The hard part about old Hollywood is that it's so interesting in reality that it's hard to improve it in fiction.
Even with magic and monsters.
This doThe hard part about old Hollywood is that it's so interesting in reality that it's hard to improve it in fiction.
Even with magic and monsters.
This does a pretty damn good job, though.
The hard part about Nghi Vo books is that each one should be one of a kind because they are insane-sounding (either mythical made-up fantasy stories that make you cry and are like 13 pages long or old timey retelling type deals that are also sapphic and magic), but they exist in the same universe.
And in this case, if we're talking historical fiction meets queer retelling meets asian american race exploration meets magical realism, The Chosen and The Beautiful is better.
Where that one became more and more compelling, almost eerily, as it went on, and I fell under the enchantment of the characters, with this one I felt a bit of an enduring confusion that never let up, no matter how closely I read or long I waited.
And that was a bummer.
But mysteriousness is not too much of a bad thing, and if that's the trade for magic and Hollywood and girls and monsters, I will take it!
Bottom line: Nghi Vo forever.
------------ currently-reading updates
nghi vo is the real siren queen (could convince me to read anything)
The hard part about old Hollywood is that it's so interesting in reality that it's hard to improve it in fiction.
Even with magic and monsters.
This does a pretty damn good job, though.
The hard part about Nghi Vo books is that each one should be one of a kind because they are insane-sounding (either mythical made-up fantasy stories that make you cry and are like 13 pages long or old timey retelling type deals that are also sapphic and magic), but they exist in the same universe.
And in this case, if we're talking historical fiction meets queer retelling meets asian american race exploration meets magical realism, The Chosen and The Beautiful is better.
Where that one became more and more compelling, almost eerily, as it went on, and I fell under the enchantment of the characters, with this one I felt a bit of an enduring confusion that never let up, no matter how closely I read or long I waited.
And that was a bummer.
But mysteriousness is not too much of a bad thing, and if that's the trade for magic and Hollywood and girls and monsters, I will take it!
Bottom line: Nghi Vo forever.
------------ currently-reading updates
nghi vo is the real siren queen (could convince me to read anything)
this set of novellas should be used sparingly. to punish some of our nation's worst criminals, or on people who think buttered popcorn jellybeans are this set of novellas should be used sparingly. to punish some of our nation's worst criminals, or on people who think buttered popcorn jellybeans are good.
i'm aware that that's a redundant statement.
every ali hazelwood book is - small girl big man - small girl quirky, big man serious - big man pining, small girl unaware - big man f*cks small girl without a condom
this girl is said once to be tall, but she is also said to be small-boned (?) so it's the same as ever.
also the pervasiveness of the "i'm on the pill" / "can i come inside you" conversation within these 3 novellas is disturbing. i really really really would prefer not to know strangers' (read: authors') sexual kinks, but you read the identical sex scenes in this AND the love hypothesis AND love on the brain AND the first novella AND the second novella and do the math.
i unfortunately already have. i have done not only the math, but near identical rant reviews four times. (i am debating rereading the love hypothesis, probably discovering i now hate it, and making it an even five.)
feel free to read any of those to reconstruct my suffering alongside me.
bottom line: ALI HAZELWOOD WHAT HAVE YOU MADE ME BECOME.
---------------- currently-reading updates
i'm just hate reading at this point
---------------- tbr review
what do i have to do to get more ali hazelwood. i'll do anything.
as long as anything doesn't include sending an email or trying very hard. i'm only human
Merged review:
this set of novellas should be used sparingly. to punish some of our nation's worst criminals, or on people who think buttered popcorn jellybeans are good.
i'm aware that that's a redundant statement.
every ali hazelwood book is - small girl big man - small girl quirky, big man serious - big man pining, small girl unaware - big man f*cks small girl without a condom
this girl is said once to be tall, but she is also said to be small-boned (?) so it's the same as ever.
also the pervasiveness of the "i'm on the pill" / "can i come inside you" conversation within these 3 novellas is disturbing. i really really really would prefer not to know strangers' (read: authors') sexual kinks, but you read the identical sex scenes in this AND the love hypothesis AND love on the brain AND the first novella AND the second novella and do the math.
i unfortunately already have. i have done not only the math, but near identical rant reviews four times. (i am debating rereading the love hypothesis, probably discovering i now hate it, and making it an even five.)
feel free to read any of those to reconstruct my suffering alongside me.
bottom line: ALI HAZELWOOD WHAT HAVE YOU MADE ME BECOME.
