they already found the cure for loneliness. it's called "Reading + An Active Imagination"
...anyway.
like many things, this had a lot of great ideas andthey already found the cure for loneliness. it's called "Reading + An Active Imagination"
...anyway.
like many things, this had a lot of great ideas and fell flat on the execution. it never really works for me when the first 200+ pages of a book are exposition and then the climax hits with 40 pages to go, and this was left feeling sloppy and rushed. this book felt like it had the concept it wanted, and the ending it knew it wanted to get to, and then it just kind of rambled in between.
reading the epilogue and finding our protagonist transformed, (view spoiler)[armed with friendships with barely mentioned characters, a terminated relationship that had showed no signs of being stopped, and a totally different career path (hide spoiler)] with none of the development it would have taken to get there, felt frustrating. also i just don't know why this book felt like it needed a love triangle, or why the roommate had to be constantly eating and made fun of for that, or (and maybe it's just me) why this had to do that sci-fi thing where you just capitalize common phrases to indicate they have taken on some sort of dystopian brand.
oh well.
bottom line: this was really promising, and i really enjoyed moments of it, but its last page and its middle pages threw me off.
(this comes to mind because this book explores the line between dream and reality, and not because i'm just thinking about childrenlife is but a dream
(this comes to mind because this book explores the line between dream and reality, and not because i'm just thinking about children's songs)
(anyway)
there were moments this was truly interesting, but for the most part it was overambitious and seemed to find the huge number of symbols, motifs, themes, and Various Things Of Literary Significance it had saddled itself with unwieldy. it didn't nail the dismount, so to speak.
i love books about women having mental breakdowns.
and this was kind of that, but what it mostly was was very, very good.
it's a brilliant exploration oi love books about women having mental breakdowns.
and this was kind of that, but what it mostly was was very, very good.
it's a brilliant exploration of womanhood, of what it means to mother and to work and to try to do your moral best and look around at everyone else and be unconvinced they're doing any of it — and for that worry to extend so far you wonder if you're actually doing any of it yourself.
this encapsulation of a few days in one ordinary life totally riveted me. i loved the protagonist's children, and while i wish a few more things were fleshed out — the husband, the babysitter, the ending — all in all this felt like drinking a cool glass of water.
this was VERY DIFFERENT from a good girl's guide to murder.
alternate title proposal: a mean girl's guide to family drama and bullying the people arouthis was VERY DIFFERENT from a good girl's guide to murder.
alternate title proposal: a mean girl's guide to family drama and bullying the people around her.
it was a lot more dramatic, a lot less realistic, and a lot more filled with secrets and cringy moments of the meanest teenage girl you've ever encountered in your fiction-reading life making adults cry. which is...not my usual demographic.
the last third or so was a lot more enjoyable of a reading experience, but it wasn't a satisfying conclusion. instead it was really info dumpy, very unrealistic feeling.
if a good girl's guide to murder is like the first few seasons of pretty little liars, this is like the last few. unrealistic, confusing, and vaguely alarming.
but still surprising and weirdly fun.
bottom line: the real plot twist is how much i didn't expect about this book.
2.5
------------------ tbr review
a good reader's guide to adding too many books to her tbr
the important thing to know about this is it's a bad book written by a good writer. the characters: flimsy. their rellike a reverse irish exit?
anyway.
the important thing to know about this is it's a bad book written by a good writer. the characters: flimsy. their relationships: inexplicable. the plot: filled with years-long gaps to the point of being incomprehensible.
but the writing itself? the dialogue? the little jokes? excellent.
the other thing to know is that it is very weird. it's a white woman who was once a backup singer in a Black group and can't get over it. that's not much to carry us through 250 pages and it never feels any more normal.
maybe it was a different time.
bottom line: sometimes books are forgotten for a reason.
the thing about collecting everything an author has ever written about a subject as broad as "art," as she wrote it with no future awareness of its lothe thing about collecting everything an author has ever written about a subject as broad as "art," as she wrote it with no future awareness of its looming collection, is that you definitionally are kinda taking the good with the bad.
