I like approximately four things in this world. One thing is cookies, and even those have to pass an extremely comprehensive test which the vast majorI like approximately four things in this world. One thing is cookies, and even those have to pass an extremely comprehensive test which the vast majority of baked goods fail with flying colors.
Another thing is coffee, and this has to be consumed with so much care and precision that if I were dropped back into the Middle Ages, if I didn't immediately perish from boredom / lack of running water / people smelling bad and being annoying, I could probably enjoy a fruitful career in alchemy. Lead into gold all DAY.
The third thing is books, and, in case you are somehow, mercifully new here, I don't like those too often either.
Fortunately, the fourth thing is a small number of witty, dark-humor British TV shows, most of which are created / written by / starring / formulated from the angelic and god like brain of Phoebe Waller-Bridge.
When you combine two of those four things into one book, it is a goddamn gift the likes of which come once in a generation.
Bottom line: What is there to say? Watch Fleabag. Read this. Or don't and be substantially less happy than you could be otherwise. See if I care.
i read most of this stone-faced, face unchanged even as i was recalling repressed traumas with needle-like stabs, even as my heart ached for carmen mai read most of this stone-faced, face unchanged even as i was recalling repressed traumas with needle-like stabs, even as my heart ached for carmen maria machado, even as the pained gorgeousness of the writing took my breath away.
and then i got to the part where things are allowed to be happy again. and i burst into tears.
this is a beautifully written, brilliant researched, painful and raw and horrific and wonderful nightmarish fairytale of a book. it's 5 stars and i will never read it again but i will think about it all the time.
bottom line: sometimes, you read a masterpiece. sometimes, a book hits you at exactly the right time. finding both in one tome is once in a lifetime.
----------------- tbr review
do you ever put off reading a book because you know it'll hit you too hard?
file "one of the best writers i can think of writing about the thing that is closest possible to home" under that....more
Have decided to use the one moment of earnestness I'm allotted per year on this to say: I read for moments like this! Yes, I'm critical, yes, my most common rating is a 3 by a country mile, yes, I bring suffering to the timelines of us all:
But I'm willing to bet that when I want to give a five star - when a book is PERFECT and makes me FEEL and I love the CHARACTERS and it SURPRISES me...
Well, I bet my five stars feel better than your five stars.
This is like if Emily Henry wrote young adult paranormal horror, which is the greatest compliment I can give...any young adult paranormal horror.
It's funny, the banter is A+, the friendships are fantastic, there's some sweet little sapphic friends to lovers action, and it is so goddamn spooky I could perish.
What a dream.
Bottom line: I'm going to live forever!!!!!!!!
--------------- pre-review
what the hell? what the actual living screaming f*ck?
This is an excellent, maybe perfect book, and I will never recommend it to anyone.
The edition I read is 951 pages long, and I read it in 24 hours. My This is an excellent, maybe perfect book, and I will never recommend it to anyone.
The edition I read is 951 pages long, and I read it in 24 hours. My sister calculated that I read a page every waking minute, even as it was a workday. I have never in my life lived inside a story like I did this one.
I slept little. I couldn't focus on anything. When I tried to pick up books after this one they were pale imitations to what I had learned storytelling could be.
I have never loved characters like this, like I knew them. I have never gasped and cried and said "nonono" like I did with this.
This HURT.
So while it was an extraordinary experience, a one-of-a-kind story, maybe something I would otherwise have perceived as the type of book that keeps us reading...
Don't pick it up.
Because not only is this book so goddamn painful (and yes, everything you've heard about how sad this is is true tenfold), but it makes other stories feel less.
Consume at your own risk.
Bottom line: Damn you, Hanya Yanagihara, you evil sorcerer.
i can recall many in my life. when i was 13, for example, and i thought that the height of fashion was a graphic twe all have our periods of delusion.
i can recall many in my life. when i was 13, for example, and i thought that the height of fashion was a graphic tee that said AEROPOSTALE in huge letters on the front, paired with a simple and understated pair of black fake uggs.
or most of my childhood, which i spent convinced i was destined to marry either joe jonas (the obvious best of the brothers) or my neighbor who once threw a snowball directly at my face — whoever showed up first.
or when i read this book, which i recalled as being cute and fluffy and one of the only romances i have ever given five stars, and lent to my mom.
this book IS cute and fluffy, in many ways, and talia hibbert Does It Again.
