1250130921
9781250130921
1250130921
3.83
422,071
Jan 02, 2018
Jan 09, 2018
liked it
A plea to authors: please, for the love of god, somebody write the next Big Twisty Thriller that knocks Gone Girl and The Girl on the Train off their
A plea to authors: please, for the love of god, somebody write the next Big Twisty Thriller that knocks Gone Girl and The Girl on the Train off their Ultimate Big Twisty Thriller pedestals, so publishers can stop shoving every novel about a fucked-up marriage in my face and shrieking FOR FANS OF GONE GIRL AND THE GIRL ON THE TRAIN. Like seriously guys: just because it's got a shitty husband doesn't mean it's anything like Gone Girl. Stop, this is getting embarrassing.
This novel suffers from bad marketing more than any actual lack of quality. First there's the regrettable Gone Girl/Girl on the Train comparisons (and if we're being brutally honest, it's more accurate to say that this novel has nothing in common with Gone Girl and is merely a bad knockoff of The Girl on the Train; and then there's the fact that every single plot description available just screams at you LOOK OUT THERE'S A HUGE TWIST IN THIS THAT YOU'LL NEVER NEVER GUESS. Because of course then the readers spend the entire time specifically trying to guess said twist, and any clues that might have otherwise flown under our radar get immediately pinged.
So I guessed the Act One twist pretty easily, but I wasn't too upset about that because even as I realized what the authors had up their sleeves, I had no idea where they would take the story after they dropped the first twist at the midway point. Unfortunately, even though this was the point when the story should have picked up steam and become a runaway train of toxic relationships, secrets, lies, and mistaken identity, instead it just slowly runs out of gas.
Once the authors reveal that (view spoiler)[Richard is an abusive gaslighting creep (and honestly it's pretty obvious where this is going as soon as he tells Vanessa "I don't like your name, here's what I'm going to call you instead) (hide spoiler)] the authors don't really have much else to throw at us, and the novel becomes this depressing slog of "and here's another way this woman's life was turned into a living hell." Anyone who has been in an abusive relationship, or even known someone who suffered from domestic partner abuse, is gonna have a real bad time.
(For real though, I almost stopped reading when (view spoiler)[Richard got Vanessa a dog, because of course something bad is going to happen there, and the whole interlude was actually really upsetting to read about. The only saving grace of this subplot is that the authors do a pretty good job of convincing us that Richard didn't actually kill Duke - I genuinely believe that he just called the agency and had him taken back, which is horrible, but at least we didn't have a dead dog anywhere in this book. Also in my headcanon epilogue, Vanessa contacts the adoption agency and gets him back SO THERE (hide spoiler)])
The authors, maybe realizing that their story was running out of steam and they didn't have anything new to shock us, try to throw a last-minute twist at us and I don't know how anyone else felt about it, but it really didn't land for me. All of the subplots and revelations relating to the Deep Dark Secrets of the main character's college years felt super half-baked, to the extent where they almost seemed to belong in a different novel.
I guess the one positive I took from this novel (and I didn't even really hate it that much!) was this valuable lesson: do not trust the marketing team when they tell you they have the next Gone Girl. They are lying to you, and you should steer clear. ...more
This novel suffers from bad marketing more than any actual lack of quality. First there's the regrettable Gone Girl/Girl on the Train comparisons (and if we're being brutally honest, it's more accurate to say that this novel has nothing in common with Gone Girl and is merely a bad knockoff of The Girl on the Train; and then there's the fact that every single plot description available just screams at you LOOK OUT THERE'S A HUGE TWIST IN THIS THAT YOU'LL NEVER NEVER GUESS. Because of course then the readers spend the entire time specifically trying to guess said twist, and any clues that might have otherwise flown under our radar get immediately pinged.
So I guessed the Act One twist pretty easily, but I wasn't too upset about that because even as I realized what the authors had up their sleeves, I had no idea where they would take the story after they dropped the first twist at the midway point. Unfortunately, even though this was the point when the story should have picked up steam and become a runaway train of toxic relationships, secrets, lies, and mistaken identity, instead it just slowly runs out of gas.
Once the authors reveal that (view spoiler)[Richard is an abusive gaslighting creep (and honestly it's pretty obvious where this is going as soon as he tells Vanessa "I don't like your name, here's what I'm going to call you instead) (hide spoiler)] the authors don't really have much else to throw at us, and the novel becomes this depressing slog of "and here's another way this woman's life was turned into a living hell." Anyone who has been in an abusive relationship, or even known someone who suffered from domestic partner abuse, is gonna have a real bad time.
(For real though, I almost stopped reading when (view spoiler)[Richard got Vanessa a dog, because of course something bad is going to happen there, and the whole interlude was actually really upsetting to read about. The only saving grace of this subplot is that the authors do a pretty good job of convincing us that Richard didn't actually kill Duke - I genuinely believe that he just called the agency and had him taken back, which is horrible, but at least we didn't have a dead dog anywhere in this book. Also in my headcanon epilogue, Vanessa contacts the adoption agency and gets him back SO THERE (hide spoiler)])
The authors, maybe realizing that their story was running out of steam and they didn't have anything new to shock us, try to throw a last-minute twist at us and I don't know how anyone else felt about it, but it really didn't land for me. All of the subplots and revelations relating to the Deep Dark Secrets of the main character's college years felt super half-baked, to the extent where they almost seemed to belong in a different novel.
I guess the one positive I took from this novel (and I didn't even really hate it that much!) was this valuable lesson: do not trust the marketing team when they tell you they have the next Gone Girl. They are lying to you, and you should steer clear. ...more
Notes are private!
0
1
not set
Apr 2021
Apr 08, 2021
Hardcover
B008RQ6MAQ
4.06
56,012
1782
2007
it was ok
I knew going into this novel that it was written as a collection of letters exchanged between the principal characters. I also knew that this was a tr
I knew going into this novel that it was written as a collection of letters exchanged between the principal characters. I also knew that this was a trope that I, historically, have not had the best time with - see Dracula and Where'd You Go, Bernadette. I knew there was a risk of this feeling like a bit of a slog.
I was not prepared for 400 pages of, yes, just letters. And I know that's the point of the book, that we're hearing all of this secondhand gossip - and if nothing else, Laclos's novel is a great exercise in the art of the unreliable narrator - but reading this really solidified why I can never get on board with novels that are written exclusively as a series of letters or diary entries: the letter format of Dangerous Liasons means that we as the reader are two steps removed from the action of the story, listening to Laclos recount what his characters are recounting. One of the most popular pieces of writing advice is to avoid the passive voice; Dangerous Liasons is an entire novel of passive voice. And Laclos even unwittingly reveals the flaw in his format when Merteuil is recounting her tricks of the trade and says, "Never write anything down." Then why am I reading an entire book where she writes down all the evil shit she does?!
The letters of Valmont and Merteuil are the only truly interesting ones in the bunch, as well. I was well and truly sick of Madame de Tourvel by her third letter, and her unvarying schtick of "oh Valmont, please stop asking me to sleep with you no really I musn't" never elevates her beyond anything more than a plot device in the story. Cecile, at least, is a little more dynamic, but honestly I only ever wanted to hear from Valmont and Merteuil, those glorious toxic fremenies.
I have no qualms about telling anyone considering this book to skip it and just watch the John Malkovich/Glenn Close movie adaption, or even Cruel Intentions, and you nerds can fight me about it if you want. ...more
I was not prepared for 400 pages of, yes, just letters. And I know that's the point of the book, that we're hearing all of this secondhand gossip - and if nothing else, Laclos's novel is a great exercise in the art of the unreliable narrator - but reading this really solidified why I can never get on board with novels that are written exclusively as a series of letters or diary entries: the letter format of Dangerous Liasons means that we as the reader are two steps removed from the action of the story, listening to Laclos recount what his characters are recounting. One of the most popular pieces of writing advice is to avoid the passive voice; Dangerous Liasons is an entire novel of passive voice. And Laclos even unwittingly reveals the flaw in his format when Merteuil is recounting her tricks of the trade and says, "Never write anything down." Then why am I reading an entire book where she writes down all the evil shit she does?!
The letters of Valmont and Merteuil are the only truly interesting ones in the bunch, as well. I was well and truly sick of Madame de Tourvel by her third letter, and her unvarying schtick of "oh Valmont, please stop asking me to sleep with you no really I musn't" never elevates her beyond anything more than a plot device in the story. Cecile, at least, is a little more dynamic, but honestly I only ever wanted to hear from Valmont and Merteuil, those glorious toxic fremenies.
I have no qualms about telling anyone considering this book to skip it and just watch the John Malkovich/Glenn Close movie adaption, or even Cruel Intentions, and you nerds can fight me about it if you want. ...more
Notes are private!
2
not set
not set
Mar 2021
not set
Apr 08, 2021
Paperback
080613528X
9780806135281
080613528X
3.78
36
Jun 2003
Sep 15, 2003
it was ok
I had a hard time with this one. I think the issue stems from the fact that this book is so short, yet tries to cover a wide range of characters - the
I had a hard time with this one. I think the issue stems from the fact that this book is so short, yet tries to cover a wide range of characters - the story takes place over the course of a single day, and the omnipresent narration takes us into the minds of a wide variety of Mexican laborers working the grape harvest in southern California. Chapters are brief and skip from one character to another before I really had time to get acclimated to their perspective, which meant I had a really hard time remembering who everyone was. It felt like the book should have either been longer, or narrowed its scope a little more.
...more
Notes are private!
1
not set
Mar 2021
Mar 24, 2021
Hardcover
0061020702
9780061020704
0061020702
4.01
160,924
May 26, 1986
Feb 02, 2000
really liked it
"The disc, being flat, has no real horizon. Any adventurous sailor who got funny ideas from staring at eggs and oranges for too long and set out for t
"The disc, being flat, has no real horizon. Any adventurous sailor who got funny ideas from staring at eggs and oranges for too long and set out for the antipodes soon learned that the reason why distant ships sometimes looked as though they were disappearing over the edge of the world was that they were disappearing over the edge of the world."
