Attention to the following things: - raindrops on roses - whiskers on kittens - bright copper kettles - warm woolen mittens - etc.
You are officially ON NOTAttention to the following things: - raindrops on roses - whiskers on kittens - bright copper kettles - warm woolen mittens - etc.
Because you can no longer qualify as a few of ANYONE'S favorite things when Sarah Hogle is writing romance novels.
I almost never love anything. The idea of wild geese that fly with the moon on their wings can hardly bring even the ghost of a smile to my evil face. My average rating on this godforsaken website has been under three stars for more than three years. I eat pain for breakfast. And those are just three examples.
But one thing I did love is Sarah Hogle's debut, You Deserve Each Other. In fact, I loved it so much that I read it like a million times (okay, four, but honestly that's almost as shocking) and felt Emotion and Pangs To The Heart and Butterflies and otherwise feelings that tend to be the stuff of my nightmares every time.
And since lightning doesn't strike twice (lightning in this case being me acting like a normal person), I assumed this would be a three and a half star read, tops. Because I do not deserve happiness and have presumably been cursed by some sort of witch or creature with haunting capabilities or mean anthropomorphic pond dweller to ensure it.
And this isn't a five star read.
But it's pretty close.
I tend to like a little hatefulness in my romance novels. A little darkness. A little b*tchiness. That's why You Deserve Each Other, a book with several top reviews that are like "why are this people so mean," worked for me SO well.
And this is a VERY sweet book. A little too much so, for me. I like a daydreamer or a sweetiepie as much as the next person, but as it turns out I draw the line at elaborate romance-novel-within-a-romance-novel AUs.
But this is fun anyway.
Bottom line: Cure for cynicism discovered by Sarah Hogle! Yours for the low low price of like...under $20, or something. I don't know. It's worth it.
------------------ reread update
this particular reread was not EXACTLY what i needed, but this book was the first time i read it, so i'm (mostly) leaving the review and only dropping it a star.
also, when you're comparing something to the perfect romance, it's hard for anything to live up to it.
------------------ pre-review
a few things: 1) while reading this, i pressed my hand to my heart on multiple occasions, like an affronted victorian woman 2) i feel like my emotions and brain and soul just went through a blender, which it turns out is a good feeling 3) i might cry???? 4) i think this is the best romance i've ever read.
review to come / 5 STARS!!!!!!!
------------------ tbr review
I AM HOLDING MY MOST ANTICIPATED BOOK OF THE YEAR IN MY HANDS....more
if you've had the misfortune of digitally encountering me before, you probably know what that means: i pick up the collected works (almost no entries have actually met this parameter) of various Respected Authors (a category that apparently depends on my mood) and read a story a day (except most saturdays, or when i'm slumping, or when i forget, or when i read more than one like the teacher's pet suckup i am) until i become a genius (which is funny because it will never happen).
anyway, this triumphantly fails to meet all guidelines. this is a selection of lucia berlin's stories, berlin is a recent entrant into the canon if she's there at all, i already accidentally read the first 17 stories, and i am dumber than ever.
so i'm not sure this can count as a genius project even if i'm being nice to myself. but i just remembered i make the rules so. f*ck it.
