they already found the cure for loneliness. it's called "Reading + An Active Imagination"
...anyway.
like many things, this had a lot of great ideas andthey already found the cure for loneliness. it's called "Reading + An Active Imagination"
...anyway.
like many things, this had a lot of great ideas and fell flat on the execution. it never really works for me when the first 200+ pages of a book are exposition and then the climax hits with 40 pages to go, and this was left feeling sloppy and rushed. this book felt like it had the concept it wanted, and the ending it knew it wanted to get to, and then it just kind of rambled in between.
reading the epilogue and finding our protagonist transformed, (view spoiler)[armed with friendships with barely mentioned characters, a terminated relationship that had showed no signs of being stopped, and a totally different career path (hide spoiler)] with none of the development it would have taken to get there, felt frustrating. also i just don't know why this book felt like it needed a love triangle, or why the roommate had to be constantly eating and made fun of for that, or (and maybe it's just me) why this had to do that sci-fi thing where you just capitalize common phrases to indicate they have taken on some sort of dystopian brand.
oh well.
bottom line: this was really promising, and i really enjoyed moments of it, but its last page and its middle pages threw me off.
(this comes to mind because this book explores the line between dream and reality, and not because i'm just thinking about childrenlife is but a dream
(this comes to mind because this book explores the line between dream and reality, and not because i'm just thinking about children's songs)
(anyway)
there were moments this was truly interesting, but for the most part it was overambitious and seemed to find the huge number of symbols, motifs, themes, and Various Things Of Literary Significance it had saddled itself with unwieldy. it didn't nail the dismount, so to speak.
this was VERY DIFFERENT from a good girl's guide to murder.
alternate title proposal: a mean girl's guide to family drama and bullying the people arouthis was VERY DIFFERENT from a good girl's guide to murder.
alternate title proposal: a mean girl's guide to family drama and bullying the people around her.
it was a lot more dramatic, a lot less realistic, and a lot more filled with secrets and cringy moments of the meanest teenage girl you've ever encountered in your fiction-reading life making adults cry. which is...not my usual demographic.
the last third or so was a lot more enjoyable of a reading experience, but it wasn't a satisfying conclusion. instead it was really info dumpy, very unrealistic feeling.
if a good girl's guide to murder is like the first few seasons of pretty little liars, this is like the last few. unrealistic, confusing, and vaguely alarming.
but still surprising and weirdly fun.
bottom line: the real plot twist is how much i didn't expect about this book.
2.5
------------------ tbr review
a good reader's guide to adding too many books to her tbr
the important thing to know about this is it's a bad book written by a good writer. the characters: flimsy. their rellike a reverse irish exit?
anyway.
the important thing to know about this is it's a bad book written by a good writer. the characters: flimsy. their relationships: inexplicable. the plot: filled with years-long gaps to the point of being incomprehensible.
but the writing itself? the dialogue? the little jokes? excellent.
the other thing to know is that it is very weird. it's a white woman who was once a backup singer in a Black group and can't get over it. that's not much to carry us through 250 pages and it never feels any more normal.
maybe it was a different time.
bottom line: sometimes books are forgotten for a reason.
the thing about collecting everything an author has ever written about a subject as broad as "art," as she wrote it with no future awareness of its lothe thing about collecting everything an author has ever written about a subject as broad as "art," as she wrote it with no future awareness of its looming collection, is that you definitionally are kinda taking the good with the bad.
i'm not new york-y, in so many ways: i don't pay a lot in rent, i'm not adventurous, i stay inside a lot, and i don't know how to even begin to understand abstract art. i don't think i'm above it. quite the opposite. i would never be like "my four year old could create this painting / bash this barbie's head in / create this sculpture that is a talking refrigerator." i'm closer to the four year old — it just goes over my head.
i loved the parts of this that included maggie nelson in conversation with interesting people, including those i hadn't heard of and those i had. i loved the parts that were explorations of things i know, or of books.
but for me, there is only so much blood and sh*t and gore and violence smashed into a canvas or a polaroid or film recording i can bear.
bottom line: i always love maggie nelson but she is way cooler than me. this was made up of exclusively the cooler than me parts.
i have marked 1,865 books as read on goodreads. i have reviewed 1,813 of them. of those, i would say at least 1,727 had at least one complaint. and STi have marked 1,865 books as read on goodreads. i have reviewed 1,813 of them. of those, i would say at least 1,727 had at least one complaint. and STILL, i just discovered a whole new negative thing to say:
this book is all feelings. the characters don't really have personality traits, they have emotions. they don't have development, they have new feelings. there is no romance, just instalove. there isn't really a plot, just people going through feelings together (for a podcast) and people going through feelings together (that will eventually lead to them being together).
it makes it all feel shallow, like there's no actual connection between these people or their story, and that means there's no connection between the reader and the book.
for this reader, at least.
bottom line: you learn something new every day. i already knew i was a soulless void, but today i learned a new effect of that.