i'm not new york-y, in so many ways: i don't pay a lot in rent, i'm not adventurous, i stay inside a lot, and i don't know how to even begin to understand abstract art. i don't think i'm above it. quite the opposite. i would never be like "my four year old could create this painting / bash this barbie's head in / create this sculpture that is a talking refrigerator." i'm closer to the four year old — it just goes over my head.
i loved the parts of this that included maggie nelson in conversation with interesting people, including those i hadn't heard of and those i had. i loved the parts that were explorations of things i know, or of books.
but for me, there is only so much blood and sh*t and gore and violence smashed into a canvas or a polaroid or film recording i can bear.
bottom line: i always love maggie nelson but she is way cooler than me. this was made up of exclusively the cooler than me parts.
i have marked 1,865 books as read on goodreads. i have reviewed 1,813 of them. of those, i would say at least 1,727 had at least one complaint. and STi have marked 1,865 books as read on goodreads. i have reviewed 1,813 of them. of those, i would say at least 1,727 had at least one complaint. and STILL, i just discovered a whole new negative thing to say:
this book is all feelings. the characters don't really have personality traits, they have emotions. they don't have development, they have new feelings. there is no romance, just instalove. there isn't really a plot, just people going through feelings together (for a podcast) and people going through feelings together (that will eventually lead to them being together).
it makes it all feel shallow, like there's no actual connection between these people or their story, and that means there's no connection between the reader and the book.
for this reader, at least.
bottom line: you learn something new every day. i already knew i was a soulless void, but today i learned a new effect of that.
------------------------ tbr review
what's your favorite niche book trope? mine is road trips.
unfortunately this is not really a road trip book. my bad.
i love reading about artists. that way i can pretend i'm creative and interesting.
unfortunately...only the first half of this book was that.
and i lovei love reading about artists. that way i can pretend i'm creative and interesting.
unfortunately...only the first half of this book was that.
and i loved that part! it focused on three friends, all asian-american women, through their 80s childhoods and 90s and Y2K time in new york, on their very different paths—an artist, a coder, a housing activist—and all that they had in common, each in some way on the fringes, in worlds that pointed to what was to come.
i could've read so much of this.
unfortunately, it took a sudden turn into an inconsistent, fake-feeling dystopian future, with everyone forgotten but one, whose character felt different and her motivation unrecognizable.
i've been awaiting this book since the leavers, but this lacks everything that made that book great: memorable characters, a light hand in melodrama, and striking, even emotion.
i don't think i've ever read a novella addition to a series and been like "yeah, that was necessary." but that doesn't stop me from trying.
this was noi don't think i've ever read a novella addition to a series and been like "yeah, that was necessary." but that doesn't stop me from trying.
this was no exception though.
it only provided insight into how pip decided to do her senior capstone project in the first book, which is possibly the least interesting thing it could possibly be about while still technically being in any way related to the actual mystery.
it also exclusively follows the plotline of a murder mystery dinner type board game, which are not famous for being interesting and filled with shock value.
it was a quick read and not terrible but that's the nicest i can be.
bottom line: if you're like, "i'd read holly jackson writing about literally anything," this is the novella for you....more
pssst...emily henry's screenwriter for beach read wrote a romance novel...
and you can probably skip it.
this was a weird book.
it uses the word vague apssst...emily henry's screenwriter for beach read wrote a romance novel...
and you can probably skip it.
this was a weird book.
it uses the word vague a lot, and it loves to murmur. it has a lot of italics, for no real discernible reason. there's a whole scene where it seems like it might be sponsored by scrivener (credit to halle)?
more seriously, it creates a very troubled romance with very troubled characters and puts them in a love story it will take 300 pages to untangle into something resembling a happily ever after, except we never really get to their individual personal issues.
except forget about their respective personal issues because we don't have time to get to those.
helen never makes real friendships, and grant doesn't either. parental relationships are left unresolved. they get back together, but the why feels unsolved at best.
and then there's the worst crime of all...this is so devastatingly unfunny.
a lot of the time in modern life, rom coms are more like rom drams, featuring characters navigating wildly upsetting interpersonal crises with a romance in the background and the occasional line of banter.
i actually don't mind that much, because i'm obsessed with drama and it helps to soothe the part of me that is constantly one bolt of confidence away from asking my acquaintances why they broke up.