Like Douglas Adams' books, I find myself kind of at a loss whenever I sit down and try to write a review of a Terry Prachett book. The Discworld books that I've read so far have all been delightful and entertaining (and Terry Prachett has the Dorothy Parker gift of creating one-liners as quick and deadly as a sniper's bullet) but they kind of defy summary. I mean, this book picks up right where the previous installment left off, with our hero falling off the edge of the world. And as far as things go in this book, that's a relatively normal occurrence.
All there really is to say here is that I've thoroughly enjoyed the adventures of Rincewind, aka the world's best worst magician, and I'm kind of sad that the third Discworld book is a diversion from his story. But I'm sure it'll be great. ...more
Like Douglas Adams' books, I find myself kind of at a loss whenever I sit down and try to write a review of a Terry Prachett book. The Discworld books that I've read so far have all been delightful and entertaining (and Terry Prachett has the Dorothy Parker gift of creating one-liners as quick and deadly as a sniper's bullet) but they kind of defy summary. I mean, this book picks up right where the previous installment left off, with our hero falling off the edge of the world. And as far as things go in this book, that's a relatively normal occurrence.
All there really is to say here is that I've thoroughly enjoyed the adventures of Rincewind, aka the world's best worst magician, and I'm kind of sad that the third Discworld book is a diversion from his story. But I'm sure it'll be great. ...more
Notes are private!
1
not set
May 2020
Mar 24, 2021
Mass Market Paperback
1250313074
9781250313072
1250313074
4.01
363,604
Oct 08, 2019
Oct 08, 2019
really liked it
"Where do we begin to tell the story of Lethe? Does it begin in 1824 with Bathsheba Smith? Perhaps it should. But it would take another seventy years
"Where do we begin to tell the story of Lethe? Does it begin in 1824 with Bathsheba Smith? Perhaps it should. But it would take another seventy years and many more disasters before Lethe would come to be. So instead we point to 1898, when Charlie Baxter, a man with no home and of no consequence, turned up dead with burns to his hands, feet, and scrotum, and a black scarab where his tongue should be. Accusations flew and the societies found themselves under threat from the university.
...From these earliest meetings rose our mission statement: We are charged with monitoring the rites and practices of any senior societies trafficking in magic, divination, or otherworldly discourse, with the express intent of keeping citizens and students safe from mental, physical, and spiritual harm and of fostering amicable relations between the societies and school administration."
For Ninth House (it's the first of a series but honestly this book works pretty well as a standalone), Leigh Bardugo takes a really simple premise - what if the various secret societies of Yale University could actually perform occult magic? - and runs with it. The result is a fun and genuinely creepy imagined "inside look" at the inner workings of the secret societies whose members go on to become CEO's, politicians, and celebrities.
In Bardugo's Yale, the eight secret societies each have their own occult specialty, ranging from divination to necromancy. And if a bunch of spoiled rich kids are going to be mucking around with the occult, Bardugo reasons, they're gonna need somebody to babysit them to make sure they don't end the world or (as Ninth House establishes is the more likely outcome, start murdering homeless people for rituals). So we have the ninth secret society - Lethe House. They protect the student body, and the New Haven locals, from the activities of the secret societies, and they also protect the societies from themselves.
We get thrown right into the action as soon as we meet our protagonist, Galaxy "Alex" Stern, who is on her way to observe a divination ritual performed by Skull and Bone. Alex is unlike her fellow Lethe house members - she isn't wealthy, nor is she gifted academically. So how did she end up at Yale? Bardugo wastes no time showing exactly what makes Alex special: there are ghosts wandering the Yale campus, and Alex is the only human who can see them.
In addition to the question of how/why Alex came by her unique abilities, Ninth House has another mystery to keep us occupied in the meantime. A local girl was murdered, and the crime scene points to occult activity and the involvement of one or more of Yale's secret societies. It's Lethe House's job to find out who was responsible, while also keeping the local authorities in the dark about the whole Yale-students-doing-dark-magic stuff.
If there's one major flaw to this novel, it lies in its structure. Bardugo, maybe out of a misplace fear that her audience would lose interest if she told the story in a straightforward beginning-to-end style, decides to do that thing where she drops us right in the middle of the conflict (when we have no reference for any of the people or events she's talking about) and then alternates the "present day" chapters with flashbacks explaining how we got there, and I cannot stress enough how badly the novel did not need to do this. The story would have been plenty compelling without needing to skip around on the timeline, and if anything, it makes the plot needlessly confusing - going back and forth in time means that it's sometimes hard to tell what's a flashback and what's a present-day event, and it's hard to get a sense of exactly how much time the book covers overall. ...more
...From these earliest meetings rose our mission statement: We are charged with monitoring the rites and practices of any senior societies trafficking in magic, divination, or otherworldly discourse, with the express intent of keeping citizens and students safe from mental, physical, and spiritual harm and of fostering amicable relations between the societies and school administration."
For Ninth House (it's the first of a series but honestly this book works pretty well as a standalone), Leigh Bardugo takes a really simple premise - what if the various secret societies of Yale University could actually perform occult magic? - and runs with it. The result is a fun and genuinely creepy imagined "inside look" at the inner workings of the secret societies whose members go on to become CEO's, politicians, and celebrities.
In Bardugo's Yale, the eight secret societies each have their own occult specialty, ranging from divination to necromancy. And if a bunch of spoiled rich kids are going to be mucking around with the occult, Bardugo reasons, they're gonna need somebody to babysit them to make sure they don't end the world or (as Ninth House establishes is the more likely outcome, start murdering homeless people for rituals). So we have the ninth secret society - Lethe House. They protect the student body, and the New Haven locals, from the activities of the secret societies, and they also protect the societies from themselves.
We get thrown right into the action as soon as we meet our protagonist, Galaxy "Alex" Stern, who is on her way to observe a divination ritual performed by Skull and Bone. Alex is unlike her fellow Lethe house members - she isn't wealthy, nor is she gifted academically. So how did she end up at Yale? Bardugo wastes no time showing exactly what makes Alex special: there are ghosts wandering the Yale campus, and Alex is the only human who can see them.
In addition to the question of how/why Alex came by her unique abilities, Ninth House has another mystery to keep us occupied in the meantime. A local girl was murdered, and the crime scene points to occult activity and the involvement of one or more of Yale's secret societies. It's Lethe House's job to find out who was responsible, while also keeping the local authorities in the dark about the whole Yale-students-doing-dark-magic stuff.
If there's one major flaw to this novel, it lies in its structure. Bardugo, maybe out of a misplace fear that her audience would lose interest if she told the story in a straightforward beginning-to-end style, decides to do that thing where she drops us right in the middle of the conflict (when we have no reference for any of the people or events she's talking about) and then alternates the "present day" chapters with flashbacks explaining how we got there, and I cannot stress enough how badly the novel did not need to do this. The story would have been plenty compelling without needing to skip around on the timeline, and if anything, it makes the plot needlessly confusing - going back and forth in time means that it's sometimes hard to tell what's a flashback and what's a present-day event, and it's hard to get a sense of exactly how much time the book covers overall. ...more
Notes are private!
1
not set
Jun 2020
Mar 24, 2021
Hardcover
4.11
59,304
Feb 28, 2019
Apr 09, 2019
liked it
I have such a low tolerance for true crime, and serial killer stories in particular, so most media featuring Jack the Ripper holds little interest for
I have such a low tolerance for true crime, and serial killer stories in particular, so most media featuring Jack the Ripper holds little interest for me. But it was obvious right from the beginning - just from the jacket description - that Hallie Rubenhold's exploration of the Jack the Ripper myth would be very different from anything else I've seen covering the infamous Whitechapel murders.
To put it bluntly, Rubenhold has no interest whatsoever in the person (or persons) responsible for the murders of the "canonical five" (ie, the five women whose murders are widely accepted to be the work of the same killer, the one who would come to be known as Jack the Ripper): Polly Nichols, Annie Chapman, Elizabeth Stride, Catherine Eddowes, and Mary Jane Kelly. The Five is the result of extensive research into birth and marriage records, arrest records, boardinghouse accounts, and newspaper interviews, which Rubenhold gathers all together in an attempt to piece together each of the women's lives, from their births to their infamous deaths. "Exhaustive" is the only word I can think of to describe the depth of the research, and if the book has one major failing, it's that the narrative does drag a little as Rubenhold traces, with meticulous detail, every step these women took in their (very different) lives that led to their vicious unsolved murders.
I would recommend this book, honestly, only to hardcore Ripperologists. A reader going into this with only a vague knowledge of the Whitechapel murders will be confused by how little time Rubenhold spends on the actual murders - in fact, the aftermath of Mary Jane Kelly's death (the last and arguably the most gruesome of the five crime scenes) doesn't even get described at all.
If you're considering picking this up, I would recommend, at the very least, perusing the Wikipedia page for the Whitechapel murders first, otherwise you're going to feel like a huge chunk of the story is missing. But if you're someone who has already devoured everything else about the murders, this would be an ideal read for you, because it's a book that focuses on the canonical five, not as victims, but as living breathing women. A major failing of a lot of true crime stories, I think, is that it's way too easy to lose sight of the fact that the (frequently female) victims were human beings, and worth more than just their deaths. Rubenhold forces the reader to see the canonical five as people, and never lets up.
Rubenhold does not care to waste any page space speculating on who murdered these women or why, and she certainly isn't here to entertain any of the various conspiracy theories about Jack the Ripper's true identity. This is a Jack the Ripper book that does not care about Jack the Ripper: the only focus, from beginning to end, is on the women who have been reduced to merely sad corpses of prostitutes, slaughtered by a mysterious man.
The goal of Rubenhold's book is not to prove that these women weren't prostitutes. (Rubenhold does make a pretty convincing argument for why almost all of the women most likely didn't engage in sex work, while also being honest about the fact that the reality of their lives may have meant resorted to something like sex work just to stay alive on the streets of Victorian London) All Hallie Rubenhold really wants to do with this book is force people to see the Jack the Ripper story through a different angle, and consider the women as more than just victims of a famous serial killer. Anyone who thinks they already know everything there is to know about the Ripper could benefit from the perspective offered by The Five.
