin sins of racism and white nationalism. Giovanni reaffirms her place as a uniquely vibrant and relevant American voice with poems such as “I Come from Athletesâ€� and “Rainy Days”—calling out segregation and Donald Trump; as well as “Unloved (for Aunt Cleota)â€� and “”When I Could No Longer”—her personal elegy for the relatives who saved her from an abusive home life.Ěý

Stirring, provocative, and resonant, the poems in Make Me Rain pierce the heart and nourish the soul.Ěý]]> 124 Nikki Giovanni 0062995286 Emma 3
Giovanni’s messages are not my issue. She writes about love, liberation, her frustration with the world, and the people who mean the most to her, all classic poetic themes. But her style comes across as her writing a few sentences in broad, unspecific language and hitting “enter� in random places to create lines. The first few poems in the book made me go “hmm, okay� and then turn a page, and once I realized I’d been doing that for nearly every poem in the book, I started to wonder what other people were seeing that I wasn’t.

Of course, they could be responding to her history of activism. Giovanni’s work in both the social justice and art spaces, and the intersection of both, was nothing short of groundbreaking, as a quick look at her Wikipedia page will tell you. She deserves every bit of credit for that. But either her other collections are written differently from this (which may be true, as this is one of her later works), or her poetry simply is not for me. ]]> 4.21 2020 Make Me Rain: Poems & Prose
author: Nikki Giovanni
name: Emma
average rating: 4.21
book published: 2020
rating: 3
read at: 2025/03/28
date added: 2025/04/05
shelves:
review:
2.5 stars. I was given this book at an event, and many of my friends praised Nikki Giovanni so much that I thought it was time I read her work, especially after her passing a few months ago. So I read this, and ... did my friends and I read the same Nikki Giovanni? Because I did not love this collection.

Giovanni’s messages are not my issue. She writes about love, liberation, her frustration with the world, and the people who mean the most to her, all classic poetic themes. But her style comes across as her writing a few sentences in broad, unspecific language and hitting “enter� in random places to create lines. The first few poems in the book made me go “hmm, okay� and then turn a page, and once I realized I’d been doing that for nearly every poem in the book, I started to wonder what other people were seeing that I wasn’t.

Of course, they could be responding to her history of activism. Giovanni’s work in both the social justice and art spaces, and the intersection of both, was nothing short of groundbreaking, as a quick look at her Wikipedia page will tell you. She deserves every bit of credit for that. But either her other collections are written differently from this (which may be true, as this is one of her later works), or her poetry simply is not for me.
]]> The Incandescent 216488999 A Deadly Education meets Rivers of London in this captivating contemporary fantasy from Sunday Times bestselling author Emily Tesh, winner of the Hugo and World Fantasy Awards.

Dr. Walden is the Director of Magic at Chetwood Academy and one of the most powerful magicians in England. Her days consist of meetings, teaching A-Level Invocation to four talented, chaotic sixth formers, more meetings and securing the school’s boundaries from demonic incursions.

Walden is good at her job � no, Walden is great at her job. But demons are masters of manipulation. It’s her responsibility to keep her school with its six hundred students and centuries-old legacy safe. But it’s possible the entity Walden most needs to keep her school safe from, is herself . . .]]> 368 Emily Tesh 0356525643 Emma 0 to-read 4.28 2025 The Incandescent
author: Emily Tesh
name: Emma
average rating: 4.28
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/05
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> The Book of Love 157981682 The Book of Love showcases Kelly Link at the height of her powers, channeling potent magic and attuned to all varieties of love—from friendship to romance to abiding family ties—with her trademark compassion, wit, and literary derring-do. Readers will find joy (and a little terror) and an affirmation that love goes on, even when we cannot.

Late one night, Laura, Daniel, and Mo find themselves beneath the fluorescent lights of a high school classroom, almost a year after disappearing from their hometown, the small seaside community of Lovesend, Massachusetts, having long been presumed dead. Which, in fact, they are.

With them in the room is their previously unremarkable high school music teacher, who seems to know something about their disappearance—and what has brought them back again. Desperate to reclaim their lives, the three agree to the terms of the bargain their music teacher proposes. They will be given a series of magical tasks; while they undertake them, they may return to their families and friends, but they can tell no one where they’ve been. In the end, there will be winners and there will be losers.

But their resurrection has attracted the notice of other supernatural figures, all with their own agendas. As Laura, Daniel, and Mo grapple with the pieces of the lives they left behind, and Laura’s sister, Susannah, attempts to reconcile what she remembers with what she fears, these mysterious others begin to arrive, engulfing their community in danger and chaos, and it becomes imperative that the teens solve the mystery of their deaths to avert a looming disaster.]]> 628 Kelly Link 0812996585 Emma 0 currently-reading 3.45 2024 The Book of Love
author: Kelly Link
name: Emma
average rating: 3.45
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/05
shelves: currently-reading
review:

]]> <![CDATA[On the Calculation of Volume I]]> 208511270
Balle is hypnotic and masterful in her remixing of the endless recursive day, creating curious little folds of time and foreshadowings: her flashbacks light up inside the text like old flash bulbs.

The first volume’s gravitational pull―a force inverse to its constriction―has the effect of a strong tranquilizer, but a drug under which your powers of observation only grow sharper and more acute. Give in to the book's logic (its minute movements, its thrilling shifts, its slant wit, its slowing of time) and its spell is utterly intoxicating.

Solvej Balle’s seven-volume novel wrings enthralling and magical new dimensions from time and its hapless, mortal subjects. As one Danish reviewer beautifully put it, Balle’s fiction consists of writing that listens. “Reading her is like being caressed by language itself.”]]> 160 Solvej Balle 0811237257 Emma 0 dnf 3.91 2020 On the Calculation of Volume I
author: Solvej Balle
name: Emma
average rating: 3.91
book published: 2020
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/05
shelves: dnf
review:

]]> Good Girl 195644142
A girl can get in almost anywhere, even if she can’t get out.

In Berlin’s artistic underground, where techno and drugs fill warehouses still pockmarked from the wars of the twentieth century, nineteen-year-old Nila at last finds her tribe. Born in Germany to Afghan parents, raised in public housing graffitied with swastikas, drawn to philosophy, photography, and sex, Nila has spent her adolescence disappointing her family while searching for her voice as a young woman and artist.

Then in the haze of Berlin’s legendary nightlife, Nila meets Marlowe, an American writer whose fading literary celebrity opens her eyes to a life of personal and artistic freedom. But as Nila finds herself pulled further into Marlowe’s controlling orbit, ugly, barely submerged racial tensions begin to roil Germany—and Nila’s family and community. After a year of running from her future, Nila stops to ask herself the most important question: Who does she want to be?

A story of love and family, raves and Kafka, staying up all night and surviving the mistakes of youth, Good Girl is the virtuosic debut novel by a celebrated young poet and, now, a major new voice in fiction.]]> 368 Aria Aber Emma 0 currently-reading 3.74 2025 Good Girl
author: Aria Aber
name: Emma
average rating: 3.74
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/04
shelves: currently-reading
review:

]]> <![CDATA[There's Always This Year: On Basketball and Ascension]]> 181346634
There’s Always This Year is a triumph, brimming with joy, pain, solidarity, comfort, outrage, and hope. No matter the subject of his keen focus—whether it's basketball, or music, or performance—Hanif Abdurraqib’s exquisite writing is always poetry, always profound, and always a clarion call to radically reimagine how we think about our culture, our country, and ourselves.]]> 334 Hanif Abdurraqib 0593448790 Emma 0 dnf 4.33 2024 There's Always This Year: On Basketball and Ascension
author: Hanif Abdurraqib
name: Emma
average rating: 4.33
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/04
shelves: dnf
review:

]]> A Sorceress Comes to Call 195790847 A dark retelling of the Brothers Grimm's Goose Girl, rife with secrets, murder, and forbidden magic

Cordelia knows her mother is unusual. Their house doesn’t have any doors between rooms, and her mother doesn't allow Cordelia to have a single friend—unless you count Falada, her mother's beautiful white horse. The only time Cordelia feels truly free is on her daily rides with him. But more than simple eccentricity sets her mother apart. Other mothers don’t force their daughters to be silent and motionless for hours, sometimes days, on end. Other mothers aren’t sorcerers.

After a suspicious death in their small town, Cordelia’s mother insists they leave in the middle of the night, riding away on Falada’s sturdy back, leaving behind all Cordelia has ever known. They arrive at the remote country manor of a wealthy older man, the Squire, and his unwed sister, Hester. Cordelia’s mother intends to lure the Squire into marriage, and Cordelia knows this can only be bad news for the bumbling gentleman and his kind, intelligent sister.

Hester sees the way Cordelia shrinks away from her mother, how the young girl sits eerily still at dinner every night. Hester knows that to save her brother from bewitchment and to rescue the terrified Cordelia, she will have to face down a wicked witch of the worst kind.]]> 327 T. Kingfisher 1250244072 Emma 4 4.07 2024 A Sorceress Comes to Call
author: T. Kingfisher
name: Emma
average rating: 4.07
book published: 2024
rating: 4
read at: 2025/03/22
date added: 2025/04/01
shelves:
review:
3.5 stars. T. Kingfisher has enormous skill in imbuing a fairy-tale setting with subtle creepiness (this is a retelling of The Goose Girl, a creepy-ass fairy tale anyway), and the sorceress who comes to call here is no exception. But she bolsters it with enough kindness and hope that you don't feel completely depressed. The sorceress's daughter is a convincing portrayal of an abused kid learning to trust other people, and the adults who rally around her are just what she needs. There's one character whose role doesn't quite make sense and whose arc is resolved a bit oddly. But I inhaled this on a plane last week and was glad to be able to spend the time on it!
]]> Dream Count 219521090 A publishing event ten years in the making�a searing, exquisite new novel by the best-selling and award-winning author of Americanah and We Should All Be Feminists�the story of four women and their loves, longings, and desires.

Chiamaka is a Nigerian travel writer living in America. Alone in the midst of the pandemic, she recalls her past lovers and grapples with her choices and regrets. Zikora, her best friend, is a lawyer who has been successful at everything until � betrayed and brokenhearted � she must turn to the person she thought she needed least. Omelogor, Chiamaka’s bold, outspoken cousin, is a financial powerhouse in Nigeria who begins to question how well she knows herself. And Kadiatou, Chiamaka’s housekeeper, is proudly raising her daughter in America � but faces an unthinkable hardship that threatens all she has worked to achieve.

In Dream Count, Adichie trains her fierce eye on these women in a sparkling, transcendent novel that takes up the very nature of love itself. Is true happiness ever attainable or is it just a fleeting state? And how honest must we be with ourselves in order to love, and to be loved? A trenchant reflection on the choices we make and those made for us, on daughters and mothers, on our interconnected world, Dream Count pulses with emotional urgency and poignant, unflinching observations on the human heart, in language that soars with beauty and power. It confirms Adichie’s status as one of the most exciting and dynamic writers on the literary landscape.]]> 416 Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie 059380273X Emma 3 Americanah was not. I still enjoyed the book, but I was hoping for more growth from Adichie after these past few years. ]]> 3.99 2025 Dream Count
author: Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
name: Emma
average rating: 3.99
book published: 2025
rating: 3
read at: 2025/03/21
date added: 2025/04/01
shelves:
review:
3.5 stars. After almost a decade, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie is back. Her writing is still its articulate, wry self, and she brings great pathos to the stories of four African women living in the US. However, her commentary is often pointed at "those damn liberals who don't understand nuance" in a way that felt cringeworthy given her insensitive and misguided comments about trans women a few years back. Sure, there are fake-woke individuals who are as self-absorbed as Adichie describes (though not as many as are said to exist), and they do tend to be concentrated at universities, but there's a self-righteousness to Adichie's characters' rejoinders here that make me think this is her, pointing a finger at her critics. It's grating in a way that Americanah was not. I still enjoyed the book, but I was hoping for more growth from Adichie after these past few years.
]]> Reservoir Bitches 210678433
Life’s a bitch. That’s why you gotta rattle her cage, even if she’s foaming at the mouth.

In the linked stories of Reservoir Bitches, thirteen Mexican women prod the bitch that is Life as they fight, sew, skirt, cheat, cry, and lie their way through their tangled circumstances. From the all-powerful daughter of a cartel boss to the victim of transfemicide, from a houseful of spinster seamstresses to a socialite who supports her politician husband by faking Indigenous roots, these women spit on their own reduction and invent new ways to survive, telling their stories in bold, unapologetic voices. At once social critique and black comedy, Reservoir Bitches is a raucous debut from one of Mexico’s most thrilling new writers.]]> 160 Dahlia de la Cerda 1761385992 Emma 0 4.13 2019 Reservoir Bitches
author: Dahlia de la Cerda
name: Emma
average rating: 4.13
book published: 2019
rating: 0
read at: 2025/03/30
date added: 2025/03/30
shelves:
review:

]]> The Post-Office Girl 2376087 257 Stefan Zweig 1590172620 Emma 0 4.13 1982 The Post-Office Girl
author: Stefan Zweig
name: Emma
average rating: 4.13
book published: 1982
rating: 0
read at: 2025/03/28
date added: 2025/03/28
shelves:
review:

]]> All Fours 197798168
A semifamous artist announces her plan to drive cross-country, from LA to New York. Twenty minutes after leaving her husband and child at home, she spontaneously exits the freeway, beds down in a nondescript motel, and immerses herself in a temporary reinvention that turns out to be the start of an entirely different journey.

Miranda July’s second novel confirms the brilliance of her unique approach to fiction. With July’s wry voice, perfect comic timing, unabashed curiosity about human intimacy, and palpable delight in pushing boundaries, All Fours tells the story of one woman’s quest for a new kind of freedom. Part absurd entertainment, part tender reinvention of the sexual, romantic, and domestic life of a forty-five-year-old female artist, All Fours transcends expectation while excavating our beliefs about life lived as a woman. Once again, July hijacks the familiar and turns it into something new and thrillingly, profoundly alive.]]> 336 Miranda July 0593190262 Emma 0 currently-reading 3.54 2024 All Fours
author: Miranda July
name: Emma
average rating: 3.54
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/21
shelves: currently-reading
review:

]]> The Bright Sword 201750794
They aren’t the heroes of legend, like Lancelot or Gawain. They’re the oddballs of the Round Tables, from the edges of the stories, like Sir Palomides, the Saracen Knight and Sir Dagonet, Arthur’s fool, who was knighted as a joke. They’re joined by Nimue, who was Merlin’s apprentice until she turned on him and buried him under a hill. Together this ragtag fellowship will set out to rebuild Camelot in a world that has lost its balance.

But Arthur’s death has revealed Britain’s fault lines. God has abandoned it, and the fairies and monsters and old gods are returning, led by Arthur’s half-sister Morgan le Fay. Kingdoms are turning on each other, warlords are laying siege to Camelot, and rival factions are forming around the disgraced Lancelot and the fallen Queen Guinevere. It is up to Collum and his companions to reclaim Excalibur, solve the mysteries of this ruined world and make it whole again. But before they can restore Camelot they’ll have to learn the truth of why the lonely, brilliant King Arthur fell and lay to rest the ghosts of his troubled family and of Britain’s dark past.]]> 673 Lev Grossman 0735224048 Emma 4 The Bright Sword was praised so highly to me that I almost refused to believe it. The best King Arthur work since The Once and Future King, i.e. the highest possible bar in my book? Inconceivable. But, like Vizzini, I must not have known what that word means, because Bright Sword far exceeded my expectations.

One of the things this book does best is strike a balance between doing a new thing and doing an old thing in a new way. We get a story set during the aftermath of Arthur's defeat and focusing on a new character named Collum, but we also get plenty of flashbacks to Arthur's reign, and neither storyline would be as strong without the other. Grossman considers the historical context of the tales, delving into the tension between Roman and Briton influences, but doesn't get so wrapped up in this as to ruin the magic (at the end of the book, he acknowledges a few anachronisms but says he couldn't resist; King Arthur was never about strict historical accuracy, anyway). Most of the characters do come from Arthurian legend, and Grossman definitely did his homework, but he also provides a little extra texture and backstory.

This is what really makes Bright Sword such a successful King Arthur retelling: it knows what it's talking about, and it knows why the source material is so great. Though it gives us the aesthetic of mystery and fantasy that make these stories so escapist and exciting (in this respect it might be more fun to read than my beloved Once and Future King, loath as I am to admit it), it also knows that these are the stories of men who fought snakes and wizards and knights with ease but struggled most of all to conquer themselves.

I can't quite justify a 5-star rating; I don't find Collum to be a particularly compelling protagonist, and a lot of his romantic arc especially felt wish-fulfillment-y to a point where it didn't make much sense, but that's all right! 4.5 stars it is.]]> 3.94 2024 The Bright Sword
author: Lev Grossman
name: Emma
average rating: 3.94
book published: 2024
rating: 4
read at: 2025/03/12
date added: 2025/03/20
shelves:
review:
The Bright Sword was praised so highly to me that I almost refused to believe it. The best King Arthur work since The Once and Future King, i.e. the highest possible bar in my book? Inconceivable. But, like Vizzini, I must not have known what that word means, because Bright Sword far exceeded my expectations.

One of the things this book does best is strike a balance between doing a new thing and doing an old thing in a new way. We get a story set during the aftermath of Arthur's defeat and focusing on a new character named Collum, but we also get plenty of flashbacks to Arthur's reign, and neither storyline would be as strong without the other. Grossman considers the historical context of the tales, delving into the tension between Roman and Briton influences, but doesn't get so wrapped up in this as to ruin the magic (at the end of the book, he acknowledges a few anachronisms but says he couldn't resist; King Arthur was never about strict historical accuracy, anyway). Most of the characters do come from Arthurian legend, and Grossman definitely did his homework, but he also provides a little extra texture and backstory.

This is what really makes Bright Sword such a successful King Arthur retelling: it knows what it's talking about, and it knows why the source material is so great. Though it gives us the aesthetic of mystery and fantasy that make these stories so escapist and exciting (in this respect it might be more fun to read than my beloved Once and Future King, loath as I am to admit it), it also knows that these are the stories of men who fought snakes and wizards and knights with ease but struggled most of all to conquer themselves.

I can't quite justify a 5-star rating; I don't find Collum to be a particularly compelling protagonist, and a lot of his romantic arc especially felt wish-fulfillment-y to a point where it didn't make much sense, but that's all right! 4.5 stars it is.
]]> A Living Remedy: A Memoir 62050250
In this country, unless you attain extraordinary wealth, you will likely be unable to help your loved ones in all the ways you’d hoped. You will learn to live with the specific, hollow guilt of those who leave hardship behind, yet are unable to bring anyone else with them.

Nicole Chung couldn’t hightail it out of her overwhelmingly white Oregon hometown fast enough. As a scholarship student at a private university on the East Coast, no longer the only Korean she knew, she found community and a path to the life she'd long wanted. But the middle class world she begins to raise a family in � where there are big homes, college funds, nice vacations � looks very different from the middle class world she thought she grew up in, where paychecks have to stretch to the end of the week, health insurance is often lacking, and there are no safety nets.

When her father dies at only sixty-seven, killed by diabetes and kidney disease, Nicole feels deep grief as well as rage, knowing that years of precarity and lack of access to healthcare contributed to his early death. And then the unthinkable happens � less than a year later, her beloved mother is diagnosed with cancer, and the physical distance between them becomes insurmountable as COVID-19 descends upon the world.

Exploring the enduring strength of family bonds in the face of hardship and tragedy, A Living Remedy examines what it takes to reconcile the distance between one life, one home, and another � and sheds needed light on some of the most persistent and grievous inequalities in American society.]]> 256 Nicole Chung 0063031612 Emma 4 All You Can Ever Know. This was no exception. Chung takes us through the story of her parents' illnesses and eventual deaths, which occurred only a few years apart, and portrays them with both empathy and clarity. Her prose is artful without ever being flashy.

I sometimes wondered if the story could be made stronger by a more explicit tie to the American healthcare system and how it exploits those who can't pay. This is alluded to, but maybe some statistics would have been helpful. But I had a similar desire while reading Chung's first memoir, and I wonder if this is just not what she wants to write. I guess that's fair, even if I felt differently.

I listened to the audiobook, read by Jennifer Kim, and I thought she did a nice job. ]]> 3.98 2023 A Living Remedy: A Memoir
author: Nicole Chung
name: Emma
average rating: 3.98
book published: 2023
rating: 4
read at: 2025/03/11
date added: 2025/03/15
shelves:
review:
3.5 stars. I have enjoyed Nicole Chung's previous writing about adoption and family, both on The Toast and in her first memoir, All You Can Ever Know. This was no exception. Chung takes us through the story of her parents' illnesses and eventual deaths, which occurred only a few years apart, and portrays them with both empathy and clarity. Her prose is artful without ever being flashy.

I sometimes wondered if the story could be made stronger by a more explicit tie to the American healthcare system and how it exploits those who can't pay. This is alluded to, but maybe some statistics would have been helpful. But I had a similar desire while reading Chung's first memoir, and I wonder if this is just not what she wants to write. I guess that's fair, even if I felt differently.

I listened to the audiobook, read by Jennifer Kim, and I thought she did a nice job.
]]> <![CDATA[Home Cooking: A Writer in the Kitchen]]> 164397 184 Laurie Colwin 0060955309 Emma 0 currently-reading 4.15 1988 Home Cooking: A Writer in the Kitchen
author: Laurie Colwin
name: Emma
average rating: 4.15
book published: 1988
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/14
shelves: currently-reading
review:

]]> <![CDATA[My Body Is Not a Prayer Request: Disability Justice in the Church]]> 59867868 208 Amy Kenny 1587435454 Emma 3
I also think disability is such an enormous topic to tackle in such a short book, because everyone with a disability feels differently about it, and there are so many kinds of disabilities. The author's disability is very physical and visible, and she tried to acknowledge that some disabilities are invisible, but most of her arguments were still filtered through the lens of her own disability experience. I was hoping for more discussion of disability vs. illness, whether they're the same or different and whether we should treat them differently, but this nuance (which is super relevant to church IMO) was not really discussed.

I'm glad this book exists, because so many churches really need to consider disability more thoughtfully. But I've been through my share of health stuff, so I'm not a total beginner to these discussions, and I guess I am farther along in my journey than the people who would most enjoy this book.]]> 4.17 2022 My Body Is Not a Prayer Request: Disability Justice in the Church
author: Amy Kenny
name: Emma
average rating: 4.17
book published: 2022
rating: 3
read at: 2025/03/03
date added: 2025/03/13
shelves:
review:
I just finished reading this with a group from church. It led to some interesting and useful conversations, especially about accessibility at our church, but a lot of the content was hit or miss. The chapters didn't always have the strongest link to theology: some totally changed the way I think of certain Bible stories, but others read more like informal personal essays (one group member said they felt like blog posts, which I agree with).

I also think disability is such an enormous topic to tackle in such a short book, because everyone with a disability feels differently about it, and there are so many kinds of disabilities. The author's disability is very physical and visible, and she tried to acknowledge that some disabilities are invisible, but most of her arguments were still filtered through the lens of her own disability experience. I was hoping for more discussion of disability vs. illness, whether they're the same or different and whether we should treat them differently, but this nuance (which is super relevant to church IMO) was not really discussed.

I'm glad this book exists, because so many churches really need to consider disability more thoughtfully. But I've been through my share of health stuff, so I'm not a total beginner to these discussions, and I guess I am farther along in my journey than the people who would most enjoy this book.
]]> Women's Hotel 199793688 From the New York Times bestselling author and advice columnist, a poignant and funny debut novel about the residents of a women’s hotel in 1960s New York City.

The Beidermeier might be several rungs lower on the ladder than the real-life Barbizon, but its residents manage to occupy one another nonetheless. There’s Katherine, the first-floor manager, lightly cynical and more than lightly suggestible. There’s Lucianne, a workshy party girl caught between the love of comfort and an instinctive bridling at convention, Kitty the sponger, Ruth the failed hairdresser, and Pauline the typesetter. And there’s Stephen, the daytime elevator operator and part-time Cooper Union student.

The residents give up breakfast, juggle competing jobs at rival presses, abandon their children, get laid off from the telephone company, attempt to retrain as stenographers, all with the shared awareness that their days as an institution are numbered, and they’d better make the most of it while it lasts.

As trenchant as the novels of Dawn Powell and Rona Jaffe and as immersive as The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel and Lessons in Chemistry, Women’s Hotel is a modern classic—and it is very, very funny.]]> 272 Daniel M. Lavery 0063343533 Emma 3 The Toast, I read his short stories, his advice columns, his essays, his text messages from fictional characters. I say this as someone who has been through it all: character-driven novels may not be his strong suit!