------------------------ tbr review
what's your favorite niche book trope? mine is road trips.
unfortunately this is not really a road trip book. my bad.
i love reading about artists. that way i can pretend i'm creative and interesting.
unfortunately...only the first half of this book was that.
and i lovei love reading about artists. that way i can pretend i'm creative and interesting.
unfortunately...only the first half of this book was that.
and i loved that part! it focused on three friends, all asian-american women, through their 80s childhoods and 90s and Y2K time in new york, on their very different paths—an artist, a coder, a housing activist—and all that they had in common, each in some way on the fringes, in worlds that pointed to what was to come.
i could've read so much of this.
unfortunately, it took a sudden turn into an inconsistent, fake-feeling dystopian future, with everyone forgotten but one, whose character felt different and her motivation unrecognizable.
i've been awaiting this book since the leavers, but this lacks everything that made that book great: memorable characters, a light hand in melodrama, and striking, even emotion.
i don't think i've ever read a novella addition to a series and been like "yeah, that was necessary." but that doesn't stop me from trying.
this was noi don't think i've ever read a novella addition to a series and been like "yeah, that was necessary." but that doesn't stop me from trying.
this was no exception though.
it only provided insight into how pip decided to do her senior capstone project in the first book, which is possibly the least interesting thing it could possibly be about while still technically being in any way related to the actual mystery.
it also exclusively follows the plotline of a murder mystery dinner type board game, which are not famous for being interesting and filled with shock value.
it was a quick read and not terrible but that's the nicest i can be.
bottom line: if you're like, "i'd read holly jackson writing about literally anything," this is the novella for you....more
pssst...emily henry's screenwriter for beach read wrote a romance novel...
and you can probably skip it.
this was a weird book.
it uses the word vague apssst...emily henry's screenwriter for beach read wrote a romance novel...
and you can probably skip it.
this was a weird book.
it uses the word vague a lot, and it loves to murmur. it has a lot of italics, for no real discernible reason. there's a whole scene where it seems like it might be sponsored by scrivener (credit to halle)?
more seriously, it creates a very troubled romance with very troubled characters and puts them in a love story it will take 300 pages to untangle into something resembling a happily ever after, except we never really get to their individual personal issues.
except forget about their respective personal issues because we don't have time to get to those.
helen never makes real friendships, and grant doesn't either. parental relationships are left unresolved. they get back together, but the why feels unsolved at best.
and then there's the worst crime of all...this is so devastatingly unfunny.
a lot of the time in modern life, rom coms are more like rom drams, featuring characters navigating wildly upsetting interpersonal crises with a romance in the background and the occasional line of banter.
i actually don't mind that much, because i'm obsessed with drama and it helps to soothe the part of me that is constantly one bolt of confidence away from asking my acquaintances why they broke up.
but the drama in this was SO crazy, and the jokes SO unforgivably bad (to the point that i wouldn't know they were supposed to be jokes if it didn't literally say "he joked"), that i was more like...why would i root for these people at all.
while questioning if i know what jokes are at all, in the emotional equivalent of when you use the word "joke" so much it doesn't look like a word anymore. which is also happening.
it also relies on chemistry instead of intimacy, with a lot more sex scenes than romantic ones.
i read an interview with the author in which she says that she wrote this early in the morning and late at night while working on an emily henry script, and i hate to say it shows. this reads like the compiled discarded bits of something distractedly written by her.
that would be the meanest thing i've ever said if i didn't love emily henry so much.
but my favorite part of this was the food descriptions.
unfortunately, the rest was extremely repetitiveof course i want to read about magic fox girls.
but my favorite part of this was the food descriptions.