STORY 1: ANGEL'S LAUNDROMAT sheesh. you can immediately tell lucia berlin was That Bitch. i kept rereading paragraphs but it could have either been due to lack of focus on my part or because i really wanted them to sink in, like when you replay your favorite song because you weren't appreciating it enough. let's err on the side of positivity for once. rating: 3.5
STORY 2: DR. H.A. MOYNIHAN this made me dearly miss my grandpa, who - while not a maniacal and disturbing dentist indulging in raging alcoholism - was a kind of ornery old guy with a penchant for jack daniels. or maybe it was just that phoebe bridgers' cover of summer's end came on shuffle while i was reading this. either/or. rating: 4
STORY 3: STARS AND SAINTS i have spent, as i write these little notes in my little notebook that i will later transfer to my little goodreads, most of the past 48 hours in public. as someone with untreated (but diagnosed!) anxiety that is rapidly devolving into agoraphobia, that means i have spent most of the same period believing myself so horrifically awkward it warrants execution. this made me feel better. rating: 4
STORY 4: A MANUAL FOR CLEANING WOMEN i always expect a lot from title stories. here, i was right to. rating: 5
STORY 5: MY JOCKEY a one pager. bold. update: i later learned this was one of the only stories lucia berlin wrote to be recognized in her lifetime, so i feel stupid for not liking it as much as some of the others...but i don't. so. speaking my truth. rating: 3.75
STORY 6: EL TIM i hated reading this but that was maybe the point? this felt like ottessa moshfegh, and surrounded by the other stories in this collection it made me like ottessa moshfegh less. rating: none
STORY 7: POINT OF VIEW i just fell in love. i'm in love with this story. it'll be an autumn wedding and you're all invited. rating: 5
STORY 8: HER FIRST DETOX i'm like 1/8 of the way through this collection and already dreading finishing it. rating: 5
STORY 9: PHANTOM PAIN it do be like that. that's all i can say. rating: 4.5
STORY 10: TIGER BITES all of these stories are: - excellent - semi-autobiographical - in an endlessly confusing way. rating: 4.5
STORY 11: EMERGENCY ROOM NOTEBOOK, 1977 very grateful for a year to ground me. i have no f*cking idea when most of these take place. rating: 3.5
STORY 12: TEMPS PERDU too gross for me. i'm sensitive. rating: 3
STORY 13: CARPE DIEM i am getting some anxiety rep with devastating accuracy here. rating: 4.5
STORY 14: TODA LUNA, TODO ANO well f*ck. this was nice. this book is giving me so precisely what i need that it feels like a prescription. i read this on a plane fleeing the same goddamn place the protagonist of this story is fleeing. rating: 4.5
STORY 15: GOOD AND BAD i love when i feel kind of meh about a story and then i come back here to write that and see the title i noted down earlier and go "OH! well that changes things." rating: 3.5
STORY 16: MELINA this one is kind of basic and silly, but with the same stunning writing, and it made me remember the others are truly brilliant. rating: 3
STORY 17: FRIENDS like the last one, but improving from the cliché and trite. rating: 4
STORY 18: UNMANAGEABLE addiction is very scary. the least hot take of all time, but this story knocked the sense out of me. rating: 4
STORY 19: ELECTRIC CAR, EL PASO allow me to reflect on what the hell this one means. rating: none
STORY 20: SEX APPEAL in a shocking twist, it turns out the men of hollywood have ALWAYS used their power and charisma to be f*cking disgusting. rating: 3.75
STORY 21: TEENAGE PUNK i am such a d*ck. here i am adoring this book for like 18 consecutive stories and then have two i like but don't love and nearly pitch a fit. thanks for winning me over anyway, lucia. rating: 4.5
STORY 22: STEP good song. one of vampire weekend's best. lucia berlin published three volumes of stories in her time, none of which garnered much attention, and then this little number was published a decade after her death and near-inexplicably sold more than all three of them combined in a matter of weeks. this may include most of the stories in those three, but i don't care. this is good enough that i'm tracking down all of them. rating: 4.5
STORY 23: STRAYS it's a metaphor, see. you put the double meaning right in the title but you don't give it the power till the ending. rating: 4.5
STORY 24: GRIEF well now i am just petrified of having my relationship with my sisters turn out like this. more importantly, people just don't go on holiday like they used to. that's something i've learned from this project. rating: 4
STORY 25: BLUEBONNETS people are scary. in multitudinous ways for countless reasons. men especially. rating: 3.5