"Today there is only one reason why we would continue to believe that Jack the Ripper was a killer of prostitutes: because it supports an industry that has grown, in part, out of this mythology. ...It's a gothic tale of a monster on the loose, stalking the dark streets of foggy London. It contains suspense and horror, and an element of sexual titillation. Unfortunately, this is also a one-sided story, and the hunt for the killer has taken center stage. ...In order to gawp at and examine this miracle of malevolence we have figuratively stepped over the bodies of those he murdered, and in some cases, stopped to kick them as we walked past.
Insisting that Jack the Ripper killed prostitutes also makes the story of a vicious series of murders slightly more palatable. Just as it did in the nineteenth century, the notion that the victims were 'only prostitutes' perpetuates the belief that there are good women and bad women, madonnas and whores. It suggests that there is an acceptable standard of female behavior, and those who deviate from it are fit to be punished. ...At its very core, the story of Jack the Ripper is a narrative of a killer's deep, abiding hatred of women, and our culture's obsession with the mythology serves only to normalize its particular brand of misogyny." ...more
To put it bluntly, Rubenhold has no interest whatsoever in the person (or persons) responsible for the murders of the "canonical five" (ie, the five women whose murders are widely accepted to be the work of the same killer, the one who would come to be known as Jack the Ripper): Polly Nichols, Annie Chapman, Elizabeth Stride, Catherine Eddowes, and Mary Jane Kelly. The Five is the result of extensive research into birth and marriage records, arrest records, boardinghouse accounts, and newspaper interviews, which Rubenhold gathers all together in an attempt to piece together each of the women's lives, from their births to their infamous deaths. "Exhaustive" is the only word I can think of to describe the depth of the research, and if the book has one major failing, it's that the narrative does drag a little as Rubenhold traces, with meticulous detail, every step these women took in their (very different) lives that led to their vicious unsolved murders.
I would recommend this book, honestly, only to hardcore Ripperologists. A reader going into this with only a vague knowledge of the Whitechapel murders will be confused by how little time Rubenhold spends on the actual murders - in fact, the aftermath of Mary Jane Kelly's death (the last and arguably the most gruesome of the five crime scenes) doesn't even get described at all.
If you're considering picking this up, I would recommend, at the very least, perusing the Wikipedia page for the Whitechapel murders first, otherwise you're going to feel like a huge chunk of the story is missing. But if you're someone who has already devoured everything else about the murders, this would be an ideal read for you, because it's a book that focuses on the canonical five, not as victims, but as living breathing women. A major failing of a lot of true crime stories, I think, is that it's way too easy to lose sight of the fact that the (frequently female) victims were human beings, and worth more than just their deaths. Rubenhold forces the reader to see the canonical five as people, and never lets up.
Rubenhold does not care to waste any page space speculating on who murdered these women or why, and she certainly isn't here to entertain any of the various conspiracy theories about Jack the Ripper's true identity. This is a Jack the Ripper book that does not care about Jack the Ripper: the only focus, from beginning to end, is on the women who have been reduced to merely sad corpses of prostitutes, slaughtered by a mysterious man.
The goal of Rubenhold's book is not to prove that these women weren't prostitutes. (Rubenhold does make a pretty convincing argument for why almost all of the women most likely didn't engage in sex work, while also being honest about the fact that the reality of their lives may have meant resorted to something like sex work just to stay alive on the streets of Victorian London) All Hallie Rubenhold really wants to do with this book is force people to see the Jack the Ripper story through a different angle, and consider the women as more than just victims of a famous serial killer. Anyone who thinks they already know everything there is to know about the Ripper could benefit from the perspective offered by The Five.
"Today there is only one reason why we would continue to believe that Jack the Ripper was a killer of prostitutes: because it supports an industry that has grown, in part, out of this mythology. ...It's a gothic tale of a monster on the loose, stalking the dark streets of foggy London. It contains suspense and horror, and an element of sexual titillation. Unfortunately, this is also a one-sided story, and the hunt for the killer has taken center stage. ...In order to gawp at and examine this miracle of malevolence we have figuratively stepped over the bodies of those he murdered, and in some cases, stopped to kick them as we walked past.
Insisting that Jack the Ripper killed prostitutes also makes the story of a vicious series of murders slightly more palatable. Just as it did in the nineteenth century, the notion that the victims were 'only prostitutes' perpetuates the belief that there are good women and bad women, madonnas and whores. It suggests that there is an acceptable standard of female behavior, and those who deviate from it are fit to be punished. ...At its very core, the story of Jack the Ripper is a narrative of a killer's deep, abiding hatred of women, and our culture's obsession with the mythology serves only to normalize its particular brand of misogyny." ...more
Notes are private!
1
not set
Mar 2021
Mar 15, 2021
Hardcover
0099465647
9780099465645
0099465647
4.20
23,742
Jan 01, 1965
Aug 27, 1992
really liked it
Is there any quicker way to date a review than by referencing the current Netflix obsession-of-the-week? Whatever, it's my review and I can do what I
Is there any quicker way to date a review than by referencing the current Netflix obsession-of-the-week? Whatever, it's my review and I can do what I want, and I'm here to take a bold stance and say that I have absolutely no interest in watching Bridgerton. It just seems like Georgette Heyer with sex scenes added, which I realize should be an incentive, but I don't want all-out sex scenes in my fun Regency romances - anyone can make two hotass actors roll around naked on a TV set; the real challenge is creating just as much tension and raw eroticism in a scene where two people are touching hands sans gloves.
Anyway, the point is that this is the second fluffy Heyer romance I've read (My first non-mystery Heyer was An Infamous Army, which is a straightforward romantic drama rather than a rom-com so it doesn't count) and I was just as delighted as before.
The Marquis of Alverstroke's carefree bachelor lifestyle is rudely interrupted one day by the arrival of his distant cousin, Frederica Merriville. Frederica has her three younger siblings in tow, and she wastes no time presenting her proposal: Frederica's younger sister Charis has the potential to make an amazing match during the London social season, and Frederica just needs the help of her wealthy, popular cousin Alverstroke to ensure that Charis has all the best clothes, gets invited to the best parties, and meets the right people. (Frederica, being in her mid-twenties, is hardly a spinster but is perfectly accepting of the fact that she's much too old to be parading herself around at ton parties, and is solely concerned with making sure that her younger sister makes a good marriage)
So before you can say "oh my god they were roommates", Alverstroke's swingin' bachelor pad is transformed into a household filled with free-spirited Merriville relatives of various ages, plus their dog. Scrapes, scandals, and all the other fun stuff you can expect from a Heyer romance ensue.
The great charm of this novel - at least for me - is in the heroine, Frederica. She's almost painfully practical, having resigned herself quite cheerfully to her role as stand-in head of the household while she works tirelessly to secure a good future for her younger sister. It would have been very easy for Heyer to have Frederica resent her sister for having opportunities that she herself was denied, but luckily Heyer resists this trap, and Frederica's ambitions for her siblings are never tinged with bitterness or resentment of any kind. It might seem like this would make Frederica a boring heroine, but for me, her fundamental good-naturedness made it so much more fun to root for the whole family to succeed (and to a lesser extent, to root for Alverstroke to hurry up and realize that he's in love with her)
So far, both of the Heyer romances that I've reviewed have followed the "former rake finds love and not only decides to settle down, but is delighted to do so" formula, and as it turns out, that's a trope that I am all about ...more
Anyway, the point is that this is the second fluffy Heyer romance I've read (My first non-mystery Heyer was An Infamous Army, which is a straightforward romantic drama rather than a rom-com so it doesn't count) and I was just as delighted as before.
The Marquis of Alverstroke's carefree bachelor lifestyle is rudely interrupted one day by the arrival of his distant cousin, Frederica Merriville. Frederica has her three younger siblings in tow, and she wastes no time presenting her proposal: Frederica's younger sister Charis has the potential to make an amazing match during the London social season, and Frederica just needs the help of her wealthy, popular cousin Alverstroke to ensure that Charis has all the best clothes, gets invited to the best parties, and meets the right people. (Frederica, being in her mid-twenties, is hardly a spinster but is perfectly accepting of the fact that she's much too old to be parading herself around at ton parties, and is solely concerned with making sure that her younger sister makes a good marriage)
So before you can say "oh my god they were roommates", Alverstroke's swingin' bachelor pad is transformed into a household filled with free-spirited Merriville relatives of various ages, plus their dog. Scrapes, scandals, and all the other fun stuff you can expect from a Heyer romance ensue.
The great charm of this novel - at least for me - is in the heroine, Frederica. She's almost painfully practical, having resigned herself quite cheerfully to her role as stand-in head of the household while she works tirelessly to secure a good future for her younger sister. It would have been very easy for Heyer to have Frederica resent her sister for having opportunities that she herself was denied, but luckily Heyer resists this trap, and Frederica's ambitions for her siblings are never tinged with bitterness or resentment of any kind. It might seem like this would make Frederica a boring heroine, but for me, her fundamental good-naturedness made it so much more fun to root for the whole family to succeed (and to a lesser extent, to root for Alverstroke to hurry up and realize that he's in love with her)
So far, both of the Heyer romances that I've reviewed have followed the "former rake finds love and not only decides to settle down, but is delighted to do so" formula, and as it turns out, that's a trope that I am all about ...more
Notes are private!
1
not set
Aug 2020
Mar 13, 2021
Paperback
0704338823
9780704338821
0704338823
3.85
1,513
1980
Jan 01, 1982
really liked it
"Are you sure, sweetheart, that you want to be well?… Just so’s you’re sure, sweetheart, and ready to be healed, cause wholeness is no trifling matter
"Are you sure, sweetheart, that you want to be well?… Just so’s you’re sure, sweetheart, and ready to be healed, cause wholeness is no trifling matter. A lot of weight when you’re well.”