BUT THIS BOOK ALSO CONTAINS MANY, MANY MENTIONS OF A GIANT, COLORFUL, VERY ACTIVE DILDO.
AND I LENT IT TO MY MOTHER.
in fact, i generally misremembered this book, which is no longer 1 of 2 romances i've ever given five stars. it is funny, and it is fun, but it isn't the things i require in my perfect love stories (namely, mostly yearning and suffering). it is mostly silly and sexy.
and there is nothing wrong with that.
unless, and i can't stress this enough, you are thinking of book recommendations to give your poor, sweet, innocent mother.
bottom line: sorry mom.
(sidenote: this has been another installment of PROJECT 5 STAR)
---------------- original review
(view spoiler)[Do you ever have the food you've been craving at exactly the moment you're craving it?
That fasting-for-Thanksgiving feeling of finally sitting at the table, except for if turkey and canned cranberry sauce were ever everything it's cracked up to be. So more like pizza by the slice in the salt air and setting sun of the boardwalk after a day on the beach, or takeout-dim-sum pork buns and scallion pancakes when you've forgotten to eat and are suddenly hollow-stomached, or FINALLY experiencing the toothachey sugar of a warm cinnamon roll, which always take like eight times longer to make than expected.
That's what reading a good romance feels like after dozens of mediocre ones.
This is a perfect romance, for me.
I loved the brash kind protagonist. I loved the shy rough around the edges sweet love interest. I loved the fun dialogue, I loved (for once in my life!) the steamy scenes, I loved the complicated loving family, and I loved watching these two miscommunicate and yell and fall in love.
I blushed, I smiled, I heart-hurted, I winced. It's everything I want.
I thought the first book in this series was good. I thought the second was not. This was something else altogether.
I hope this holds up on reread.
Bottom line: Enemies to lovers wins again! (hide spoiler)]
I shy away from earnestness. Genuine expressions of emotion upset me. The last time I had to have a serious and I am not, in theory, a cheesy person.
I shy away from earnestness. Genuine expressions of emotion upset me. The last time I had to have a serious and feelings-based conversation I did everything to prepare for a hermit-esque lifestyle of solitude in the mountains somewhere short of buying a plane ticket (ultimately I recalled that I don't much care for nature).
But all of that changes when I really, truly love a book.
In my head, and to the most trusted people in my life, there is an upper echelon of books I refer to as "the books of my heart." Of the 1,246 books I have marked as read on Goodreads, only 89 are true five stars, and the books of my heart (I really can't believe how corny of a name that is, like how did that come from me, a rock person with Christmas-reject coal for a heart) are a careful selection of even that.
In short: beautifully written and unique books that mostly take place inside brains, with traces of magic and humor and love.
So this book, a horror-ish novel intensely driven by its narrator's mind that would, if written by a lesser author, be little more than a vessel for its twist, may seem an unlikely choice for that lot.
But it makes sense to me.
Bottom line: I can't think about this book too hard without wanting to read it againagainagain.
--------------- pre-review
my skin is crawling and i want to scream and i think this might be a 5 star read.
review to come / at least 4.5 but who are we kidding
--------------- currently-reading updates
i read the first 20 pages of this last night before i went to sleep and got so scared i had to switch to a romance novel.
i will be reading exclusively in daylight from now on....more
Sometimes the reason everyone calls a book One Of The Best Books Of The Year is because it is.
Everyone gives it a five star rating because it's five sSometimes the reason everyone calls a book One Of The Best Books Of The Year is because it is.
Everyone gives it a five star rating because it's five star level. Everyone calls it buzzed-about because it's buzz-worthy. Everyone calls it the best of the genre in recent memory because that's obvious. (Celebrity memoir...not as competitive, but still.)
You'd think that'd always be the case, and you'd be wrong, but it doesn't matter because only this book does.
And on this book...the general populace is correct on all counts.
This is a searing, unique, gorgeously devastating, sometimes funny book that made me very hungry and very sad.
It made me want to listen to more Japanese Breakfast music and also regret the time she did a free show at my college and I had to miss it because I was taking a three-hour night class with no absences permitted.
I hope she keeps writing. But next time I will be prepared with a food-delivery app open and a big ass box of tissues.
Bottom line: I love a pleasant surprise. No comment on the fact that when everyone loves a book and I do too, that counts as a surprise.