STORY 26: LA VIE EN ROSE a few days ago, i was fleeing a place i hate and had run out of reading material just before my flight. the universe smiled upon me because there was an outpost of one of my favorite indie bookstores in the terminal (and when is there ever anything but hudson news anymore), and then full on grinned because there was exactly one copy of this book left - which had been on my to-read list since i saw it in the non-airport location of said bookstore. so i grabbed it, spent the remaining time before my flight walking around, boarded, sat in my seat, hit shuffle on my spotify (in which i only have, like, 2 playlists named variations of "songs i like" with hundreds of entries), and thought my thoughts. for some reason, i was turning the phrase "la vie en rose" around in my head, thinking of lucy dacus's cover of that song, wondering if it was still in my playlist because i hadn't heard it in a while, when boom - the song ends, the next song plays, and it's "la vie en rose." out of hundreds. right at the moment i considered it. i was so stunned i wanted to take my earbuds out and tell someone, but i am not that person, so i did a :o face to myself and picked this book up. skimmed the table of contents, which i don't usually do but for occasions with short stories. and then - no f*cking way. a story, midway down the list's second page: "la vie en rose." life is quite fantastic, from time to time. this is pretty wonderful too. rating: 4.5
STORY 27: MACADAM little and lovely. rating: 4
STORY 28: DEAR CONCHI even lucia berlin's love stories are so realistic it hurts my feelings. reading this story at the same time as a rom-com felt like a moment to moment reality check. rating: 4
STORY 29: FOOL TO CRY lucia has so many self-insert names for herself. lou, lu, carlotta, dolores...but at the same time there's like 5 stories about each one. are they the same character? are they not? am i supposed to put two and two together or would that make seven? ARGH. anyway, any protagonist who says things like "I decided to use the word dear instead of expensive from now on" and answers the question what do you find boring with "Nothing, actually. I've never been bored" is a special favorite to me. AND a great last line? lucia, you spoil me. rating: 5
STORY 30: MOURNING reminds me of that sally rooney quote: “If people appeared to behave pointlessly in grief, it was only because human life was pointless, and this was the truth that grief revealed.” but this is prettier and subtler. rating: 5
STORY 31: PANTEON DE DOLORES these stories are so good i want to mansplain them. the reversal of the traditional definitions of "lonely" versus "alone"... rating: 5
STORY 32: SO LONG i paused this story halfway to buy every lucia berlin book i could find. rating: 5
STORY 33: A LOVE AFFAIR i can't keep adoring multiple characters per story like this. i'm a hater. i'm not built to hold so much in my heart. rating: 5
STORY 34: LET ME SEE YOU SMILE so it turns out a story about an adult sleeping with a minor is never going to work for me. not if the genders are reversed, not if it's written by sally rooney, not if it's written by lucia berlin. f*cking grossos. i will say it's funny how lucia wrote a self-insert character and then had every other character compliment her at length. rating: 2.5
STORY 35: MAMA killer of an ending. rating: 4.5
STORY 36: CARMEN carmen, from the latin, name of the roman goddess of childbirth. god f*cking damn, lucia. rating: 5
STORY 37: SILENCE these perfect stories oh my god. i feel like i'm going insane. too much five star content at once, it's hurting my brain functioning, i'm destroyed, i'm melting, it's the wicked witch of the west without the flying monkeys over here. rating: 5
STORY 38: MIJITO the empathy here. i can't even review these beyond exclamations anymore. rating: 5
STORY 39: 502 another new name for lucia's fictional versions of herself: lucille. far out. rating: 4
STORY 40: HERE IT IS SATURDAY oh god. this time lucia wrote a character that is herself so that every other character can compliment her, but this time it's a freedom writers / finding forrester / white savior goes to school situation. the character's last name is even six letters beginning BE. thanks for making it a slight bit easier to say bye, lu. great ending, though. rating: 3
STORY 41: B.F. AND ME silly and little and nice. rating: 4
STORY 42: WAIT A MINUTE this was so beautiful and real that i spent the whole story trying to keep it at a distance. i knew if it clicked into place for me it would be too, too much. f*ck. it still was anyway. rating: 5 but more if i could
STORY 43: HOMING the last one. i'm sorry for what i said about you making it easier to say bye, lucia. i didn't mean it. oh, no. of course this one would be extraordinary. i want to cry. rating: 5 and still more if i could
OVERALL this book knocked me out. i don't know what to tell you. never in my life has a collection of stories done anything like this to me. i'll be thinking about this forever, in a million different ways. rating: 5...more
My limited and rarely tested abilities to write a five star review, ever decaying and decreasing from laWell, well, well.