This novel is, at the same time, a very easy and a very challenging read. The stream-of-consciousness style of writing means that you can sort of meander along with the author as she dips in and out of different characters' heads, and ideally you'll be able to just sit back and sink into the prose like it's a bath. But the writing style also means that if you're looking for the usual hallmarks of a novel, like a protagonist/antagonist, or even a beginning-middle-end plotline, you're going to be frustrated.
Bambara gives us the closest thing we have to a protagonist in Velma, who is in the hospital of a small Southern town after attempting suicide. Spiritual healer Minnie (who is, herself, guided by her own deceased teacher) is brought in to heal Velma. Bambara takes us into the minds of not only Velma and Minnie and their immediate circle, but a wide range of characters whose lives are all closely orbiting around each other. The stream-of-consciousness style is done so well that as I read, I could almost imagine that all of the action of this book takes place during Velma's healing - that in terms of linear time, the story only lasts thirty minutes.
This is one of those novels where you're not going to get everything on the first read, and you'll either be okay with this, or not. I was mostly in the former camp, although I'll admit that the ending of this story remains frustratingly out of my grasp. I get the sense that something really important happened, but it feels almost like it occurred between the lines of actual text, and I missed it.
This one definitely goes on the "to re-read sooner rather than later" pile.
(After my book club finished this book, one of the members recommended this Medium article for additional reading, because it discusses the book specifically through the lens of pandemic reading. It's worth the read, especially if my meandering review didn't really sell you on Bambara's novel as well as I'd like it to!) ...more
This novel is, at the same time, a very easy and a very challenging read. The stream-of-consciousness style of writing means that you can sort of meander along with the author as she dips in and out of different characters' heads, and ideally you'll be able to just sit back and sink into the prose like it's a bath. But the writing style also means that if you're looking for the usual hallmarks of a novel, like a protagonist/antagonist, or even a beginning-middle-end plotline, you're going to be frustrated.
Bambara gives us the closest thing we have to a protagonist in Velma, who is in the hospital of a small Southern town after attempting suicide. Spiritual healer Minnie (who is, herself, guided by her own deceased teacher) is brought in to heal Velma. Bambara takes us into the minds of not only Velma and Minnie and their immediate circle, but a wide range of characters whose lives are all closely orbiting around each other. The stream-of-consciousness style is done so well that as I read, I could almost imagine that all of the action of this book takes place during Velma's healing - that in terms of linear time, the story only lasts thirty minutes.
This is one of those novels where you're not going to get everything on the first read, and you'll either be okay with this, or not. I was mostly in the former camp, although I'll admit that the ending of this story remains frustratingly out of my grasp. I get the sense that something really important happened, but it feels almost like it occurred between the lines of actual text, and I missed it.
This one definitely goes on the "to re-read sooner rather than later" pile.
(After my book club finished this book, one of the members recommended this Medium article for additional reading, because it discusses the book specifically through the lens of pandemic reading. It's worth the read, especially if my meandering review didn't really sell you on Bambara's novel as well as I'd like it to!) ...more
Notes are private!
1
not set
Dec 2020
Feb 19, 2021
Paperback
0008229457
9780008229450
B07QK1R498
3.61
8,768
Oct 01, 2019
Sep 15, 2022
liked it
I'm still doing a good job of sticking to my resolution not to read any more rock memoirs written by dudes, but for whatever reason, I still really l
I'm still doing a good job of sticking to my resolution not to read any more rock memoirs written by dudes, but for whatever reason, I still really like reading accounts from the 1970's era of music - so I'm always looking for books written by the women who were around for that era.
And of course when I saw this in the bookstore, I couldn't resist - is there any person on this planet cooler than Debbie Harry? Did "cool" as a concept exist before Debbie Harry? The answer is no, friends. No it did not. (Did anyone else watch the Zoe Kravitz-led reboot of High Fidelity? There's an unexpected Debbie Harry cameo in one of the early episodes and that one brief scene is worth the entire price of admission alone.)
It goes without saying, sadly, that this memoir will NOT teach you how to achieve Debbie Harry-levels of coolness, but we can't expect miracles. All I really wanted, and all I ever want from memoirs like this, is a clear-eyed, no bullshit look at the past while also giving me a good amount of hot gossip.
Unfortunately, as far as rock n' roll memoirs go, Face It is pretty toothless. It follows the familiar celebrity memoir pattern of a) spending a little too much time regaling us with stories from the person's childhood (the only truly interesting thing I gleaned from this, which I was previously unaware of, is that Debbie Harry was adopted) and then b) documenting their rise to fame as something that they casually ambled into, rather than through a combination of hard work and crazy good luck. In fact, if I had to use one word to describe the tone of this memoir, that word would be "breezy" - there's a part where Harry recounts the time a guy broke into the apartment she shared with her boyfriend, robbed them, and then raped her, and based on the way she retells it, it's given about the same amount of emotional weight as a missed bus.
There's no particularly deep insight to be had at any point, although Harry does go into some detail about her songwriting process, and she also had the interesting experience of being the female leader of a rock band - but even then, she doesn't have too much to say about what this was like, aside from the obvious frustrations that come with trying to make it in a male-dominated and unashamedly misogynist industry. The overall vibe this memoir gives off is that of an artist who has been prodded into writing a memoir by her marketing team, and clearly has no interest in laying her soul bare. And of course she's under no obligation to do so, but I do wish that this rock n' roll memoir had, y'know, rocked a little bit more.
...more
And of course when I saw this in the bookstore, I couldn't resist - is there any person on this planet cooler than Debbie Harry? Did "cool" as a concept exist before Debbie Harry? The answer is no, friends. No it did not. (Did anyone else watch the Zoe Kravitz-led reboot of High Fidelity? There's an unexpected Debbie Harry cameo in one of the early episodes and that one brief scene is worth the entire price of admission alone.)
It goes without saying, sadly, that this memoir will NOT teach you how to achieve Debbie Harry-levels of coolness, but we can't expect miracles. All I really wanted, and all I ever want from memoirs like this, is a clear-eyed, no bullshit look at the past while also giving me a good amount of hot gossip.
Unfortunately, as far as rock n' roll memoirs go, Face It is pretty toothless. It follows the familiar celebrity memoir pattern of a) spending a little too much time regaling us with stories from the person's childhood (the only truly interesting thing I gleaned from this, which I was previously unaware of, is that Debbie Harry was adopted) and then b) documenting their rise to fame as something that they casually ambled into, rather than through a combination of hard work and crazy good luck. In fact, if I had to use one word to describe the tone of this memoir, that word would be "breezy" - there's a part where Harry recounts the time a guy broke into the apartment she shared with her boyfriend, robbed them, and then raped her, and based on the way she retells it, it's given about the same amount of emotional weight as a missed bus.
There's no particularly deep insight to be had at any point, although Harry does go into some detail about her songwriting process, and she also had the interesting experience of being the female leader of a rock band - but even then, she doesn't have too much to say about what this was like, aside from the obvious frustrations that come with trying to make it in a male-dominated and unashamedly misogynist industry. The overall vibe this memoir gives off is that of an artist who has been prodded into writing a memoir by her marketing team, and clearly has no interest in laying her soul bare. And of course she's under no obligation to do so, but I do wish that this rock n' roll memoir had, y'know, rocked a little bit more.
...more
Notes are private!
1
not set
Apr 2020
Feb 19, 2021
Kindle Edition
1908276029
9781908276025
1908276029
3.43
15,315
Oct 06, 2011
Oct 06, 2011
really liked it
"A Mountain Road. Midnight.
It was getting dark and she told him the brakes on the hire car were fucked, she couldn't see a thing, she couldn't even se "A Mountain Road. Midnight.
It was getting dark and she told him the brakes on the hire car were fucked, she couldn't see a thing, she couldn't even see her hands.
Her silk dress was falling off her shoulders as she bent over the steering wheel. A rabbit ran across the road and the car swerved. He told her to keep her eyes on the road, to just do that, and while he was speaking she was kissing him and driving at the same time. And then she asked him to open his window so she could hear the insects calling to each other in the forest. He wound down the window and told her, again, to keep her eyes on the road. He leaned his head out of the window and felt the cold mountain air sting his lips. Early humans had once lived in this mountain forest. They knew the past lived in rocks and trees and they knew desire made them awkward, mad, mysterious, messed up.
'Yes,' Kitty Finch said, her eyes now back on the road. 'I know what you're thinking. Life is only worth living because we hope it will get better and we'll all get home safely. But you tried and you did not get home safely. You did not get home at all. That is why I am here, Jozef. I have come to France to save you from your thoughts.'" ...more
It was getting dark and she told him the brakes on the hire car were fucked, she couldn't see a thing, she couldn't even se "A Mountain Road. Midnight.
It was getting dark and she told him the brakes on the hire car were fucked, she couldn't see a thing, she couldn't even see her hands.
Her silk dress was falling off her shoulders as she bent over the steering wheel. A rabbit ran across the road and the car swerved. He told her to keep her eyes on the road, to just do that, and while he was speaking she was kissing him and driving at the same time. And then she asked him to open his window so she could hear the insects calling to each other in the forest. He wound down the window and told her, again, to keep her eyes on the road. He leaned his head out of the window and felt the cold mountain air sting his lips. Early humans had once lived in this mountain forest. They knew the past lived in rocks and trees and they knew desire made them awkward, mad, mysterious, messed up.
'Yes,' Kitty Finch said, her eyes now back on the road. 'I know what you're thinking. Life is only worth living because we hope it will get better and we'll all get home safely. But you tried and you did not get home safely. You did not get home at all. That is why I am here, Jozef. I have come to France to save you from your thoughts.'" ...more
Notes are private!
1
not set
Jan 2021
Feb 01, 2021
Paperback
0385695403
9780385695404
0385695403
3.33
60,037
Jun 30, 2020
Jul 14, 2020
did not like it
Novels written specifically to be an "homage" to a piece of classic literature are always a risky venture for authors. You have to appeal to people wh
Novels written specifically to be an "homage" to a piece of classic literature are always a risky venture for authors. You have to appeal to people who have never read the work that your book is based on, by making your story stand on its own merit and not just on its similarities to another story; and by the same token, you need to put enough of your own spin on the story so fans of the source material will still be entertained. And of course, the biggest risk comes from inviting - and almost encouraging - readers to compare your story to the much more famous book it's based on.