Of course, I am still trying to decide the extent to which this is a "character-driven" novel. Or whether it's a novel! It feels much more like a series of vignettes, more so about the hotel as a collective than the individuals who reside within it. Truly what it says on the tin! Lavery is, as always, an excellent writer of sentences, but I'm starting to understand why "great sentences" are not enough to cut it; without compelling character arcs (we mainly get light satirical portraits with an occasional moment of humanity, but not enough to feel like that's the point) or a plot driving us forward, we cannot just swim in these great sentences forever.

I commend Lavery for trying something different and I will follow him anywhere, even if, like in this novel, I don't stay for long. ]]> 2.85 2024 Women's Hotel
author: Daniel M. Lavery
name: Emma
average rating: 2.85
book published: 2024
rating: 3
read at: 2025/03/01
date added: 2025/03/05
shelves:
review:
I am a Dan Lavery stan through and through. I cut my teenage writer teeth on The Toast, I read his short stories, his advice columns, his essays, his text messages from fictional characters. I say this as someone who has been through it all: character-driven novels may not be his strong suit!

Of course, I am still trying to decide the extent to which this is a "character-driven" novel. Or whether it's a novel! It feels much more like a series of vignettes, more so about the hotel as a collective than the individuals who reside within it. Truly what it says on the tin! Lavery is, as always, an excellent writer of sentences, but I'm starting to understand why "great sentences" are not enough to cut it; without compelling character arcs (we mainly get light satirical portraits with an occasional moment of humanity, but not enough to feel like that's the point) or a plot driving us forward, we cannot just swim in these great sentences forever.

I commend Lavery for trying something different and I will follow him anywhere, even if, like in this novel, I don't stay for long.
]]> <![CDATA[A Memory Called Empire (Teixcalaan, #1)]]> 37794149
Now, Mahit must discover who is behind the murder, rescue herself, and save her Station from Teixcalaan's unceasing expansion—all while navigating an alien culture that is all too seductive, engaging in intrigues of her own, and hiding a deadly technological secret—one that might spell the end of her Station and her way of life—or rescue it from annihilation.]]> 448 Arkady Martine 1529001587 Emma 0 dnf 4.08 2019 A Memory Called Empire (Teixcalaan, #1)
author: Arkady Martine
name: Emma
average rating: 4.08
book published: 2019
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/02
shelves: dnf
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Body Is Not an Apology: The Power of Radical Self-Love]]> 34956885 A global movement guided by love.

Humans are a varied and divergent bunch with all manner of beliefs, morals, and bodies. Systems of oppression thrive off our inability to make peace with difference and injure the relationship we have with our own bodies.

The Body Is Not an Apology offers radical self-love as the balm to heal the wounds inflicted by these violent systems. World-renowned activist and poet Sonya Renee Taylor invites us to reconnect with the radical origins of our minds and bodies and celebrate our collective, enduring strength. As we awaken to our own indoctrinated body shame, we feel inspired to awaken others and to interrupt the systems that perpetuate body shame and oppression against all bodies. When we act from this truth on a global scale, we usher in the transformative opportunity of radical self-love, which is the opportunity for a more just, equitable, and compassionate world--for us all.]]> 137 Sonya Renee Taylor 1626569762 Emma 3
But I learned those lessons for myself a while ago, and I guess I was just hoping for more specificity and depth. This was a pretty general overview of a lot of different issues. It's well written and I did learn a couple of things, and I'd recommend it to someone who is just learning about these concepts. ]]> 4.22 2018 The Body Is Not an Apology: The Power of Radical Self-Love
author: Sonya Renee Taylor
name: Emma
average rating: 4.22
book published: 2018
rating: 3
read at: 2025/02/18
date added: 2025/02/21
shelves:
review:
I deeply appreciate the existence of this book, but I don't think I really needed it. I think it's an excellent introduction to the concepts of radical self-love and body positivity, which should mean affirmation for bodies of every shape, size, and ability, but has mostly seemed to be translated as "you are only allowed to have good feelings about your body and any bad/neutral ones are banished." Which can be hard if you're dealing with something like chronic illness!

But I learned those lessons for myself a while ago, and I guess I was just hoping for more specificity and depth. This was a pretty general overview of a lot of different issues. It's well written and I did learn a couple of things, and I'd recommend it to someone who is just learning about these concepts.
]]> The Wedding People 198902277 Alternate cover edition of ISBN 9781250899576.

A propulsive and uncommonly wise novel about one unexpected wedding guest and the surprising people who help her start anew.

It’s a beautiful day in Newport, Rhode Island, when Phoebe Stone arrives at the grand Cornwall Inn wearing a green dress and gold heels, not a bag in sight, alone. She's immediately mistaken by everyone in the lobby for one of the wedding people, but she’s actually the only guest at the Cornwall who isn’t here for the big event. Phoebe is here because she’s dreamed of coming for years—she hoped to shuck oysters and take sunset sails with her husband, only now she’s here without him, at rock bottom, and determined to have one last decadent splurge on herself. Meanwhile, the bride has accounted for every detail and every possible disaster the weekend might yield except for, well, Phoebe and Phoebe's plan—which makes it that much more surprising when the two women can’t stop confiding in each other.

In turns absurdly funny and devastatingly tender, Alison Espach’s The Wedding People is ultimately an incredibly nuanced and resonant look at the winding paths we can take to places we never imagined—and the chance encounters it sometimes takes to reroute us.]]> 384 Alison Espach Emma 4
The first maybe 95 percent of this book had me listening like a fiend: while I shopped, while I made dinner, sitting on my couch after dinner, whenever. The last little bit felt too resolved to me, but also not resolved enough? Maybe I just wanted the book to keep going.

The audiobook was read by Helen Laser. She is so good at making each character's voice distinguishable. I almost always knew who was speaking before the text told me! I would definitely seek out another audiobook from her.]]> 4.12 2024 The Wedding People
author: Alison Espach
name: Emma
average rating: 4.12
book published: 2024
rating: 4
read at: 2025/02/12
date added: 2025/02/21
shelves:
review:
My favorite type of book, usually, is one with a huge cast of characters, all of whom are fascinating and multifaceted and whose lives I really care about. This book accomplishes that really well! The protagonist is wry and smart, and the people around her open themselves up to her in a way you often can only do with strangers, displaying their weirdness and messiness and humanity for us to enjoy.

The first maybe 95 percent of this book had me listening like a fiend: while I shopped, while I made dinner, sitting on my couch after dinner, whenever. The last little bit felt too resolved to me, but also not resolved enough? Maybe I just wanted the book to keep going.

The audiobook was read by Helen Laser. She is so good at making each character's voice distinguishable. I almost always knew who was speaking before the text told me! I would definitely seek out another audiobook from her.
]]> <![CDATA[Tiny Beautiful Things: Advice on Love and Life from Dear Sugar]]> 13152194 The Rumpus, now revealed as Cheryl Strayed, author of the bestselling memoir Wild - is the person thousands turn to for advice.
Tiny Beautiful Things brings the best of Dear Sugar in one place and includes never-before-published columns and a new introduction by Steve Almond. ĚýRich with humor, insight, compassion - and absolute honesty - this book is a balm for everything life throws our way.]]> 354 Cheryl Strayed Emma 0 dnf 4.26 2012 Tiny Beautiful Things: Advice on Love and Life from Dear Sugar
author: Cheryl Strayed
name: Emma
average rating: 4.26
book published: 2012
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/21
shelves: dnf
review:

]]> A Room with a View 3087
Lucy has her rigid, middle-class life mapped out for her, until she visits Florence with her uptight cousin Charlotte, and finds her neatly ordered existence thrown off balance. Her eyes are opened by the unconventional characters she meets at the Pension Bertolini: flamboyant romantic novelist Eleanor Lavish, the Cockney Signora, curious Mr Emerson and, most of all, his passionate son George.

Lucy finds herself torn between the intensity of life in Italy and the repressed morals of Edwardian England, personified in her terminally dull fiancé Cecil Vyse. Will she ever learn to follow her own heart?]]> 119 E.M. Forster 1420925431 Emma 3
However, given that this book ostensibly centers around a romance, we really do not see very much of it! I have no idea why these two like each other at all, really. Except that therein lies the flimsy plot of an otherwise delightful book. The author seems to have meant it to be a social comedy and not really a romance, but in Jane Austen you have a girl who can do both! So he has no excuse.

I respect the talent that went into this, but I'd also like a believable romance, please!]]> 3.92 1908 A Room with a View
author: E.M. Forster
name: Emma
average rating: 3.92
book published: 1908
rating: 3
read at: 2025/02/07
date added: 2025/02/15
shelves:
review:
The two best things about this book are its witty, sparkling writing and the fact that half of it is set in Italy. I also appreciated the side characters, many of which are very funny. There are occasional flashes of character insight that are brilliantly done, especially on the protagonist's manner of playing the piano, a well-trodden subject that is a crowd-pleaser every time!

However, given that this book ostensibly centers around a romance, we really do not see very much of it! I have no idea why these two like each other at all, really. Except that therein lies the flimsy plot of an otherwise delightful book. The author seems to have meant it to be a social comedy and not really a romance, but in Jane Austen you have a girl who can do both! So he has no excuse.

I respect the talent that went into this, but I'd also like a believable romance, please!
]]> Five Tuesdays in Winter 57812401
Told in the intimate voices of unique and endearing characters of all ages, these tales explore desire and heartache, loss and discovery, moments of jolting violence and the inexorable tug toward love at all costs. A bookseller's unspoken love for his employee rises to the surface, a neglected teenage boy finds much-needed nurturing from an unlikely pair of college students hired to housesit, a girl's loss of innocence at the hands of her employer's son becomes a catalyst for strength and confidence, and a proud nonagenarian rages helplessly in his granddaughter's hospital room. Romantic, hopeful, brutally raw, and unsparingly honest, some even slipping into the surreal, these stories are, above all, about King's enduring subject of love.]]> 240 Lily King 0802158765 Emma 4 Writers & Lovers before it) to make me think King has studied languages at some point. Often delightful, usually moving, and skillfully done always.]]> 3.70 2021 Five Tuesdays in Winter
author: Lily King
name: Emma
average rating: 3.70
book published: 2021
rating: 4
read at: 2025/02/07
date added: 2025/02/13
shelves:
review:
One of my failings is a reader is how little I tend to enjoy the contemporary short story greats. But Lily King does the almost impossible here: writes genuine, openhearted stories that aren't trite or tiresome. Some even end happily. But not all. Reading these makes me want to learn more about the author; there are enough tidbits about language learning (here, and in Writers & Lovers before it) to make me think King has studied languages at some point. Often delightful, usually moving, and skillfully done always.
]]> Slow Dance 198530925
They were just friends. Best friends. Allies. They spent entire summers sitting on Shiloh’s porch steps, dreaming about the future. They were both going to get out of north Omaha—Shiloh would go to college and become an actress, and Cary would join the Navy. They promised each other that their friendship would never change.

Well, Shiloh did go to college, and Cary did join the Navy. And yet, somehow, everything changed.

Now Shiloh’s thirty-three, and it’s been fourteen years since she talked to Cary. She’s been married and divorced. She has two kids. And she’s back living in the same house she grew up in. Her life is nothing like she planned.

When she’s invited to an old friend’s wedding, all Shiloh can think about is whether Cary will be there—and whether she hopes he will be. Would Cary even want to talk to her? After everything?

The answer is yes. And yes. And yes.

Slow Dance is the story of two kids who fell in love before they knew enough about love to recognize it. Two friends who lost everything. Two adults who just feel lost.

It’s the story of Shiloh and Cary, who everyone thought would end up together, trying to find their way back to the start.]]> 400 Rainbow Rowell 0063380196 Emma 4 Persuasion here, but it's not at all a straight retelling. Rowell is really good at yearning and suppressed emotion, and at writing family dynamics. She likes setting novels a few decades in the past; this one takes place in the 90s and 2000s, and the story feels organically part of that time period and not like it was plopped there just so no one would have smart phones.

I appreciated the specificity of the characters here; Shiloh and Cary felt like people I might know, a relationship I might have witnessed. The book also seriously considers what it would be like for the characters not to get together, which makes it much easier to buy them actually getting together. Reading it feels like watching your two high school friends finally realize they've been in love with each other this whole time. In short, immensely satisfying.

I listened to the audiobook, read by Rebecca Lowman. She distinguishes the two protagonists well and gives a good performance.]]> 3.63 2024 Slow Dance
author: Rainbow Rowell
name: Emma
average rating: 3.63
book published: 2024
rating: 4
read at: 2025/02/03
date added: 2025/02/13
shelves:
review:
It's been a long time since I enjoyed a contemporary romance this much. Or a Rainbow Rowell book this much. She's shifting from YA to adult for the time being, and it's a good move for her. There are hints of Persuasion here, but it's not at all a straight retelling. Rowell is really good at yearning and suppressed emotion, and at writing family dynamics. She likes setting novels a few decades in the past; this one takes place in the 90s and 2000s, and the story feels organically part of that time period and not like it was plopped there just so no one would have smart phones.

I appreciated the specificity of the characters here; Shiloh and Cary felt like people I might know, a relationship I might have witnessed. The book also seriously considers what it would be like for the characters not to get together, which makes it much easier to buy them actually getting together. Reading it feels like watching your two high school friends finally realize they've been in love with each other this whole time. In short, immensely satisfying.

I listened to the audiobook, read by Rebecca Lowman. She distinguishes the two protagonists well and gives a good performance.
]]> War and Peace 656
War and Peace broadly focuses on Napoleon’s invasion of Russia in 1812 and follows three of the most well-known characters in literature: Pierre Bezukhov, the illegitimate son of a count who is fighting for his inheritance and yearning for spiritual fulfillment; Prince Andrei Bolkonsky, who leaves his family behind to fight in the war against Napoleon; and Natasha Rostov, the beautiful young daughter of a nobleman who intrigues both men.

As Napoleon’s army invades, Tolstoy brilliantly follows characters from diverse backgrounds—peasants and nobility, civilians and soldiers—as they struggle with the problems unique to their era, their history, and their culture. And as the novel progresses, these characters transcend their specificity, becoming some of the most moving—and human—figures in world literature.


Tolstoy gave his personal approval to this translation, published here in a new single volume edition, which includes an introduction by Henry Gifford, and Tolstoy's important essay `Some Words about War and Peace'.]]> 1392 Leo Tolstoy 0192833987 Emma 4 War and Peace. Because of a silly task I set myself five years ago, to review every book I read on this barely functioning website, I must somehow describe the experience of reading something that according to its author is not a novel, nor an epic, nor a history, but sort of all of those things. 1300 pages of them.

I do not advocate for writing as Tolstoy did. This is because doing so is hard, and also annoying. I would not advise writers to write a rambling, awkward first sentence spoken by a character we barely see again, and to finish with a forty-page diatribe on the nature of history. Nor would I suggest they interrupt their marvelous and delicate character work to infodump about battles I do not care about. I would never, ever tell them to write a Napoleon fanfic and sneak the pages in between everything else, since in this enlightened age we have a03.

I would, however, tell them to write arresting, multifaceted characters that make me cry. I would tell them to shine a light of empathy on each one; the assassin who loves his mother, the rake whose only ruler is lust, the lonely family caretaker with only religion as a friend, the awkward bastard son thrust into wealth and privilege who wants so badly to do the right thing that it physically pains him. I would tell them that if they must write so much about battles, they should force the characters to witness them, to be changed forever by their horrors. I would tell them to sow hope again in the hearts of their characters and readers.

Maybe they could do it. Maybe they couldn't. Tolstoy could.

3.5 stars, in spite of everything.

I read the translation by Louise and Aylmer Maude, friends of Tolstoy. This is the translation Dave Malloy used to craft the lyrics of Natasha, Pierre and the Great Comet of 1812. So, of course, it is worth reading.
]]> 4.14 1869 War and Peace
author: Leo Tolstoy
name: Emma
average rating: 4.14
book published: 1869
rating: 4
read at: 2025/01/29
date added: 2025/02/12
shelves:
review:
The moment has arrived. I finally have to review War and Peace. Because of a silly task I set myself five years ago, to review every book I read on this barely functioning website, I must somehow describe the experience of reading something that according to its author is not a novel, nor an epic, nor a history, but sort of all of those things. 1300 pages of them.

I do not advocate for writing as Tolstoy did. This is because doing so is hard, and also annoying. I would not advise writers to write a rambling, awkward first sentence spoken by a character we barely see again, and to finish with a forty-page diatribe on the nature of history. Nor would I suggest they interrupt their marvelous and delicate character work to infodump about battles I do not care about. I would never, ever tell them to write a Napoleon fanfic and sneak the pages in between everything else, since in this enlightened age we have a03.

I would, however, tell them to write arresting, multifaceted characters that make me cry. I would tell them to shine a light of empathy on each one; the assassin who loves his mother, the rake whose only ruler is lust, the lonely family caretaker with only religion as a friend, the awkward bastard son thrust into wealth and privilege who wants so badly to do the right thing that it physically pains him. I would tell them that if they must write so much about battles, they should force the characters to witness them, to be changed forever by their horrors. I would tell them to sow hope again in the hearts of their characters and readers.

Maybe they could do it. Maybe they couldn't. Tolstoy could.

3.5 stars, in spite of everything.

I read the translation by Louise and Aylmer Maude, friends of Tolstoy. This is the translation Dave Malloy used to craft the lyrics of Natasha, Pierre and the Great Comet of 1812. So, of course, it is worth reading.

]]> <![CDATA[The Ornithologist's Field Guide to Love (Love's Academic, #1)]]> 200555182
Beth Pickering is on the verge of finally capturing the rare deathwhistler bird when Professor Devon Lockley swoops in, capturing both her bird and her imagination like a villain. Albeit a handsome and charming villain, but that's beside the point. As someone highly educated in the ruthless discipline of ornithology, Beth knows trouble when she sees it, and she is determined to keep her distance from Devon.Ěý

For his part, Devon has never been more smitten than when he first set eyes on Professor Beth Pickering. She's so pretty, so polite, so capable of bringing down a fiery, deadly bird using only her wits. In other words, an angel. Devon understands he must not get close to her, however, since they're professional rivals.Ěý

When a competition to become Birder of the Year by capturing an endangered caladrius bird is announced, Beth and Devon are forced to team up to have any chance of winning.ĚýNow keeping their distance becomes a question of one bed or two. But they must take the risk, because fowl play is afoot, and they can't trust anyone else—for all may be fair in love and war, but this is ornithology.]]> 384 India Holton Emma 0 dnf 3.91 2024 The Ornithologist's Field Guide to Love (Love's Academic, #1)
author: India Holton
name: Emma
average rating: 3.91
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/11
shelves: dnf
review:

]]> Queenie 36586697
As Queenie careens from one questionable decision to another, she finds herself wondering, “What are you doing? Why are you doing it? Who do you want to be?”—all of the questions today’s woman must face in a world trying to answer them for her.]]> 330 Candice Carty-Williams Emma 0 dnf 3.83 2019 Queenie
author: Candice Carty-Williams
name: Emma
average rating: 3.83
book published: 2019
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/07
shelves: dnf
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Come Together: The Science (and Art!) of Creating Lasting Sexual Connections]]> 62926962 An illuminating exploration of how to maintain a happy sex life in a long-term relationship, from the New York Times bestselling author of Come as You Are and co-author of Burnout.

In Come as You Are, Emily Nagoski, PhD, provided science-backed lessons that revolutionized the way we think about women’s sexuality. Now, in Come Together, Nagoski takes on a fundamentally misunderstood subject: sex in long-term relationships.

Nagoski breaks down the myths many of us have been taught about sex—for instance, the belief that sexual satisfaction and desire are highest at the beginning of a relationship and that they will inevitably decline the longer that relationship lasts. Nagoski assures us that’s not true.

So, what is true? Come Together isn’t about how much we want sex, or how often we’re having it; it’s about whether we like the sex we’re having. Nagoski breaks down the obstacles that impede us from enjoying sex—from stress and body image, to relationship difficulties and gendered beliefs about how sex “should� be—and presents the best ways to overcome them. You'll learn:
� that “spontaneous desire� is not the kind of desire to strive for if you want to have great sex for decades
� vocabulary for talking with partners about ways to get in “the mood� and how to not take it personally when “the mood� is nowhere to be found
� how to understand your own and your partner’s “emotional floorplan,� so that you have a blueprint for how to get to a sexy state of mind

With her signature insight, humor, and empathy, Nagoski shows us what great sex can look like, how to create it in our own lives, and what to do when struggles arise.]]> 368 Emily Nagoski 0593500822 Emma 4 Come as You Are so much that I wanted to check out this one. I appreciated her examination of "the desire imperative" and how it wrongly emphasizes "wanting" sex over "enjoying" sex. That will definitely reframe my perspective on it! The floor plan idea she has, in which you map out your emotions in relation to lust as if they were rooms in a house, is an interesting one, but won't work for everyone.

I did feel the supposed cutesy-ness of Nagoski's voice a bit more in this book than the last (especially in one footnote where she bemoans the 2005 Pride and Prejudice movie; not only do I not agree, but truly, what does that have to do with anything?). But aside from that, this one is just as worth a read!]]> 4.13 2024 Come Together: The Science (and Art!) of Creating Lasting Sexual Connections
author: Emily Nagoski
name: Emma
average rating: 4.13
book published: 2024
rating: 4
read at: 2025/01/27
date added: 2025/02/06
shelves:
review:
3.5 stars. I enjoyed Emily Nagoski's Come as You Are so much that I wanted to check out this one. I appreciated her examination of "the desire imperative" and how it wrongly emphasizes "wanting" sex over "enjoying" sex. That will definitely reframe my perspective on it! The floor plan idea she has, in which you map out your emotions in relation to lust as if they were rooms in a house, is an interesting one, but won't work for everyone.

I did feel the supposed cutesy-ness of Nagoski's voice a bit more in this book than the last (especially in one footnote where she bemoans the 2005 Pride and Prejudice movie; not only do I not agree, but truly, what does that have to do with anything?). But aside from that, this one is just as worth a read!
]]> <![CDATA[Minor Feelings: An Asian American Reckoning]]> 52845775
As the daughter of Korean immigrants, Cathy Park Hong grew up steeped in shame, suspicion, and melancholy. She would later understand that these "minor feelings" occur when American optimism contradicts your own reality—when you believe the lies you're told about your own racial identity.

Hong uses her own story as a portal into a deeper examination of racial consciousness in America today. This book traces her relationship to the English language, to shame and depression, to poetry and artmaking, and to family and female friendship in a search to both uncover and speak the truth.]]> 209 Cathy Park Hong 1984820362 Emma 3 Minor Feelings had a moment back in 2020, which means I am very late to this party. I'm so late that all the drinks are gone and the hosts are cleaning up puke. And because I'm so late, I'm not sure anyone will care about my opinions. Which is fine!

I learned a lot from Hong's essays on Korean and Korean-American culture (for example, I didn't know much about the Korean War or its jaw-dropping civilian impact until reading this book). Even when I wasn't primed to agree with her, I saw the validity of her argument; her discussion of The Catcher in the Rye's portrayal of childhood as sacred and innocent, and how that type of childhood has long only been accessible to white Americans, is one of the most reasonable and thought-provoking critiques I've heard of a book I really love.

All this is good, but I got bogged down in the middle. Hong's definition of "minor feelings" is expansive, including both general ideas and specific anecdotes. I struggled to follow her point all the way through in some of the longer essays about her friends and life in college. I wonder if I would have been better off reading the print version than the audiobook. Hong narrates, and does a good job, but in the lengthiest chapters, I always felt like I was missing something.

But I do think it's better to miss some of this book than all of it. It's still worth reading if you haven't.]]> 4.20 2020 Minor Feelings: An Asian American Reckoning
author: Cathy Park Hong
name: Emma
average rating: 4.20
book published: 2020
rating: 3
read at: 2025/01/27
date added: 2025/02/02
shelves:
review:
Minor Feelings had a moment back in 2020, which means I am very late to this party. I'm so late that all the drinks are gone and the hosts are cleaning up puke. And because I'm so late, I'm not sure anyone will care about my opinions. Which is fine!

I learned a lot from Hong's essays on Korean and Korean-American culture (for example, I didn't know much about the Korean War or its jaw-dropping civilian impact until reading this book). Even when I wasn't primed to agree with her, I saw the validity of her argument; her discussion of The Catcher in the Rye's portrayal of childhood as sacred and innocent, and how that type of childhood has long only been accessible to white Americans, is one of the most reasonable and thought-provoking critiques I've heard of a book I really love.

All this is good, but I got bogged down in the middle. Hong's definition of "minor feelings" is expansive, including both general ideas and specific anecdotes. I struggled to follow her point all the way through in some of the longer essays about her friends and life in college. I wonder if I would have been better off reading the print version than the audiobook. Hong narrates, and does a good job, but in the lengthiest chapters, I always felt like I was missing something.