Look what the cat dragged in.
My limited and rarely tested abilities to write a five star review, ever decaying and decreasing from lack of use. We meet again.
I will continue to make my own lack of skill the audience for this review, just for a moment, because this is a special occasion. This isn't just any five star book, although that would be a fairly once in a blue moon event as well.
You and I - you, of course, being my minimal talents - need to get it together.
This is a SALLY ROONEY book. And not just any Sally Rooney book, but possibly my FAVORITE Sally Rooney book. Could very well be my favorite book by who is likely my favorite author, in other words. Rooney has published one excerpt, one essay, three novels, and four short stories, and I have read her work 22 times, in total.
Also notably, there is a book I have called the following: - my Bible - the book of my heart - my literal and figurative self, distilled into pages - my most recommended book - my favorite book of the last 150 years - nearly my favorite book of all time, second only to Alice's Adventures in Wonderland - my comfort book - the closest thing I have to a religion
It's a book called Conversations with Friends, it's also written by Sally Rooney, and it seems to have been dethroned by this one.
There's a reason I've put off writing this review for two and a half months. The stakes are f*cking high.
So where do I go from here?
I can tell you that, so long as I live, I expect never to encounter writing like this again. Writing so clear and lovely, writing that summons new images and thoughts and emotions you've never considered and acts as a kind acknowledgment of the scariest and deepest and truest ones you quietly have.
I can say that this book begins with a launch, a tossing into the pool, an unceremonious jumping in that's more like a continuation, an assumption you've been there all along. That though it begins suddenly it feels like coming home.
I can note that these are some of Rooney's best and worst love stories, the ones you root for the most with the most complicated and "bad" and problematic people populating them, and that it's so beautiful to have those two things coexist.
I can attempt to work out my feelings about these characters, that while I feel for them and am fascinated by them and may adore them, it's almost beside the point of everything else. That for me, a person who reads for characters, the characters are wonderfully done and the realest yet, and the least important part, for me.
I can add that this is also an incredible act of bravery by Rooney, that it serves a huge leap in scope and in style and in intention from her previous books, that she has been criticized for much of her still-nascent career in a way that feels mean-spirited by the aging totems of Literature, and that instead of ducking her head and conceding to the characterization of her work as vapid and millennial, she filled her third book with so much heart it's hard to fathom.
I can try to describe what this book means to me, what it's like to spend most of your life trying on cynicism like a Halloween costume, scratchy and seamy and not quite right, to indulge in pithy "I hate everyone" negativity when people seem to be the only real reason life is worth living, and then have your very favorite author - who, it may have been mentioned, holds a fairly outsize role in your heart and mind - tell you she thinks so, too.
I want you to know, and I can try to convey, that love and friendship are all that matters, and that this book is the loveliest way of giving yourself the gift of letting yourself believe that.
I will try to tell you so many things if they get you to read this book.
Bottom line: This is a once in a lifetime one, for me.
----------------- note
as if i needed more reasons to find this book completely perfect: free palestine
----------------- reread pre-review
the first time i read this, i finished it in a sitting.
the second time, i savored every word.
review to come / 5 stars / more if i could
----------------- reread updates
i don't know how long i can go without rereading a sally rooney book. but i'm not willing to find out
-----------
i wish i could say this was as good the third time...but i can't.
in case you missed the first one, here's the description: i have decided to become a genius.
to accomplish this, i'm going to work my way through the collected stories of various authors, reading + reviewing 1 story every day until i get bored / lose every single follower / am struck down by a vengeful deity.
and yes, i chose this one due in no small part to miss phoebe bridgers.