So Kevin Kwan set himself up for an enormous challenge by attempting to do an updated version of A Room With a View, and it should come as no surprise to anyone that he biffs it, spectacularly.
EM Foster's heroine Lucy Honeychurch has been swapped out for Lucie Churchill - the half-Chinese, half-American daughter of an old-school East Coast WASP family. The Italian setting remains the same, although Kwan substitutes Capri for Florence, possibly because Capri gives him more chances to describe various lavish vacation homes (part of the fun of this book, I'll admit, is googling the different mansions and luxury hotels Kwan is constantly name-dropping). Anyone who has read Foster's book will already know every beat this story will take, and can rest assured that Kwan will not risk any truly innovative deviations from his source material. Readers who have no familiarity with A Room With a View will probably spend most of their time wondering why an adult woman in the 21st century is so obsessed with protecting her "reputation."
It doesn't translate well, is what I'm saying. Kwan almost sells us on the idea of a quick fling at a wedding almost ruining a woman's life, because he at least does a good job of demonstrating how strictly Lucie's behavior is dictated by her upper-class conservative upbringing. But Kwan can't even be bothered to make his version of George legitimately unsuitable for Lucie - the best he can do is have George be the wrong kind of obscenely rich, oh and also his mother is tacky. The horror. (there's a bit at the end where Mrs. Zao gets a WASP makeover to appease the racist co-op board of the luxury apartment she wants to buy, and it left a seriously bad taste in my mouth)
The easiest way to illustrate how Sex and Vanity (oh my god, the LAZINESS of that title! Go girl give us nothing!) fails to live up to its literary predecessor is with the text itself.
First, we have the scene from A Room With a View when Lucy breaks up with her fiance:
"When we were only acquaintances, you let me be myself, but now you're always protecting me...I won't be protected. I will choose for myself what is ladylike and right. To shield me is an insult. Can't I be trusted to face the truth but I must get it second-hand through you? ...you wrap yourself up in art and books and music, and would try to wrap up me. I won't be stifled, not by the most glorious music, for people are more glorious, and you hide them from me. That's why I break off my engagement."
And here's how Kwan updated that speech for 2019:
"And I know you think it's wrong of me to say this now, but I know you'll be miserable being married to me in the long run. You deserve someone who actually has an Instagram account with more than eight posts. You deserve someone who loves sitting in the front row at the haute couture shows in Paris, who loves wearing huge emeralds while sunbathing on your superyacht. Someone who likes tying you up in the gondola and reenacting the wrestling scene from Death in Venice. ...For a while, I thought I was that person too, but I've come to realize I'm not."
Somehow, not quite as stirring.
The closest that Kwan ever gets to telling an actual story is when he examines the complicated relationship that Lucie has with her white grandmother, who raised Lucie in an environment where she was always treated more like a pet than a person - her grandmother's "little China doll." There's a scene where two characters discuss the idea that someone can love you and still be a racist piece of shit, and it's over far too quickly so Kwan can retreat back to his comfort zone of Rich People Doing Rich People Shit.
With this book, it's clear that Crazy Rich Asians was a fluke. That book succeeded because of Rachel Chu - our Everywoman who let us into the world of the obscenely rich while still keeping the reader tethered to reality. Kwan's total disinterest in her character (she virtually disappears from the series by the time the third book rolls around) shows that he's no more complex as the spoiled rich people his books try to parody: Kwan really doesn't have anything more to provide as an author except an endless litany of designer brands, exclusive locations, and luxurious mansions. There even seems to be a tiny flicker of jealousy from the author when he describes Lucie's art career - even though she comes from an extraordinarily privileged background and has the world at her fingertips, Lucie is considered above the other characters in the book because she has a rich inner life, and real artistic talent.
And talent, unfortunately, is the one thing you can't buy.
(Also, Kwan missed a huge opportunity by doing A Room With a View when I would pay real actual money to see his take on The Buccaneers by Edith Wharton. Now that could have really been something) ...more
So Kevin Kwan set himself up for an enormous challenge by attempting to do an updated version of A Room With a View, and it should come as no surprise to anyone that he biffs it, spectacularly.
EM Foster's heroine Lucy Honeychurch has been swapped out for Lucie Churchill - the half-Chinese, half-American daughter of an old-school East Coast WASP family. The Italian setting remains the same, although Kwan substitutes Capri for Florence, possibly because Capri gives him more chances to describe various lavish vacation homes (part of the fun of this book, I'll admit, is googling the different mansions and luxury hotels Kwan is constantly name-dropping). Anyone who has read Foster's book will already know every beat this story will take, and can rest assured that Kwan will not risk any truly innovative deviations from his source material. Readers who have no familiarity with A Room With a View will probably spend most of their time wondering why an adult woman in the 21st century is so obsessed with protecting her "reputation."
It doesn't translate well, is what I'm saying. Kwan almost sells us on the idea of a quick fling at a wedding almost ruining a woman's life, because he at least does a good job of demonstrating how strictly Lucie's behavior is dictated by her upper-class conservative upbringing. But Kwan can't even be bothered to make his version of George legitimately unsuitable for Lucie - the best he can do is have George be the wrong kind of obscenely rich, oh and also his mother is tacky. The horror. (there's a bit at the end where Mrs. Zao gets a WASP makeover to appease the racist co-op board of the luxury apartment she wants to buy, and it left a seriously bad taste in my mouth)
The easiest way to illustrate how Sex and Vanity (oh my god, the LAZINESS of that title! Go girl give us nothing!) fails to live up to its literary predecessor is with the text itself.
First, we have the scene from A Room With a View when Lucy breaks up with her fiance:
"When we were only acquaintances, you let me be myself, but now you're always protecting me...I won't be protected. I will choose for myself what is ladylike and right. To shield me is an insult. Can't I be trusted to face the truth but I must get it second-hand through you? ...you wrap yourself up in art and books and music, and would try to wrap up me. I won't be stifled, not by the most glorious music, for people are more glorious, and you hide them from me. That's why I break off my engagement."
And here's how Kwan updated that speech for 2019:
"And I know you think it's wrong of me to say this now, but I know you'll be miserable being married to me in the long run. You deserve someone who actually has an Instagram account with more than eight posts. You deserve someone who loves sitting in the front row at the haute couture shows in Paris, who loves wearing huge emeralds while sunbathing on your superyacht. Someone who likes tying you up in the gondola and reenacting the wrestling scene from Death in Venice. ...For a while, I thought I was that person too, but I've come to realize I'm not."
Somehow, not quite as stirring.
The closest that Kwan ever gets to telling an actual story is when he examines the complicated relationship that Lucie has with her white grandmother, who raised Lucie in an environment where she was always treated more like a pet than a person - her grandmother's "little China doll." There's a scene where two characters discuss the idea that someone can love you and still be a racist piece of shit, and it's over far too quickly so Kwan can retreat back to his comfort zone of Rich People Doing Rich People Shit.
With this book, it's clear that Crazy Rich Asians was a fluke. That book succeeded because of Rachel Chu - our Everywoman who let us into the world of the obscenely rich while still keeping the reader tethered to reality. Kwan's total disinterest in her character (she virtually disappears from the series by the time the third book rolls around) shows that he's no more complex as the spoiled rich people his books try to parody: Kwan really doesn't have anything more to provide as an author except an endless litany of designer brands, exclusive locations, and luxurious mansions. There even seems to be a tiny flicker of jealousy from the author when he describes Lucie's art career - even though she comes from an extraordinarily privileged background and has the world at her fingertips, Lucie is considered above the other characters in the book because she has a rich inner life, and real artistic talent.
And talent, unfortunately, is the one thing you can't buy.
(Also, Kwan missed a huge opportunity by doing A Room With a View when I would pay real actual money to see his take on The Buccaneers by Edith Wharton. Now that could have really been something) ...more
Notes are private!
1
Jan 28, 2021
Feb 2021
Jan 28, 2021
Hardcover
1984806734
9781984806734
1984806734
3.99
1,403,536
May 19, 2020
May 19, 2020
liked it
January Andrews and Augustus Everett (I'm sorry, but those names make me wince every time) met in college when they were both taking a creative writin
January Andrews and Augustus Everett (I'm sorry, but those names make me wince every time) met in college when they were both taking a creative writing course. As adults in their thirties, both have achieved literary success, although their careers have taken wildly different paths: January writes romance novels, while Augustus makes his name with serious Literary Fiction. When the two find themselves spending the summer in neighboring beach houses in Michigan, and both struggling with writer's block, they make a deal: January will attempt to write a serious novel without a happy ending, and Augustus will write a romance novel. On weekends, they'll take each other on "field trips" to get into the proper mindset for writing outside their respective genres. This means cute dates to amusement parks for Augustus, and investigating the burnt ruins of a death cult compound for January. Hijinks, family secrets, and sexual tension follow.
My three-star rating of this book isn't really due to any fault of Emily Henry's - I just went into this expecting a different kind of story than the one I got, and it's not the author's fault that I was never able to fully adjust my mindset.
The first disappointment I had was when I realized that this was going to be January's story first and foremost, and that we wouldn't be spending equal story time on Augustus. I had imagined that the book would switch back and forth between the two main characters' perspectives, so we could see each author struggling to write their book in equal measure, and also get their different viewpoints on the events taking place over the summer. But this is really about January coming to terms with the buried secrets within her own family and how that affects her personal viewpoint and her writing, while Augustus stays in his role of potential love interest. Which, fine! It works great, and I'm not saying that January isn't a fun and compelling protagonist, but it would have been fun to spend more time watching Augustus, a Male Novelist, attempt to write a fluffy romance novel. (I mean, him trying to write sex scenes would have been worth the price of admission alone, because there's a certain type of writer who loves to denigrate romance novels as "easy writing", as in, "LOL, I should just give up and write romance novels" but have you ever actually tried to write a sex scene that's actually sexy? There's a reason The Guardian compiles a list of the worst fictional sex scenes every year)
The best parts of the book are when January and Augustus have frank conversations about how their genders limit them as authors - January points out, rightfully so, that her books get dismissed as "women's fiction" no matter what she writes about, because female authors so often get pigeonholed that way. I can't actually remember if Nicholas Sparks (who lest we forget, is THE WORST) gets namedropped specifically, but January definitely points out that plenty of male authors can write books with romantic plotlines and have them shelved as just Fiction, instead of getting classified as Romance and dismissed as Not Serious Writing.