But I do think it's better to miss some of this book than all of it. It's still worth reading if you haven't.
]]> Tread of Angels 53401578 Celeste, a card sharp with a need for justice, takes on the role of advocatus diaboli, to defend her sister Mariel, accused of murdering a Virtue, a member of the ruling class of this mining town, in an “intricate…engrossing� (The Washington Post) new world of dark fantasy from the New York Times bestselling author of Black Sun, Rebecca Roanhorse.

The year is 1883 and the mining town of Goetia is booming as prospectors from near and far come to mine the powerful new element Divinity from the high mountains of Colorado with the help of the pariahs of society known as the Fallen. The Fallen are the descendants of demonkind living amongst the Virtues, the winners in an ancient war, with the descendants of both sides choosing to live alongside Abaddon’s mountain in this tale of the mythological West from the bestselling mastermind Rebecca Roanhorse.]]> 128 Rebecca Roanhorse 1982166207 Emma 3
My main issue is the space constraint: everything goes by way too quickly. This goes down easy, but that also means it goes right through you, and you don't absorb its nutrients, if you get my drift. I also felt occasionally like certain moments were meant to fit into a trope, or to elicit finger-snapping from the audience, more than they actually made sense for the story (there's a throwaway line about gun ownership that falls into this category).

But Rebecca Roanhorse's talent is undeniable, and this was a nice way to spend an afternoon on my friend's couch!]]> 3.68 2022 Tread of Angels
author: Rebecca Roanhorse
name: Emma
average rating: 3.68
book published: 2022
rating: 3
read at: 2025/01/25
date added: 2025/02/01
shelves:
review:
I always want to like a fantasy novella. It should be like a fever dream that's over in a couple hours, right? This one mostly was that. We have some fairly good characters, an intriguing romantic dynamic that manages to be original despite its well-trodden ground, and a world that could have used more fleshing out, but is still unique.

My main issue is the space constraint: everything goes by way too quickly. This goes down easy, but that also means it goes right through you, and you don't absorb its nutrients, if you get my drift. I also felt occasionally like certain moments were meant to fit into a trope, or to elicit finger-snapping from the audience, more than they actually made sense for the story (there's a throwaway line about gun ownership that falls into this category).

But Rebecca Roanhorse's talent is undeniable, and this was a nice way to spend an afternoon on my friend's couch!
]]> Olga Dies Dreaming 57693171
Despite their alluring public lives, behind closed doors things are far less rosy. Sure, Olga can orchestrate the love stories of the 1%, but she can't seem to find her own...until she meets Matteo, who forces her to confront the effects of long-held family secrets...

Twenty-seven years ago, their mother, Blanca, a Young Lord-turned-radical, abandoned her children to advance a militant political cause, leaving them to be raised by their grandmother. Now, with the winds of hurricane season, Blanca has come barreling back into their lives.

Set against the backdrop of New York City in the months surrounding the most devastating hurricane in Puerto Rico's history, Olga Dies Dreaming is a story that examines political corruption, familial strife and the very notion of the American dream--all while asking what it really means to weather a storm.]]> 369 Xóchitl González 1250786177 Emma 4
I listened to the audiobook, read by Armando Riesgo, Ines del Castillo, and Armarie Guerra. I would recommend the audiobook as well.]]> 3.95 2022 Olga Dies Dreaming
author: Xóchitl González
name: Emma
average rating: 3.95
book published: 2022
rating: 4
read at: 2025/01/19
date added: 2025/01/29
shelves:
review:
3.5 stars. This was a satisfyingly layered, complex story about a big Puerto Rican family, with all the love and anger and banding together that entails. Big mistakes are made by all parties, but there is a lot of empathy here for most. The book raises the question of how much you should or can do for your family, and how much blood relation means in the first place. I did think one character's perspective doesn't add much to the story, and the events that person relates could easily have been given to another POV character. But I would still recommend this highly!

I listened to the audiobook, read by Armando Riesgo, Ines del Castillo, and Armarie Guerra. I would recommend the audiobook as well.
]]> Tartufo 212924015
After nearly losing the election to a geriatric but wildly popular donkey named Maurizio, newly installed Mayor Delizia Miccuci can’t help but feel like the sun has finally set on the rural Italian village of Lazzarini Boscarino. Tourists only stop by to ask for directions, Nonna Amara’s cherished ristorante is long shuttered, and the town hall is disgustingly overrun with glis glis poo—even Postman Duccio has been disgraced. All that’s left is Bar Celebrità, a rustic establishment where weary locals gather to quibble over decades-long disputes, submit their poor stomachs to bartender Giuseppina’s volcanic espresso, and wonder what will become of the place where together they’ve spent their entire lives.

Little do the villagers know that, mere miles away in the forest, local truffle hunter Giovanni Scarpazza has just happened upon something that could change everything. Swollen to massive proportions, soaking the atmosphere in its pungent fumes, potentially worth six figures in certain international circles, a truffle—un tartufo, that is—sits beneath the soil with the power to either be the greatest gift or the foulest curse the village has ever seen—they’re not completely sure which since Giuseppina’s psychic was a bit unclear on the matter.

Tartufo is much more than a charming romp through the foothills of Tuscany. Written in the same enchanting style and raucous humor that defines Hollow Kingdom and Feral Creatures, Buxton’s newest story is a reflection on the interconnectedness of life in all its manifestations—and how holding on to harmony in the face of hardship can grow something beautiful and rare beneath the surface.]]> 352 Kira Jane Buxton 1538770814 Emma 0 to-read 3.80 2025 Tartufo
author: Kira Jane Buxton
name: Emma
average rating: 3.80
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/01/25
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Wager: A Tale of Shipwreck, Mutiny and Murder]]> 61714633 From the #1 New York Times bestselling author of Killers of the Flower Moon, a page-turning story of shipwreck, survival, and savagery, culminating in a court martial that reveals a shocking truth. The powerful narrative reveals the deeper meaning of the events on the Wager, showing that it was not only the captain and crew who ended up on trial, but the very idea of empire.

On January 28, 1742, a ramshackle vessel of patched-together wood and cloth washed up on the coast of Brazil. Inside were thirty emaciated men, barely alive, and they had an extraordinary tale to tell. They were survivors of His Majesty's Ship the Wager, a British vessel that had left England in 1740 on a secret mission during an imperial war with Spain. While the Wager had been chasing a Spanish treasure-filled galleon known as "the prize of all the oceans," it had wrecked on a desolate island off the coast of Patagonia. The men, after being marooned for months and facing starvation, built the flimsy craft and sailed for more than a hundred days, traversing nearly 3,000 miles of storm-wracked seas. They were greeted as heroes.

But then . . . six months later, another, even more decrepit craft landed on the coast of Chile. This boat contained just three castaways, and they told a very different story. The thirty sailors who landed in Brazil were not heroes - they were mutineers. The first group responded with countercharges of their own, of a tyrannical and murderous senior officer and his henchmen. It became clear that while stranded on the island the crew had fallen into anarchy, with warring factions fighting for dominion over the barren wilderness. As accusations of treachery and murder flew, the Admiralty convened a court martial to determine who was telling the truth. The stakes were life-and-death--for whomever the court found guilty could hang.

The Wager is a grand tale of human behavior at the extremes told by one of our greatest nonfiction writers. Grann's recreation of the hidden world on a British warship rivals the work of Patrick O'Brian, his portrayal of the castaways' desperate straits stands up to the classics of survival writing such as The Endurance, and his account of the court martial has the savvy of a Scott Turow thriller. As always with Grann's work, the incredible twists of the narrative hold the reader spellbound.]]> 331 David Grann 0385534264 Emma 0 dnf 4.14 2023 The Wager: A Tale of Shipwreck, Mutiny and Murder
author: David Grann
name: Emma
average rating: 4.14
book published: 2023
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/01/20
shelves: dnf
review:

]]> Family Happiness 164409 271 Laurie Colwin 0060958979 Emma 4 Family Happiness first came out in the 80s, when women were starting to feel the pressure of both career and home life. Polly spends so much time caring for others that she has barely been cared for herself, and I ached for her, even as she makes bad decisions. The other members of her family are drawn hilariously, but carefully, though the characterization of her brothers often descends into satire (in a good way!). This is hilarious in that quirky Laurie Colwin way in which characters blithely baffle each other and you, and then carry on as though nothing odd has been said.

This isn't a sentimental book; Polly understands the limitations of her affair, and she knows her morals are not as unimpeachable as everyone thinks. But you feel for her, despite what she's doing. I wouldn't have expected less from Laurie Colwin.]]> 3.78 1982 Family Happiness
author: Laurie Colwin
name: Emma
average rating: 3.78
book published: 1982
rating: 4
read at: 2025/01/15
date added: 2025/01/20
shelves:
review:
This is one of the best books about a classic problem: an exceptional woman being crushed by the weight of family expectations. Family Happiness first came out in the 80s, when women were starting to feel the pressure of both career and home life. Polly spends so much time caring for others that she has barely been cared for herself, and I ached for her, even as she makes bad decisions. The other members of her family are drawn hilariously, but carefully, though the characterization of her brothers often descends into satire (in a good way!). This is hilarious in that quirky Laurie Colwin way in which characters blithely baffle each other and you, and then carry on as though nothing odd has been said.

This isn't a sentimental book; Polly understands the limitations of her affair, and she knows her morals are not as unimpeachable as everyone thinks. But you feel for her, despite what she's doing. I wouldn't have expected less from Laurie Colwin.
]]> Blankets 25179 A young man comes of age and finds the confidence to express his creative voice.

Craig Thompson's poignant sequential-art memoir plays out against the backdrop of a Midwestern winterscape: finely hewn linework draws together a portrait of small town life, a rigorously fundamentalist Christian childhood, and a lonely, emotionally mixed-up adolescence.

Under an engulfing blanket of snow, Craig and Raina fall in love at winter church camp, revealing to one another their struggles with faith and their dreams of escape. Over time though, their personal demons resurface and their relationship falls apart. It's a universal story, and Thompson's vibrant brushstrokes and unique page designs make the familiar heartbreaking all over again.]]> 582 Craig Thompson 1891830430 Emma 0 4.05 2003 Blankets
author: Craig Thompson
name: Emma
average rating: 4.05
book published: 2003
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/01/12
shelves:
review:

]]> Show Don't Tell 213870083 A funny, fiercely intelligent, and moving collection exploring marriage, friendship, fame, and artistic ambition—including a story that revisits the main character from Curtis Sittenfeld’s iconic novel Prep—from the New York Times bestselling author of Eligible and Romantic Comedy

In her second story collection, Sittenfeld shows why she’s as beloved for her short fiction as she is for her novels. In these dazzling stories, she conjures up characters so real that they seem like old friends, laying bare the moments when their long held beliefs are overturned.

In “The Patron Saints of Middle Age,� a woman visits two friends she hasn’t seen since her divorce. In “A for Alone,� a married artist embarks on a creative project intended to disprove the so-called Mike Pence Rule, which suggests that women and men can’t spend time alone together without lusting after each other. And in “Lost but Not Forgotten,� Sittenfeld gives readers of her novel Prep a window into the world of her beloved character Lee Fiora, decades later, when Lee attends an alumni reunion at her boarding school.

Hilarious, thought-provoking, and full of tenderness for her characters, Sittenfeld’s stories peel back layer after layer of our inner lives, keeping us riveted to the page with her utterly distinctive voice.]]> 320 Curtis Sittenfeld 0593446739 Emma 0 to-read 3.98 2025 Show Don't Tell
author: Curtis Sittenfeld
name: Emma
average rating: 3.98
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/01/12
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Painting Time 53317478 An aesthetic and existential coming-of-age novel exploring the apprenticeship of a young female painter

In Maylis de Kerangal's Painting Time, we are introduced to the burgeoning young artist Paula Karst, who is enrolled at the famous Institut de Peinture in Brussels. Unlike the friends she makes at school, Paula strives to understand the specifics of what she's painting--replicating a wood's essence or a marble's wear requires method, technique, and talent, she finds, but also something else: craftsmanship. She resolutely chooses the painstaking demands of craft over the abstraction of high art.

With the attention of a documentary filmmaker, de Kerangal follows Paula's apprenticeship, punctuated by brushstrokes, hard work, sleepless nights, sore muscles, and long, festive evenings. After completing her studies at the Institute, Paula continues to practice her art in Paris, in Moscow, then in Italy on the sets of great films, all as if rehearsing for a grand finale: at a job working on Lascaux IV, a facsimile reproduction of the world's most famous paleolithic cave art and the apotheosis of human cultural expression.

An enchanted, atmospheric, and highly aesthetic coming-of-age novel, Painting Time is an intimate and unsparing exploration of craft, inspiration, and the contours of the contemporary art world. As she did in her acclaimed novels The Heart and The Cook, Maylis de Kerangal unravels a tightly wound professional world to reveal the beauty within.]]> 240 Maylis de Kerangal 0374211922 Emma 3 3.57 2018 Painting Time
author: Maylis de Kerangal
name: Emma
average rating: 3.57
book published: 2018
rating: 3
read at: 2025/01/06
date added: 2025/01/12
shelves:
review:
2.5 stars. I almost put this book down at least once a day, for the entire time I was reading it. Now that I've finished it, I'm not entirely sorry I did. But I am a little sorry. Maylis de Kerangal (by way of translator Jessica Moore) writes beautiful, concretely realized sentences that at best enrich the smallest experiences of her protagonist, and at worst conceal the fact that not much seems to be happening at all. The focus of the novel is a beginning painter's: detail by detail, but the finished product is a mess. The ending, which could have tied everything together, instead goes in a much more abstract direction. Sorry, but I don't think I needed to be this confused!
]]> <![CDATA[Who Deserves Your Love: How to Create Boundaries to Start, Strengthen, or End Any Relationship]]> 220199858 Sensible and practical, Who Deserves Your Love brings the authoritative yet gentle approach that made How to Keep House While Drowning a perennial bestseller, to the universal desire for healthy and workable relationships, whether romantic, familial, or platonic.

Is love conditional? How do you navigate a relationship where someone’s best efforts are hurting you? When should you step away? These are some of the questions therapists and TikTok sensation KC Davis explores in Who Deserves Your Love. In writing that is both plainspoken and powerful, she explains how vulnerability, trauma, and personal history can be both the cause of and the solution to relationship struggles.

KC offers explicit tools, including a priceless Decision Tree, to help you distinguish mistreatment from abuse, define your own values, and emotionally regulate in difficult situations. Her guidance will guide you to determine who deserves your time and love and who may not. With radical honesty, she covers key topics foundational to designing expansive and protective boundaries and making relationship decisions. Key topics
-Why conflict is intimacy
-Why the backbone to any relationship is the small moments
-How to get healthy around your vulnerabilities—and how to avoid the trap of the “vulnerability cycle�
-How to establish basic standards in a relationship
-When to make value-based decisions in a relationship

Who Deserves Your Love is practical and compassionate, written in short bursts of clarity and filled with visual tools such as lists and diagrams, as well as KC’s powerful “morally neutral� approach. The writing style is suited for those with ADHD, depression, or anyone who appreciates expertise without being overwhelmed by lengthy descriptions.]]> 240 K.C. Davis 1668056496 Emma 0 to-read 4.20 Who Deserves Your Love: How to Create Boundaries to Start, Strengthen, or End Any Relationship
author: K.C. Davis
name: Emma
average rating: 4.20
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/01/07
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Riddles of the Sphinx: Inheriting the Feminist History of the Crossword Puzzle]]> 173956046 Combining the soul-baring confessional of Brain on Fire and the addictive storytelling of The Queen’s Gambit, a renowned puzzle creator’s compulsively readable memoir and history of the crossword puzzle as an unexpected site of women’s work and feminist protest.

The indisputable “queen of crosswords,� Anna Shechtman published her first New York Times puzzle at age nineteen, and later, spearheaded the The New Yorker’s popular crossword section. Working with a medium often criticized as exclusionary, elitist, and out-of-touch, Anna is one of very few women in the field of puzzle making, where she strives to make the everyday diversion more diverse.

In this fascinating work—part memoir, part cultural analysis—she excavates the hidden history of the crossword and the overlooked women who have been central to its creation and evolution, from the “Crossword Craze� of the 1920s to the role of digital technology today. As she tells the story of her own experience in the CrossWorld, she analyzes the roles assigned to women in American culture, the boxes they’ve been allowed to fill, and the ways that they’ve used puzzles to negotiate the constraints and play of desire under patriarchy.

The result is an unforgettable and engrossing work of art, a loving and revealing homage to one of our most treasured, entertaining, and ultimately political pastimes.]]> 275 Anna Shechtman 0063275473 Emma 3
What I wasn't prepared for was for this to be an anorexia memoir. The author spends almost as much time musing over how and why she became anorexic, and how she evaded and finally sought treatment, as she does writing about crosswords. Which, after all, are the thing in the title! She goes into so much detail on anorexia that I really think it should have been a bigger part of the marketing for the book. I can easily see how someone in recovery could pick this up thinking it would be about crosswords and get triggered.

Even if the book had been marketed better, I would still think it was too meandering. The connections to anorexia are often tenuous at best, but I have a feeling this wouldn't have been long enough for a book if they were removed. One of the later chapters about women working as "human computers" was great, and I wish the whole book had been like that. Still an enjoyable read, especially if you're constantly getting asked for help with crossword puzzle clues by your father.]]> 3.39 2024 The Riddles of the Sphinx: Inheriting the Feminist History of the Crossword Puzzle
author: Anna Shechtman
name: Emma
average rating: 3.39
book published: 2024
rating: 3
read at: 2024/12/30
date added: 2025/01/01
shelves:
review:
I did not know exactly what this was when I picked it up. But it turns out the book didn't, either. The subtitle does describe some of the book: it's partly about the women who helped shape crossword puzzle culture in the U.S. Many of these women have interesting stories, and I enjoyed learning about them.

What I wasn't prepared for was for this to be an anorexia memoir. The author spends almost as much time musing over how and why she became anorexic, and how she evaded and finally sought treatment, as she does writing about crosswords. Which, after all, are the thing in the title! She goes into so much detail on anorexia that I really think it should have been a bigger part of the marketing for the book. I can easily see how someone in recovery could pick this up thinking it would be about crosswords and get triggered.

Even if the book had been marketed better, I would still think it was too meandering. The connections to anorexia are often tenuous at best, but I have a feeling this wouldn't have been long enough for a book if they were removed. One of the later chapters about women working as "human computers" was great, and I wish the whole book had been like that. Still an enjoyable read, especially if you're constantly getting asked for help with crossword puzzle clues by your father.
]]> <![CDATA[Emily Wilde's Compendium of Lost Tales (Emily Wilde, #3)]]> 208841368 Encyclopaedia of Faeries. Now she is about to embark on her most dangerous academic project studying the inner workings of a faerie realm-as its queen.

Along with her former academic rival-now fiancé-the dashing and mercurial Wendell Bambleby, Emily is immediately thrust into the deadly intrigues of Faerie as the two of them seize the throne of Wendell's long-lost kingdom, which Emily finds a beautiful nightmare, filled with scholarly treasures.

Emily has been obsessed with faerie stories her entire life, but at first she feels as ill-suited to Faerie as she did to the mortal world-how could an unassuming scholar like herself pass for a queen? Yet there is little time to settle in-Wendell's murderous stepmother has placed a deadly curse upon the land before vanishing without a trace. It will take all of Wendell's magic-and Emily's knowledge of stories-to unravel the mystery before they lose everything they hold dear.
]]> 368 Heather Fawcett 0356519198 Emma 0 to-read 4.17 2025 Emily Wilde's Compendium of Lost Tales (Emily Wilde, #3)
author: Heather Fawcett
name: Emma
average rating: 4.17
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/01/01
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> A Single Rose 57251520 From the best-selling author of The Elegance of the Hedgehog comes a story about a woman's journey to discover the father she never knew and a love she never thought possible.

Rose has just turned forty when she gets a call from a lawyer asking her to come to Kyoto for the reading of her estranged father's will. And so for the first time in her life she finds herself in Japan, where Paul, her father's assistant, is waiting to greet her.

As Paul guides Rose along a mysterious itinerary designed by her deceased father, her bitterness and anger are soothed by the stones and the trees in the Zen gardens they move through. During their walks, Rose encounters acquaintances of her father--including a potter and poet, an old lady friend, his housekeeper and chauffeur--whose interactions help her to slowly begin to accept a part of herself that she has never before acknowledged.

As the reading of the will gets closer, Rose's father finally, posthumously, opens his heart to his daughter, offering her a poignant understanding of his love and a way to accept all she has lost.]]> 142 Muriel Barbery 1609456785 Emma 0 dnf 3.50 2020 A Single Rose
author: Muriel Barbery
name: Emma
average rating: 3.50
book published: 2020
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/12/30
shelves: dnf
review:

]]> In the Quick 54072857
She seeks out James, her uncle’s former protégé, also brilliant, also difficult, who has been trying to discover why Inquiry’s fuel cells failed. James and June forge an intense intellectual bond that becomes an electric attraction. But the relationship that develops between them as they work to solve the fuel cell’s fatal flaw threatens to destroy everything they’ve worked so hard to create—and any chance of bringing the Inquiry crew home alive.]]> 251 Kate Hope Day 0525511253 Emma 0 dnf 3.31 2021 In the Quick
author: Kate Hope Day
name: Emma
average rating: 3.31
book published: 2021
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/12/30
shelves: dnf
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Anthropocene Reviewed: Essays on a Human-Centered Planet]]> 55145261 A deeply moving and mind-expanding collection of personal essays in the first ever work of non-fiction from #1 internationally bestselling author John Green

The Anthropocene is the current geological age, in which human activity has profoundly shaped the planet and its biodiversity. In this remarkable symphony of essays adapted and expanded from his ground-breaking, critically acclaimed podcast, John Green reviews different facets of the human-centered planet - from the QWERTY keyboard and Halley's Comet to Penguins of Madagascar - on a five-star scale.

Complex and rich with detail, the Anthropocene's reviews have been praised as 'observations that double as exercises in memoiristic empathy', with over 10 million lifetime downloads. John Green's gift for storytelling shines throughout this artfully curated collection about the shared human experience; it includes beloved essays along with six all-new pieces exclusive to the book.]]> 304 John Green 0525555218 Emma 4
One unexpected but pleasant surprise was the amount of research Green clearly did on each of these topics. He provides a succinct yet comprehensive history of most of these topics: did you know the founder of Piggly Wiggly redefined how we shop and eat? Or that up to 20 percent of people are prone to staph infections because of a heightened level of the bacteria in their bodies? Given that Green cofounded Crash Course, these skills aren't surprising, but I got a lot less navel gazing here than I expected, in a good way.

Of course, there is some navel gazing too, but since this is nonfiction filtered through Green's perspective and life, it's more logical and organic here than it sometimes is in his fiction, as other reviewers have noted. I found most of his life stories compelling and relevant, though somewhat less so than the histories of the things he reviews.

I found this a good read for the end of a year, when we are all reevaluating our lives and what we want them to mean going forward. What does it all mean? Why should we care? Above all, I think that's what Green is giving us here: reasons we should care.]]> 4.37 2021 The Anthropocene Reviewed: Essays on a Human-Centered Planet
author: John Green
name: Emma
average rating: 4.37
book published: 2021
rating: 4
read at: 2022/12/15
date added: 2024/12/27
shelves:
review:
John Green, always one to tackle big questions, has decided to review the age of humanity. Yep, the whole Anthropocene Era. Inspired by the many, many review sites available to us to evaluate everything on an arbitrary five-star scale, he has written and collected here several reviews on phenomena as varied as sunsets, staph infections, hot dogs from one specific stand in Iceland, plague, CNN, Indianapolis, etc.

One unexpected but pleasant surprise was the amount of research Green clearly did on each of these topics. He provides a succinct yet comprehensive history of most of these topics: did you know the founder of Piggly Wiggly redefined how we shop and eat? Or that up to 20 percent of people are prone to staph infections because of a heightened level of the bacteria in their bodies? Given that Green cofounded Crash Course, these skills aren't surprising, but I got a lot less navel gazing here than I expected, in a good way.

Of course, there is some navel gazing too, but since this is nonfiction filtered through Green's perspective and life, it's more logical and organic here than it sometimes is in his fiction, as other reviewers have noted. I found most of his life stories compelling and relevant, though somewhat less so than the histories of the things he reviews.

I found this a good read for the end of a year, when we are all reevaluating our lives and what we want them to mean going forward. What does it all mean? Why should we care? Above all, I think that's what Green is giving us here: reasons we should care.
]]> <![CDATA[The Discovery of Pasta: A History in Ten Dishes]]> 61272015 What is Italy without pasta? Come to think of it, where would the rest of us be without this staple of global cuisine? An acclaimed Italian food writer tells the colorful and often-surprising history of everyone’s favorite dish.