DAY 1: THE HUSBAND STITCH this is truly one of the raddest pieces of writing i have ever read. i don't even know what to say. lovely writing, gorgeous allusions, wonderful style, brilliant structure, fantastic ending, genius title. a pitch-perfect retelling. i can't even deal. rating: 5
DAY 2: INVENTORY a story about sexual encounters during a pandemic quarantine is hitting a bit too close to home for me right now. rating: 3.75
DAY 3: MOTHERS you know that feeling when you start a short story and you're working at full attention to figure out where you are and who you're with and what's going on because you'll only have a few pages to both know and appreciate it? that feeling stuck around until the very last with this one. in a good way. rating: 4.5
DAY 4: ESPECIALLY HEINOUS hey so Carmen Maria Machado is f*cking amazing. this is brilliant. rating: 5
DAY 5: REAL WOMEN HAVE BODIES i keep waiting for a dud of a story and it just...won't come. genius end to end. rating: 4.5
DAY 6: EIGHT BITES okay ouch, carmen!!!!! this is starting to hurt!!!! rating: 4.5
DAY 7: THE RESIDENT so maybe this one actually scared me!!! what about it???? rating: 4.5
DAY 8: DIFFICULT AT PARTIES not my favorite. actually probably my least favorite. rating: 3.5
OVERALL this is a brilliant work by a brilliant author, and it's greater than the sum of its parts. i didn't miss a single day (despite having work and holidays and cross-country flights in that time), and not only that, but i looked forward to my time with this every day.
Honestly, all you need to know about my reading experience with this book is the following: - I never (EVER!!!!) get scared of books. - My least favoritHonestly, all you need to know about my reading experience with this book is the following: - I never (EVER!!!!) get scared of books. - My least favorite genre of movie is horror, because they're not scary and are therefore just ~boring~. - I am obsessed with ghost stories but they are never satisfying to me. - This book made me so frightened, in broad daylight, at 10 am with my roommate in the next room and a cat on my lap, that I had to put it down. - BROAD DAYLIGHT I TELL YOU!!!
This book is The Blueprint.
Also I felt a huge affection for the characters, I loved the writing, I felt the spirals and the rollercoasters alongside our protagonist, and the ending was...chef's kiss.
Already raised this from a 4 to a 4.5...now wondering if I should raise it higher.
Bottom line: Just remembered I drunkenly lent my copy of this to my neighbor. DON'T LET DRUNK ME NEAR MY BOOKS EVER AGAIN.
------------ pre-review
yes i DID finish reading this in the wee hours of Halloween night under a full moon. thank you for asking.
review to come / 4.5 stars
------------ currently-reading updates
feel like i'm legally obligated to read this in october...more
I love Emily Henry, and I love June (aka Jack O'Donnell IV) and I love Saul and I love Hannah and I love Jack O'Donnell III and I lI LOVE EMILY HENRY.
I love Emily Henry, and I love June (aka Jack O'Donnell IV) and I love Saul and I love Hannah and I love Jack O'Donnell III and I love families and I love magical realism and I love this book.
I love it so, so, so so so so much.
Changing this to a five star because a) obviously and b) you should always five star books that are so pretty they make you tear up a little bit on a Greyhound bus.
Those of you who have followed me for a hot second know about my complex relationship with magical realism. Me and magical realism’s Facebook relationship status: it’s complicated. If the feelings between me and magical realism were a math equation, they’d be a super long one.
To sum up my relationship with magical realism: When it’s done right, I LOVE IT. Like, more than any other genre. My perfect book is probably really good magical realism. (Examples of lit magical realism: The Night Circus (!), The World to Come.) But that’s almost never what happens. I don’t know what it is, but I’m rarely content with the sh*t in this genre. And I tend to get way angrier when it’s bad. Like, YOU WERE SO CLOSE! You could have been so good. (Examples of magical realism that made me want to light a trash can on fire: The Darkest Part of the Forest, Miss Peregrine’s, Mr. Penumbra’s 24-Hour Bookstore, Every Day, the first two Dorothy Must Die books...I could go on, but this paragraph is hella long.)
