uh, guys...i'm definitely with you and everything...absolutely one of the cool kids, having the popular opinion, agreeing with the mainstream, etc...buh, guys...i'm definitely with you and everything...absolutely one of the cool kids, having the popular opinion, agreeing with the mainstream, etc...but um. just remind me.
why do we not like this book?
(review to come / potentially 5 stars just let me think)
------------------------- tbr review
me at a horror movie: :) me at a haunted house: :) me at a long book: AHHHHHHHHHH
halle said this book is the 70s equivalent of sally rooney, and she was completely right.
this is the kind of book that is so enjoyable for every seconhalle said this book is the 70s equivalent of sally rooney, and she was completely right.
this is the kind of book that is so enjoyable for every second it makes you want to go back and lower the rating of everything you've read of late.
it is so funny and so precise and so clever, and a page will have a random unshakable description that is so goddamn weird and right. i fell completely in love with these characters and with this book, and as the end of it approached i read slower and slower in the hopes i'd discover 100 or so pages had been stuck together and hiding.
the world is often a cruel and unusual place, but i would forgive it all its transgressions if selin's college career becomes a four-book series.
it's the world is often a cruel and unusual place, but i would forgive it all its transgressions if selin's college career becomes a four-book series.
it's very rare to find a character one finds endlessly interesting, whose every thought and musing is fascinating, and even rarer to find it as the protagonist of a character-driven novel, and even rarer to find it in a compelling narrative, and even rarer to find it surrounded by beautiful writing.
what else to say! this isn't quite the magic of the idiot but it's so damn close.
bottom line: more please.
4.5
---------------- currently-reading updates
it would be self-centered and presumptuous to say that i am more excited to read this than anyone on earth.
There were very many characters in this book that I didn't like, but also I wasn't supposed to, but also even when I'm not supposed to I usually do anThere were very many characters in this book that I didn't like, but also I wasn't supposed to, but also even when I'm not supposed to I usually do anyway, often more than when I AM supposed to.
And also, in addition to this, there was a character I loved so much that I cried through her chapters (of which there are only two), an insanely earnest and vulnerable moment the likes of which has never occurred to me ever.
How the hell am I supposed to rate that?
I guess, considering that it's been a month since I read this and I haven't been able to stop reading or talking or thinking about it, but also it's been that same amount of time that there's still been one thing bothering me...four point five stars.
For me, this is a book of characters. The writing is lovely, but in relation to the people it creates and summons. There isn't much of a plot to speak of, beyond the shifting dynamics and relationships between them, namely Cleo and Frank, a semi-green-card marriage built mostly on passion and age difference, and those around them: Frank's younger half-sister, Zoë; Frank's friends, Anders, and another more boring and half-hearted inclusion whose name I don't remember; Cleo's best friend Quentin; Zoë's best friend Audrey; and finally, ELEANOR.
So basically this will be my review of this group of people.
(I keep wanting to call them people. They don't exist, emma! To my eternal chagrin.)
First - I didn't look any of those names up. So the fact that they stuck with me the way they did says a lot, no? I have the functioning memory of a goldfish, and not in the Ted Lasso motivational speaking way.
Let's start with the bad news.
I hate Cleo and her goofy artsy poetic depression very much. I find attempts at making violent mental illness beautiful to be very gross and in poor taste, at best, and devastatingly unrealistic at worse. I, like every vaguely creative young person, have multiple diagnoses, but my brain chemistry failures never include installing art with my self harmed body at the center for my loved ones to find, I will tell you that.
Who, in the midst of a depressive breakdown, even has the energy?
This is the only part of this book I genuinely and actively disliked. Fortunately or unfortunately, it was nowhere close to enough to get me to shut up about it.
Anyway.
Many of the people in Cleo's life are also somehow both unrealistic and uninteresting, like her drug addicted and toxic gay best friend (cliché, cliché) best friend Quentin and her brief love interest Anders (an older man who sleeps with younger women and doesn't view them as people, how original).
Frank, though he is a workaholic alcoholic with a younger wife and thereby also a cliché, somehow pulls off the grand accomplishment of being consistently intriguing to read about, as does his very annoying sister Zoë and her rarely present friend Audrey.
But none of them really matter very much, somewhat because all of them are supposed to be complicated and hard to like, but mostly because the greatest character of my reading life is in these pages.