In this hugely charming and entertaining chronicle of everyone’s favorite dish, acclaimed Italian food writer and historian Luca Cesari draws on literature, history, and many classic recipes in order to enlighten pasta lovers everywhere, both the gourmet and the gluten free.

What is Italy without pasta? Come to think of it, where would the rest of us be without this staple of global cuisine? The wheat-based dough first appeared in the Mediterranean in ancient times. Yet despite these remote beginnings, pasta wasn’t wedded to sauce until the nineteenth century. Once a special treat, it has been served everywhere from peasant homes to rustic taverns to royal tables, and its surprising past holds a mirror up to the changing fortunes of its makers. Full of mouthwatering recipes and outlandish anecdotes—from (literal) off-the-wall 1880s cooking techniques to spaghetti conveyer belts in 1940 and the international amatriciana scandal in 2021—Luca Cesari embarks on a tantalizingĚý and edifying journey through time to detangle the heritage of this culinary classic.]]> 363 Luca Cesari 1639363173 Emma 3 The Discovery of Pasta turned out to be the catalyst for several pasta dishes more than I had planned for a week - a high bar for someone who is already Italian. And I learned stuff, too!

One of my favorite things about Cesari's account of 10 famous Italian pasta dishes is his emphasis on supposed "tradition" and where it actually comes from. The pasta gods did not impart these recipes to us from atop Mount Ragu alla Bolognese (which that dish is in fact called). They changed over time. Much of which Italians scoff at today - overcooked pasta, cream in carbonara, interchanging guanciale with pancetta - was done by many a past Italian in the evolution of these recipes! Overcooked pasta is still gross, though. I'm sorry.

I do think, though, that this book would have been improved (for me) by excluding just a few recipes per chapter. Say, eight. I do not typically read recipes recreationally, and after the tenth or so recitation of ingredients for bolognese sauce, a film began to form over my eyeballs. I also would have appreciated a little more detail on the Italian history that led us to these recipes, but Cesari writes for an audience of Italian nationals who probably know this, so maybe that's my fault. It still provided me with useful tidbits to impart while visiting my Italian family this Christmas. So that's something!

Note on the format: I read the translation into English by Johanna Bishop, who not only had to translate Cesari's text, but dozens of recipes and even a few poems. If she was the one who translated the poems, she did an admirable job.]]> 3.88 The Discovery of Pasta: A History in Ten Dishes
author: Luca Cesari
name: Emma
average rating: 3.88
book published:
rating: 3
read at: 2024/12/21
date added: 2024/12/26
shelves:
review:
This book was worthwhile because it made me hungry. If a book with this title and cover doesn't make you want to immediately scarf down 10 different types of pasta, it should never have been published. Fortunately, The Discovery of Pasta turned out to be the catalyst for several pasta dishes more than I had planned for a week - a high bar for someone who is already Italian. And I learned stuff, too!

One of my favorite things about Cesari's account of 10 famous Italian pasta dishes is his emphasis on supposed "tradition" and where it actually comes from. The pasta gods did not impart these recipes to us from atop Mount Ragu alla Bolognese (which that dish is in fact called). They changed over time. Much of which Italians scoff at today - overcooked pasta, cream in carbonara, interchanging guanciale with pancetta - was done by many a past Italian in the evolution of these recipes! Overcooked pasta is still gross, though. I'm sorry.

I do think, though, that this book would have been improved (for me) by excluding just a few recipes per chapter. Say, eight. I do not typically read recipes recreationally, and after the tenth or so recitation of ingredients for bolognese sauce, a film began to form over my eyeballs. I also would have appreciated a little more detail on the Italian history that led us to these recipes, but Cesari writes for an audience of Italian nationals who probably know this, so maybe that's my fault. It still provided me with useful tidbits to impart while visiting my Italian family this Christmas. So that's something!

Note on the format: I read the translation into English by Johanna Bishop, who not only had to translate Cesari's text, but dozens of recipes and even a few poems. If she was the one who translated the poems, she did an admirable job.
]]> Nora Goes Off Script 58988426 Nora's life is about to get a rewrite...

Nora Hamilton knows the formula for love better than anyone. As a romance channel screenwriter, it's her job. But when her too-good-to work husband leaves her and their two kids, Nora turns her marriage's collapse into cash and writes the best script of her life. No one is more surprised than her when it's picked up for the big screen and set to film on location at her 100-year-old-home. When former Sexiest Man Alive, Leo Vance, is cast as her ne'er-do-well husband Nora's life will never be the same.

The morning after shooting wraps and the crew leaves, Nora finds Leo on her porch with a half-empty bottle of tequila and a proposition. He'll pay a thousand dollars a day to stay for a week. The extra seven grand would give Nora breathing room, but it's the need in his eyes that makes her say yes. Seven days: it's the blink of an eye or an eternity depending on how you look at it. Enough time to fall in love. Enough time to break your heart.

Filled with warmth, wit, and wisdom, Nora Goes Off Script is the best kind of love story--the real kind where love is complicated by work, kids, and the emotional baggage that comes with life. For Nora and Leo, this kind of love is bigger than the big screen.]]> 272 Annabel Monaghan 0593420039 Emma 3 Romantic Comedy." Which is, of course, the best thing a romance novel can be.

But though I see the similarities - normal writer woman over 35 meets famous hot actor on a job and they fall in love - there are a few key differences between the two books, some I was fine with and some not. Nora has kids, whereas Sally of Romantic Comedy didn't, and the presence of kids adds layers and challenges to Nora and Leo's relationship. That part was good! I also liked how we got to see Leo integrate into other aspects of Nora's daily life early on, and how well it worked or didn't.

However, I felt Nora and Leo's relationship needed a lot more development for me to buy it as much as I clearly needed to. Part of the issue here is that a significant chunk of the book is devoted to the selfish, fickle nature of Nora's ex-husband. I get that this is relevant because he's her kids' dad, but a romance book, as I'm sure you'd agree, should be primarily about the romance and not about the ex, and I feel like the ex got almost equal rumination time here!

But here's something I've observed about many contemporary romances I've read: they like to make the heroine look really, really good. The lazier and more selfish Nora's ex appears, the harder-working and more morally unimpeachable it's clear Nora is by comparison. This is why I think Romantic Comedy was so thoroughly disliked by people who thought it would be a more mainstream romance: readers often do not want to see a deeply flawed heroine in a romance novel, especially not an elder-millennial chronic overthinker who hasn't completely bucked patriarchal beauty norms and gets in her own way most of the time. That's who Sally is, and I love her. Nora's story leans a little harder towards wish fulfillment, and some people like that! Which is okay. But I am partial to stories about annoying people who think too hard, because I am one.

I'm sorry for using most of this review to talk about another book. This book wasn't bad! In fact, if you didn't like Romantic Comedy, this might be more of what you were looking for. It just wasn't quite what I was looking for.

I listened to the audiobook, read by Hillary Huber. I don't have much to say about it, really. She was fine.]]> 4.03 2022 Nora Goes Off Script
author: Annabel Monaghan
name: Emma
average rating: 4.03
book published: 2022
rating: 3
read at: 2024/12/16
date added: 2024/12/26
shelves:
review:
I picked up this book on the strength of a single sentence: someone told me "it's like Romantic Comedy." Which is, of course, the best thing a romance novel can be.

But though I see the similarities - normal writer woman over 35 meets famous hot actor on a job and they fall in love - there are a few key differences between the two books, some I was fine with and some not. Nora has kids, whereas Sally of Romantic Comedy didn't, and the presence of kids adds layers and challenges to Nora and Leo's relationship. That part was good! I also liked how we got to see Leo integrate into other aspects of Nora's daily life early on, and how well it worked or didn't.

However, I felt Nora and Leo's relationship needed a lot more development for me to buy it as much as I clearly needed to. Part of the issue here is that a significant chunk of the book is devoted to the selfish, fickle nature of Nora's ex-husband. I get that this is relevant because he's her kids' dad, but a romance book, as I'm sure you'd agree, should be primarily about the romance and not about the ex, and I feel like the ex got almost equal rumination time here!

But here's something I've observed about many contemporary romances I've read: they like to make the heroine look really, really good. The lazier and more selfish Nora's ex appears, the harder-working and more morally unimpeachable it's clear Nora is by comparison. This is why I think Romantic Comedy was so thoroughly disliked by people who thought it would be a more mainstream romance: readers often do not want to see a deeply flawed heroine in a romance novel, especially not an elder-millennial chronic overthinker who hasn't completely bucked patriarchal beauty norms and gets in her own way most of the time. That's who Sally is, and I love her. Nora's story leans a little harder towards wish fulfillment, and some people like that! Which is okay. But I am partial to stories about annoying people who think too hard, because I am one.

I'm sorry for using most of this review to talk about another book. This book wasn't bad! In fact, if you didn't like Romantic Comedy, this might be more of what you were looking for. It just wasn't quite what I was looking for.

I listened to the audiobook, read by Hillary Huber. I don't have much to say about it, really. She was fine.
]]> <![CDATA[Everything Is Tuberculosis: The History and Persistence of Our Deadliest Infection]]> 220341389 John Green, the #1 bestselling author of The Anthropocene Reviewed and a passionate advocate for global healthcare reform, tells a deeply human story illuminating the fight against the world’s deadliest disease.

Tuberculosis has been entwined with humanity for millennia. Once romanticized as a malady of poets, today tuberculosis is a disease of poverty that walks the trails of injustice and inequity we blazed for it.

In 2019, John Green met Henry, a young tuberculosis patient at Lakka Government Hospital in Sierra Leone while traveling with Partners in Health. John became fast friends with Henry, a boy with spindly legs and a big, goofy smile. In the years since that first visit to Lakka, Green has become a vocal and dynamic advocate for increased access to treatment and wider awareness of the healthcare inequities that allow this curable, treatable infectious disease to also be the deadliest, killing 1.5 million people every year.

In Everything is Tuberculosis, John tells Henry’s story, woven through with the scientific and social histories of how tuberculosis has shaped our world and how our choices will shape the future of tuberculosis.]]> 208 John Green 0525556575 Emma 0 to-read 4.57 2025 Everything Is Tuberculosis: The History and Persistence of Our Deadliest Infection
author: John Green
name: Emma
average rating: 4.57
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/12/16
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> The Emperor of Gladness 219848315 Ocean Vuong returns with a big-hearted novel about chosen family, unexpected friendship, and the stories we tell ourselves in order to survive

One late summer evening in the post-industrial town of East Gladness, Connecticut, nineteen-year-old Hai stands on the edge of a bridge in pelting rain, ready to jump, when he hears someone shout across the river. The voice belongs to Grazina, an elderly widow succumbing to dementia, who convinces him to take another path. Bereft and out of options, he quickly becomes her caretaker. Over the course of the year, the unlikely pair develops a life-altering bond, one built on empathy, spiritual reckoning, and heartbreak, with the power to alter Hai’s relationship to himself, his family, and a community at the brink.

Following the cycles of history, memory, and time, The Emperor of Gladness shows the profound ways in which love, labor, and loneliness form the bedrock of American life. At its heart is a brave epic about what it means to exist on the fringes of society and to reckon with the wounds that haunt our collective soul. Hallmarks of Vuong’s writing � formal innovation, syntactic dexterity, and the ability to twin grit with grace through tenderness � are on full display in this story of loss, hope, and how far we would go to possess one of life’s most fleeting mercies: a second chance.]]> 416 Ocean Vuong 059383187X Emma 0 to-read 4.39 2025 The Emperor of Gladness
author: Ocean Vuong
name: Emma
average rating: 4.39
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/12/16
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> The Heart in Winter 199795387 Award-winning writer Kevin Barry’s first novel set in America, a savagely funny and achingly romantic tale of young lovers on the lam in 1890s Montana.

October 1891. A hard winter approaches across the Rocky Mountains. The city of Butte, Montana is rich on copper mines and rampant with vice and debauchery among a hard-living crowd of immigrant Irish workers. Here we find Tom Rourke, a young poet and ballad-maker of the town, but also a doper, a drinker, and a fearsome degenerate. Just as he feels his life is heading nowhere fast, Polly Gillespie arrives in town as the new bride of the extremely devout mine captain Long Anthony Harrington. A thunderbolt love affair takes spark between Tom and Polly and they strike out west on a stolen horse, moving through the badlands of Montana and Idaho, and briefly an idyll of wild romance perfects itself. But a posse of deranged Cornish gunmen are soon in hot pursuit and closing in fast. With everything to lose and the safety and anonymity of San Francisco still a distant speck on their horizon, the choices they make will haunt them for the rest of their lives.

In this love story for the ages—lyrical, profane and propulsive—Kevin Barry has once again demonstrated himself to be a master stylist, an unrivalled humourist, and a true poet of the human heart.]]> 256 Kevin Barry 0385550596 Emma 0 dnf 3.80 2024 The Heart in Winter
author: Kevin Barry
name: Emma
average rating: 3.80
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/12/16
shelves: dnf
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Juliette or, the Ghosts Return in the Spring]]> 180052789
Juliette boards a train from Paris and comes back to her hometown hoping for a low-key visit with family and old friends. What she finds is anything but. Her sister, a caregiver and mother of two, is carrying on an elaborate affair with a man from a costume shop. Her parents, separated, are now estranged. Father is sure he’s coming down with Alzheimer’s, though it’s more likely that he’s simply getting old. Mother, on the other hand, revels in the second act of her life as a free woman, an artist with a show at their local gallery to prove it. Slowly, Juliette finds herself entangled with the unlikely Georges, a dyspeptic alcoholic who is stuck in his life. These divergent paths inevitably cross one another against a gloriously painted backdrop of eccentric small-town living.

Jourdy’s beautiful watercolor pages provide an unfeigned mileu for the subtle dramedy at hand. All too real human emotions, bittersweet and relatable in their rawness come together to form a poetic realism.

Translated by Aleshia Jensen.]]> 234 Camille Jourdy 1770467068 Emma 3
This was translated from the French by Aleshia Jensen. The translation does a good job and doesn't feel stilted, which can happen in dialogue-only media such as comic books!]]> 3.94 2016 Juliette or, the Ghosts Return in the Spring
author: Camille Jourdy
name: Emma
average rating: 3.94
book published: 2016
rating: 3
read at: 2024/12/09
date added: 2024/12/14
shelves:
review:
3.5 stars. This quiet graphic novel has a simple premise: woman has mental breakdown and comes home to visit a family that is more complicated than she initially thought. I've definitely read graphic novels that do a better job of quickly conveying character, and that handle plot better. I did really enjoy the bright, cheery art style in contrast with the melancholy story, and I like the portrait this creates of slow, sleepy yet not entirely happy small-town life.

This was translated from the French by Aleshia Jensen. The translation does a good job and doesn't feel stilted, which can happen in dialogue-only media such as comic books!
]]> <![CDATA[Code Dependent: Living in the Shadow of AI]]> 127282778 Shortlisted for the Women’s Prize for Non-Fiction
Named one of the best books of the year by Publishers Weekly.

A riveting story of what it means to be human in a world changed by artificial intelligence, revealing the perils and inequities of our growing reliance on automated decision-making

On the surface, a British poet, an UberEats courier in Pittsburgh, an Indian doctor, and a Chinese activist in exile have nothing in common. But they are in fact linked by a profound common experience—unexpected encounters with artificial intelligence. In Code Dependent, Murgia shows how automated systems are reshaping our lives all over the world, from technology that marks children as future criminals, to an app that is helping to give diagnoses to a remote tribal community.

AI has already infiltrated our day-to-day, through language-generating chatbots like ChatGPT and social media. But it’s also affecting us in more insidious ways. It touches everything from our interpersonal relationships, to our kids� education, work, finances, public services, and even our human rights.

By highlighting the voices of ordinary people in places far removed from the cozy enclave of Silicon Valley, Code Dependent explores the impact of a set of powerful, flawed, and often-exploitative technologies on individuals, communities, and our wider society. Murgia exposes how AI can strip away our collective and individual sense of agency, and shatter our illusion of free will.

The ways in which algorithms and their effects are governed over the coming years will profoundly impact us all. Yet we can’t agree on a common path forward. We cannot decide what preferences and morals we want to encode in these entities—or what controls we may want to impose on them. And thus, we are collectively relinquishing our moral authority to machines.

In Code Dependent, Murgia not only sheds light on this chilling phenomenon, but also charts a path of resistance. AI is already changing what it means to be human, in ways large and small, and Murgia reveals what could happen if we fail to reclaim our humanity.]]> 320 Madhumita Murgia 1250867398 Emma 3 4.08 2024 Code Dependent: Living in the Shadow of AI
author: Madhumita Murgia
name: Emma
average rating: 4.08
book published: 2024
rating: 3
read at: 2024/12/06
date added: 2024/12/09
shelves:
review:
This is a useful and important read if you want to know more about how AI impacts humans, especially marginalized people. It's more valuable for the information it provides than for the read itself. Maybe it's just because I'm not the most seasoned nonfiction reader, but there were so many cases and individuals to keep track of, and it changed up in each chapter. I also was hoping for more analysis of the environmental cost of AI; it wasn't mentioned here at all. Good enough read if you're ignorant about AI, as I was.
]]> Colton Gentry's Third Act 195820847 "A story of love, healing, and second chances � (Emily Henry) following a down on his luck country musician who, in the throes of grief after a shocking loss, moves back home and rekindles a relationship with his high school sweetheart, from award-winning author Jeff Zentner.

Colton Gentry is riding high. His first hit in nearly a decade has caught fire, he’s opening for country megastar Brant Lucas, and he’s married to one of the hottest acts in the country. But he’s hurting. Only a few weeks earlier, his best friend, Duane, was murdered onstage by a mass shooter at a country music festival. One night, with his trauma festering and Jim Beam flowing through his veins, Colton stands before a sold-out arena crowd of country music fans and offers his unfiltered opinion on guns. It goes over poorly.
Ěý
Immediately, his career and marriage implode. Left with few choices or funds, he retreats to his rural Kentucky hometown. He’s resigned himself to has-been-dom, until a chance encounter at his town’s new farm-to-table restaurant gives him a second shot at a job working in the kitchen with Luann, his first love, who has undergone her own reinvention. Told through perspectives alternating between his senior year of high school, his time coming up with Duane as hungry musicians in Nashville, and the present, COLTON GENTRY’S THIRD ACT is a story of coming home, undoing past heartbreaks, and navigating grief, and is a reminder that there are next acts in life, no matter how unlikely they may seem.Ěý]]> 400 Jeff Zentner 153875665X Emma 3
That's my long way of saying that Colton Gentry's Third Act is the first example of true "men's fiction" that I have ever read. It's about a man finding himself, and finding fulfillment in many relationships (primarily a romantic relationship, but not exclusively). It's definitely a cozy read despite dealing with addiction, gun violence, and grief. It's written by a man. And many of its readers, from what I can tell, are STILL women! Fascinating.

As a read, this is nice enough. It's not badly written, but it is at times overwritten; I was forced to cut through several layers of adjectives to get to the point on many occasions. The characters are mostly okay, though Luann, the love interest, feels just the littlest bit written-by-a-man. Pretty enough to be popular but hangs out with the artsy weird kids anyway? Check! Flawless indie music and reading taste at a young age? Check! Amazing at everything she tries, and quickly? Check! Fortunately, we don't have to add "oversexualized" to that list, and her flaws do come into the picture a little. And this is Colton's story, anyway.

I wasn't sure if I'd finish this for a while, but it was touching and sweet, and would be perfect for the male reader/country music fan in your life!

]]> 4.13 2024 Colton Gentry's Third Act
author: Jeff Zentner
name: Emma
average rating: 4.13
book published: 2024
rating: 3
read at: 2024/11/30
date added: 2024/12/07
shelves:
review:
I think one of my least favorite genre names in the book world is "women's fiction." And yet no one can seem to think of a better term for stories about a woman finding herself and maybe finding love, typically with that buttery-mashed-potato comforting feel to them, but sometimes more serious. one of the reasons I don't like "women's fiction" is that no one ever talks about "men's fiction." That seems to be just fiction!

That's my long way of saying that Colton Gentry's Third Act is the first example of true "men's fiction" that I have ever read. It's about a man finding himself, and finding fulfillment in many relationships (primarily a romantic relationship, but not exclusively). It's definitely a cozy read despite dealing with addiction, gun violence, and grief. It's written by a man. And many of its readers, from what I can tell, are STILL women! Fascinating.

As a read, this is nice enough. It's not badly written, but it is at times overwritten; I was forced to cut through several layers of adjectives to get to the point on many occasions. The characters are mostly okay, though Luann, the love interest, feels just the littlest bit written-by-a-man. Pretty enough to be popular but hangs out with the artsy weird kids anyway? Check! Flawless indie music and reading taste at a young age? Check! Amazing at everything she tries, and quickly? Check! Fortunately, we don't have to add "oversexualized" to that list, and her flaws do come into the picture a little. And this is Colton's story, anyway.

I wasn't sure if I'd finish this for a while, but it was touching and sweet, and would be perfect for the male reader/country music fan in your life!


]]> Long Island (Eilis Lacey, #2) 199798868 New York Times bestselling author comes a spectacularly moving and intense novel of secrecy, misunderstanding, and love, the story of Eilis Lacey, the complex and enigmatic heroine of Brooklyn, Tóibín’s most popular work, twenty years later.

Eilis Lacey is Irish, married to Tony Fiorello, a plumber and one of four Italian American brothers, all of whom live in neighboring houses on a cul-de-sac in Lindenhurst, Long Island, with their wives and children and Tony’s parents, a huge extended family that lives and works, eats and plays together. It is the spring of 1976 and Eilis, now in her forties with two teenage children, has no one to rely on in this still-new country. Though her ties to Ireland remain stronger than those that hold her to her new land and home, she has not returned in decades.

One day, when Tony is at his job and Eilis is in her home office doing her accounting, an Irishman comes to the door asking for her by name. He tells her that his wife is pregnant with Tony’s child and that when the baby is born, he will not raise it but instead deposit it on Eilis’s doorstep. It is what Eilis does—and what she refuses to do—in response to this stunning news that makes Tóibín’s novel so riveting.

Long Island is about longings unfulfilled, even unrecognized. The silences in Eilis� life are thunderous and dangerous, and there’s no one more deft than Tóibín at giving them language. This is a gorgeous story of a woman alone in a marriage and the deepest bonds she rekindles on her return to the place and people she left behind, to ways of living and loving she thought she’d lost.]]> 294 Colm Tóibín 1476785112 Emma 3 Brooklyn. I was hoping I'd be converted this time. Maybe I'd finally get why everyone liked that book even before Saoirse Ronan was in the movie.

There's something about TĂłibĂ­n's characters that makes them hard to get close to. I actually don't mean Eilis this time; I appreciated her swift decision making here, and that she was taking a stance at all, which she didn't do much of in Brooklyn. But though TĂłibĂ­n draws all the other characters sympathetically enough, I couldn't pick most of them out of a lineup (of paragraphs) if I tried. I continue to not really understand why anyone here is attracted to anyone else, and in a book full of affairs and chance encounters with exes, that is a problem. I also agree with people who said "it's like he didn't know where to end, so he stopped writing." That's exactly what it's like! Colm, why are you like this?

But I still pretty much enjoyed myself, I guess! Weird how that happens sometimes.]]> 3.68 2024 Long Island (Eilis Lacey, #2)
author: Colm TĂłibĂ­n
name: Emma
average rating: 3.68
book published: 2024
rating: 3
read at: 2024/11/23
date added: 2024/11/30
shelves:
review:
I liked this book about as much as I expected to, given how much I liked Brooklyn. I was hoping I'd be converted this time. Maybe I'd finally get why everyone liked that book even before Saoirse Ronan was in the movie.

There's something about TĂłibĂ­n's characters that makes them hard to get close to. I actually don't mean Eilis this time; I appreciated her swift decision making here, and that she was taking a stance at all, which she didn't do much of in Brooklyn. But though TĂłibĂ­n draws all the other characters sympathetically enough, I couldn't pick most of them out of a lineup (of paragraphs) if I tried. I continue to not really understand why anyone here is attracted to anyone else, and in a book full of affairs and chance encounters with exes, that is a problem. I also agree with people who said "it's like he didn't know where to end, so he stopped writing." That's exactly what it's like! Colm, why are you like this?

But I still pretty much enjoyed myself, I guess! Weird how that happens sometimes.
]]> Mansfield Park 45032 488 Jane Austen Emma 2 3.86 1814 Mansfield Park
author: Jane Austen
name: Emma
average rating: 3.86
book published: 1814
rating: 2
read at:
date added: 2024/11/27
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Handmaid’s Tale (The Handmaid's Tale, #1)]]> 38447
Funny, unexpected, horrifying, and altogether convincing, The Handmaid's Tale is at once scathing satire, dire warning, and tour de force.]]> 311 Margaret Atwood 038549081X Emma 0 4.15 1985 The Handmaid’s Tale (The Handmaid's Tale, #1)
author: Margaret Atwood
name: Emma
average rating: 4.15
book published: 1985
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/11/18
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Testaments (The Handmaid's Tale, #2)]]> 42975172 The Handmaid's Tale, readers had no way of telling what lay ahead for her--freedom, prison or death.