I think I’ve boiled down my equation for a good magical realism book to two things: first, it has to make you wonder if maybe there could be magic in our dumb, boring old reality, and second, it has to make you hope that there is, and that it’s the particular breed of magic outlined in the book.
I’m thrilled to inform you that A Million Junes, for the most part, checks those boxes.
So, in this book, we follow June, who lives in a magic house and is the heir apparent to one half of a small town Minnesota war between families. She’s still reeling from the decade-ago death of her dad, who she super loved, when the heir apparent to the OTHER family shows up in town. And is a total flippin’ babe. And then stuff gets very weird, and very magical, AND I CAN’T DO THIS BOOK JUSTICE BUT TRUST ME, IT’S WORTH READING.
I mean...this book wasn’t perfect. When is it ever? But let’s stick with the good stuff for now. In fact, let’s talk characters.
Ah, these characters. Well, specifically June, Saul, and Hannah. June is our protagonist, our narrator, the light of my life and joy of my soul. She’s shockingly funny (when are characters ever truly funny?) and so fun to follow. She makes not like other girls jokes! I was in love with her by the twenty page mark. She’s so not the typical YA narrator, for so many reasons. (And no, that wasn’t a not like other girls joke. Or was it?)
Saul is June’s perfect complement. Their banter is so great. He’s a lil cutie and I like him a lot. That’s all I have to say.
Also, the female friendship in this is AMAZING. June’s BFF Hannah is so wonderful and a tiny angel and I want the absolute best for her. My God. Just...the characters and relationships in this book, man! It gives me I’ll Give You the Sun vibes in terms of how totally fab both of those things are.
The setting is total magic. I don’t even want to talk about it - I want it to take you all blindly and by storm like it did me. It begins just reasonably enough and becomes perfectly wild (for a little while). In other words, the formula for MAKING YOU BELIEVE IN MAGIC.
And maybe most importantly, this book is sososo gorgeously written. I feel like in a lot of YA, the quality of writing after a certain point is sorta left by the wayside, but that's so untrue of this book. Emily Henry's style is achingly lovely, and I may have to pick up everything she ever writes forever for that reason.
But...now, unfortunately, we have to delve into the kinda-bad and the straight-up bad. This book starts off confusing, and it does NOT wait for you to get up and get your head on straight. Your shoes on the right feet. Your pants on not-backwards. It just goes. Eventually you catch up, and you have the first half of the book to enjoy before everything gets increasingly f*cked up and confusing until the last quarter, when, if you’re anything like me, you’ll be holding onto your hat and BEGGING FOR AN EXPLANATION. It’s like becoming the math lady, from that one meme. You know. This one:
[image]
Anyways. That explanation does not come.
I consider myself a mind-bogginglyextremelygenius-level decently smart person, but I had no clue what was going on at some points. It doesn’t ruin the book or anything, since it’s supposed to be kinda magical and mysterious, but still. It loses the grounding in reality that magical realism has, or should have, and I was left with a metric f*ck ton of questions.
And it feels like the characters lose themselves in the second half, and that just sucks. First 200 pages: June-Saul-Hannah central. Remaining chunk: dismally characterization-free.
What I’m saying is the first half was better. The second half wasn’t terrible, but I just fondly reminisced on the beginning and thought:
The only other negative was that most other characters fell by the wayside, but WHO CARES? I probably would’ve just wanted more JuneSaulHannah if anyone else got characterization time anyway.
Honestly, I feel like this book could have been 100 or 200 pages longer. And I NEVER say that. (But I’m not asking for a sequel. I’ll shout it from the rooftops: NO SEQUEL FOR THIS BOOK!!! Trust me on that.)
Bottom line: Ohmygod, read this. We only get so many good magical realism books....more
Do any of you secretly know how to time travel? Have like a weird DIY crystal-/laser-based contraption that gets the ol' hanging-out-with-Cleopatra joDo any of you secretly know how to time travel? Have like a weird DIY crystal-/laser-based contraption that gets the ol' hanging-out-with-Cleopatra job done?