but the drama in this was SO crazy, and the jokes SO unforgivably bad (to the point that i wouldn't know they were supposed to be jokes if it didn't literally say "he joked"), that i was more like...why would i root for these people at all.
while questioning if i know what jokes are at all, in the emotional equivalent of when you use the word "joke" so much it doesn't look like a word anymore. which is also happening.
it also relies on chemistry instead of intimacy, with a lot more sex scenes than romantic ones.
i read an interview with the author in which she says that she wrote this early in the morning and late at night while working on an emily henry script, and i hate to say it shows. this reads like the compiled discarded bits of something distractedly written by her.
that would be the meanest thing i've ever said if i didn't love emily henry so much.
i enjoyed — although maybe enjoyed is the wrong word — this author's fii was actually scared to read this.
and i should've been. but for other reasons.
i enjoyed — although maybe enjoyed is the wrong word — this author's first book, because while it didn't have much going on besides shock value and gore it at least did those two things in kind of an interesting way.
reading this was completely unpleasant from start to finish, and not because of the gross-out content. the writing is actively bad, full of clichés and adjectives, and somehow even though all of these stories (?) are very short, they drag on, not ending at the moment they'd be effective or shocking. characterizations are inconsistent, and in fact characters seem almost beside the point — none of these figures feel comprehensible, let alone human or real.
there's repetition here of whole details or lines of dialogue. favorite words are used to the in point of incomprehension — play a drinking game with covet, sense, decidedly, merely, perhaps with 911 on speed dial. this is teeming with repeated images (we get it, wounds have lips), adverbs, em dash breaks for more synonyms and more adverbs.
it's overwritten to the point that words have no meaning, which makes for a wildly frustrating read.
terrifying.
bottom line: i was anticipating this as a book that would make me truly scared, and i am: for the future of publishing.
is there a theme more bittersweet and stirring than the idea that you never can go home again?
this book conveys that and about a million other strikinis there a theme more bittersweet and stirring than the idea that you never can go home again?
this book conveys that and about a million other striking things and is surreal the whole time.
this reminded me of outline: filled with a lot of intelligent dialogue and interiority, expanding on themes deeply relevant to daily life and today's society.
and wow those themes!!! the way it surreally conveys the absurdity of colonization, of the thin line between each of us and abject poverty, of family and of death and of social status and of money and of race.
bottom line: this was one of a kind and remarkable....more
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
just kidding. that is not a problem i'm looking to solve.
morrison never holds your hand and walks you throughhelp, i can't stop reading toni morrison!
just kidding. that is not a problem i'm looking to solve.
morrison never holds your hand and walks you through it, even though sometimes you (read: i) wish she would.
this finale in the beloved trilogy has so much to say about violence and oppression, but still i somehow wish it said more.
we follow the residents of a town and of a convent as we crawl toward the act of violence that ends the life they know, but i was jarred by the act and how quickly and confusingly it was over. the writing didn't seem like the same standard i've come to know, and the ending was a strange abrupt where are they now while the credits rolled.
the vibes were off.
bottom line: my least favorite toni morrison, and i still liked it.
but my favorite part of this was the food descriptions.
unfortunately, the rest was extremely repetitiveof course i want to read about magic fox girls.
but my favorite part of this was the food descriptions.
unfortunately, the rest was extremely repetitive. we have two perspectives, one of a fox girl and the other of an aging investigator, both of which sound interesting and aren't. each perspective just follows its respective protagonist as they go from the same place to the next, looking for the same thing, unchanging in themselves or in the plot. i waited for this book to pick up and it never did.
the writing was also strange—a lot of moments where something would happen, and then it would be rhetorically referred to as if it didn't. a character spots another character, and then 2 sentences later, when he starts speaking to her: "he'd managed to find me after all." like, no, he just saw you. we just talked about that. "she'd used her patron's name, hoping it would open doors. which it had." okay, why did we have to say that then. it resulted in me going back and rereading a lot of paragraphs and getting frustrated.
the ending and romance came out of nowhere, after hundreds of pages of sexual harassment, but there were parts of this i enjoyed.
i just wish there were more of them.
bottom line: more foxes, more food, less weirdness.
(2.5 / thanks to the publisher for the e-arc)...more
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