With The Testaments, the wait is over.

Margaret Atwood's sequel picks up the story more than fifteen years after Offred stepped into the unknown, with the explosive testaments of three female narrators from Gilead.

In this brilliant sequel to The Handmaid's Tale, acclaimed author Margaret Atwood answers the questions that have tantalized readers for decades.

"Dear Readers: Everything you've ever asked me about Gilead and its inner workings is the inspiration for this book. Well, almost everything! The other inspiration is the world we've been living in." --Margaret Atwood

An alternate cover edition of ISBN 978-0385543781 can be found here.]]> 422 Margaret Atwood Emma 0 4.16 2019 The Testaments (The Handmaid's Tale, #2)
author: Margaret Atwood
name: Emma
average rating: 4.16
book published: 2019
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/11/18
shelves:
review:

]]> The Hero of This Book 60095078 A taut, groundbreaking new novel about a writer's relationship with her larger-than-life mother--and about the very nature of writing, memory, and art

Ten months after her mother's death, the narrator of The Hero of This Book takes a trip to London. The city was a favorite of her mother's, and as the narrator wanders the streets, she finds herself reflecting on her mother's life and their relationship. Thoughts of the past meld with questions of the future: Back in New England, the family home is now up for sale, its considerable contents already winnowed.

The woman, a writer, recalls all that made her complicated mother extraordinary--her brilliant wit, her generosity, her unbelievable obstinacy, her sheer will in seizing life despite physical difficulties--and finds herself wondering how her mother had endured. Even though she wants to respect her mother's nearly pathological sense of privacy, the woman must come to terms with whether making a chronicle of this remarkable life constitutes an act of love or betrayal.

The Hero of This Book is a searing examination of grief and renewal, and of a deeply felt relationship between a child and her parents. What begins as a question of filial devotion ultimately becomes a lesson in what it means to write. At once comic and heartbreaking, with prose that delights at every turn, this is a novel of such piercing love and tenderness that we are reminded that art is what remains when all else falls away.]]> 192 Elizabeth McCracken 0062971271 Emma 3
As in Bowlaway, a book I really like although this website doesn't, Elizabeth McCracken is a highly specific creator of characters. The author's mother here is so real, so singular and yet so like many other mothers I know, that maybe I could have met her on the street. This is autobiographical, and so I probably could have.

I read this during election week and this is all I can offer at the moment. It probably deserves a better review. Read it and give it one.]]> 3.72 2022 The Hero of This Book
author: Elizabeth McCracken
name: Emma
average rating: 3.72
book published: 2022
rating: 3
read at: 2024/11/06
date added: 2024/11/18
shelves:
review:
3.5 stars. I didn't always know what this was, but I usually liked what it was. This may be an autobiographical novel, or it may be a memoir, or it may be a book about writing, or it may be an elegy for a mother who died. Sometimes it is all of these things in one paragraph.

As in Bowlaway, a book I really like although this website doesn't, Elizabeth McCracken is a highly specific creator of characters. The author's mother here is so real, so singular and yet so like many other mothers I know, that maybe I could have met her on the street. This is autobiographical, and so I probably could have.

I read this during election week and this is all I can offer at the moment. It probably deserves a better review. Read it and give it one.
]]> The Glassmaker 202167720
It is 1486 and Venice is a wealthy, opulent center for trade. Orsola Rosso is the eldest daughter in a family of glassblowers in Murano, the island revered for the craft. As a woman, she is not meant to work with glass—but she has the hands for it, the heart, and a vision. When her father dies, she teaches herself to make beads in secret, and her work supports the Rosso family fortunes.

Skipping like a stone through the centuries, in a Venice where time moves as slowly as molten glass, we follow Orsola and her family as they live through creative triumph and heartbreaking loss, from a plague devastating Venice to Continental soldiers stripping its palazzos bare, from the domination of Murano and its maestros to the transformation of the city of trade into a city of tourists. In every era, the Rosso women ensure that their work, and their bonds, endure.

Chevalier is a master of her own craft, and The Glassmaker is as inventive as it is a mesmerizing portrait of a woman, a family, and a city that are as everlasting as their glass.]]> 416 Tracy Chevalier 0525558276 Emma 4 Orlando. But most people can't do what Virginia Woolf does.

Tracy Chevalier can, though.

After establishing the ground rules at the beginning - time runs differently in Venice, and so our characters will age much more slowly than the world around them - Chevalier doesn't really look back. It takes a while to get used to, but once you accept the choice as a metaphor for Venice as a historical time capsule, rather than something that's supposed to work in a linear fashion, you'll enjoy it more. (Please do not try to do math while reading this book. You will get a headache.)

Also, the characters grow on you; you become invested in their relationships, which happen on a longer scale than usual, but are pretty much the same as human relationships always are. The city of Venice and the island of Murano are strikingly rendered, the process of glassmaking is described in a way that's educational but not (usually) too boring, and the rapid pace of the timeline lets the author slip in changing details about Venetian life, and real historical figures (Casanova! The marchesa who took walks with her cheetahs!).

This isn't as good as Girl with a Pearl Earring. It leans tell-not-show at times, and the way Italian is interspersed in the dialogue is a little jarring at the beginning. But the truly touching moments - and there are several - won me over.

Also, everything should be set in Venice.]]> 3.86 2024 The Glassmaker
author: Tracy Chevalier
name: Emma
average rating: 3.86
book published: 2024
rating: 4
read at: 2024/11/01
date added: 2024/11/15
shelves:
review:
3.5 stars. When you, as a historical fiction author, are facing the choice to either write a sweeping centuries-long saga or focus on one set of characters, not very many people would think of doing both. Virginia Woolf did, with Orlando. But most people can't do what Virginia Woolf does.

Tracy Chevalier can, though.

After establishing the ground rules at the beginning - time runs differently in Venice, and so our characters will age much more slowly than the world around them - Chevalier doesn't really look back. It takes a while to get used to, but once you accept the choice as a metaphor for Venice as a historical time capsule, rather than something that's supposed to work in a linear fashion, you'll enjoy it more. (Please do not try to do math while reading this book. You will get a headache.)

Also, the characters grow on you; you become invested in their relationships, which happen on a longer scale than usual, but are pretty much the same as human relationships always are. The city of Venice and the island of Murano are strikingly rendered, the process of glassmaking is described in a way that's educational but not (usually) too boring, and the rapid pace of the timeline lets the author slip in changing details about Venetian life, and real historical figures (Casanova! The marchesa who took walks with her cheetahs!).

This isn't as good as Girl with a Pearl Earring. It leans tell-not-show at times, and the way Italian is interspersed in the dialogue is a little jarring at the beginning. But the truly touching moments - and there are several - won me over.

Also, everything should be set in Venice.
]]> Orlando 18839 Orlando 'The longest and most charming love letter in literature', playfully constructs the figure of Orlando as the fictional embodiment of Woolf's close friend and lover, Vita Sackville-West. Spanning three centuries, the novel opens as Orlando, a young nobleman in Elizabeth's England, awaits a visit from the Queen and traces his experience with first love as England under James I lies locked in the embrace of the Great Frost. At the midpoint of the novel, Orlando, now an ambassador in Constantinople, awakes to find that he is now a woman, and the novel indulges in farce and irony to consider the roles of women in the 18th and 19th centuries. As the novel ends in 1928, a year consonant with full suffrage for women. Orlando, now a wife and mother, stands poised at the brink of a future that holds new hope and promise for women.]]> 336 Virginia Woolf 0141184272 Emma 0 3.88 1928 Orlando
author: Virginia Woolf
name: Emma
average rating: 3.88
book published: 1928
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/11/15
shelves:
review:

]]> Margo's Got Money Troubles 199534613
Margo braucht Geld. Seit sie ungewollt von ihrem Collegeprofessor, der sie jetzt mit dem Kind alleinlässt, schwanger wurde, mehr denn je. Wie Margo es auch dreht und wendet, kein Job scheint passend zu sein, oder könnte auch nur ansatzweise ihr Leben mit einem Baby finanzieren. Durch einen Zufall wird sie auf die Plattform OnlyFans aufmerksam, und Margo ist fasziniert von dieser Welt, in der Frauen mit sich und ihrem Körper experimentieren, und offenbar gut dabei verdienen. Also beginnt auch sie, Inhalte zu produzieren. Dabei erhält sie Unterstützung von ihrer Mitbewohnerin Suzie, einem großen Cosplay-Fan, und auch von ihrem Vater Jinx, einem Ex-Wrestlingprofi. Ehe sie sich versieht, ist Margo ein Online-Phänomen. Könnte dies die Antwort auf all ihre Probleme sein, oder hat der Internet-Ruhm einen zu hohen Preis?]]> 304 Rufi Thorpe 0063356589 Emma 5
These characters are sex workers, college dropout single moms, ex-wrestlers turned grandfathers, OnlyFans patrons, hypocritical youth pastors. They love each other and hate each other and fight to survive. And Margo, particularly, does all these things so determinedly and with such clear-eyed wit that you’ll want to be her friend. Or be her.

This book is also a brilliant yet accessible commentary on storytelling, and plays around with narration without being totally confusing! A character in this book claims book characters aren’t human and shouldn’t be viewed as such, but I don’t think the author of this book believes that for a second. If she did, she wouldn’t have made us love them so much. Or would she?

I listened to the audiobook, read by Elle Fanning, who will play Margo in the Apple+ adaptation (!!!!!). She does a great job. ]]> 3.87 2024 Margo's Got Money Troubles
author: Rufi Thorpe
name: Emma
average rating: 3.87
book published: 2024
rating: 5
read at: 2024/10/30
date added: 2024/11/10
shelves:
review:
If you think literary fiction is all very well with its neurotic Irish college students and its lugubrious sex scenes between writers having miserable affairs, but it’s just not for you, you should read this book. If you LOVE literary fiction wholeheartedly (me) and your friends are always telling you you’re a pretentious turd, read this book and recommend it to them, and they’ll think you’re cool. I promise. I don’t even need to test it.

These characters are sex workers, college dropout single moms, ex-wrestlers turned grandfathers, OnlyFans patrons, hypocritical youth pastors. They love each other and hate each other and fight to survive. And Margo, particularly, does all these things so determinedly and with such clear-eyed wit that you’ll want to be her friend. Or be her.

This book is also a brilliant yet accessible commentary on storytelling, and plays around with narration without being totally confusing! A character in this book claims book characters aren’t human and shouldn’t be viewed as such, but I don’t think the author of this book believes that for a second. If she did, she wouldn’t have made us love them so much. Or would she?

I listened to the audiobook, read by Elle Fanning, who will play Margo in the Apple+ adaptation (!!!!!). She does a great job.
]]> <![CDATA[What I Ate in One Year (And Related Thoughts)]]> 207298822
“Sharing food is one of the purest human acts.�

Food has always been an integral part of Stanley Tucci’s life: from stracciatella soup served in the shadow of the Pantheon, to marinara sauce cooked between scene rehearsals and costume fittings, to home-made pizza eaten with his children before bedtime.

Now, in What I Ate in One Year Tucci records twelve months of eating—in restaurants, kitchens, film sets, press junkets, at home and abroad, with friends, with family, with strangers, and occasionally just by himself.

Ranging from the mouth-wateringly memorable to the comfortingly domestic and to the infuriatingly inedible, the meals memorialised in this diary are a prism for him to reflect on the ways his life, and his family, are constantly evolving. Through food he marks—and mourns—the passing of time, the loss of loved ones, and steels himself for what is to come.

Whether it’s duck a l’orange eaten with fellow actors and cooked by singing Carmelite nuns, steaks barbequed at a gathering with friends, or meatballs made by his mother and son and shared at the table with three generations of his family, these meals give shape and add emotional richness to his days.

What I Ate in One Year is a funny, poignant, heartfelt, and deeply satisfying serving of memories and meals and an irresistible celebration of the profound role that food plays in all our lives.]]> 368 Stanley Tucci 1668055686 Emma 4 Taste wins out in both respects. But driving to a work trip in the mountains under a supermoon, listening to Stanley Tucci wax rhapsodic about pasta after pasta, is still one of the best drives I can imagine.

You must listen to the audiobook. I am not willing to budge on this point.]]> 3.86 2024 What I Ate in One Year (And Related Thoughts)
author: Stanley Tucci
name: Emma
average rating: 3.86
book published: 2024
rating: 4
read at: 2024/10/18
date added: 2024/11/10
shelves:
review:
3.5 stars. Stanley Tucci is at his most dramatic, his crankiest, his most in love with food in this book. You wouldn't think a description of the meals and daily activities of a movie star, even your favorite one, would be entertaining. Honestly, even in this case, you would sometimes have a point. This book isn't the fastest-moving, or the most emotionally moving, that Tucci has written. Taste wins out in both respects. But driving to a work trip in the mountains under a supermoon, listening to Stanley Tucci wax rhapsodic about pasta after pasta, is still one of the best drives I can imagine.

You must listen to the audiobook. I am not willing to budge on this point.
]]> Station Eleven 20170404 An audacious, darkly glittering novel set in the eerie days of civilization’s collapse—the spellbinding story of a Hollywood star, his would-be savior, and a nomadic group of actors roaming the scattered outposts of the Great Lakes region, risking everything for art and humanity.

Kirsten Raymonde will never forget the night Arthur Leander, the famous Hollywood actor, had a heart attack on stage during a production of King Lear. That was the night when a devastating flu pandemic arrived in the city, and within weeks, civilization as we know it came to an end.

Twenty years later, Kirsten moves between the settlements of the altered world with a small troupe of actors and musicians. They call themselves The Traveling Symphony, and they have dedicated themselves to keeping the remnants of art and humanity alive. But when they arrive in St. Deborah by the Water, they encounter a violent prophet who will threaten the tiny band’s existence. And as the story takes off, moving back and forth in time, and vividly depicting life before and after the pandemic, the strange twist of fate that connects them all will be revealed.]]> 333 Emily St. John Mandel 0385353308 Emma 0 4.05 2014 Station Eleven
author: Emily St. John Mandel
name: Emma
average rating: 4.05
book published: 2014
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/11/08
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Six of Crows (Six of Crows, #1)]]> 23437156 Alternate cover of ISBN 9781627792127

Ketterdam: a bustling hub of international trade where anything can be had for the right price—and no one knows that better than criminal prodigy Kaz Brekker. Kaz is offered a chance at a deadly heist that could make him rich beyond his wildest dreams. But he can’t pull it off alone...

A convict with a thirst for revenge

A sharpshooter who can’t walk away from a wager

A runaway with a privileged past

A spy known as the Wraith

A Heartrender using her magic to survive the slums

A thief with a gift for unlikely escapes

Six dangerous outcasts. One impossible heist. Kaz’s crew is the only thing that might stand between the world and destruction—if they don’t kill each other first.]]> 480 Leigh Bardugo 1627792120 Emma 0 4.47 2015 Six of Crows (Six of Crows, #1)
author: Leigh Bardugo
name: Emma
average rating: 4.47
book published: 2015
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/11/08
shelves:
review:

]]> The Underground Railroad 30555488
In Whitehead's ingenious conception, the Underground Railroad is no mere metaphor--engineers and conductors operate a secret network of tracks and tunnels beneath the Southern soil. Cora and Caesar's first stop is South Carolina, in a city that initially seems like a haven. But the city's placid surface masks an insidious scheme designed for its black denizens. And even worse: Ridgeway, the relentless slave catcher, is close on their heels. Forced to flee again, Cora embarks on a harrowing flight, state by state, seeking true freedom.

Like the protagonist of Gulliver's Travels, Cora encounters different worlds at each stage of her journey--hers is an odyssey through time as well as space. As Whitehead brilliantly re-creates the unique terrors for black people in the pre-Civil War era, his narrative seamlessly weaves the saga of America from the brutal importation of Africans to the unfulfilled promises of the present day. The Underground Railroad is at once a kinetic adventure tale of one woman's ferocious will to escape the horrors of bondage and a shattering, powerful meditation on the history we all share.]]> 320 Colson Whitehead 0385542364 Emma 0 4.04 2016 The Underground Railroad
author: Colson Whitehead
name: Emma
average rating: 4.04
book published: 2016
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/11/08
shelves:
review:

]]> Little Fires Everywhere 34273236
In Shaker Heights, a placid, progressive suburb of Cleveland, everything is meticulously planned � from the layout of the winding roads, to the colours of the houses, to the successful lives its residents will go on to lead. And no one embodies this spirit more than Elena Richardson, whose guiding principle is playing by the rules.

Enter Mia Warren � an enigmatic artist and single mother � who arrives in this idyllic bubble with her teenage daughter Pearl, and rents a house from the Richardsons. Soon Mia and Pearl become more than just tenants: all four Richardson children are drawn to the mother–daughter pair. But Mia carries with her a mysterious past, and a disregard for the rules that threatens to upend this carefully ordered community.

When old family friends attempt to adopt a Chinese-American baby, a custody battle erupts that dramatically divides the town � and puts Mia and Elena on opposing sides. Suspicious of Mia and her motives, Elena is determined to uncover the secrets in Mia's past. But her obsession will come at an unexpected and devastating cost . . .]]> 338 Celeste Ng 0735224293 Emma 0 4.05 2017 Little Fires Everywhere
author: Celeste Ng
name: Emma
average rating: 4.05
book published: 2017
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/11/08
shelves:
review:

]]> Circe 35959740
Threatened, Zeus banishes her to a deserted island, where she hones her occult craft, tames wild beasts, and crosses paths with many of the most famous figures in all of mythology, including the Minotaur, Daedalus and his doomed son Icarus, the murderous Medea, and, of course, wily Odysseus.

But there is danger, too, for a woman who stands alone, and Circe unwittingly draws the wrath of both men and gods, ultimately finding herself pitted against one of the most terrifying and vengeful of the Olympians. To protect what she loves most, Circe must summon all her strength and choose, once and for all, whether she belongs with the gods she is born from or with the mortals she has come to love.]]> 393 Madeline Miller 0316556343 Emma 0 4.22 2018 Circe
author: Madeline Miller
name: Emma
average rating: 4.22
book published: 2018
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/11/08
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Bloody Chamber and Other Stories]]> 49011 126 Angela Carter 014017821X Emma 0 rereads-2024 3.96 1979 The Bloody Chamber and Other Stories
author: Angela Carter
name: Emma
average rating: 3.96
book published: 1979
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/11/06
shelves: rereads-2024
review:

]]> The Spellshop 199269577 The Spellshop is Sarah Beth Durst’s romantasy debut–a lush cottagecore tale full of stolen spellbooks, unexpected friendships, sweet jams, and even sweeter love.

Kiela has always had trouble dealing with people. Thankfully, as a librarian at the Great Library of Alyssium, she and her assistant, Caz—a magically sentient spider plant—have spent the last decade sequestered among the empire’s most precious spellbooks, preserving their magic for the city’s elite.

When a revolution begins and the library goes up in flames, she and Caz flee with all the spellbooks they can carry and head to a remote island Kiela never thought she’d see again: her childhood home. Taking refuge there, Kiela discovers, much to her dismay, a nosy—and very handsome—neighbor who can’t take a hint and keeps showing up day after day to make sure she’s fed and to help fix up her new home.

In need of income, Kiela identifies something that even the bakery in town doesn’t have: jam. With the help of an old recipe book her parents left her and a bit of illegal magic, her cottage garden is soon covered in ripe berries.

But magic can do more than make life a little sweeter, so Kiela risks the consequences of using unsanctioned spells and opens the island’s first-ever and much needed secret spellshop.

Like a Hallmark rom-com full of mythical creatures and fueled by cinnamon rolls and magic, The Spellshop will heal your heart and feed your soul.]]> 384 Sarah Beth Durst Emma 3 The Spellshop is admittedly slow to start, with more descriptions of plants than I personally care for. But it is both sweetly atmospheric and genuinely tense in places due to the political instability of the world outside this island. That's a balance I wish cozy fantasy could achieve more often.

Finally, a recent cozy fantasy I kinda enjoyed!]]> 4.05 2024 The Spellshop
author: Sarah Beth Durst
name: Emma
average rating: 4.05
book published: 2024
rating: 3
read at: 2024/10/31
date added: 2024/11/01
shelves:
review:
This book is described as romantasy in the blurb, even though it's not dark, the characters' relationship isn't tortured and full of drama, and in fact, the romance isn't the most significant part of the book at all. It reminds me of the romantic fantasy books I read as a kid. I like this softer side of romantasy, and I wish it got more press. The Spellshop is admittedly slow to start, with more descriptions of plants than I personally care for. But it is both sweetly atmospheric and genuinely tense in places due to the political instability of the world outside this island. That's a balance I wish cozy fantasy could achieve more often.

Finally, a recent cozy fantasy I kinda enjoyed!
]]> <![CDATA[From Hollywood with Love: The Rise and Fall (and Rise Again) of the Romantic Comedy]]> 58490579 An in-depth celebration of the romantic comedy's modern golden era and its role in our culture, tracking the genre from its heyday in the '80s and the '90s, its unfortunate decline in the 2000s, and its explosive reemergence in the age of streaming, featuring exclusive interviews with the directors, writers, and stars of the iconic films that defined the genre.

No Hollywood genre has been more misunderstood--or more unfairly under-appreciated--than the romantic comedy. Funny, charming, and reliably crowd-pleasing, rom-coms were the essential backbone of the Hollywood landscape, launching the careers of many of Hollywood's most talented actors and filmmakers, such as Julia Roberts and Matthew McConaughey, and providing many of the yet limited creative opportunities women had in Hollywood. But despite--or perhaps because of--all that, the rom-com has routinely been overlooked by the Academy Awards or snobbishly dismissed by critics. In From Hollywood with Love, culture writer and GQ contributor Scott Meslow seeks to right this wrong, celebrating and analyzing rom-coms with the appreciative, insightful critical lens they've always deserved.

Beginning with the golden era of the romantic comedy--spanning from the late '80s to the mid-'00s with the breakthrough of films such as When Harry Met Sally--to the rise of streaming and the long-overdue push for diversity setting the course for films such as the groundbreaking, franchise-spawning Crazy Rich Asians, Meslow examines the evolution of the genre through its many iterations, from its establishment of new tropes, the Austen and Shakespeare rewrites, the many love triangles, and even the occasional brave decision to do away with the happily ever after.

Featuring original black-and-white sketches of iconic movie scenes and exclusive interviews with the actors and filmmakers behind our most beloved rom-coms, From Hollywood with Love constructs oral histories of our most celebrated romantic comedies, for an informed and entertaining look at Hollywood's beloved yet most under-appreciated genre.]]> 432 Scott Meslow 0063026295 Emma 4 When Harry Met Sally and ending with To All the Boys I've Loved Before, was thorough enough to teach even rom com-obsessed me something. He even covers movies I hadn't heard of, including 1995's Waiting to Exhale, long a favorite with Black rom com fans but unsurprisingly little-known by white ones. There's also a thoughtful take on Judd Apatow's brand of male-centered rom coms that both vindicated my problems with them and showed me why they resonate with some people. I still don't understand why everyone likes How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days so much, but that would take a miracle.]]> 4.02 2022 From Hollywood with Love: The Rise and Fall (and Rise Again) of the Romantic Comedy
author: Scott Meslow
name: Emma
average rating: 4.02
book published: 2022
rating: 4
read at: 2024/10/15
date added: 2024/10/31
shelves:
review:
You shouldn't be allowed to have this much fun reading and still learn. But I did. Scott Meslow's history of the modern rom com, starting with When Harry Met Sally and ending with To All the Boys I've Loved Before, was thorough enough to teach even rom com-obsessed me something. He even covers movies I hadn't heard of, including 1995's Waiting to Exhale, long a favorite with Black rom com fans but unsurprisingly little-known by white ones. There's also a thoughtful take on Judd Apatow's brand of male-centered rom coms that both vindicated my problems with them and showed me why they resonate with some people. I still don't understand why everyone likes How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days so much, but that would take a miracle.
]]> <![CDATA[Our Migrant Souls: A Meditation on Race and the Meanings and Myths of “Latino”]]> 62039320
In Our Migrant Souls , the Pulitzer Prize–winning writer Héctor Tobar delivers a definitive and personal exploration of what it means to be Latino in the United States right now.

“Latino� is the most open-ended and loosely defined of the major race categories in the United States, and also one of the most rapidly growing. Composed as a direct address to the young people who identify or have been classified as “Latino,� Our Migrant Souls is the first account of the historical and social forces that define Latino identity.