Eleanor, Eleanor, Eleanor.
I love her so much I don't know what to do with myself. Her life, her jokes, her work, her allusions. Her mom and dad, her brother, her friends. Her house and her train rides and - I am genuinely getting worked up and I have to stop.
The last thing I'll say is that lately I have been holding a pen in my hand while I read, but I'm rarely prompted to use it.
There were countless exceptions in this.
Bottom line: If only characters were real.
------------------- tbr review
the very idea of cleopatra and frankenstein...think of what they could accomplish.
There are no real rules or patterns. We all just wander through without guidelines or parameters, just vibing and seeing what happenLife is a mystery.
There are no real rules or patterns. We all just wander through without guidelines or parameters, just vibing and seeing what happens. Surprises around every corner.
In other words: I should have hated this book, and instead I loved it.
I hated the other book I've read by this author very much, and I expected to feel neutral at best about this one, and yet - I am stubborn. I refuse to not read books I have no chance of liking.
And look how well it works out for me!!!
I am so in love with the narrator of this book, an ornery funny smart nine year old. (2021 was the year of realizing I like child narrators even though I am not a huge fan of real-life children.) I am obsessed with her equally ornery grandmother, and her emotive and somewhat crazy mom, and even the absent dad and unborn child this is addressed to have soft spots in my book just for creating this story.
As soon as I finished this, I did two things: - lent my mom my copy - thought about rereading.
What higher praise could there be?
Bottom line: Miriam Toews, we remain in good graces.
Well, I can't speak for you. But good-ish.
------------------ pre-review
i give up on thinking i have any idea what books i'll like.
this was just wonderful.
review to come / 4.5 stars maybe 5
------------------ currently-reading updates
sure, i hated the first book i read by this author with a fiery passion. but life is about growth
clear ur sh*t book 60 no quest, just seeing how many more i can finish
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.
For example: I would have thought I knew what I wanted from this book. Before I read it, I had an idea of it. WhiIt turns out I don't know everything.
For example: I would have thought I knew what I wanted from this book. Before I read it, I had an idea of it. While I was reading it, I thought I knew how it would go. And as I approached the ending, I thought I knew how I wanted things to finish.
I was wrong about ALL OF IT.
This was a million times cleverer and funnier and one-of-a-kind brilliant whatever than anything my dumb old brain could come up with.
For once I am not in the right, and for even rarer I am okay with that.
Bottom line: Listen to Kiley Reid, not me!
-------------- pre-review
literally, i'm sitting here silently typing this pre-review, but metaphorically and still in a very real way, i'm screaming forever because of this.
review to come / 4.5 stars
-------------- tbr review
love to read the book everyone was reading ages after everyone's already read it...more
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)]
One, this concept - a set of four siblings who go to a psychic who tells them when they will die, and thenI have two sets of feelings about this book.
One, this concept - a set of four siblings who go to a psychic who tells them when they will die, and then following them one by one through the decades as the predictions come true - is the best book idea I have read in recent memory.
Two, HOW DARE CHLOE BENJAMIN MURDER MY FAMILY.
I cannot read a good book about a family - especially about siblings - without coming out the other side thinking they are really related to me, in real life.
Finishing a book that fits this description is a heartbreak in and of itself, because you're saying goodbye to your loved ones, if you're the same kind of insane that I am.
But this is even more heartbreaking than usual.
Not a perfect book, and a very painful one, but beautifully written and filled with characters I truly love.
I'm going to go cry quietly now.
Bottom line: NEVER AGAIN.
Just kidding. If you hear about a well written literary fiction book about siblings hit me up immediately.
------------------- pre-review
aaaaaaaaand now i'm tearing up.
god damn. i hate when books ruin my steely reputation.
review to come / 4 stars
------------------- tbr review
whenever i hear about someone reading on a bus or a train or in a park or whatever i picture them reading this book, which i have not read, and which i know nothing about.
not sure what that says about me, but it's true.
clear ur sh*t book 50 quest 23: opulent cover...more
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
For me, it's a combination. It's a little bit how I felt about a book while I was reading it, but it's mostly how IHow do you give a five star rating?