Ultimately, this is a fun romance with some family and emotional drama thrown in for color, and it works great. The biggest frustration comes from Henry's constant and very obvious attempts to keep us guessing about whether or not January and Augustus will actually hook up. She has to throw up some truly eyeroll-worthy reasons January can't immediately jump Augustus's bones - he has a strict Hit It And Quit It policy when it comes to hookups, and January wants more emotional investment from him, which, fair! But it also means that, in order to prolong the sexual and romantic tension, there are at least three separate scenes where January and August engage in what I'll call Erotic Hugging, like they're a couple of horny Mormons who can't do under-the-clothes touching. I get that it ruins the tension if they bang too early, but on the other hand there's really no good reason these two can't do some tequila shots and get naked on like, page fifty. So I guess we'll say I took off a star for that.
This is a perfectly delightful, fluffy little romance, and I don't regret reading it, so I don't want anyone to be turned away because of my lukewarm rating. Just go into it with an open mind, and you'll have a good time. ...more
My three-star rating of this book isn't really due to any fault of Emily Henry's - I just went into this expecting a different kind of story than the one I got, and it's not the author's fault that I was never able to fully adjust my mindset.
The first disappointment I had was when I realized that this was going to be January's story first and foremost, and that we wouldn't be spending equal story time on Augustus. I had imagined that the book would switch back and forth between the two main characters' perspectives, so we could see each author struggling to write their book in equal measure, and also get their different viewpoints on the events taking place over the summer. But this is really about January coming to terms with the buried secrets within her own family and how that affects her personal viewpoint and her writing, while Augustus stays in his role of potential love interest. Which, fine! It works great, and I'm not saying that January isn't a fun and compelling protagonist, but it would have been fun to spend more time watching Augustus, a Male Novelist, attempt to write a fluffy romance novel. (I mean, him trying to write sex scenes would have been worth the price of admission alone, because there's a certain type of writer who loves to denigrate romance novels as "easy writing", as in, "LOL, I should just give up and write romance novels" but have you ever actually tried to write a sex scene that's actually sexy? There's a reason The Guardian compiles a list of the worst fictional sex scenes every year)
The best parts of the book are when January and Augustus have frank conversations about how their genders limit them as authors - January points out, rightfully so, that her books get dismissed as "women's fiction" no matter what she writes about, because female authors so often get pigeonholed that way. I can't actually remember if Nicholas Sparks (who lest we forget, is THE WORST) gets namedropped specifically, but January definitely points out that plenty of male authors can write books with romantic plotlines and have them shelved as just Fiction, instead of getting classified as Romance and dismissed as Not Serious Writing.
Ultimately, this is a fun romance with some family and emotional drama thrown in for color, and it works great. The biggest frustration comes from Henry's constant and very obvious attempts to keep us guessing about whether or not January and Augustus will actually hook up. She has to throw up some truly eyeroll-worthy reasons January can't immediately jump Augustus's bones - he has a strict Hit It And Quit It policy when it comes to hookups, and January wants more emotional investment from him, which, fair! But it also means that, in order to prolong the sexual and romantic tension, there are at least three separate scenes where January and August engage in what I'll call Erotic Hugging, like they're a couple of horny Mormons who can't do under-the-clothes touching. I get that it ruins the tension if they bang too early, but on the other hand there's really no good reason these two can't do some tequila shots and get naked on like, page fifty. So I guess we'll say I took off a star for that.
This is a perfectly delightful, fluffy little romance, and I don't regret reading it, so I don't want anyone to be turned away because of my lukewarm rating. Just go into it with an open mind, and you'll have a good time. ...more
Notes are private!
1
not set
Dec 2020
Dec 25, 2020
Paperback
0307275558
9780307275554
0307275558
3.81
914,211
Apr 15, 2003
May 30, 2006
it was ok
It's been a long time since I've had a chance to add a new book to my "the movie is better" shelf, so at the very least, I owe The Devil Wears Prada c
It's been a long time since I've had a chance to add a new book to my "the movie is better" shelf, so at the very least, I owe The Devil Wears Prada credit for that.
(seriously, I could talk to the screenwriter of the movie for literally hours about the process of adapting the book and how she arrived at some of the brilliant choices she made)
I can't get over how night and day the two versions are. To show just one example: the character of Christian, in the book, functions purely as a temptation for Andy, teasing the reader with the threat that she'll cheat on her boyfriend (who, in the book, is so tooth-achingly perfect that I kept waiting for the other shoe to drop and find out that he's been having an affair the whole time or something). And she (view spoiler)[never even sleeps with Christian in the book, so his character is ultimately pointless and should have been cut from the novel entirely (hide spoiler)]. But in the movie he actually has a function outside of just being the guy Andy might cheat on her boyfriend with - the book still has the challenge where Andy has to get a copy of an unpublished Harry Potter book for Miranda, but she just finds some rando at a publishing company to get it for her. Having Christian be the connection that gets her the book in the movie version was, frankly, a stroke of brilliance and I bet Lauren Weisberger is really mad that she didn't think of that.
The sad truth about The Devil Wears Prada is that it could have functioned perfectly well as an in-depth magazine article. Because ultimately, this novel is attempting to shine a light on the toxic work culture at Vogue, and specifically to show the world that Anna Wintour is straight-up abusive to her underlings. But when the book came out, all of that got lost as people just scrambled to read all the dirt about what it was like working inside the hallowed halls of one of the most influential fashion magazines running today. There were probably (and probably still are) plenty of garbage people who considered "Andy" ungrateful, and thought that she should be forced to pay her dues by working a shitty job for a shitty boss. What people lost sight of - including Weisberger herself, because she's mostly concerned about how her job affected her and isn't interested in seeing the bigger picture - is that no one should ever have to go through what Andy goes through in this book.
The sad thing is that I don't think Anna Wintour ever faced any significant backlash for how she's portrayed in this book. If anything, The Devil Wears Prada actually benefited Wintour, because it made her a household name. (We would not have The September Issue without The Devil Wears Prada) Which, when you think about it, is really fucked up: that Wintour became more famous thanks to a book that portrayed her, in no uncertain terms, as a horrible human being, and there were never any real consequences for all of that ugliness coming to light. There is almost certainly some girl at Vogue working today who performs all of Andy's former duties, but that person is probably an unpaid intern now.
And how did this all shake out for "Andy", aka Lauren Weisberger, who wanted to write for the New Yorker and scoffed at the idea of Vogue having "literary articles" (a skepticism that goes unchallenged in the book, because the screenwriters had to scrape five book characters together in order to create the movie's version of Nigel)? At the end of the book, Andy publishes a magazine article about a recent college grad who gets hired at a super demanding job, and almost loses herself in the process. Weisberger tries to lampshade this by having Andy's family joke about how closely this skews to her real life, but it seems to be a pretty accurate estimation of Weisberger's post-Prada career. A quick look at her author page shows that she managed to wring two sequels out of her star-making novel, and most of her other books seem to follow the same formula of a simple, good-hearted girl who gets swept up in a world of glitz and glamour that she's fully unprepared for.
For better or for worse, Weisberger has built her career off of that one terrible year she spent at Vogue. Anna Wintour made Weisberger's writing career, and Weisberger gave Wintour widespread fame. They deserve each other. ...more
(seriously, I could talk to the screenwriter of the movie for literally hours about the process of adapting the book and how she arrived at some of the brilliant choices she made)
I can't get over how night and day the two versions are. To show just one example: the character of Christian, in the book, functions purely as a temptation for Andy, teasing the reader with the threat that she'll cheat on her boyfriend (who, in the book, is so tooth-achingly perfect that I kept waiting for the other shoe to drop and find out that he's been having an affair the whole time or something). And she (view spoiler)[never even sleeps with Christian in the book, so his character is ultimately pointless and should have been cut from the novel entirely (hide spoiler)]. But in the movie he actually has a function outside of just being the guy Andy might cheat on her boyfriend with - the book still has the challenge where Andy has to get a copy of an unpublished Harry Potter book for Miranda, but she just finds some rando at a publishing company to get it for her. Having Christian be the connection that gets her the book in the movie version was, frankly, a stroke of brilliance and I bet Lauren Weisberger is really mad that she didn't think of that.
The sad truth about The Devil Wears Prada is that it could have functioned perfectly well as an in-depth magazine article. Because ultimately, this novel is attempting to shine a light on the toxic work culture at Vogue, and specifically to show the world that Anna Wintour is straight-up abusive to her underlings. But when the book came out, all of that got lost as people just scrambled to read all the dirt about what it was like working inside the hallowed halls of one of the most influential fashion magazines running today. There were probably (and probably still are) plenty of garbage people who considered "Andy" ungrateful, and thought that she should be forced to pay her dues by working a shitty job for a shitty boss. What people lost sight of - including Weisberger herself, because she's mostly concerned about how her job affected her and isn't interested in seeing the bigger picture - is that no one should ever have to go through what Andy goes through in this book.
The sad thing is that I don't think Anna Wintour ever faced any significant backlash for how she's portrayed in this book. If anything, The Devil Wears Prada actually benefited Wintour, because it made her a household name. (We would not have The September Issue without The Devil Wears Prada) Which, when you think about it, is really fucked up: that Wintour became more famous thanks to a book that portrayed her, in no uncertain terms, as a horrible human being, and there were never any real consequences for all of that ugliness coming to light. There is almost certainly some girl at Vogue working today who performs all of Andy's former duties, but that person is probably an unpaid intern now.