---------------- currently-reading updates
i'm just hate reading at this point
---------------- tbr review
what do i have to do to get more ali hazelwood. i'll do anything.
as long as anything doesn't include sending an email or trying very hard. i'm only human...more
i was very kindly sent this book, and also a very cute green hat that says CREATION LAKE on it.
so the whole time i read this was a high-stakes situatii was very kindly sent this book, and also a very cute green hat that says CREATION LAKE on it.
so the whole time i read this was a high-stakes situation of really hoping i'd like the book so i could wear the hat.
my life is so hard.
fortunately, it's good news.
nothing much of anything happened in this book, which is a compliment. i plodded through it and felt immersed in a world of surveillance and clumsy dual motivations, unglamorous rural life and glamorous-on-paper jobs.
this is the kind of book that is full of things you google instead of action, which is my preference.
bottom line: my first rachel kushner but it won't be my last!
when you say you'd read everything an author writes including grocery lists, that means adding their new yorker short stories on goodreads.
i love shorwhen you say you'd read everything an author writes including grocery lists, that means adding their new yorker short stories on goodreads.
i love short stories, and it's a pleasure to mix up the process of reading them with a single standalone piece between collections. this one felt culturally very late 2010s, in terms of where it was in some broader societal conversations, but i enjoyed it. and i love me some weike.
so i loved the start of this book, which follows a drop of water across historial figures of significanci love modern books that feel like fairytales!
so i loved the start of this book, which follows a drop of water across historial figures of significance to our story and the characters that will make up our plot.
and then i also enjoyed the middle of this book, which alternates between three characters by rivers.
i eventually got tired of the constantly switching perspectives, but then i'm a multi pov hater so it's not a surprise.
i did not anticipate the dark ground this story would tread, and i feel the first half of the book did not quite equip it for the solemnity it would take on. but maybe that was just because i'm surprised. regardless, this is good!
bottom line: really enjoyed this, both against and with the odds.
honestly i come away from this book just feeling bad for the kid.
this is a rendition of how a woman discovered her mentalhell yeah.
or i guess hell no?
honestly i come away from this book just feeling bad for the kid.
this is a rendition of how a woman discovered her mentally ill husband was cheating on her after he'd died. it is not fun to read. mostly you feel terrible for everyone involved: the woman, the man, his many loved ones having to deal with their dirty laundry being aired.
i hope it was cathartic to write, because it felt very wrong to read. like hearing really personal gossip from your most boundary-less neighbor.
not to mention the weird racist paragraph about sex workers around the world.
this didn't have much of a plot (besides the very trope-y one we fell into 75% through) or characters (one chahad me at cute book about magical girls!
this didn't have much of a plot (besides the very trope-y one we fell into 75% through) or characters (one character is cute and dumb and cheerful, the other character is mean and smart and cold, that's it) or relationship dynamics (two of the weirdest and least real-feeling romances occur in this book) or an explanation (i do not understand the magic system in this — or if i can even call it that)...
but what it did have is the cutest art ever.
turns out that's mostly enough for a good time, some of the time.
this is a book about a family nail salon sabotaging the chain that opens up across the street.
as someone who is a fan of both pranks and supporting smthis is a book about a family nail salon sabotaging the chain that opens up across the street.
as someone who is a fan of both pranks and supporting small business, i just hope the happy ending does not involve learning some kind of lesson about how crime is bad.