For me, it's a combination. It's a little bit how I felt about a book while I was reading it, but it's mostly how I feel about it after. If I'm unable to stop thinking about it: five stars. If it leaves a mark on my brain I can't shake: five stars. If it changes the way I think, even if it's a subtle tone shift, even if it doesn't last very long: five stars.
This is why most of my five star ratings come out of books I initially four starred, or four-point-five starred, or refused to rate.
Because in the other case, I five star a book impulsively based on how much I liked reading it, but I don't come out of it thinking much at all.
Like in the case of this.
I couldn't put this book down. It's beautifully written, I connected with our protagonist hard, I adored the setting (BOSTON I LOVE YOU!), it ate me up while I read it. And for a day or so after, I did wish I was still reading it, because I am constantly in search of that feeling. It's why I read so much. (Too much, you could say, if you wanted to give my branding a boost. #emmareadstoomuch)
But now, a month later (exactly!), I'm left not feeling much. I remember this book, sure, but in the way you remember a conversation you had a few weeks ago or a mundane dream. In a surface-level, simple remembrance way. It didn't leave a mark.
So: dropping to four point five rounded down it is!
Bottom line: Reading is weird. But the best weird thing.
----------------- pre-review
oh, no. i couldn't stop reading this book and now i'm finished and it's 2 am.
review to come from a sleepy me / 5 stars i think (dropped to 4.5 upon reviewing)
----------------- tbr review
give me all the literary fiction with boston settings...more
i'm going to read a chapter (or whatever the this-book equivalent of a chapter is — 100 pages? a normal size book?welcome to...sigh...LES MAYSERABLES.
i'm going to read a chapter (or whatever the this-book equivalent of a chapter is — 100 pages? a normal size book? undue suffering?) of this a day until i'm done, a process which will begin in may but end way after that.
i've been thinking about reading this book as a way to get into weightlifting, so. it's beach body season or whatever.
let's do this. i'm so scared right now.
BOOK ONE: A GOOD MAN oh, great. this is divided into 48 books. that's awesome. a book a day of this book alone. no worries, no problem. i'm not troubled. i have no regrets. it's fine that this bit is a million pages long and all of my above jokes are thus true.
sometimes i think i would never join a cult, but i feel like i just got radicalized by the hermit weirdo living in a hut 45 minutes away from society in this book, so. too close to call.
BOOK TWO: THE FALL yesterday i read an ebook of this because i couldn't run out to buy a copy, and today i am reading it physically. it is so goddamn heavy it's insane.
this jean valjean guy is kind of a bad vibe thus far. #blessed that the bishop was successfully able to be like..."get your act together my guy."
BOOK THREE: IN THE YEAR 1817 this one has a huge time jump, is half the length of the first two, and begins with a 6 page "here's what you missed on glee" style recap of pop culture since we last saw jean valjean. in other words it rocks.
only truer because it follows 8 really fun characters.
BOOK FOUR: ENTRUSTING SOMETIMES MEANS GIVING AWAY this book was as short as it was depressing. for being little more than the first part of cinderella it sure feels novel in how upsetting it is.
BOOK FIVE: THE DESCENT well, that doesn't sound good. i thought the place we were in was pretty low already.
so things did get much worse, and now they appear to be getting better, but this book has given me trust issues and i don't believe it's going anywhere good from here.
BOOK SIX: JAVERT get a load of this guy (derogatory). i don't know much of the story of les mis, in spite of its cultural prowess and the fact that i technically attended my sister's high school production of the musical (physically if not in spirit), but even i know this loser.
BOOK SEVEN: THE CHAMPMATHIEU AFFAIR i mean. i don't even know what to say about this chapter. the emotional range here...i have no choice but to stan.
i'm using humor as a crutch because this made me really sad lol.
BOOK EIGHT: AFTER-EFFECT this is the nicest possible way of saying "in which sh*t hits the fan."
ok. even with that expectation i was not prepared for the extent to which sh*t would hit the fan.
BOOK ONE: WATERLOO we have completed part one: fantine, and we move on to part two: cosette. i don't know why i feel like i have to avoid spoilers for this million year old classic but here we are.
okay so this was literally a 50 page recounting of the battle of waterloo. i guess in hindsight i don't know what i expected.