And how did this all shake out for "Andy", aka Lauren Weisberger, who wanted to write for the New Yorker and scoffed at the idea of Vogue having "literary articles" (a skepticism that goes unchallenged in the book, because the screenwriters had to scrape five book characters together in order to create the movie's version of Nigel)? At the end of the book, Andy publishes a magazine article about a recent college grad who gets hired at a super demanding job, and almost loses herself in the process. Weisberger tries to lampshade this by having Andy's family joke about how closely this skews to her real life, but it seems to be a pretty accurate estimation of Weisberger's post-Prada career. A quick look at her author page shows that she managed to wring two sequels out of her star-making novel, and most of her other books seem to follow the same formula of a simple, good-hearted girl who gets swept up in a world of glitz and glamour that she's fully unprepared for.
For better or for worse, Weisberger has built her career off of that one terrible year she spent at Vogue. Anna Wintour made Weisberger's writing career, and Weisberger gave Wintour widespread fame. They deserve each other. ...more
Notes are private!
1
Nov 26, 2020
Dec 2020
Nov 26, 2020
Mass Market Paperback
163557563X
9781635575637
163557563X
4.22
361,106
Sep 15, 2020
Sep 15, 2020
it was amazing
Listen. I know that what I'm about to write is going to sound obnoxious and so, so smug. I know how I sound, and I know how annoying it is when review
Listen. I know that what I'm about to write is going to sound obnoxious and so, so smug. I know how I sound, and I know how annoying it is when reviewers do this.
But seriously: do not read the plot description for Piranesi. Go into it knowing as little about the plot as you possibly can. Half the fun of reading this book is figuring out, as you read, where this story takes place and what's going on.
Honestly my only complaint (and the only non-spoilery thing I can write about the book, because everything would be a spoiler) is that it ends sort of quickly. With everything she has to work with here, I can easily see how Susanna Clarke could have spread this out into another 800-page fantasy epic, like Jonathan Strange and Mr Norell, and even though I'm disappointed that she didn't do a really deep dive into this setting and its characters, it's also kind of a relief that I could knock this book out in a weekend and didn't have to spend six months working my way through it.
If you loved Jonathan Strange and Mr Norell, you're going to love this. If you've never read Susanna Clarke and are wondering what all the fuss is about, give it a try. And I mean it: don't read the plot description. ...more
But seriously: do not read the plot description for Piranesi. Go into it knowing as little about the plot as you possibly can. Half the fun of reading this book is figuring out, as you read, where this story takes place and what's going on.
Honestly my only complaint (and the only non-spoilery thing I can write about the book, because everything would be a spoiler) is that it ends sort of quickly. With everything she has to work with here, I can easily see how Susanna Clarke could have spread this out into another 800-page fantasy epic, like Jonathan Strange and Mr Norell, and even though I'm disappointed that she didn't do a really deep dive into this setting and its characters, it's also kind of a relief that I could knock this book out in a weekend and didn't have to spend six months working my way through it.
If you loved Jonathan Strange and Mr Norell, you're going to love this. If you've never read Susanna Clarke and are wondering what all the fuss is about, give it a try. And I mean it: don't read the plot description. ...more
Notes are private!
1
not set
Nov 2020
Nov 11, 2020
Hardcover
0525577122
9780525577126
0525577122
3.26
3,621
Jun 30, 2020
Jun 30, 2020
it was ok
Lesson learned: don't read a book just because Chrissy Teigan recommended it on her Instagram.
Lesson learned: don't read a book just because Chrissy Teigan recommended it on her Instagram.
...more
Notes are private!
2
not set
not set
Aug 2020
not set
Sep 15, 2020
Hardcover
1400067553
9781400067558
1400067553
3.98
113,183
Apr 08, 2012
Feb 07, 2012
really liked it
Trying to write a book about the slums of Mumbai is a daunting task, to say the least (and please bear in mind, I say that as a white lady whose only
Trying to write a book about the slums of Mumbai is a daunting task, to say the least (and please bear in mind, I say that as a white lady whose only knowledge of India comes from a few Bollywood movies and Slumdog Millionare so if you’re looking for an analysis of how well-researched or factual Katherine Boo’s book is, this is not the review for you). Katherine Boo approaches her topic by shrinking it down to one family and one single, catastrophic event – teenage garbage picker Abdul's family has a long-running feud with their neighbor, a disabled woman named Fatima. One day, following an argument between Fatima and Abdul's mother (where the latter is overheard threatening physical violence), Fatima goes into her home, pours kerosene on herself, and lights a match. She survives, barely, and names Abdul as her attacker. The book chronicles the family’s lengthy legal battle as they attempt to prove their innocence in a system overrun with corruption and indifference. Other characters come in and out of the narrative, including slumlords, scavengers, orphans, and others who make up the population of Annawadi, a tiny slum just outside the Mumbai airport.
Boo manages to keep the book from being too exploitative or misery-porn-esque, but this is still a pretty grim slog of a book. There is very little redemption to be had, and we learn very quickly that anytime a character manages to snag a little bit of good luck, it certainly won’t last long.
For me, the most redeeming thing about this book is that Katherine Boo isn’t attempting to find some moral lesson within the lives of the people she spent years interviewing, and she doesn’t try to present any solutions for fixing India’s problems. She is merely doing her job as a journalist: seeking out a group of people often overlooked by the rest of the world, letting them tell their stories, and recording them faithfully. Any lesson or moral that you take from Behind the Beautiful Forevers is one you create yourself. ...more
Boo manages to keep the book from being too exploitative or misery-porn-esque, but this is still a pretty grim slog of a book. There is very little redemption to be had, and we learn very quickly that anytime a character manages to snag a little bit of good luck, it certainly won’t last long.
For me, the most redeeming thing about this book is that Katherine Boo isn’t attempting to find some moral lesson within the lives of the people she spent years interviewing, and she doesn’t try to present any solutions for fixing India’s problems. She is merely doing her job as a journalist: seeking out a group of people often overlooked by the rest of the world, letting them tell their stories, and recording them faithfully. Any lesson or moral that you take from Behind the Beautiful Forevers is one you create yourself. ...more
Notes are private!
1
not set
Dec 2019
Aug 04, 2020
Hardcover
0316348406
9780316348409
0316348406
4.17
62,546
May 17, 2016
May 17, 2016
liked it
I read it and enjoyed it a lot, but trying to write a review of Shrill almost a year after reading it (shut up, I have a backlog I’m working my way th
I read it and enjoyed it a lot, but trying to write a review of Shrill almost a year after reading it (shut up, I have a backlog I’m working my way through), I realize that I honestly don’t remember much about it. The essays are really good, and Lindy West is alternately full of righteous anger and so goddamn tired of all of it, and her voice was clear and engaging.
The best section comes when Lindy describes her online interactions with a particularly vicious Twitter troll who went so far as to create a fake account where he insulted her online while posing as her dead father. West manages to convince this person to sit down for an in-person interview with her, which is pretty incredible, even if the interview itself doesn’t end up being especially illuminating. (Spoiler alert, her troll is a man who hates fat women and doesn’t know how to deal with his anger in healthy or constructive ways, which is neither interesting or surprising.) ...more
The best section comes when Lindy describes her online interactions with a particularly vicious Twitter troll who went so far as to create a fake account where he insulted her online while posing as her dead father. West manages to convince this person to sit down for an in-person interview with her, which is pretty incredible, even if the interview itself doesn’t end up being especially illuminating. (Spoiler alert, her troll is a man who hates fat women and doesn’t know how to deal with his anger in healthy or constructive ways, which is neither interesting or surprising.) ...more
Notes are private!
1
not set
Oct 2019
Aug 04, 2020
Hardcover
0316043915
9780316043915
0316043915
3.90
78,706
Feb 25, 2010
Feb 25, 2010
really liked it
I really don’t read a lot of new fantasy – probably the last fantasy series I read was A Song of Ice and Fire, and maaaaan did I get burned out on tha
I really don’t read a lot of new fantasy – probably the last fantasy series I read was A Song of Ice and Fire, and maaaaan did I get burned out on that real fast. (He’s never going to finish it, guys. We need to just make peace with that and move on with our lives)
NK Jemison had been on my radar before, but what finally convinced me to get The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms from the library was right after Toni Morrison died, and Jemison’s name appeared on all these lists titled Toni Morrison Just Died; Here Are Some Black Women You Should Be Reading.
The central conceit of the Inheritance Trilogy is this: long ago, there were three main gods, along with a lot of their children and demigods.. There was a war, one of the gods was destroyed, and the remaining gods were punished by being trapped in physical bodies. The winners of the war were the Arameri, and they maintain control of their world through magic and ruthless violence. Our heroine is Yeine, whose mother was an Arameri heiress who abandoned her family and her title to marry Yeine’s father, a Darr “barbarian” from the north.
At nineteen, four months after her mother’s death, Yeine is called to her grandfather’s home and informed that he’s named her one of his heirs. Yeine will be forced to compete with two of her cousins for the title, and finds herself in an unfamiliar world of gods, riches, and magic, trying to navigate the deadly politics of her mother’s home.
Fair warning: the beginning of this book is complicated, because Jemison has to get us up to speed on a very complex belief system and history, and she has to do it very quickly, so there’s a lot of information to absorb right out of the gate, and I felt a little lost and overwhelmed for the first few chapters. But I caught up soon enough, and once you have the basics down, Jemison is careful to tease out the information, giving us enough to keep us interested and invested in the plot while still maintaining a mystery.
Honestly my only big gripe with the book is that all the synopses I saw leaned too hard on the “competition between heirs” element, when in reality there is very little actual competition for the throne, so if you’re expecting some kind of magical Hunger Games, you’re going to be disappointed. Jemison, and her heroine, are actually not super concerned with who’s going to win the throne – the real meat of the story concerns the gods who have been trapped into servitude by the royal family, and their relationship with Yeine.