Taking on the impacts of colonialism, public policy, immigration, media, and pop culture, Our Migrant Souls decodes the meaning of “Latino� as a racial and ethnic identity in the modern United States, and gives voice to the anger and the hopes of young Latino people who have seen Latinidad transformed into hateful tropes and who have faced insult and division―a story as old as this country itself.

Tobar translates his experience as not only a journalist and novelist but also a mentor, a leader, and an educator. He interweaves his own story, and that of his parents� migration to the United States from Guatemala, into his account of his journey across the country to uncover something expansive, inspiring, true, and alive about the meaning of “Latino� in the twenty-first century.]]> 256 Héctor Tobar 037460990X Emma 4 4.28 Our Migrant Souls: A Meditation on Race and the Meanings and Myths of “Latino”
author: HĂ©ctor Tobar
name: Emma
average rating: 4.28
book published:
rating: 4
read at: 2024/10/16
date added: 2024/10/31
shelves:
review:
In this book, Tobar beautifully describes his own life as a Latino man in the US and weaves it together with the stories of other people he knows, from many different walks of life. He brings to life both the joys and the horrors of the Latino experience; I found the section on the deserts migrants are forced to cross particularly chilling. Tobar says his mission is to show Latinos for the complex, real people they are, not just the childlike, mute figures that often appear in pop culture. He definitely succeeds.
]]> Treacle Walker 58205835 Treacle Walker is a stunning fusion of myth and folklore and an exploration of the fluidity of time, vivid storytelling that brilliantly illuminates an introspective young mind trying to make sense of everything around him.

'Ragbone! Ragbone! Any rags! Pots for rags! Donkey stone!'

Joe looked up from his comic and lifted his eye patch. There was a white pony in the yard. It was harnessed to a cart, a flat cart, with a wooden chest on it. A man was sitting at a front corner of the cart, holding the reins. His face was creased. He wore a long coat and a floppy high-crowned hat, with hair straggling beneath, and a leather bag was slung from his shoulder across his hip.

Joe Coppock squints at the world with his lazy eye. He reads his comics, collects birds' eggs and treasures his marbles, particularly his prized dobbers. When Treacle Walker appears off the Cheshire moor one day - a wanderer, a healer - an unlikely friendship is forged and the young boy is introduced to a world he could never have imagined.]]> 152 Alan Garner 0008477795 Emma 0 dnf 3.10 2021 Treacle Walker
author: Alan Garner
name: Emma
average rating: 3.10
book published: 2021
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/10/28
shelves: dnf
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Mirrored Heavens (Between Earth and Sky, #3)]]> 60656015 The interwoven destinies of the people of Meridian will finally be determined in this stunning conclusion to New York Times bestselling author Rebecca Roanhorse’s Between Earth and Sky trilogy.

Even the sea cannot stay calm before the storm. —Teek saying

Serapio, avatar of the Crow God Reborn and the newly crowned Carrion King, rules Tova. But his enemies gather both on distant shores and within his own city as the matrons of the clans scheme to destroy him. And deep in the alleys of the Maw, a new prophecy is whispered, this one from the Coyote God. It promises Serapio certain doom if its terrible dictates are not fulfilled.

Meanwhile, Xiala is thrust back amongst her people as war comes first to the island of Teek. With their way of life and their magic under threat, she is their last best hope. But the sea won’t talk to her the way it used to, and doubts riddle her mind. She will have to sacrifice the things that matter most to unleash her powers and become the queen they were promised.

And in the far northern wastelands, Naranpa, avatar of the Sun God, seeks a way to save Tova from the visions of fire that engulf her dreams. But another presence has begun stalking her nightmares, and the Jaguar God is on the hunt.]]> 597 Rebecca Roanhorse 1534437703 Emma 0 dnf 4.21 2024 Mirrored Heavens (Between Earth and Sky, #3)
author: Rebecca Roanhorse
name: Emma
average rating: 4.21
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/10/24
shelves: dnf
review:

]]> Audition 216247518 One woman, the performance of a lifetime. Or two. A mesmerizing Mobius strip of a novel that asks who we are to the people we love.

Two people meet for lunch in a Manhattan restaurant. She’s an elegant and accomplished actress in rehearsals for an upcoming premiere. He’s attractive, troubling, and young—young enough to be her son. Who is he to her, and who is she to him? In Audition, two competing narratives unspool, rewriting our understanding of the roles we play every day—partner, parent, creator, muse—and the truths every performance masks, especially from those who think they know us best.]]> 208 Katie Kitamura 059385232X Emma 0 to-read 3.89 2025 Audition
author: Katie Kitamura
name: Emma
average rating: 3.89
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/10/21
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Rewitched 210847437 Belladonna Blackthorn hasn’t lost her magical spark . . . but she hasn’t seen it in a while, either.

Balancing work at her beloved Lunar Books with protecting it from her toxic boss, who’s running it into the ground, and all the while concealing her witchcraft from the non-wicches around her � Belle is burnt out. Perfecting the potential of her magic is the last thing on her mind.

But when her 30th birthday brings a summons from her coven, and a trial that tests her worthiness as a witch, Belle risks losing her magic forever. With the month of October to fix things, and signs that dark forces may be working against her, Belle will need all the help she can get � from the women in her life, from an unlikely mentor figure, and even an (infuriatingly handsome) watchman who’s sworn to protect her . . .

With found family, slow burn romance and an uplifting message about self-love, this is the cosy, autumnal read that you've been waiting for.]]> 384 Lucy Jane Wood 059382007X Emma 0 dnf 3.82 2024 Rewitched
author: Lucy Jane Wood
name: Emma
average rating: 3.82
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/10/20
shelves: dnf
review:

]]> Desarticulaciones 12373983
Sylvia Molloy regresa a la ficción con una novela universal, dramática pero llena de sabiduría acerca del modo en que se acompañan, se procesan y se sobrellevan los efectos del paso del tiempo.]]> 77 Sylvia Molloy 9871673205 Emma 3 4.12 2010 Desarticulaciones
author: Sylvia Molloy
name: Emma
average rating: 4.12
book published: 2010
rating: 3
read at: 2024/10/11
date added: 2024/10/19
shelves:
review:
Sylvia Molloy, like me, is close to someone with Alzheimer's, and like me, she notices tiny little changes every time she sees them that morph into larger unknowable voids over time. She has collected several of those into this very short book, which is technically a novel, although barely. I didn't have much of a reaction beyond "yeah, that's rough," and a nod of recognition at a few well-chosen phrases. But I also read this book in Spanish, my second language, and it took me the entire read to figure out that this person wasn't Molloy's mother, so maybe my understanding of it shouldn't be trusted.
]]> Comfort Me with Apples 56179382
It's just that he's away so much. So often. He works so hard. She misses him. And he misses her. He says he does, so it must be true. He is the perfect husband and everything is perfect.

But sometimes Sophia wonders about things. Strange things. Dark things. The look on her husband's face when he comes back from a long business trip. The questions he will not answer. The locked basement she is never allowed to enter. And whenever she asks the neighbors, they can't quite meet her gaze...

But everything is perfect. Isn't it?]]> 103 Catherynne M. Valente 1250816211 Emma 3
But once the big twist is revealed, relatively little is done with it. It's primarily expositional, which I guess I shouldn't complain about too much in such a short book. I also think it serves more to belabor a point than anything else, but hey, not everything is for everyone.

This is Valente's second-most reviewed book on Ĺ·±¦ÓéŔÖ, so what this tells me is that more people need to read the Orphan's Tales. Whether or not you liked this, you should do that.]]> 3.58 2021 Comfort Me with Apples
author: Catherynne M. Valente
name: Emma
average rating: 3.58
book published: 2021
rating: 3
read at: 2024/10/11
date added: 2024/10/19
shelves:
review:
I love Catherynne Valente, and though I don't think this is her best work, I think it's worth the couple of hours it would take to listen to it (it's narrated by Karis Campbell, who gives a great performance). The setup is unsettling, dreamy, and occasionally satirically funny, especially when the chapters are interrupted to read interminable and baffling "community guidelines." I think I know Valente's feelings on HOAs.

But once the big twist is revealed, relatively little is done with it. It's primarily expositional, which I guess I shouldn't complain about too much in such a short book. I also think it serves more to belabor a point than anything else, but hey, not everything is for everyone.

This is Valente's second-most reviewed book on Ĺ·±¦ÓéŔÖ, so what this tells me is that more people need to read the Orphan's Tales. Whether or not you liked this, you should do that.
]]> Everything I Know About Love 46041465
When it comes to the trials and triumphs of becoming an adult, journalist and former Sunday Times columnist Dolly Alderton has seen and tried it all. In her memoir, she vividly recounts falling in love, finding a job, getting drunk, getting dumped, realizing that Ivan from the corner shop might just be the only reliable man in her life, and that absolutely no one can ever compare to her best girlfriends. Everything I Know About Love is about bad dates, good friends and—above all else� realizing that you are enough.

Glittering with wit and insight, heart and humor, Dolly Alderton’s unforgettable debut weaves together personal stories, satirical observations, a series of lists, recipes, and other vignettes that will strike a chord of recognition with women of every age—making you want to pick up the phone and tell your best friends all about it. Like Bridget Jones� Diary but all true, Everything I Know About Love is about the struggles of early adulthood in all its terrifying and hopeful uncertainty.]]> 368 Dolly Alderton 0062968785 Emma 4
I listened to Alderton read the audiobook, which was a good choice. She's a warm and engaging reader.]]> 3.98 2018 Everything I Know About Love
author: Dolly Alderton
name: Emma
average rating: 3.98
book published: 2018
rating: 4
read at: 2024/10/07
date added: 2024/10/09
shelves:
review:
3.5 stars. I think a LOT of your reaction to this book will be based on where you are in your life and what your past experiences have been ... and sure, that's any book, but it's especially true here. Dolly Alderton writes, as always, wryly and exquisitely about relationships, here mostly between her and either her close female friends or various guys she's dated. The lessons she learns, mostly about investing in herself and her friendships and appreciating where she is in life equally to where she wants to be, are really well-stated for someone who's just starting on that journey. Alderton is basically the bookish Internet's big sister at this point, and I love that for her, even if I wish I'd found her at a time when I needed a big sister more.

I listened to Alderton read the audiobook, which was a good choice. She's a warm and engaging reader.
]]> Prep 9844 Prep, is an insightful, achingly funny coming-of-age story as well as a brilliant dissection of class, race, and gender in a hothouse of adolescent angst and ambition.

Lee Fiora is an intelligent, observant fourteen-year-old when her father drops her off in front of her dorm at the prestigious Ault School in Massachusetts. She leaves her animated, affectionate family in South Bend, Indiana, at least in part because of the boarding school’s glossy brochure, in which boys in sweaters chat in front of old brick buildings, girls in kilts hold lacrosse sticks on pristinely mown athletic fields, and everyone sings hymns in chapel.

As Lee soon learns, Ault is a cloistered world of jaded, attractive teenagers who spend summers on Nantucket and speak in their own clever shorthand. Both intimidated and fascinated by her classmates, Lee becomes a shrewd observer of–and, ultimately, a participant in–their rituals and mores. As a scholarship student, she constantly feels like an outsider and is both drawn to and repelled by other loners. By the time she’s a senior, Lee has created a hard-won place for herself at Ault. But when her behavior takes a self-destructive and highly public turn, her carefully crafted identity within the community is shattered.

Ultimately, Lee’s experiences–complicated relationships with teachers; intense friendships with other girls; an all-consuming preoccupation with a classmate who is less than a boyfriend and more than a crush; conflicts with her parents, from whom Lee feels increasingly distant, coalesce into a singular portrait of the painful and thrilling adolescence universal to us all.


From the Hardcover edition.]]> 420 Curtis Sittenfeld 081297235X Emma 4 The Idiot, but for high school. And if you know me, you know that's high praise. Prep's protagonist, Lee, is annoying, self-centered, and often unlikable. In short, she is an accurate depiction of a teenager, the sort many people find hard to take because they see themselves in the mirror she holds up and they don't like it. It's also a pretty neurotic portrait of a teenager, but the narrator is an adult Lee looking at her memories from afar, and with her as a guide, you cringe and get nostalgic in the right places. A few comments she makes are a little dated, but that's easier to take in a novel about the unlikability of teens.

I'd call this light academia; it's a good fall read if you want to get in the spirit without being terrified. (Me. It's me. I'm scared of my own shadow.) It'd be the Gilmore Girls of books, if Rory went to boarding school. I hope I'm not detonated for that audacious claim, but I think I might be right. I wouldn't write reviews if I didn't. ]]> 3.44 2005 Prep
author: Curtis Sittenfeld
name: Emma
average rating: 3.44
book published: 2005
rating: 4
read at: 2024/10/03
date added: 2024/10/07
shelves:
review:
This is The Idiot, but for high school. And if you know me, you know that's high praise. Prep's protagonist, Lee, is annoying, self-centered, and often unlikable. In short, she is an accurate depiction of a teenager, the sort many people find hard to take because they see themselves in the mirror she holds up and they don't like it. It's also a pretty neurotic portrait of a teenager, but the narrator is an adult Lee looking at her memories from afar, and with her as a guide, you cringe and get nostalgic in the right places. A few comments she makes are a little dated, but that's easier to take in a novel about the unlikability of teens.

I'd call this light academia; it's a good fall read if you want to get in the spirit without being terrified. (Me. It's me. I'm scared of my own shadow.) It'd be the Gilmore Girls of books, if Rory went to boarding school. I hope I'm not detonated for that audacious claim, but I think I might be right. I wouldn't write reviews if I didn't.
]]> <![CDATA[Doppelganger: A Trip into the Mirror World]]> 138505710
Not long ago, the celebrated activist and public intellectual Naomi Klein had just such an experience―she was confronted with a doppelganger whose views she found abhorrent but whose name and public persona were sufficiently similar to her own that many people got confused about who was who. Destabilized, she lost her bearings, until she began to understand the experience as one manifestation of a strangeness many of us have come to know but struggle to define: AI-generated text is blurring the line between genuine and spurious communication; New Age wellness entrepreneurs turned anti-vaxxers are scrambling familiar political allegiances of left and right; and liberal democracies are teetering on the edge of absurdist authoritarianism, even as the oceans rise. Under such conditions, reality itself seems to have become unmoored. Is there a cure for our moment of collective vertigo?

Naomi Klein is one of our most trenchant and influential social critics, an essential analyst of what branding, austerity, and climate profiteering have done to our societies and souls. Here she turns her gaze inward to our psychic landscapes, and outward to the possibilities for building hope amid intersecting economic, medical, and political crises. With the assistance of Sigmund Freud, Jordan Peele, Alfred Hitchcock, and bell hooks, among other accomplices, Klein uses wry humor and a keen sense of the ridiculous to face the strange doubles that haunt us―and that have come to feel as intimate and proximate as a warped reflection in the mirror.

Combining comic memoir with chilling reportage and cobweb-clearing analysis, Klein seeks to smash that mirror and chart a path beyond despair. Doppelganger What do we neglect as we polish and perfect our digital reflections? Is it possible to dispose of our doubles and overcome the pathologies of a culture of multiplication? Can we create a politics of collective care and undertake a true reckoning with historical crimes? The result is a revelatory treatment of the way many of us think and feel now―and an intellectual adventure story for our times.]]> 416 Naomi Klein 0374610320 Emma 5
Of course, after reading it, I would give it the prize again if I could.

In its explanation of much of online and 20th century political discourse through the idea of different concepts or movements growing more sinister "double" movements like Hydra heads, Doppelganger is comprehensive in both breadth and depth, but still engaging and elegantly written. Klein's own voice and experiences are brilliantly balanced with her deep dives, and she admits fault often. In one particularly astute insight, she recalls laughing at "do they know about cell phones?" jokes about conspiracy theorists, but now she understands: they do know about cell phones, and they have no idea how to solve such a large-scale privacy invasion, instead mobilizing terrified citizens to solve a nonexistent mirror-world problem.

This touches on so many world issues that it is not always an easy or comfortable read. But it is a wildly compelling one.

I listened to Klein read the audiobook, and I liked her performance a lot. ]]> 4.21 2023 Doppelganger: A Trip into the Mirror World
author: Naomi Klein
name: Emma
average rating: 4.21
book published: 2023
rating: 5
read at: 2024/10/02
date added: 2024/10/07
shelves:
review:
I remember earlier this year, when this book won the first Women's Prize for Nonfiction. Really? I thought. That one? This isn't even in my top 5 to pick up next. I know, technology scary. What else is new?

Of course, after reading it, I would give it the prize again if I could.

In its explanation of much of online and 20th century political discourse through the idea of different concepts or movements growing more sinister "double" movements like Hydra heads, Doppelganger is comprehensive in both breadth and depth, but still engaging and elegantly written. Klein's own voice and experiences are brilliantly balanced with her deep dives, and she admits fault often. In one particularly astute insight, she recalls laughing at "do they know about cell phones?" jokes about conspiracy theorists, but now she understands: they do know about cell phones, and they have no idea how to solve such a large-scale privacy invasion, instead mobilizing terrified citizens to solve a nonexistent mirror-world problem.

This touches on so many world issues that it is not always an easy or comfortable read. But it is a wildly compelling one.

I listened to Klein read the audiobook, and I liked her performance a lot.
]]> The Changeling 31147267
Thus begins Apollo’s odyssey through a world he only thought he understood, to find a wife and child who are nothing like he’d imagined. His quest, which begins when he meets a mysterious stranger who claims to have information about Emma’s whereabouts, takes him to a forgotten island, a graveyard full of secrets, a forest where immigrant legends still live, and finally back to a place he thought he had lost forever.

This captivating retelling of a classic fairy tale imaginatively explores parental obsession, spousal love, and the secrets that make strangers out of the people we love the most. It’s a thrilling and emotionally devastating journey through the gruesome legacies that threaten to devour us and the homely, messy magic that saves us, if we’re lucky.]]> 431 Victor LaValle 0812995945 Emma 4
The final 10 percent of the book isn't as strong as what came before it; it's so rushed, and so many threads are left hanging, that I wondered if some of the slow-paced beginning could have been cut or altered to better fit the ending. Even so, this is perfect for someone wanting to dip a toe into horror without waking up screaming every night. Though I can't make any promises about how easily you'll get to sleep. ]]> 3.75 2017 The Changeling
author: Victor LaValle
name: Emma
average rating: 3.75
book published: 2017
rating: 4
read at: 2024/09/29
date added: 2024/10/04
shelves:
review:
3.5 stars. If you're looking for something with a spooky vibe this October but aren't sure if you want a full-on ghost story, pick this up. This is an urban fantasy, technically, but the fantasy element doesn't really show up until more than halfway through. That will disappoint some people, but I enjoyed getting to know Apollo Kagwa, fatherless child of an immigrant mother and used book man, and the other characters around him. New York City is included in this; the author clearly knows the city extremely well. And when the fantasy element emerges, it's creepy and fascinating in its lore.

The final 10 percent of the book isn't as strong as what came before it; it's so rushed, and so many threads are left hanging, that I wondered if some of the slow-paced beginning could have been cut or altered to better fit the ending. Even so, this is perfect for someone wanting to dip a toe into horror without waking up screaming every night. Though I can't make any promises about how easily you'll get to sleep.
]]> Happy All the Time 164408 Happy All the Time follows four sane, intelligent, and good-intentioned people who manage to find love in spite of themselves.]]> 224 Laurie Colwin 0060955325 Emma 4
Laurie Colwin (of whom I had never heard, until I saw a review of this book on my timeline) is one of the closest literary equivalents to Jane Austen that I've ever read. There's a blend of absurdity and subtlety and genuine feeling that they both nail. Colwin leans a little more toward absurdity, I guess, but she also writes relationships you desperately want to work out.

I read this to some people earlier and could barely finish without laughing:

"You can kill your cells with bad food," she said. "People won't face the fact that the way they eat is just like suicide only slower ... This masseur I go to can tell everything that's wrong with you from your spine. I mean, he told me that I had a potassium deficiency and he was right. He could tell just from my back ... if you eat wrong, your spine starts to atrophy. People think neurosis is in your mind but it's in your spine."

Misty uttered a silent prayer that Stanley would never marry Sybel or anyone like her.


Unhinged! Beautiful! Read it now!

]]> 3.86 1978 Happy All the Time
author: Laurie Colwin
name: Emma
average rating: 3.86
book published: 1978
rating: 4
read at: 2024/09/23
date added: 2024/10/02
shelves:
review:
4.5 stars. How often anymore do you come across a book that's just purely delightful? It doesn't happen to me much. If something dramatic happens, it's upsetting; if everyone is pleasant to each other, it's boring, or maybe just cheesy. Somehow, this book is the Goldilocks of romantic literary fiction. It's full of people living their mundane lives, falling in love with each other as people can't seem to stop doing, and nothing really bad or really extreme happens, and it's funny as hell and not cheesy at all.

Laurie Colwin (of whom I had never heard, until I saw a review of this book on my timeline) is one of the closest literary equivalents to Jane Austen that I've ever read. There's a blend of absurdity and subtlety and genuine feeling that they both nail. Colwin leans a little more toward absurdity, I guess, but she also writes relationships you desperately want to work out.

I read this to some people earlier and could barely finish without laughing:

"You can kill your cells with bad food," she said. "People won't face the fact that the way they eat is just like suicide only slower ... This masseur I go to can tell everything that's wrong with you from your spine. I mean, he told me that I had a potassium deficiency and he was right. He could tell just from my back ... if you eat wrong, your spine starts to atrophy. People think neurosis is in your mind but it's in your spine."

Misty uttered a silent prayer that Stanley would never marry Sybel or anyone like her.


Unhinged! Beautiful! Read it now!


]]> Exhalation 41160292
In "The Merchant and the Alchemist's Gate," a portal through time forces a fabric seller in ancient Baghdad to grapple with past mistakes and second chances. In "Exhalation," an alien scientist makes a shocking discovery with ramifications that are literally universal. In "Anxiety Is the Dizziness of Freedom," the ability to glimpse into alternate universes necessitates a radically new examination of the concepts of choice and free will.

Including stories being published for the first time as well as some of his rare and classic uncollected work, Exhalation is Ted Chiang at his best: profound, sympathetic—revelatory.]]> 368 Ted Chiang Emma 4
A few standouts:
-The Merchant at the Alchemist's Gate: based on traditional Islamic storytelling, this tale of traveling in time does what all time-traveling stories should do: it makes us consider what it is we want to know or change, and whether time travel can actually help us know ourselves better.
-The Truth of Fact, the Truth of Feeling: two parallel narratives in very different places show the difference between memory and record, but also how they're connected.
-Anxiety is the Dizziness of Freedom: a portal to an alternate universe to talk to your parallel self becomes the hottest product on the market, with results that aren't always healthy.

I mostly liked everything else too, and even if I didn't, I at least understood what it was trying to do. If you tried Chiang's previous collection but didn't understand the hype, try this one, and you might.]]> 4.27 2019 Exhalation
author: Ted Chiang
name: Emma
average rating: 4.27
book published: 2019
rating: 4
read at: 2024/09/27
date added: 2024/10/01
shelves:
review:
When Ted Chiang writes about sci-fi concepts, he usually does it in one of two ways. He either will simply present the concept (which doesn't work all that well for me) or he will construct a story with it showing how it affects people's day-to-day lives (which typically does). I found this collection to be much stronger than his previous one because most of these stories fall into the latter category.

A few standouts:
-The Merchant at the Alchemist's Gate: based on traditional Islamic storytelling, this tale of traveling in time does what all time-traveling stories should do: it makes us consider what it is we want to know or change, and whether time travel can actually help us know ourselves better.
-The Truth of Fact, the Truth of Feeling: two parallel narratives in very different places show the difference between memory and record, but also how they're connected.
-Anxiety is the Dizziness of Freedom: a portal to an alternate universe to talk to your parallel self becomes the hottest product on the market, with results that aren't always healthy.

I mostly liked everything else too, and even if I didn't, I at least understood what it was trying to do. If you tried Chiang's previous collection but didn't understand the hype, try this one, and you might.
]]> <![CDATA[Castle in the Air (Howl's Moving Castle, #2)]]> 47520 An alternative cover edition for this ISBN can be found here

In which a humble young carpet merchant wins, then loses, the princess of his dreams

Far to the south of the land of Ingary, in the Sultanates of Rashpuht, there lived in the city of Zanzib a young and not very prosperous carpet dealer named Abdullah who loved to spend his time daydreaming. He was content with his life and his daydreams until, one day, a stranger sold him a magic carpet.