BOOK TWO: THE SHIP ORION it's kind of reassuring that even in the 19th century they were dealing with tabloids and fake news. but leave my boy valjean out of it...
is there anything more jean valjean than risking his own life to save a stranger's, and then also using that peril as a means of escaping prison? one thing about jean is my guy is going to escape.
BOOK THREE: A DEATHBED PROMISE IS HONORED okay, fine. i took multiple days off this project. in my defense reading this book is not conducive to busy days. i can't exactly haul a 1400-page tome around with me just in case i have a minute between social obligations.
hard to convey the extent to which i root for things to go well in this book, even though i know they're building me up just to break me back down again.
BOOK FOUR: THE GORBEAU TENEMENT i can't stress enough how much i live in fear at every moment. oh, the beggar that valjean has been generously giving money might be javert? can't surprise me. i was prepared for the worst from minute one.
BOOK FIVE: SILENT STALKERS IN THE DARK well, that doesn't sound good.
javert is operating on kendrick lamar levels of hatred...just picking up newspapers on a daily basis hunting for clues about a guy he straight up thinks is dead. another level of living in his mind rent-free.
BOOK SIX: PETIT-PICPUS you know things are getting crazy when even victor hugo is like "what i'm about to say has nothing to do with this actual story." this from the guy who spent the whole first 100 pages of the book on somebody who once had a sleepover with our protagonist.
BOOK SEVEN: PARENTHESIS oh my gosh. now this part is like "well, since i just spent 40 pages on one specific nunnery that isn't at all relevant, surely y'all won't mind if i write a quick 12 page essay about monasticism."
to be honest, my sir...i mind. get back to the good stuff.
BOOK EIGHT: CEMETERIES TAKE WHAT THEY ARE GIVEN [record scratch] [freeze frame on jean valjean inside of a coffin] you're probably wondering how i ended up in this situation
BOOK ONE: PARIS THROUGH THE STUDY OF ONE OF ITS ATOMS we have concluded part two: cosette, and begin part three: marius. and i have to say, this chapter is looking like a classic case of one of hugo's lengthy sociopolitical asides.
BOOK TWO: THE CONSUMMATE BOURGEOIS marked safe from back to back lengthy sociopolitical asides.
instead, this was another classic: a character study of a guy whose role we do not know yet and may never know.
BOOK THREE: GRANDFATHER AND GRANDSON today i am feeling: can you believe i'm not even halfway done this book. i know the goodreads review character limit can't.
kind of funny to be radicalized because you've become just completely obsessed with your dad.
BOOK FOUR: FRIENDS OF THE ABC throughout time, college students have always thought they are funnier and smarter and more revolutionary than they are.
but i still love them anyway.
BOOK FIVE: VIRTUE IN ADVERSITY all this talk of parisian revolutionary teens hanging around in cafes talking about politics was sounding familiar, and i was so proud of myself for actually paying attention during my sister's play, but then i realized i was thinking of that wes anderson movie the french dispatch.
BOOK SIX: THE CONJUNCTION OF TWO STARS in my mind this is going to be the marius x valjean meetup: two stars to me. let's see.
i didn't even consider this would be a meet cute between marius and cosette. i might be too much of a jean stan. if that's even possible.
BOOK SEVEN: PATRON-MINETTE quick sidenote for some inferno fanfiction and an intro to a crew of villains. i'd say "our villains," but that would be a crazy assumption for an author who just loves to introduce us to guys.
BOOK EIGHT: THE VILLAINOUS PAUPER to be totally honest with you, this 80 page section of a book written 150 years ago is one of the most exciting and unpredictable and satisfying scenes i've ever read.
jean valjean fan till i die.
BOOK ONE: A FEW PAGES OF HISTORY we have concluded part three: marius, and have broken out of our character titles and entered a little something called "part four: the rue plumet idyll and the rue st-denis epic." this part title and book title are not pairing up for what sound like an adventurous romp.
interesting to find out that victor hugo defines "a few pages" as 34.
BOOK TWO: EPONINE praying for the streets since this girl appears to be in them.
marius is giving me the same secondhand stress i got when harry potter wouldn't do his homework. please get a job and do it.
BOOK THREE: THE HOUSE IN RUE PLUMET you guys all know how i feel about jean valjean but even i can admit the man has to take a chill pill. descending into a deep depression because your adopted daughter has an un-acted-upon crush is crazy.