unfortunately, the rest was extremely repetitive. we have two perspectives, one of a fox girl and the other of an aging investigator, both of which sound interesting and aren't. each perspective just follows its respective protagonist as they go from the same place to the next, looking for the same thing, unchanging in themselves or in the plot. i waited for this book to pick up and it never did.
the writing was also strange—a lot of moments where something would happen, and then it would be rhetorically referred to as if it didn't. a character spots another character, and then 2 sentences later, when he starts speaking to her: "he'd managed to find me after all." like, no, he just saw you. we just talked about that. "she'd used her patron's name, hoping it would open doors. which it had." okay, why did we have to say that then. it resulted in me going back and rereading a lot of paragraphs and getting frustrated.
the ending and romance came out of nowhere, after hundreds of pages of sexual harassment, but there were parts of this i enjoyed.
i just wish there were more of them.
bottom line: more foxes, more food, less weirdness.
(2.5 / thanks to the publisher for the e-arc)...more
this one is nice and has some moments of being more than that, but it's overall disappointingly one note:i can't stop reading short story collections.
this one is nice and has some moments of being more than that, but it's overall disappointingly one note: these could run together, a series of quotidian moments and strangely abrupt endings. i enjoyed reading this at times, but it won't stick with me.
sorry.
bottom line: my favorite thing about short story collections is that you never know what's next. that wasn't true of this one....more
in the acknowledgments of this book, the author says he wrote "the type of angry that still leaves room for love." this book is exquisitely, desperatein the acknowledgments of this book, the author says he wrote "the type of angry that still leaves room for love." this book is exquisitely, desperately angry, justifiably so, but we end well before it seems like we've found the love.
this is a book with a lot of great ideas and a lot of great feelings that spends its energy on the wrong ones. in its synopsis, it seems like it's the story of a girl with superpowers, who can level cities and see the future. really, it's the story of her brother, who is incarcerated — which is a better story.
in truth, the sci fi element of this book takes away from its reality, as does its playfulness with time and fantasy and perspective. in its moments of clear-eyed storytelling, it is striking and raw, but it more often is bogged down in so many literary devices and plots that distract.
i would read more from this author, and i'd hope it isn't genre fiction.
the worst part of this romance book is the romance.
the best part of this book is: it's genre-bending. it's bantery. it's filled with unforgettable chathe worst part of this romance book is the romance.
the best part of this book is: it's genre-bending. it's bantery. it's filled with unforgettable characters and a cool flower shop and a lovely setting in harlem. it is unrealistic in literally every way but most of the time that is fine too.
but i didn't like the love story, which is insta, and which is the story. no matter what the surroundings i can never seem to get past that one trope. it is my kryptonite.
i had so much fun with the rest of this! but not with the biggest part.
this is about a young woman who hates the future...representation is so important.
unfortunately it turns out i can't relate that much to "dumb."
it is this is about a young woman who hates the future...representation is so important.
unfortunately it turns out i can't relate that much to "dumb."
it is very hard to read a whole book without sympathizing with its main character once.
this is actually not because the character in question spends this entire book sleeping with a married man, and a large portion of it sleeping with a man married to a pregnant wife, and a slightly smaller portion of it sleeping with a man married to the mother of a newborn. i have sympathized with characters who have done worse. although not by much.
it's because this character is SO unfeeling, so shallow, and so cruel in the worst way — the way that comes from just not caring about the interior lives of others. i don't know if this character has no interior life or is just uninterested in showing it to us, but it is not on page. not even implied.
i liked the writing of this at first, but eventually the constant slang and pop culture and devil-may-care mentality got old. it reminded me of greta and valdin at first, and then bad greta and valdin, and then no greta and valdin at all.
time passes in this book without reference, feelings grow without reason, and the plot just bumbles on.
boats against the current.
bottom line: a frustrating read, and not in the ways it intends to be.
honestly, reading this book prompted a lot of shouldn't haves.
cursed bunny is strange and fascinating and unpredia utopia? for me? you shouldn't have.
honestly, reading this book prompted a lot of shouldn't haves.
cursed bunny is strange and fascinating and unpredictable. this, by the same author, led me to expect a bizarre good time, but all of these stories — while striving for weird on the surface — were one-note and easy to anticipate.
some of them were in space, some were in the future, some were...well actually most of them were in one or the other, but all of them were about technology and society, and they had simple things to say.
after two story collections from chung, i'd be interested in a novel.
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