That very night, the carpet flew him to an enchanted garden. There, he met and fell in love with the beauteous princess Flower-in-the-Night, only to have her snatched away, right under his very nose, by a wicked djinn. With only his magic carpet and his wits to help him, Abdullah sets off to rescue his princess....]]> 298 Diana Wynne Jones 0064473457 Emma 0 rereads-2024 3.87 1990 Castle in the Air (Howl's Moving Castle, #2)
author: Diana Wynne Jones
name: Emma
average rating: 3.87
book published: 1990
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/09/30
shelves: rereads-2024
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Master (The Gameshouse, #3)]]> 27415786
Many know it as the place where fortunes can be made and lost though games of chess, backgammon - every game under the sun.

But a select few, who are picked to compete in the higher league, know that some games are played for higher stakes - those of politics and empires, of economics and kings . . .

And now, the ultimate player is about to step forward.
]]> 142 Claire North 031633605X Emma 2
Not right. Not only is The Master inferior to its two predecessors, but it undermines everything that made those predecessors so strong.

First off, the narration is changed in this third volume, and not for the better. The sly, cheeky, somehow omniscient first-person narrator of books one and two is technically still here - but we find out their identity much too early on in the story. The voice is different as well. It's not as elegant as in the previous volumes. The description is barer and frankly less engaging, though the writing still isn't bad. Claire North writes well, even if I don't agree with her narrative choices.

Speaking of description, the sharp, evocative detail that brought 17th-century Venice to life in book one and World War II-era Thailand to life in book two isn't here either. Because this book is all about a challenge to the Gamesmaster and the "board" is the entire world, we don't get a good sense of our surroundings in any setting, whether it be New York, Paris, or Mongolia. Instead, we get scenes of fighting, violence, and heists. And fight scenes, in my (admittedly unpopular) opinion, are nearly always boring. They can work better on film because at their best, they're visually interesting and can be used to highlight the differences between protagonist and antagonist (watch Avatar the Last Airbender for many good examples of this, and also just because it's a fantastic show). But in a book, with characters we hardly care about in the first place? Crickets.

That brings me to my last point: characters we hardly care about. This is so drastically different from the first two books, in which even the most minor of characters were at least interesting to read about, if not as compelling as the principal characters. Heck, The Thief made a blabbermouth truck driver who was only present for two pages funny and engaging. But The Master jumps around so quickly that we have no time to connect with most of its characters. Even its recurring characters either barely appear (and for reasons that have precious little to do with the plot) or aren't well integrated into the story and make the story more confusing.

I'm going to hang a **POSSIBLE SPOILER WARNING*** for the first two books over this part of the review. Because I need to talk about one particularly irritating bit of characterization. I need to talk about the Gamesmaster.

Now, the Gamesmaster, to me, is the weak link of this series. Her origin story has always been shrouded in legend, almost no player left at the Gameshouse has ever seen her face, and when she does appear in the first two books, it's as this annoying all-seeing riddling priestess lady who says almost nothing, even less of which is helpful or compelling, and makes what would be a knowing smile if you could see it under her veil. And she's just as much of a stranger for nearly the entirety of The Master, even though so much of it is supposedly about her. When we finally get a hint of her backstory (and it's only ever a hint), it has almost no value for the reader; in order for value to be present, she would have to be interesting. She has the same problem many (including myself) say Sauron from Lord of the Rings has: she's simply too alien and remote for people to understand or find particularly frightening. And that's why the end could not have meant less to me. Because she couldn't have, either.

I'll **END SLIGHT SPOILER HERE** so I can talk about the good parts of this book, the reasons it gets 2 stars from me and not 1. Like I said, the writing is still good, because it's Claire North and that's just who she is. But what I'll remember most about this book are the human moments. An ancient Gameshouse player spending half the night challenging a woman he meets in a bar to an arcade game, at which he gleefully loses, knowing that at last he has the freedom to lose a game without fear. A hardened criminal backing out of a scheme to protect his wife and children. Several characters at last realizing the danger and gross unfairness of the Gameshouse's main objective. Those moments are still there. But they should have been the focus of the book. And that is why I can't recommend The Master, even if only to finish out the strong start of the first two books in the series.]]> 4.02 2015 The Master (The Gameshouse, #3)
author: Claire North
name: Emma
average rating: 4.02
book published: 2015
rating: 2
read at: 2020/03/23
date added: 2024/09/28
shelves:
review:
I had heard The Master would not be as good as the other two books in The Gameshouse series. But The Serpent and The Thief were so good, a not-so-good conclusion would still be worth reading, right?

Not right. Not only is The Master inferior to its two predecessors, but it undermines everything that made those predecessors so strong.

First off, the narration is changed in this third volume, and not for the better. The sly, cheeky, somehow omniscient first-person narrator of books one and two is technically still here - but we find out their identity much too early on in the story. The voice is different as well. It's not as elegant as in the previous volumes. The description is barer and frankly less engaging, though the writing still isn't bad. Claire North writes well, even if I don't agree with her narrative choices.

Speaking of description, the sharp, evocative detail that brought 17th-century Venice to life in book one and World War II-era Thailand to life in book two isn't here either. Because this book is all about a challenge to the Gamesmaster and the "board" is the entire world, we don't get a good sense of our surroundings in any setting, whether it be New York, Paris, or Mongolia. Instead, we get scenes of fighting, violence, and heists. And fight scenes, in my (admittedly unpopular) opinion, are nearly always boring. They can work better on film because at their best, they're visually interesting and can be used to highlight the differences between protagonist and antagonist (watch Avatar the Last Airbender for many good examples of this, and also just because it's a fantastic show). But in a book, with characters we hardly care about in the first place? Crickets.

That brings me to my last point: characters we hardly care about. This is so drastically different from the first two books, in which even the most minor of characters were at least interesting to read about, if not as compelling as the principal characters. Heck, The Thief made a blabbermouth truck driver who was only present for two pages funny and engaging. But The Master jumps around so quickly that we have no time to connect with most of its characters. Even its recurring characters either barely appear (and for reasons that have precious little to do with the plot) or aren't well integrated into the story and make the story more confusing.

I'm going to hang a **POSSIBLE SPOILER WARNING*** for the first two books over this part of the review. Because I need to talk about one particularly irritating bit of characterization. I need to talk about the Gamesmaster.

Now, the Gamesmaster, to me, is the weak link of this series. Her origin story has always been shrouded in legend, almost no player left at the Gameshouse has ever seen her face, and when she does appear in the first two books, it's as this annoying all-seeing riddling priestess lady who says almost nothing, even less of which is helpful or compelling, and makes what would be a knowing smile if you could see it under her veil. And she's just as much of a stranger for nearly the entirety of The Master, even though so much of it is supposedly about her. When we finally get a hint of her backstory (and it's only ever a hint), it has almost no value for the reader; in order for value to be present, she would have to be interesting. She has the same problem many (including myself) say Sauron from Lord of the Rings has: she's simply too alien and remote for people to understand or find particularly frightening. And that's why the end could not have meant less to me. Because she couldn't have, either.

I'll **END SLIGHT SPOILER HERE** so I can talk about the good parts of this book, the reasons it gets 2 stars from me and not 1. Like I said, the writing is still good, because it's Claire North and that's just who she is. But what I'll remember most about this book are the human moments. An ancient Gameshouse player spending half the night challenging a woman he meets in a bar to an arcade game, at which he gleefully loses, knowing that at last he has the freedom to lose a game without fear. A hardened criminal backing out of a scheme to protect his wife and children. Several characters at last realizing the danger and gross unfairness of the Gameshouse's main objective. Those moments are still there. But they should have been the focus of the book. And that is why I can't recommend The Master, even if only to finish out the strong start of the first two books in the series.
]]> <![CDATA[Wayward Lives, Beautiful Experiments: Intimate Histories of Riotous Black Girls, Troublesome Women, and Queer Radicals]]> 45894050 A breathtaking exploration of the lives of young black women in the early twentieth century.

In Wayward Lives, Beautiful Experiments, Saidiya Hartman examines the revolution of black intimate life that unfolded in Philadelphia and New York at the beginning of the twentieth century. Free love, common-law and transient marriages, serial partners, cohabitation outside of wedlock, queer relations, and single motherhood were among the sweeping changes that altered the character of everyday life and challenged traditional Victorian beliefs about courtship, love, and marriage. Hartman narrates the story of this radical social transformation against the grain of the prevailing century-old argument about the crisis of the black family.

In wrestling with the question of what a free life is, many young black women created forms of intimacy and kinship that were indifferent to the dictates of respectability and outside the bounds of law. They cleaved to and cast off lovers, exchanged sex to subsist, and revised the meaning of marriage. Longing and desire fueled their experiments in how to live. They refused to labor like slaves or to accept degrading conditions of work.

Beautifully written and deeply researched, Wayward Lives recreates the experience of young urban black women who desired an existence qualitatively different than the one that had been scripted for them—domestic service, second-class citizenship, and respectable poverty—and whose intimate revolution was apprehended as crime and pathology. For the first time, young black women are credited with shaping a cultural movement that transformed the urban landscape. Through a melding of history and literary imagination, Wayward Lives recovers their radical aspirations and insurgent desires.]]> 441 Saidiya Hartman 0393357627 Emma 4
Some of this is necessarily speculative due to a lack of thorough accounts, as was Tiya Miles’s All That She Carried, but these speculations are some of the best parts of the book. Hartman’s assessment of one woman’s age-gap relationship is particularly profound; as she says, this union could have been either troubling or personally empowering for her, and, while exploring the possibilities of both, makes it clear that since we can’t talk to her, we simply can’t know.

But what we do know fills a book, one with a large cast of historical figures great and small that I sometimes struggled to keep track of (I’m grateful for the list at the start of the book). I would have appreciated more explanation of the visuals included, as well as a “where did they end up� on some of the women we know more about, since they mostly disappeared after the end of their chapter. But overall an excellent overview of a topic I knew very little about.]]> 4.44 2019 Wayward Lives, Beautiful Experiments: Intimate Histories of Riotous Black Girls, Troublesome Women, and Queer Radicals
author: Saidiya Hartman
name: Emma
average rating: 4.44
book published: 2019
rating: 4
read at: 2024/09/17
date added: 2024/09/25
shelves:
review:
It’s one thing to shed light on the history of a community that has been long overlooked, and another to do so with gorgeous poetic prose that is better crafted than that of many novels. But that’s why Sadiya Hartman has done. The topic Hartman writes on - the lives of black women in urban areas at the turn of the 20th century - may seem niche to the uninitiated, but she finds so much to say about a time when such women slipped through the cracks of history.

Some of this is necessarily speculative due to a lack of thorough accounts, as was Tiya Miles’s All That She Carried, but these speculations are some of the best parts of the book. Hartman’s assessment of one woman’s age-gap relationship is particularly profound; as she says, this union could have been either troubling or personally empowering for her, and, while exploring the possibilities of both, makes it clear that since we can’t talk to her, we simply can’t know.

But what we do know fills a book, one with a large cast of historical figures great and small that I sometimes struggled to keep track of (I’m grateful for the list at the start of the book). I would have appreciated more explanation of the visuals included, as well as a “where did they end up� on some of the women we know more about, since they mostly disappeared after the end of their chapter. But overall an excellent overview of a topic I knew very little about.
]]> Breasts and Eggs 50736031
Breasts and Eggs paints a portrait of contemporary womanhood in Japan and recounts the intimate journeys of three women as they confront oppressive mores and their own uncertainties on the road to finding peace and futures they can truly call their own.

It tells the story of three women: the thirty-year-old Natsu, her older sister, Makiko, and Makiko’s daughter, Midoriko. Makiko has traveled to Tokyo in search of an affordable breast enhancement procedure. She is accompanied by Midoriko, who has recently grown silent, finding herself unable to voice the vague yet overwhelming pressures associated with growing up. Her silence proves a catalyst for each woman to confront her fears and frustrations.

On another hot summer’s day ten years later, Natsu, on a journey back to her native city, struggles with her own indeterminate identity as she confronts anxieties about growing old alone and childless.]]> 430 Mieko Kawakami 1609455878 Emma 0 dnf 3.87 2019 Breasts and Eggs
author: Mieko Kawakami
name: Emma
average rating: 3.87
book published: 2019
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/09/20
shelves: dnf
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Women and Religion in America: 1900-1968]]> 155322 452 Rosemary Radford Ruether 0060668334 Emma 0 to-read 3.50 1986 Women and Religion in America: 1900-1968
author: Rosemary Radford Ruether
name: Emma
average rating: 3.50
book published: 1986
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/09/17
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[We Are Never Meeting in Real Life.]]> 33381433 We Are Never Meeting in Real Life., "bitches gotta eat" blogger and comedian Samantha Irby turns the serio-comic essay into an art form. Whether talking about how her difficult childhood has led to a problem in making "adult" budgets, explaining why she should be the new Bachelorette--she's "35-ish, but could easily pass for 60-something"--detailing a disastrous pilgrimage-slash-romantic-vacation to Nashville to scatter her estranged father's ashes, sharing awkward sexual encounters, or dispensing advice on how to navigate friendships with former drinking buddies who are now suburban moms--hang in there for the Costco loot--she's as deft at poking fun at the ghosts of her past self as she is at capturing powerful emotional truths.

Chapter titles:

My Bachelorette application --
A blues for Fred --
The miracle porker --
Do you guys pay your fucking bills or what? --
You don't have to be grateful for sex --
A Christmas carol --
Happy birthday --
A case for remaining indoors --
A total attack of the heart --
A civil union --
Mavis --
Fuck it, bitch. Stay fat --
Nashville hot chicken --
I'm in love and it's boring --
A bomb, probably --
The real housewife of Kalamazoo --
Thirteen questions to ask before getting married --
Yo, I need a job --
Feelings are a mistake --
We are never meeting in real life]]> 275 Samantha Irby 1101912197 Emma 3
I do think, however, that there's a fine line between "dealing with depression and tough stuff using dark humor" and "stewing in a dark place," and I feel Irby crosses that line several times, to the point where it was sometimes tough to finish these essays. It put me in mind of the classic poem by Dorothy Parker, in which she dismisses various ways of dying by suicide because they're too much bother: this essay collection felt like reading that poem over and over on a loop. I don't think it's my business to tell anyone how to feel about or cope with their lives and traumas, and Irby's certainly been through enough to warrant complaining about it. I just didn't resonate with the way she writes about it, sometimes.

There are definitely some more hopeful moments. Irby ends up in a healthy, "boring" relationship by the end, and there are some throwaway lines betraying her love for her friends and family. She's a talented writer, and this book might not have been quite right for me, but I'm glad others have enjoyed it more. I might try her again sometime. ]]> 3.90 2017 We Are Never Meeting in Real Life.
author: Samantha Irby
name: Emma
average rating: 3.90
book published: 2017
rating: 3
read at: 2024/09/15
date added: 2024/09/16
shelves:
review:
I can see why people would really go for writing like Samantha Irby's, and I enjoyed it often. In the tradition of messy, gross women in comedy, she doesn't shy away from discussions of bodily functions, or from being a hater, which she often is. She's now written for TV and this book has the kind of hyperbolic one-liners that do well on television. There's a particularly hilarious bit about the hypothetical 12-odd children she would inevitably adopt with a boyfriend who would inevitably take to the streets upon the dissolution of their marriage. Listening to Irby read the book aloud definitely added to the humor in these sections.

I do think, however, that there's a fine line between "dealing with depression and tough stuff using dark humor" and "stewing in a dark place," and I feel Irby crosses that line several times, to the point where it was sometimes tough to finish these essays. It put me in mind of the classic poem by Dorothy Parker, in which she dismisses various ways of dying by suicide because they're too much bother: this essay collection felt like reading that poem over and over on a loop. I don't think it's my business to tell anyone how to feel about or cope with their lives and traumas, and Irby's certainly been through enough to warrant complaining about it. I just didn't resonate with the way she writes about it, sometimes.

There are definitely some more hopeful moments. Irby ends up in a healthy, "boring" relationship by the end, and there are some throwaway lines betraying her love for her friends and family. She's a talented writer, and this book might not have been quite right for me, but I'm glad others have enjoyed it more. I might try her again sometime.
]]> Vladivostok Circus 198164651
Nathalie arrives at the circus in Vladivostok, Russia, fresh out of art college in Geneva. She is there to design the costumes for a trio of artists who are due to perform one of the most dangerous acts of all: the Russian Bar.

As winter approaches, the season at Vladivostok winds down, the windy port city deserted as performers head home; all except the Russian bar trio and their manager. They are scheduled to perform at a festival in Ulan Ude, just before Christmas.

What ensues is an intimate and beguiling account of four people learning to work with and trust one another. This is a book about the delicate balance that must be achieved when flirting with death in such spectacular fashion. Set against the backdrop of a cloudy ocean, Vladivostok Circus explores collaboration, creativity and belonging, all the while immersing the reader in Dusapin’s trademark dreamlike prose.

â€Dusapin’s beautiful prose, with imagery both metallic and mineral, insinuates its way towards a delicate empathy between the generations, as well as examining the confusion that comes with dual nationality, and the lifetime loss that is exile.â€� Irish Times

â€Fragmentation, recurring imagery and a flair for evoking atmosphere so effective that lassitude seems to seep through the pages recalls Deborah Levy’s writing.â€� Guardian]]> 224 Elisa Shua Dusapin 191419831X Emma 4 Vladivostock Circus: how do circus performers train?

I loved the sharp yet spare detailing of Vladivostock, from the odd Soviet-era hotels to the lights that go off on a timer to the train station by the water. The circus performers we follow have an intimate yet strained connection, and the protagonist costumer is a cautious observer who eventually draws closer to them. She wasn't as well realized a character as Dusapin's other protagonists have been, but the unique setting compensates for it. I say this a lot, I guess, but I'd love to see Wes Anderson make a movie out of this.

The English translation by Aneesa Abbas Higgins is, as always, excellent.]]> 3.44 2024 Vladivostok Circus
author: Elisa Shua Dusapin
name: Emma
average rating: 3.44
book published: 2024
rating: 4
read at: 2024/09/04
date added: 2024/09/11
shelves:
review:
3.5 stars. Elisa Shua Dusapin is the master of very short poignant novels that go behind the scenes of entertainment industries. Who runs a pachinko parlor? Who goes to a resort town in the winter? And in Vladivostock Circus: how do circus performers train?

I loved the sharp yet spare detailing of Vladivostock, from the odd Soviet-era hotels to the lights that go off on a timer to the train station by the water. The circus performers we follow have an intimate yet strained connection, and the protagonist costumer is a cautious observer who eventually draws closer to them. She wasn't as well realized a character as Dusapin's other protagonists have been, but the unique setting compensates for it. I say this a lot, I guess, but I'd love to see Wes Anderson make a movie out of this.

The English translation by Aneesa Abbas Higgins is, as always, excellent.
]]> <![CDATA[The Undercutting of Rosie and Adam (Hart and Mercy, #3)]]> 215547926 From the author of The Undertaking of Hart and Mercy comes a new heartwarming fantasy rom-com with an opposites-attract twist set in the delightful world of Tanria.

Immortal demigod Rosie Fox has been patrolling Tanria for decades, but lately, the job has been losing its luster. After one hundred and fifty-seven years of being alive, everything is beginning to lose its luster. When Rosie dies (again) by electrocution (again) after poking around inside a portal choked with shadowy thorns only she can see, she feels stuck in the rut that is her unending life.

Thanks to Rosie’s meddling, the portal’s inventor, Dr. Adam Lee, must come in person to repair the damage. When all the portals begin to break down, he declares an emergency evacuation of Tanria. In the mad rush to get out, Rosie and Adam end up trapped inside the Mist. Together.

And uptight Adam Lee in his bespoke menswear seems to know a lot more about what’s happening than he lets on�.

Rosie is determined to crack the shell of his cool exterior. But the more she learns about Adam, the more she realizes that they both have personal histories as tangled and thorny as the plant that has them trapped inside the Mist. Maybe two people who have found themselves stuck in this life can find a way to unstick each other � just when their time on this earth seems to be running out.]]> 432 Megan Bannen 0316568279 Emma 0 to-read 4.32 2025 The Undercutting of Rosie and Adam (Hart and Mercy, #3)
author: Megan Bannen
name: Emma
average rating: 4.32
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/09/09
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Undermining of Twyla and Frank (Hart and Mercy, #2)]]> 149187311 From the author of The Undertaking of Hart and Mercy comes a heartwarming fantasy with a best friends-to-lovers rom com twist--When Harry Met Sally, but with dragons!—set in the delightful demigod and donut-filled world of Tanria.

The entire town of Eternity was shocked when widowed, middle-aged Twyla Banneker partnered up with her neighbor and best friend, Frank Ellis, to join the Tanrian Marshals. Eight years later, Twyla and Frank are still patrolling the dangerous land of Tanria, the former prison of the Old Gods.

Twyla might look like a small town mom who brings cheesy potatoes to funerals and whips up a batch of cookies for the school bake sale, but her rewarding career in law enforcement has been a welcome change from the domestic grind of mom life, despite the misgivings of her grown children.

Fortunately (or unfortunately) a recent decrease in on-the-job peril has made Twyla and Frank's job a lot safer ... and a lot less exciting. So when they discover the body of one of their fellow marshals covered in liquid glitter--and Frank finds himself the inadvertent foster dad to a baby dragon--they are more than happy to be back on the beat.

Soon, the friends wind up ensnared in a nefarious plot that goes far deeper than any lucrative Tanrian mineshaft. But as the danger closes in and Twyla and Frank's investigation becomes more complicated, so does their easy friendship. And Twyla starts to realize that her true soul mate might just be the person who has lived next door all along...]]> 464 Megan Bannen 0356521923 Emma 3 The Undertaking of Hart and Mercy by the same author was just about what I was looking for. But contrary to my expectation (and what the book wants you to believe), this is something else. It’s romanta-women’s fiction.

“Women’s fiction or romance?� is one of the classic debates, right up there with “is a hot dog a sandwich?� You can go back and forth all day on that one, but I’m pretty sure we can agree that for a book to be called a “romance,� the romantic storyline should take center stage, with other elements of the story being secondary. Women’s fiction (a name I don’t really like, but it’s broadly recognizable, so don’t come at me) is more about the woman main character going on a personal journey and learning more about herself. And that’s what Twyla does! Her journey includes a romance with Frank, but it’s also about coming to terms with her past and navigating change in her family life. I liked Twyla, and I liked these plotlines exploring realistically how a single mom in her 50s would interact with her family.

But here’s the thing: this book seems to THINK it is a romance. Twyla and Frank are both mentioned in the title, and the book starts and ends with scenes of them together. However, because so much time was spent on other parts of Twyla’s growth, I didn’t get to see as much of Frank, or of their growing relationship, as I’d have liked. The space between friends and lovers was traversed in what seemed like an instant. I mean, they’ve known each other for like 20 years, but I sure haven’t. I need to be filled in a little more!

Oh, and the dragon subplot was pretty cute, even if the book almost forgets about it.

Note on the format: I listened to the audiobook, read by Nicol Zanzarella. She does a good job of bringing life to the different characters� voices. ]]> 4.04 2024 The Undermining of Twyla and Frank (Hart and Mercy, #2)
author: Megan Bannen
name: Emma
average rating: 4.04
book published: 2024
rating: 3
read at: 2024/09/04
date added: 2024/09/09
shelves:
review:
You’ve heard of romantasy. I have, too. Dragons? Massive age gap? Something that might be considered BDSM if it were ethically sound but probably isn’t? That’s the form it usually comes in. I’ve enjoyed seeking out the softer side of romantasy, and I thought this would be it, since The Undertaking of Hart and Mercy by the same author was just about what I was looking for. But contrary to my expectation (and what the book wants you to believe), this is something else. It’s romanta-women’s fiction.

“Women’s fiction or romance?� is one of the classic debates, right up there with “is a hot dog a sandwich?� You can go back and forth all day on that one, but I’m pretty sure we can agree that for a book to be called a “romance,� the romantic storyline should take center stage, with other elements of the story being secondary. Women’s fiction (a name I don’t really like, but it’s broadly recognizable, so don’t come at me) is more about the woman main character going on a personal journey and learning more about herself. And that’s what Twyla does! Her journey includes a romance with Frank, but it’s also about coming to terms with her past and navigating change in her family life. I liked Twyla, and I liked these plotlines exploring realistically how a single mom in her 50s would interact with her family.

But here’s the thing: this book seems to THINK it is a romance. Twyla and Frank are both mentioned in the title, and the book starts and ends with scenes of them together. However, because so much time was spent on other parts of Twyla’s growth, I didn’t get to see as much of Frank, or of their growing relationship, as I’d have liked. The space between friends and lovers was traversed in what seemed like an instant. I mean, they’ve known each other for like 20 years, but I sure haven’t. I need to be filled in a little more!

Oh, and the dragon subplot was pretty cute, even if the book almost forgets about it.