BOOK FOUR: HELP FROM BELOW MAY BE FROM ON HIGH if i saw an old man get attacked at night and then beat the hell out of his attacker, i'd clap too. i can't say that i would then steal the attacker's purse and give it robin hood-style to another conveniently located old man, but that's more for lack of skill than desire.
BOOK FIVE: WHICH DOES NOT END THE WAY IT BEGAN you know that thing of how if someone writes you a love letter, they love you, but if they write you a hundred love letters, they love writing love letters?
i feel like that automatically applies if the love letter in question is 15 pages long.
BOOK SIX: YOUNG GAVROCHE well, everyone...welcome to june. i've spent a full month with this book, and i've gotten just over halfway into it for my efforts.
if i were a little child criminal who was known for climbing anything, and i'd been asked to rescue my deadbeat dad at my own peril for no reward, i don't know if i'd be interested. but i guess that's why i'm me and not little gavroche.
BOOK SEVEN: SLANG something tells me we're in for another one of hugo's tangentially related 40 page essays.
BOOK EIGHT: ENCHANTMENT AND DESPAIR love that marius flirts by being like "i almost killed a veteran for you" and then refusing to elaborate when cosette asks him what the hell that means.
ok. i didn't feel enchanted but of course the despair hits.
BOOK NINE: WHERE ARE THEY GOING? victor, where are WE going. people are moving, riots are occurring, new characters are being introduced, and we have 500 pages left to go. which is of course 2 normal books worth, and about a third of this. we should be WINDING DOWN by now.
BOOK TEN: THE FIFTH OF JUNE 1832 at one point in this victor says "one last word before we rejoin the story," and then what follows is—and i'm not joking—11 more pages without rejoining the story.
BOOK ELEVEN: THE ATOM EMBRACES THE STORM "come along with me to take down the parisian government at the barricades" -courfeyrac if he was a vlogger
BOOK TWELVE: CORINTHE i did not expect to see the word "nark" in this book. but i am loving seeing it applied to javert as he is tied to a pole.
BOOK THIRTEEN: MARIUS ENTERS INTO DARKNESS we've crossed the thousand page mark. marius better not enter into anything he's not planning on leaving soon.
well. i fear he's on his romeo and juliet sh*t, and therefore may actually be leaving sans his mortal coil.
BOOK FOURTEEN: THE GRANDEURS OF DESPAIR the chapters with titles like this one are always pretty okay. it's the ones with titles like "let me tell you about 1842 paris" that casually include the most devastating sentence you've ever read.
not marius' sentimental ass entering the barricade like an action hero...
BOOK FIFTEEN: RUE DE L'HOMME ARME it's been roughly 200 pages since the last time we encountered jean valjean. what a sight for sore eyes (literally) (my eyes are sore from having read 1,031 pages of 19th century french tragedy with 400+ to go).
even if this is my least favorite version of jean: Weird Dad.
BOOK ONE: THE WAR WITHIN FOUR WALLS we are beginning part five: jean valjean. now i understand the title: the fact that i would have been thrilled to spend our remaining hundreds of pages with jean at any other time except this creepy overprotective obsessed father one is making me miserable.
jean and javert are truly having a serendipity-style series of rom-com coincidences and meet-cutes. how do these two keep finding each other.
BOOK TWO: THE BOWELS OF LEVIATHAN i think i've developed a pretty healthy sense of victor's priorities, but even i could not have expected that this chapter, which follows a climactic scene that killed off a dozen named characters, would be a lengthy diatribe about poop.
BOOK THREE: THE MIRE, YET THE SOUL possibly the most well-constructed joke of all time: 16 pages about parisian waste management followed by "Jean Valjean, it turned out, was in the sewers of Paris."
BOOK FOUR: JAVERT DERAILED oh my god. what the hell.
i should have expected that this evil goddamn book would make me feel sadness over even JAVERT!!!
BOOK FIVE: GRANDFATHER AND GRANDSON we've got a couple hundred pages to go and it seems like marius has his happily ever after. this isn't my first rodeo. 4 more chapters is plenty of time for victor to f*ck his sh*t up.
if you'll pardon the french.
BOOK SIX: THE SLEEPLESS NIGHT i did not expect this book to contain a closed-door sex scene.
then again 1400 pages is a lot to fill up.