I promise I won’t tell anyone, I just have one favor to ask.
Please go back in time and tell ten-year-old me reading this series for the first time that she is peaking.
I will never find a book like this one. Ever. It’s time to give up. I’m going to force myself to forget how to read in order to avoid the disappointment. Time to start my new life as Jared, 19.
They just don’t make books like this anymore!!!
This series is funny, it is wrenching, it is well-characterized, it is exciting, it is unique, it is unforgettable, it is SHOW-STOPPING. It gave me, a child, a moral compass that included justice and kindness and generosity and realism and forgiveness.
(Well, I was a child then. Not now. Adult woman, moral compass in place, etc. etc. Okay yes maybe I eat cookies for meals and enjoy bubbles more than any grown-up has any right to but still. Legally I am an adult.
I’m not okay with this series being """over""" in any capacity. Even my reread of it.
This is my favorite book in my favorite series, and it has been for over a decade, and I am Voraciously, Fiercely Determined that that fact will never change.
whenever i feel i must ask the question "emma, why are you like this?" i now know i can simply answer: because of how many times i read this series in childhood.
"Justice is out. Injustice is in. That's why it's called injustice."
review to come / 5 stars
---------- currently-reading updates
i can FEEL the reading slump coming on...if my favorite book in my favorite series can't help me nothing can...more
Okay. Sorry about that. I just remembered the words "If I loved you less, I might be able to talk about it more," and any time that happens I'm obliged to find the nearest abyss and scream into it for the next 3-5 business days.
Now that we've wrapped that up, let's get to it:
This is a perfect book.
Is this the first Jane Austen book I've rated five stars? No. Is this the first time I've wished there was a sixth star I could apply to a Jane Austen book? Also no. But is this the most INTENSELY I've ever wished that? Hard yes.
This has EVERYTHING a Jane Austen book could possibly have. And also more. (Ignoring the fact that it is possible, since this book has it. Stop undermining my enthusiastic if illogical points, hypothetical person reading this. Meanie.)
It has: - the beautiful writing, social commentary, and biting wit of all her books - the actual hilarity of Persuasion - the - and I hate to use this phrase, a phrase which makes me want to die of cringing, but it's necessary - swoon-worthy (gag) hero of Northanger Abbey (yes, Mr. Tilney is my favorite Austen hero, what about it) - the I-am-going-to-scoop-my-heart-out-with-a-spoon level romance of Pride & Prejudice - the perfectcomplicatedlovely family dynamics of Sense & Sensibility - and the nothing of Mansfield Park, because that book is not good and we should all live to forget it.
On top of that, we have a heroine that makes all of our pal Janie's other protagonists look like cardboard cutouts of Girl Scouts. Just flat, nice girls. No depth to them. (This is a great simile, don't you think? I'm proud, personally.)
Emma is complicated, bratty, spoiled, a little dumb sometimes. She should be hard to like...and yet...
I loved her from page 1. Give me every stubborn but well-motivated funny girl with a sharp tongue. I'll take all of them, thank you.
And it's not name bias. Years of being in elementary school classes that forced me to be called by last name due to sheer number of Emmas has ensured that I will NEVER be predisposed to someone I have a first name in common with.
Ever.
Bottom line: I want to reread this already. And I'm actually writing reviews lately, so it hasn't even been that long.
---------------- pre-review
two things: 1) emma is a nightmare. 2) i'm not sure if i want to be her or marry her.
review to come / 5 STARS!!!!!!!!!!
---------------- currently-reading updates
okay, NOW it's time.
---------------- tbr review
me: i love jane austen anyone: me too!! don't you love Emma?? me: uh... (long pause) i haven't read it anyone: ...but - me: yes, i know anyone: your name - me: yes, it's emma anyone: ... me: i'm saving it to be the last austen i read anyone: ... me: to me this is a normal, logical thought anyone: ... me: imagine living in my head anyone: *collapses*...more
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