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
Ling Ma served us a whole meal. A feast. A buffet. A week’s worth of Thanksgiving dinners made up of gorgeously subtle metaphor and allegory and motifLing Ma served us a whole meal. A feast. A buffet. A week’s worth of Thanksgiving dinners made up of gorgeously subtle metaphor and allegory and motif, if you will.
And I will personally be stuffing myself my dear boy.
This is the kind of book that makes me wish I was still a student and I was assigned this book in an English class, and could spend a week's worth of hour-long lectures deep in discussion with 20 other people (but reasonably only four who had actually read it).
It's the kind of book I could have reread immediately after reading for the first time, and then a million times after that.
It's the kind of book that makes you think about that terrible movie with Bradley Cooper where he takes the pill that opens his brain up to full functioning, because that's the only way I can reasonably imagine being able to fully appreciate this.
The themes in this, man, the f*cking themes: The immigrant parent’s journey versus Candace’s pregnant journey in a new world. The fevered mindlessly going through tasks versus the pre-pandemic office workers doing the same. The idea of a “colony” and what that means. So, so many more.
I need to reread this immediately, is what I'm saying.
Bottom line: I want to eat this with a spoon.
--------------- book club update
reading this pandemic novel during a pandemic for a) the self-destructive vibes and b) the book club. in that order
do you remember those weird toys from childhood that were like little heart-shaped doodads with cartoon characters on them, and when you soaked them in water they turned into branded dish towels?
this book made me feel like one of those. but in reverse.
review to come / at least 4.5 stars but maybe 5
--------------- currently-reading updates
taking a mental health test by reading a post-apocalyptic book in which the apocalypse was a pandemic featuring a virus that first appears like a cold
--------------- tbr review
my face when i hear the words "anti-capitalist dystopian literary fiction": ...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.
I read 200+ books a year. This month, I’ve read almost a book a day. When I’m reading that much, it can just be becauSometimes, a book just hits you.
I read 200+ books a year. This month, I’ve read almost a book a day. When I’m reading that much, it can just be because the stars aligned and gave me an insane amount of free time and I chose to spend it all on Bettering Myself Through Literature, but more often, it’s because I’m trying to escape from my snoozefest daily life and my annoying brain.
Currently, it’s the latter.
When I read that much, it can put the stories at a distance. Or really I want to immerse myself so much that I remove myself from the equation altogether and it’s all story, no impact on me.
But sometimes you get a good book at the perfect time and it cuts all that away, whether you want it to or not.
(I did not.)
This book is so, well, gorgeous. The writing and the story, the characters, the setting - none of it gives you a moment’s mercy. It’s unrelenting in its pain and its reality and its loveliness. I kept thinking this was a memoir, because fiction that feels like this is so rare, an incredible feat.
For the last 25% of this book, I kept thinking it had to be over at the next page, or the next - every sentence felt like another paper cut, every paragraph break a scrape, chapter endings f*cking road rash. It was unbearable. I had tears in my eyes through a third of it and I pride myself on being the coolest and least emotional person alive.
Jeez louise.
Bottom line: A book so good it makes me talk like an elderly person.
------------ pre-review
oh, worth the wait.
review to come / 5 stars easily, obviously, painfully
------------ currently-reading updates
i saw this for the first time in a bookstore two years ago and have wanted to read it ever since.
And since usually I end up five starring less than 10% of the books I read in any given year, I was thinking "not very likely."
Dear Melissa Albert: Thank you for making this book (which I basically had the idea for - I mean, you mentioned it in a different book, but I am on the record as saying I would like it to be a real book before even you were, so), and thank you for making it everything I wanted it to be, and thank you for giving me a five star read against the odds.
Even if I've read 30+ so far this year with only one more five star to my name. So what. We count our blessings.
This is a book of fairytales (my favorite) that is full of darkness and blood and powerful girls and selfish girls and powerful girls and violence and anger and revenge and badassery (all of which are my other favorites).
It is, in short, a dream.
Bottom line: More please!!!
------------ pre-review
when the book you dreamed up lives up to said dream >>>
review to come / 5 stars
------------ currently-reading updates
i don't want to be dramatic but i think this is the prettiest book that has ever existed
------------ tbr review
i WAS trying to buy fewer books this year...but then this one came out.
"I want to read Tales from the Hinterland (Grandnanny’s book) so badly. If Melissa Albert is smart, or loves me or the world or both, she will write that spinoff."
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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