BOOK SEVEN: THE LAST DROP IN THE CHALICE remember how jean valjean was originally stealing for a brood of interchangeable nieces and nephews we never saw again? this guy is just obsessed with forming familial bonds.
this one is pissing me off for so many reasons...how is it saintly for jean valjean to tell marius the truth but force marius to lie? how is marius' reaction of disgust and rejection supposed to be all good with me? why doesn't cosette get to know or be involved with anything besides repeatedly being described as a beautiful angel??? this is the first time where i'm like damn. this is old timey as hell.
BOOK EIGHT: THE WANING TWILIGHT if marius has a hundred haters i'm one of them. if marius has one hater it's me. if marius has no haters i'm dead.
BOOK NINE: ULTIMATE DARKNESS, ULTIMATE DAWN hi mtv and welcome to the final chapter of les mis.
i can't believe we made it. it's been 51 days, 1,275 pages, and 3-7 mental breakdowns, but we're here. and i have to say i couldn't have done it without you all, because quite literally if i didn't have your nice compliments and jokes in the comments i would have given up on this 41 days ago. anyway. enough kindness, it's off-brand for me. let's finish this.
OVERALL this book is: long. ridiculous. full of lengthy asides about sewage and waterloo and parisian geography, it is also full of unforgettable characters. it's almost unrelentingly sad, and yet the emotional impact of it is so heavy and real. it's beautifully written. it's one of a kind.
this is crazy to say about a book that will take nearly two months to read even if you're dedicating a significant amount of time to it every single day, but. i recommend it. rating: 4...more
A fun fact about this book is that it is the funniest, the most interesting, the unique-est, and the most underrated book of all time.
If I need to dedA fun fact about this book is that it is the funniest, the most interesting, the unique-est, and the most underrated book of all time.
If I need to dedicate my life to forming various legitimate-seeming committees and subcommittees and awards ceremonies and aliases in order to convince people of that fact, so be it. I am willing to make screaming from the rooftops on the subject of this my sole purpose.
This is just the best. I slumped so hard after reading it because I couldn't imagine finding any book that brought me the joy that this brought me - and then I remembered that there's a sequel, and I promptly bought it both in paperback and as an ebook - and then I remembered that Shirley Jackson, in a truly nonsensical and evil act, is no longer with us, and therefore once I read the sequel I will be plumb out of nonfiction memoirs about her demon children growing up in Vermont.
And I just am not prepared to live that lifestyle yet.
Bottom line: Subcommittee-forming it is.
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sometimes i go so long without truly enjoying a book from first page to last that i forget how to even rate them.
review to come / 4.5!!!!
----------------- tbr review
there's a distinct possibility i'm in love with shirley jackson...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
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i wish i could say this was as good the third time...but i can't.
This is the best version-of-Taylor-Jenkins-Reid-that-writes-chick-lit-about-marriage-scenarios-that-make-my-brain-and-heart-hurt book.
(As opposed to This is the best version-of-Taylor-Jenkins-Reid-that-writes-chick-lit-about-marriage-scenarios-that-make-my-brain-and-heart-hurt book.
(As opposed to the current TJR, the version that writes exclusively historical fiction about empowered women in rarely-written-about eras of the second half of the 20th century.)
I would know, because I read all of them in like a week.
This subgenre that is wholly dominated by TJR is so addictive that it tricked me into thinking I was out of my reading slump. This was a month ago. I'm still not out of it. I'm in the slump of my life and yet I COULD NOT STOP reading these books.
This is a heartwrenching nightmare, but also the characters are funny and fun and there are a lot of cinnamon roll descriptions.
So it balances.
Bottom line: Current historical TJR's books are better, but man oh man they do not have that concerningly addictive drug pizzazz.
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if making me like books more than i expected to was a game, taylor jenkins reid would be undefeated.
review to come / 3.5 stars
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there's a character in this who works in a hospital who collects the hair ties he finds on the ground there.
i'm sure there are also other things happening in this book, but i wouldn't know, because i now devote 100% of my time to being grossed out by that.
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for too long i've decided on what to read by "whether the plot sounds like something i could possibly be interested in for even a second" or "if this book sounds like a full-on nightmare or not" but no more!