While technically part of a series, The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms works just fine as a standalone novel – so well, in fact, that apparently the second book doesn’t involve Yeine at all, and instead focuses on a different character and setting. I’ll be totally honest and admit that that’s kind of making me not want to continue with the series, since I’m so attached to Yeine and her demigod gang, so if there’s anyone who’s read the second book and can make a case for it, I’d definitely appreciate the recommendation.
...more
NK Jemison had been on my radar before, but what finally convinced me to get The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms from the library was right after Toni Morrison died, and Jemison’s name appeared on all these lists titled Toni Morrison Just Died; Here Are Some Black Women You Should Be Reading.
The central conceit of the Inheritance Trilogy is this: long ago, there were three main gods, along with a lot of their children and demigods.. There was a war, one of the gods was destroyed, and the remaining gods were punished by being trapped in physical bodies. The winners of the war were the Arameri, and they maintain control of their world through magic and ruthless violence. Our heroine is Yeine, whose mother was an Arameri heiress who abandoned her family and her title to marry Yeine’s father, a Darr “barbarian” from the north.
At nineteen, four months after her mother’s death, Yeine is called to her grandfather’s home and informed that he’s named her one of his heirs. Yeine will be forced to compete with two of her cousins for the title, and finds herself in an unfamiliar world of gods, riches, and magic, trying to navigate the deadly politics of her mother’s home.
Fair warning: the beginning of this book is complicated, because Jemison has to get us up to speed on a very complex belief system and history, and she has to do it very quickly, so there’s a lot of information to absorb right out of the gate, and I felt a little lost and overwhelmed for the first few chapters. But I caught up soon enough, and once you have the basics down, Jemison is careful to tease out the information, giving us enough to keep us interested and invested in the plot while still maintaining a mystery.
Honestly my only big gripe with the book is that all the synopses I saw leaned too hard on the “competition between heirs” element, when in reality there is very little actual competition for the throne, so if you’re expecting some kind of magical Hunger Games, you’re going to be disappointed. Jemison, and her heroine, are actually not super concerned with who’s going to win the throne – the real meat of the story concerns the gods who have been trapped into servitude by the royal family, and their relationship with Yeine.
While technically part of a series, The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms works just fine as a standalone novel – so well, in fact, that apparently the second book doesn’t involve Yeine at all, and instead focuses on a different character and setting. I’ll be totally honest and admit that that’s kind of making me not want to continue with the series, since I’m so attached to Yeine and her demigod gang, so if there’s anyone who’s read the second book and can make a case for it, I’d definitely appreciate the recommendation.
...more
Notes are private!
1
not set
Sep 2019
Aug 04, 2020
Paperback
0060855924
9780060855925
0060855924
4.00
405,188
Dec 01, 1983
Sep 13, 2005
really liked it
Gonna read these books in the order they were written and none of you nerds can stop me.
Notes are private!
1
May 2020
May 11, 2020
May 11, 2020
Paperback
0062853732
9780062853738
0062853732
4.12
10,393
Apr 02, 2019
Apr 02, 2019
it was ok
This is one of those books where I feel genuinely bad that I can't give it a higher rating. There's nothing wrong with this novel; it just wasn't writ
This is one of those books where I feel genuinely bad that I can't give it a higher rating. There's nothing wrong with this novel; it just wasn't written for me, and that's fine.
I imagine that people who have a military background, or come from a military family, will connect with this story in ways that I just wasn't able to appreciate. Claire Gibson has a personal connection to the West Point setting, having grown up on the base, and has clearly done her research when it comes to portraying the experience of women in the US military. West Point, and the experience of going to school there, is detailed and real, and gives a really interesting glimpse into a very insular world (granted, most of the time my reaction to the West Point stuff was, this school sounds so fucking weird and I don't know why anyone thinks going there is a good idea, but like I said - this book was not written for me).
The novel starts in 2000, when three girls - Hannah, Avery, and Dani - are deciding where they'll go to college. The three of them, through a variety of circumstances, all end up accepted at West Point, the prestigious military college. The book follows their lives as they become friends, and their lives are uprooted by two major tragedies - first, the attacks on September 11th, which radically redefines their experience at the military college and their later careers in the armed forces; and then two years after graduation, when the death of a loved one sends shockwaves across all three women's lives.
The friend who gave me this book as a gift said that, for her, the main selling point was the way Gibson portrays the core friendship between the three women, and how they remain connected despite the very different paths their lives all take. And I get that! I agree that the portrayal of the bond between Hannah, Avery, and Dani was the strongest part of the book, even though the snarky part of my brain wants to dismiss it as Sisterhood of the Traveling Combat Boots.
This novel is also very purposefully non-political, and I can't decide if Claire Gibson should be applauded for that or not. On the one hand, this book is very clearly concerned with portraying the experience of the armed forces as human beings, rather than attempting to wade into the absolute fucking quagmire that is the Middle East conflict. But on the other hand...that quagmire is your entire setting. The closest Gibson gets to taking a political stance is when a character mentions in her narration that George W. Bush "hadn't earned her vote" and then when the "War on Terror" propaganda starts up in the wake of 9/11, and a character wonders how the hell they're supposed to win a war against a concept. Besides that, Claire Gibson has shrunk the entire Middle East conflict down to just the personal experiences of her three protagonists, without asking them to ever really consider the broader scope of what they're doing. Also, the US military's policy of not allowing women to serve in combat situations means that active duty for our protagonists means they do things like supervise construction crews and work in field hospitals, and are never put in a position where they're forced to take a life.
My only real criticism of this book is that the "present day" sections, when the girls are forced by tragedy to reunite, could have benefited from aging the characters up by a decade. The personal struggles they're dealing with, like Avery's inability to find a decent man and Dani's conflicted feelings about being successful at a job she's not passionate about (and also not being able to find a decent man, because this book is also uhhhhhhh...very Christian) kind of falls flat, because these women are twenty-four years old. It was hard to take their "oh god, I'm going to be alone and miserable forever unlike my friend Hannah who did the right thing by getting married at twenty-two" mindset seriously when they weren't even old enough to rent a car.
Claire Gibson also touches, very briefly and with feather-light pressure, on the prevalence of sexual harassment in the military - but again, she shrinks a huge issue down to a single conflict between four people, and (view spoiler)[it's resolved very neatly, with the culprit going to jail and the evil basketball coach sacrificed as a handy scapegoat (hide spoiler)], rather than examine the incident as merely a consequence of a much, much larger problem.
And it is not Claire Gibson's job to tackle these Big Ideas, I know! This book does not owe me anything deeper than a nice story about the changing friendship between three women and how tragedy can make those bonds stronger. If that's all you want from this story, you will walk away satisfied. ...more
I imagine that people who have a military background, or come from a military family, will connect with this story in ways that I just wasn't able to appreciate. Claire Gibson has a personal connection to the West Point setting, having grown up on the base, and has clearly done her research when it comes to portraying the experience of women in the US military. West Point, and the experience of going to school there, is detailed and real, and gives a really interesting glimpse into a very insular world (granted, most of the time my reaction to the West Point stuff was, this school sounds so fucking weird and I don't know why anyone thinks going there is a good idea, but like I said - this book was not written for me).
The novel starts in 2000, when three girls - Hannah, Avery, and Dani - are deciding where they'll go to college. The three of them, through a variety of circumstances, all end up accepted at West Point, the prestigious military college. The book follows their lives as they become friends, and their lives are uprooted by two major tragedies - first, the attacks on September 11th, which radically redefines their experience at the military college and their later careers in the armed forces; and then two years after graduation, when the death of a loved one sends shockwaves across all three women's lives.
The friend who gave me this book as a gift said that, for her, the main selling point was the way Gibson portrays the core friendship between the three women, and how they remain connected despite the very different paths their lives all take. And I get that! I agree that the portrayal of the bond between Hannah, Avery, and Dani was the strongest part of the book, even though the snarky part of my brain wants to dismiss it as Sisterhood of the Traveling Combat Boots.
This novel is also very purposefully non-political, and I can't decide if Claire Gibson should be applauded for that or not. On the one hand, this book is very clearly concerned with portraying the experience of the armed forces as human beings, rather than attempting to wade into the absolute fucking quagmire that is the Middle East conflict. But on the other hand...that quagmire is your entire setting. The closest Gibson gets to taking a political stance is when a character mentions in her narration that George W. Bush "hadn't earned her vote" and then when the "War on Terror" propaganda starts up in the wake of 9/11, and a character wonders how the hell they're supposed to win a war against a concept. Besides that, Claire Gibson has shrunk the entire Middle East conflict down to just the personal experiences of her three protagonists, without asking them to ever really consider the broader scope of what they're doing. Also, the US military's policy of not allowing women to serve in combat situations means that active duty for our protagonists means they do things like supervise construction crews and work in field hospitals, and are never put in a position where they're forced to take a life.
My only real criticism of this book is that the "present day" sections, when the girls are forced by tragedy to reunite, could have benefited from aging the characters up by a decade. The personal struggles they're dealing with, like Avery's inability to find a decent man and Dani's conflicted feelings about being successful at a job she's not passionate about (and also not being able to find a decent man, because this book is also uhhhhhhh...very Christian) kind of falls flat, because these women are twenty-four years old. It was hard to take their "oh god, I'm going to be alone and miserable forever unlike my friend Hannah who did the right thing by getting married at twenty-two" mindset seriously when they weren't even old enough to rent a car.
Claire Gibson also touches, very briefly and with feather-light pressure, on the prevalence of sexual harassment in the military - but again, she shrinks a huge issue down to a single conflict between four people, and (view spoiler)[it's resolved very neatly, with the culprit going to jail and the evil basketball coach sacrificed as a handy scapegoat (hide spoiler)], rather than examine the incident as merely a consequence of a much, much larger problem.
And it is not Claire Gibson's job to tackle these Big Ideas, I know! This book does not owe me anything deeper than a nice story about the changing friendship between three women and how tragedy can make those bonds stronger. If that's all you want from this story, you will walk away satisfied. ...more
Notes are private!
1
not set
Feb 2020
Apr 14, 2020
Paperback