Note on the format: I listened to the audiobook, read by Nicol Zanzarella. She does a good job of bringing life to the different characters� voices.
]]> <![CDATA[Unfortunately, It Was Paradise: Selected Poems]]> 130546 208 Mahmoud Darwish 0520237544 Emma 4 4.38 2002 Unfortunately, It Was Paradise: Selected Poems
author: Mahmoud Darwish
name: Emma
average rating: 4.38
book published: 2002
rating: 4
read at: 2024/08/27
date added: 2024/09/09
shelves:
review:
Poetry is something I feel okay with not totally "getting." Like, if I can't immediately write a 5-page essay explaining the underlying meaning of a poem (even though maybe I should be able to, since I was an English major), that's fine. I don't need to do that to find it beautiful, and I found much of this collection beautiful. Darwish (and his myriad of English translators and poets; it apparently took a village, whether or not that was necessary) gorgeously expresses how it feels to live as part of a displaced ethnic group, finding both tragedy and joy in his experiences. A couple of those twenty-pagers took a while to read but it was worth it.
]]> Memorial Days 212806569 A heartrending and beautiful memoir of sudden loss and a journey toĚýpeace, from the bestselling, Pulitzer Prize-winning author ofâ€�Horse

Many cultural and religious traditions expect those who are grieving to step away from the world. In contemporary life, we are more often met with red tape and to-do lists. This is exactly what happened to Geraldine Brooks when her partner of more than three decades, Tony Horwitz � just sixty years old and, to her knowledge, vigorous and healthy � collapsed and died on a Washington, D. C. sidewalk.

After spending their early years together in conflict zones as foreign correspondents, Geraldine and Tony settled down to raise two boys on Martha’s Vineyard. The life they built was one of meaningful work, good humor, and tenderness, as they spent their days writing and their evenings cooking family dinners or watching the sun set with friends at Lambert’s Cove. But all of this came to an abrupt end when, on Memorial Day 2019, Geraldine received the phone call we all dread. The demands were immediate and many. Without space to grieve, the sudden loss became a yawning gulf.

Three years later, she booked a flight to a remote island off the coast of Australia with the intention of finally giving herself the time to mourn. In a shack on a pristine, rugged coast she often went days without seeing another person. There, she pondered the varied waysĚýthose ofĚýother cultures grieve, such as the people of Australia's First Nations, the Balinese, and the Iranian Shiites, and what rituals of her own might help to rebuild a life around the void of Tony's death.

A spare and profoundly moving memoir that joins the classics of the genre, Memorial Days is a portrait of a larger-than-life man and a timeless love between soulsĚýthat exquisitely captures the joy, agony, and mystery of life.]]> 224 Geraldine Brooks 059365398X Emma 0 to-read 4.36 2025 Memorial Days
author: Geraldine Brooks
name: Emma
average rating: 4.36
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/08/23
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Red Famine: Stalin's War on Ukraine]]> 33864676 The momentous new book from the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Gulag and Iron Curtain.

In 1932-33, nearly four million Ukrainians died of starvation, having been deliberately deprived of food. It is one of the most devastating episodes in the history of the twentieth century. With unprecedented authority and detail, Red Famine investigates how this happened, who was responsible, and what the consequences were. It is the fullest account yet published of these terrible events.

The book draws on a mass of archival material and first-hand testimony only available since the end of the Soviet Union, as well as the work of Ukrainian scholars all over the world. It includes accounts of the famine by those who survived it, describing what human beings can do when driven mad by hunger. It shows how the Soviet state ruthlessly used propaganda to turn neighbours against each other in order to expunge supposedly 'anti-revolutionary' elements. It also records the actions of extraordinary individuals who did all they could to relieve the suffering.

The famine was rapidly followed by an attack on Ukraine's cultural and political leadership - and then by a denial that it had ever happened at all. Census reports were falsified and memory suppressed. Some western journalists shamelessly swallowed the Soviet line; others bravely rejected it, and were undermined and harassed. The Soviet authorities were determined not only that Ukraine should abandon its national aspirations, but that the country's true history should be buried along with its millions of victims. Red Famine, a triumph of scholarship and human sympathy, is a milestone in the recovery of those memories and that history. At a moment of crisis between Russia and Ukraine, it also shows how far the present is shaped by the past.]]> 496 Anne Applebaum 0771009305 Emma 0 dnf 4.37 2017 Red Famine: Stalin's War on Ukraine
author: Anne Applebaum
name: Emma
average rating: 4.37
book published: 2017
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/08/22
shelves: dnf
review:

]]> Dragon Palace 123236963 Included in The New Yorker's Best Books of 2023

From the bestselling author of Strange Weather in Tokyo comes this otherworldly collection of eight stories, each a masterpiece of transformation, infused with humor, sex, and the universal search for love and beauty—in a world where the laws of time and space, and even species boundaries, don’t apply.

Meet a shape-shifting con man, a goddess who uses sex to control her followers, an elderly man possessed by a fox spirit, a woman who falls in love with her 400-year-old ancestor, a kitchen god with three faces in a weasel-infested apartment block, moles who provide underground sanctuary for humans who have lost the will to live, a man nurtured through life by his seven extraordinary sisters, and a woman who is handed from husband to husband until she is finally able to return to the sea.]]> 160 Hiromi Kawakami 1737625350 Emma 3 People from my Neighborhood, and some of these seemed more focused on being weird than making any sort of point, but several were more compelling. I especially like her twists on the relationships between women and men, including a woman who falls in love with her ancestor and another who was once a sea creature but is passed from husband to husband until she decides to take matters into her own hands. Worth reading at the very least for the total bizarreness.

Note on the translation: I read Ted Goossen's translation into English. I liked his rendition of these stories; he also did People from My Neighborhood.]]> 3.27 2023 Dragon Palace
author: Hiromi Kawakami
name: Emma
average rating: 3.27
book published: 2023
rating: 3
read at: 2024/08/16
date added: 2024/08/19
shelves:
review:
I always enjoy the strange things that come out of Hiromi Kawakami's brain, and weird magical realist short stories are the best kind. As a collection, this was fine. It wasn't as punchy or memorable as the quirkiest parts of People from my Neighborhood, and some of these seemed more focused on being weird than making any sort of point, but several were more compelling. I especially like her twists on the relationships between women and men, including a woman who falls in love with her ancestor and another who was once a sea creature but is passed from husband to husband until she decides to take matters into her own hands. Worth reading at the very least for the total bizarreness.

Note on the translation: I read Ted Goossen's translation into English. I liked his rendition of these stories; he also did People from My Neighborhood.
]]> Dear Dolly 61343296 'What I learnt from sharing my most private pain with a semi-professional problem-solver was that the mere act of asking for help was, in itself, healing. It was as if I had crept down to the docks under cover of darkness and floated a message out in a bottle, imagining how it might be received. By writing it, I was acknowledging that someone might care about me; that they'd be able to say the right thing without knowing me. Because I was feeling something that other people had felt and therefore I wasn't, as I suspected, the loneliest and strangest woman in the world.'

Since early 2020, Dolly Alderton has been sharing her wisdom, warmth and wit with the countless people who have written in to her Dear Dolly agony aunt column in The Sunday Times Style. Their questions range from the painfully - and sometimes hilariously - relatable to the occasionally bizarre. They include breakups and body issues, families, friendships, dating, divorce, the pleasures and pitfalls of social media, sex, loneliness, longing, love and everything in between.

Without judgement, and with deep empathy informed by her own, much-chronicled adventures in love, friendship and dating, Dolly leads us by the hand through the various labyrinths of life, proving that a problem shared is truly a problem halved.]]> 224 Dolly Alderton 0241623642 Emma 4 Sunday Times columns. Her advice is thoughtful and understanding and still very funny to read, mostly because she's good at incorporating her own experiences and laughing at them without making the focus totally on herself. I wouldn't always have given the same advice as she did, but that's the advice column business for you!

I listened to the audiobook, read by Dolly, which I highly recommend. She's an entertaining narrator, and the different narrators they bring in to read the original letters add a lot to the experience.]]> 3.80 2022 Dear Dolly
author: Dolly Alderton
name: Emma
average rating: 3.80
book published: 2022
rating: 4
read at: 2024/08/09
date added: 2024/08/12
shelves:
review:
Dolly Alderton is probably the closest we'll come to a real-life Carrie Bradshaw - she nails chatty discourse about relationships and making your way in the world as a young person. Since I love advice columns because they give me an insight into people's problems without feeling guilty as I would about people I know, I enjoyed this collection of her Sunday Times columns. Her advice is thoughtful and understanding and still very funny to read, mostly because she's good at incorporating her own experiences and laughing at them without making the focus totally on herself. I wouldn't always have given the same advice as she did, but that's the advice column business for you!

I listened to the audiobook, read by Dolly, which I highly recommend. She's an entertaining narrator, and the different narrators they bring in to read the original letters add a lot to the experience.
]]> The Rachel Incident 63094957
Rachel is a student working at a bookstore when she meets James, and it’s love at first sight. Effervescent and insistently heterosexual, James soon invites Rachel to be his roommate and the two begin a friendship that changes the course of both their lives forever. Together, they run riot through the streets of Cork city, trying to maintain a bohemian existence while the threat of the financial crash looms before them.

When Rachel falls in love with her married professor, Dr. Fred Byrne, James helps her devise a reading at their local bookstore, with the goal that she might seduce him afterwards. But Fred has other desires. So begins a series of secrets and compromises that intertwine the fates of James, Rachel, Fred, and Fred’s glamorous, well-connected, bourgeois wife. Aching with unrequited love, shot through with delicious, sparkling humor, The Rachel Incident is a triumph.]]> 304 Caroline O'Donoghue 0593535707 Emma 4
This is a very Irish story, and I don't mean that it's inaccessible; I'm not Irish and I still enjoyed it. But it feels much more culturally Irish than even something like Normal People; it mentions an Irish Christmas special on the very first page. It's also a story in which no one is blameless and no one is a villain, and I love stories like that. Despite the very real mistakes that these people make, you can usually empathize with at least part of their position, and much like O'Donoghue's podcast, this becomes a feel-good experience that isn't sickly sweet or avoidant of any real conflict or mess.

I'm always happy when I enjoy the work of people I already like, and this is no exception!]]> 4.06 2023 The Rachel Incident
author: Caroline O'Donoghue
name: Emma
average rating: 4.06
book published: 2023
rating: 4
read at: 2024/08/03
date added: 2024/08/12
shelves:
review:
Caroline O'Donoghue is someone I already knew as the host of Sentimental Garbage, a podcast that discusses the cultural impact of media made by and for women. I knew I liked her voice and her way of breaking apart the relationships within stories, and so I thought I would like her most recent novel. And I did!

This is a very Irish story, and I don't mean that it's inaccessible; I'm not Irish and I still enjoyed it. But it feels much more culturally Irish than even something like Normal People; it mentions an Irish Christmas special on the very first page. It's also a story in which no one is blameless and no one is a villain, and I love stories like that. Despite the very real mistakes that these people make, you can usually empathize with at least part of their position, and much like O'Donoghue's podcast, this becomes a feel-good experience that isn't sickly sweet or avoidant of any real conflict or mess.

I'm always happy when I enjoy the work of people I already like, and this is no exception!
]]> White Cat, Black Dog: Stories 61391802 Seven ingeniously reinvented fairy tales that play out with astonishing consequences in the modern world

Finding seeds of inspiration in the Brothers Grimm, seventeenth-century French lore, and Scottish ballads, Kelly Link spins classic fairy tales into utterly original stories of seekers--characters on the hunt for love, connection, revenge, or their own sense of purpose.

In "The White Cat's Divorce," an aging billionaire sends his three sons on a series of absurd goose chases to decide which will become his heir. In "The Girl Who Did Not Know Fear," a professor with a delicate health condition becomes stranded for days in an airport hotel after a conference, desperate to get home to her wife and young daughter, and in acute danger of being late for an appointment that cannot be missed. In "Skinder's Veil," a young man agrees to take over a remote house-sitting gig for a friend. But what should be a chance to focus on his long-avoided dissertation instead becomes a wildly unexpected journey, as the house seems to be a portal for otherworldly travelers--or perhaps a door into his own mysterious psyche.

Twisting and winding in astonishing ways, expertly blending realism and the speculative, witty, empathetic, and never predictable--these stories remind us once again of why Kelly Link is incomparable in the art of short fiction.]]> 272 Kelly Link 0593449959 Emma 4
The other stories, fortunately, range from fine to excellent. "Skinder's Veil," a Snow White and Rose Red retelling, is trippy and strange and deeply immersive. "Prince Hat Underground" is an East of the Sun, West of the Moon retelling that is also very weird, but makes more sense than the original, and it breaks my heart more, too. Even the stories I didn't love as much at least gave me something to think about. This is the kind of collection that makes you sift through Reddit, searching for alternate interpretations. But it's much more fun and easy to read than many other such books can be.

Kelly Link just came out with a book this year, which is very convenient, as I now really want to read it.]]> 3.79 2023 White Cat, Black Dog: Stories
author: Kelly Link
name: Emma
average rating: 3.79
book published: 2023
rating: 4
read at: 2024/08/07
date added: 2024/08/08
shelves:
review:
What a rip-roaring, spine-tingling, outright gorgeous collection of stories! Each of these retells a fairy tale, most of which are not the kind you will normally see Disney retell. The one most people will know is probably Hansel and Gretel, but that retelling, in my opinion, is easily the weakest, a weird, vaguely futuristic story with no point I could make out. I wouldn't have known it was Hansel and Gretel unless it was spelled out for me - and it was, and I still have my doubts.

The other stories, fortunately, range from fine to excellent. "Skinder's Veil," a Snow White and Rose Red retelling, is trippy and strange and deeply immersive. "Prince Hat Underground" is an East of the Sun, West of the Moon retelling that is also very weird, but makes more sense than the original, and it breaks my heart more, too. Even the stories I didn't love as much at least gave me something to think about. This is the kind of collection that makes you sift through Reddit, searching for alternate interpretations. But it's much more fun and easy to read than many other such books can be.

Kelly Link just came out with a book this year, which is very convenient, as I now really want to read it.
]]> The Ministry of Time 199798179 A time travel romance, a spy thriller, a workplace comedy, and an ingenious exploration of the nature of power and the potential for love to change it all:

In the near future, a civil servant is offered the salary of her dreams and is, shortly afterward, told what project she’ll be working on. A recently established government ministry is gathering “expats� from across history to establish whether time travel is feasible—for the body, but also for the fabric of space-time.

She is tasked with working as a “bridge�: living with, assisting, and monitoring the expat known as �1847� or Commander Graham Gore. As far as history is concerned, Commander Gore died on Sir John Franklin’s doomed 1845 expedition to the Arctic, so he’s a little disoriented to be living with an unmarried woman who regularly shows her calves, surrounded by outlandish concepts such as “washing machines,� “Spotify,� and “the collapse of the British Empire.� But with an appetite for discovery, a seven-a-day cigarette habit, and the support of a charming and chaotic cast of fellow expats, he soon adjusts.

Over the next year, what the bridge initially thought would be, at best, a horrifically uncomfortable roommate dynamic, evolves into something much deeper. By the time the true shape of the Ministry’s project comes to light, the bridge has fallen haphazardly, fervently in love, with consequences she never could have imagined. Forced to confront the choices that brought them together, the bridge must finally reckon with how—and whether she believes—what she does next can change the future.]]> 339 Kaliane Bradley 1668045141 Emma 5 The Ministry of Time in late July, at which point I had only given five stars to a single book out of over 50 this year. I had high hopes, even though I expected them to be dashed. But I read this book in stolen moments over the course of two days. I realized upon finishing it that the heat had stuck my T-shirt to my back as I leaned against my couch. It was 11 am and I was already sweaty. I didn't care.

I returned the book to the library today, and my fingers almost wouldn't let me let it go.

I say that I love this book realizing that it is imperfect. I still don't quite comprehend one or two aspects of the time travel stuff. The ending is quick, although beautiful. The prose is meticulous and vivid and really funny in a hyperspecific way that is going to bother some people. It can be exhausting. I adored it.

Many of the books I really admire refuse to be about just one thing, and The Ministry of Time is no different. It may not quite be a romance, but it is a romantic, slow-burning love story, full of that microscopic awareness of the other person that comes out of an uncertain crush. It is a comedy of manners about people whose manners belong to an entirely different time. It is a tale of immigration and family trauma. It is a story of corruption, of marginalization, of microaggressions and wrestling with the impact of colonialism while loving someone who literally helped perpetrate it. It loves its characters and says of one, "He was a man of marble where others are of clay." My heart will never heal, and I don't want it to.

It's also a science fiction novel, but that's almost beside the point, and I love that about it, too. Not everyone will. All the time-travel novels I love don't get bogged down in the details of how it works. What they want to know is this: can we really start over? And does time travel have anything to do with whether or not we can?

This book answers that question, but you'll have to read it to find out what it says. And you should. Preferably tomorrow, preferably tonight. Tell me what you think.]]> 3.54 2024 The Ministry of Time
author: Kaliane Bradley
name: Emma
average rating: 3.54
book published: 2024
rating: 5
read at: 2024/07/30
date added: 2024/08/08
shelves:
review:
I didn't think I remembered what it felt like to love a book. I picked up The Ministry of Time in late July, at which point I had only given five stars to a single book out of over 50 this year. I had high hopes, even though I expected them to be dashed. But I read this book in stolen moments over the course of two days. I realized upon finishing it that the heat had stuck my T-shirt to my back as I leaned against my couch. It was 11 am and I was already sweaty. I didn't care.

I returned the book to the library today, and my fingers almost wouldn't let me let it go.

I say that I love this book realizing that it is imperfect. I still don't quite comprehend one or two aspects of the time travel stuff. The ending is quick, although beautiful. The prose is meticulous and vivid and really funny in a hyperspecific way that is going to bother some people. It can be exhausting. I adored it.

Many of the books I really admire refuse to be about just one thing, and The Ministry of Time is no different. It may not quite be a romance, but it is a romantic, slow-burning love story, full of that microscopic awareness of the other person that comes out of an uncertain crush. It is a comedy of manners about people whose manners belong to an entirely different time. It is a tale of immigration and family trauma. It is a story of corruption, of marginalization, of microaggressions and wrestling with the impact of colonialism while loving someone who literally helped perpetrate it. It loves its characters and says of one, "He was a man of marble where others are of clay." My heart will never heal, and I don't want it to.

It's also a science fiction novel, but that's almost beside the point, and I love that about it, too. Not everyone will. All the time-travel novels I love don't get bogged down in the details of how it works. What they want to know is this: can we really start over? And does time travel have anything to do with whether or not we can?

This book answers that question, but you'll have to read it to find out what it says. And you should. Preferably tomorrow, preferably tonight. Tell me what you think.
]]> Monsters: A Fan's Dilemma 61685822 From the author of the New York Times best seller Poser and the acclaimed memoir Love and Trouble, a passionate, provocative, blisteringly smart interrogation of how we make and experience art in the age of #MeToo, and of the link between genius and monstrosity.

In this unflinching, deeply personal book that expands on her instantly viral Paris Review essay, What Do We Do with the Art of Monstrous Men? Claire Dederer asks: Can we love the work of Hemingway, Polanski, Naipaul, Miles Davis, or Picasso? Should we love it? Does genius deserve special dispensation? Is male monstrosity the same as female monstrosity? Does art have a mandate to depict the darker elements of the psyche? And what happens if the artist stares too long into the abyss? She explores the audience's relationship with artists from Woody Allen to Michael Jackson, asking: How do we balance our undeniable sense of moral outrage with our equally undeniable love of the work? In a more troubling vein, she wonders if an artist needs to be a monster in order to create something great. And if an artist is also a mother, does one identity inexorably, and fatally, interrupt the other? Highly topical, morally wise, honest to the core, Monsters is certain to incite a conversation about whether and how we can separate artists from their art.]]> 257 Claire Dederer 0525655115 Emma 4
Dederer has done something pretty interesting here that I appreciated, but not all reviewers seem to. Her book is part cultural criticism, and also part memoir, and she posits that she couldn't have written it any other way: her favorite kind of criticism, she writes, is that which is inextricably subjective, that which exposes the critic's beating heart. I think I agree with her. I may disagree with Richard Brody's movie criticism, even find it baffling (why does he like the Star Wars prequels so much?? And why does he hate, like, everything else popular), but in an era where "all art is valid" and "let people enjoy things" have been blown up from fair but broad statements to truisms meant to detonate any form of criticism, I'm just grateful to see an honest opinion. These are the artists who have made Dederer who she is, and her difficulty choosing between loving their work anyway and avoiding it due to their moral transgressions is well expressed.

Dederer’s final point is also well expressed, even if I’m not fully on board with it. I agree with her about how humans often do commit monstrous acts and deserve a chance at redemption. But she also says that individuals boycotting artists� work does little. It can be impactful if enough people participate, and we’ve seen this with J. K. Rowling, whose work still sells but nowhere near at the level of her pre-2020 popularity. I do, however, see her point that no one can tell someone what art not to engage with. Monsters is a useful book for anyone who's struggled with the wrongdoing of their favorite artists, and I'll be turning over Dederer's ideas in my head for a while.

Note on the format: I listened to Dederer read the audiobook. She does a good job, though as usual, I might have retained more had I read it in print.]]> 3.76 2023 Monsters: A Fan's Dilemma
author: Claire Dederer
name: Emma
average rating: 3.76
book published: 2023
rating: 4
read at: 2024/08/01
date added: 2024/08/07
shelves:
review:
It seems like every time I look, someone I look up to has failed me. Most recently, it's been Neil Gaiman, whose work I love and whom I once called my favorite man alive. He's been accused of assault by two (maybe more) much-younger former partners, so yeah, now he isn't my favorite man anymore. It seemed like a good time to pick up critic Claire Dederer's book.

Dederer has done something pretty interesting here that I appreciated, but not all reviewers seem to. Her book is part cultural criticism, and also part memoir, and she posits that she couldn't have written it any other way: her favorite kind of criticism, she writes, is that which is inextricably subjective, that which exposes the critic's beating heart. I think I agree with her. I may disagree with Richard Brody's movie criticism, even find it baffling (why does he like the Star Wars prequels so much?? And why does he hate, like, everything else popular), but in an era where "all art is valid" and "let people enjoy things" have been blown up from fair but broad statements to truisms meant to detonate any form of criticism, I'm just grateful to see an honest opinion. These are the artists who have made Dederer who she is, and her difficulty choosing between loving their work anyway and avoiding it due to their moral transgressions is well expressed.

Dederer’s final point is also well expressed, even if I’m not fully on board with it. I agree with her about how humans often do commit monstrous acts and deserve a chance at redemption. But she also says that individuals boycotting artists� work does little. It can be impactful if enough people participate, and we’ve seen this with J. K. Rowling, whose work still sells but nowhere near at the level of her pre-2020 popularity. I do, however, see her point that no one can tell someone what art not to engage with. Monsters is a useful book for anyone who's struggled with the wrongdoing of their favorite artists, and I'll be turning over Dederer's ideas in my head for a while.

Note on the format: I listened to Dederer read the audiobook. She does a good job, though as usual, I might have retained more had I read it in print.
]]> <![CDATA[Every Time I Go on Vacation, Someone Dies (The Vacation Mysteries, #1)]]> 195790849 Ten days, eight suspects, six cities, five authors, three bodies . . . one trip to die for.

All that bestselling author Eleanor Dash wants is to get through her book tour in Italy and kill off her main character, Connor Smith, in the next in her Vacation Mysteries series―is that too much to ask?

Clearly, because when an attempt is made on the real Connor’s life―the handsome but infuriating con man she got mixed up with ten years ago and now can't get out of her life―Eleanor’s enlisted to help solve the case.

Contending with literary rivals, rabid fans, a stalker―and even her ex, Oliver, who turns up unexpectedly―theories are bandied about, and rivalries, rifts, and broken hearts are revealed. But who’s really trying to get away with murder?

Every Time I Go on Vacation, Someone Dies is the irresistible and hilarious series debut from Catherine Mack, introducing bestselling fictional author Eleanor Dash on her Italian book tour that turns into a real-life murder mystery, as her life starts to imitate the world in her books.]]> 342 Catherine Mack 1250325854 Emma 0 dnf 3.47 2024 Every Time I Go on Vacation, Someone Dies (The Vacation Mysteries, #1)
author: Catherine Mack
name: Emma
average rating: 3.47
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/08/06
shelves: dnf
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Millicent Min, Girl Genius (The Millicent Min Trilogy #1)]]> 230992 272 Lisa Yee 0439771315 Emma 0 rereads-2024 3.78 2003 Millicent Min, Girl Genius (The Millicent Min Trilogy #1)
author: Lisa Yee
name: Emma
average rating: 3.78
book published: 2003
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/08/02
shelves: rereads-2024
review:

]]>