The best things in the world are as follows: - when you perfectly toast a bagel. I mean we all know how easy it is to underdo that bad boy so it’s stilThe best things in the world are as follows: - when you perfectly toast a bagel. I mean we all know how easy it is to underdo that bad boy so it’s still a weird squishy bread circle or even more likely, burn that baby till it’s glorified charcoal but when you really find that sweet spot...(chef’s kiss) - baking cookies and then eating them while they’re still warm, and then you eat a whole tray because if you made them they don’t count as caloric - genuine, believable enemies to lovers where you really feel them fall in love and also it’s funny and also everything is perfect.
Aka this book.
Because I am extremely picky about books and am disappointed by most of what I read, I like to do this very adorable and charming thing where when I like one thing, I assume I will like everything that is similar to it.
I very much enjoyed The Hating Game (possibly to an extent in which I compared myself both to a jack o’lantern and a gif from Disney’s Tangled in my review, I don’t know, who’s to say), and so I assumed I would like every rom-com. Especially ones that were actually funny.
Especially-especially of the enemies to lovers.
And, like the new Star Wars movie and orange-flavored Skittles and every other disappointing thing, that was not to be.
But finally, FINALLY, my suffering has been rewarded.
Because...dare I say it…
This book is better than The Hating Game.
I KNOW.
Look at us. Hey! Look at us. Who would’ve thought?
Not me.
This is The Hating Game in terms of tropes and plot and the overall yay-falling-in-love feeling it gives off, but with better characters. And more humor.
GOD. This is so funny it doesn’t make sense. Since when are books funny? When was the last time I truly laughed at a book and I wasn’t laughing out of all the anger and hatred in my cold dark soul?
Not sure. Well before this, I’ll tell you that.
But it wasn’t just a barrel of laughs my friends. It also made my heart hurt, but in the good emotional way where you’re like, oh my god...fools...just love each other...kiss already...except also don’t because the drama and conflict and miscommunication and will-they-won’t-they (they will) is the fun part.
Basically what I’m saying is: I don’t know how to love anything without being obsessed with it, and I already want to read this eleven more times.
Bottom line: I didn’t play Animal Crossing for this! ANIMAL CROSSING!!!
-------------- project 5 star update
welcome back to PROJECT 5 STAR, a project in which i revisit all the books i've ever given five stars, mostly out of cynicism and masochism, but in this case just as an excuse to reread the most perfect romance novel of all time.
simply rereading this so i can write a kickass review and not because i've been searching for a reason
-------------- pre-review
please don't tell anyone i burst into tears at the gushy part of this book. it'll ruin my bad-boy image.
review to come / POSSIBLY FIVE STARS
-------------- tbr review
just saw this quote from this book: “I’m a miserable cynic (a newer development) and a dreamy romantic (always have been), and it’s such a terrible combination that I don’t know how to tolerate myself” and instantly started reading it because girl if that ain't me...more
“WRENCHING,” a book’s front cover will yell, and say it's a quote from like the Delaware Post-Tribune or the Huntington Park Journal or the Winding River Bend Rural Paper. “IMMERSIVE,” shouts a glorified neighborhood book club. “UNPUTDOWNABLE,” according to a woman with a lot of Instagram followers.
I very rarely agree with these influencers or made-up sounding publications. It is an infrequent occurrence that I put down a book and immediately begin referring to it in intense one-word statements.
I did not do anything of the kind upon finishing this book, but there are two Book Marketing’s Greatest Hits terms that I would ascribe to this book: FUNNY and HEARTWARMING.
This was a really good read. So good it cursed my brain and now I will have to live out my days speaking like the faux-Reese Witherspoon who writes her book marketing copy, my words forever taking up precious space that could be devoted to pretty pictures or actual, you know, synopses.
But I’ll try to stop talking about all my irritations with the idea of blurbs and give actual reviewing a try.
I really miss reading this.
It was half feel-good fiction, half-romance, and while I kinda wish it’d been one or the other...I’m not that mad.
Because both halves were - sigh - A DELIGHT. (Lift your curse from me, O The Oprah Magazine!!!)
In another rare occurrence, I liked these characters a lot. I consider it a stroke of luck if I enjoy so much as a single character in any book, so finding one in which I like multiples??? Nothing short of a miracle, my dear boy.
Bottom line: In conclusion, I will henceforth be reading everything Linda Holmes writes, and also please let me live inside this book thank you.
------------ reread update
messing with what works (rereading a book i liked several years ago) and surviving.
------------ update
raising this rating because i really miss reading this book
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this did the trick.
review to come
------------ tbr review
i need a book where everything is bad and then they all live happily ever after, and if this book turns out not to be that book i will explode...more
Hang on, I swear I’m about to write this review, but first I need to call up every real estate agent in the greater Philadelphia area and inquire abouHang on, I swear I’m about to write this review, but first I need to call up every real estate agent in the greater Philadelphia area and inquire about purchasing the Dutch House.
Okay, so yes, the Dutch House is fictional.
Plan B: I will make millions and millions of dollars and then become best friends with Ann Patchett and she and I will team up as co-architects to construct a real life version, and both of us will ignore the fact that we have no architecture experience and that I haven’t taken an actual math class in about 6 years (long story) and also that the Dutch House as a literary symbol brings only suffering and obsession.
I’m sure I’ll figure it out. I’m an English major, so according to my calculations, making millions of dollars will take me...476 years.
We’ve got time.
Until then, I will think about this book. To keep me motivated and inspired.
I will think about how it is beautifully written, and so real and emotive and human, and how I FELT everything that happened in this book. How it all felt real and painful and true.
I will think about how I love Maeve, and I love Danny, and I love May and Kevin and Celeste, and I love Sandy and Jocelyn, and how I even love Norma and Bright.
Mostly, I will think about the Dutch House, and the borderline grotesque beauty of the dining room, and the big portraits in the living room, and the windowseat in the best bedroom, and the seating area at the top of the stairs, and the warm kitchen, and the cold high-up beds.
And those 476 years will just fly by.
Bottom line: Immediately after finishing this book, I resolved to read everything by Ann Patchett.
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actually i grew up in the Dutch House and the characters from this book are my family and this is the story of my life.
review to come / 4.5 stars
---------------- tbr review
i promise eventually i'll move on from gazing lovingly at this cover and actually open this book...more
Not to be dramatic, but me not loving this book is the saddest worst thing that has ever happened to me or anyone, ever, in the history of the world. Not to be dramatic, but me not loving this book is the saddest worst thing that has ever happened to me or anyone, ever, in the history of the world.
Also the most surprising.
Yes, I may have an average rating of 2.95, and yes, I may be well used to being disappointed in life, and yes, maybe this is actually not a very sad or bad thing at all, let alone in the context of the history of human suffering.
But if I admitted that, I’d have to rewrite the opening of this review, and that, my dear, is never going to happen.
This really is a shock, though.
Anne of Windy Poplars is the fourth book in the Anne series, and I five starred the first three. ALL THREE! I have five starred about 25 books out of the hundreds I’ve read in the last three years, and three of them were Anne books.
And yet, I didn’t care for this much at all.
First off, the majority of it was epistolary, and made up of these heinously long boring dry letters that Anne wrote to her fiancé...whose name I am failing to think of. Garrett? Gilbert?
...Oh, no. I thought it couldn’t possibly be Gilbert due to the sheer awfulness of that name (sorry to any Gilberts out there, but the very sound of it is...bulbous), but it is.
Anyway, it’s mostly very boring letters. They don’t fit with Anne’s voice at ALL.
And to add insult to injury, instead of getting off to her usual misadventures and amusements, Anne spends the whole book running around and sticking her nose in people’s business and fixing their lives for them and all around being the kind of preachy unfun nightmare a past Anne would have abhorred and eventually charmed.
Horrible.
Also, I am sick of her meeting people and just bidding them adieu forever without feeling all that sad! She spent her whole childhood being best friends with Diana Barry, and now she hardly even speaks to her. She spends years living at Windy Poplars with the widows, and when she leaves she’s more happy than sad. Her college friends have disappeared. Her adopted younger siblings barely get a mention. I am SICK OF IT!!!
This had none of the whimsy, none of the love, none of the beautiful settings and none of the beautiful writing that I have come to expect.
Bottom line: Everything about this was simply a bummer.
------------ pre-review
life is full of disappointment.
review to come / 2 stars
------------ tbr review
thrilled to be reunited with my best friend (anne)...more
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