worse, it's not really about sabotage at all — more about kind of upsetting hijinks and financial errors committed by a family trying their best.
it aims for a lot, like separate plotlines and happily ever afters for each of the 5 family members we follow and themes of gentrification, family, immigration, community, and success.
as you can imagine it didn't quite stick the landing on everything.
but it wasn't a bad read, and it made me really hungry for vietnamese food. that's good enough in my book.
this is about what happens when you spend a random weekend in the company of like 7-12 people who vaguely know eachad me at "for fans of sally rooney"
this is about what happens when you spend a random weekend in the company of like 7-12 people who vaguely know each other and have 100,000 secrets.
some of these people are fully developed and make you feel things alongside them, and some of them are annoying and you can tell from page 1 how their secrets will be dramatically declared and play out accordingly.
still, while this had its strengths and its weaknesses, overall i liked it!
bottom line: we live in the midst of the irish lit fic renaissance.
this book is compulsively readable, but it isn't honest.
the best mental health memoirs are wildly brave, willing to relate moments of what seems to bthis book is compulsively readable, but it isn't honest.
the best mental health memoirs are wildly brave, willing to relate moments of what seems to be stunning selfishness or carelessness or cruelty in the aim of carrying across the reality of these illnesses.
you’d be hard pressed to find a moment in which anna marie tendler is willing to let you see her at her worst. as a teen or almost teen fighting with older men, she speaks in lengthy, therapist-approved paragraphs while they struggle to get sentences out. she spends substantial time in intensive mental health treatment, but she makes sure to tell us she completes her postgrad program with barely even an extension.
ultimately, she wanted to write a book that would prove her to be a victim of everything: circumstances, relationships, her career.
i think tendler has been through a ton, and i think (especially based on the diagnoses we share) her brain must be a truly hostile place to be.
but i don’t think she needs to convince us as readers that her repeated tendency to financially rely on men (often right before ending the relationship) is a bad thing that somehow happened to her. i don’t need to be convinced that her career is one of accomplishment, when it seems like that wasn’t possible for her.
i didn’t come to this book for a tell-all about a shocking celebrity divorce (although i will say, the traces found here paint a very different picture from the public perception). i came for honesty, the kind of honesty that feels brave and destigmatizing and beautiful. and i didn’t get it.
i came away from this book thinking that anna marie tendler is a complex and interesting person, trying her best to be kind. that didn't come from her writing, but in spite of it. she writes with walls up, trying to convince us that she is good and likable, telling us time and again the times that she was angry and chose peace, spending the last chapter of the book refuting excerpts of her psychological analysis, telling us why she is not mad, she is not hateful, she is not not not. she tells, never shows.
the best memoirs are shockingly vulnerable, and the best moments of this one are too—the chapters spent with tendler's beloved dog petunia left me teary eyed.
but by and large, this is defensive.
on top of that, there's a really unhealthy-feeling sense of competing that anyone who has suffered bad mental health spells in high school will recognize. sharing how much she weighed, or how stunned professionals were by just how bad her mental health was, or the insertions of her exhausting monologue to every inane moment...it's a different version of the same desire to impress the reader as her lack of vulnerability.
also the writing is not very good. sorry! now i'm done.
bottom line: an unpopular opinion that surprised even me.
this is my first shirley hazzard novel after having read her collected stories, but i still came away with basically the same thought:
when hazzard is this is my first shirley hazzard novel after having read her collected stories, but i still came away with basically the same thought:
when hazzard is at her best, she's brilliantly capturing these kind of unspoken, purely human moments of everyday life. this had a lot of that. her writing is so great that you almost wish she didn't have to deal with pesky things like "characters that you feel are real" or "plots that aren't mostly made up of things being mysterious."
i recommend this book, and i thought there were moments of true greatness in it, but it was not for me an enjoyable read.
it says a lot about how well hazzard writes that i will probably reread this to check if that's on me.
bottom line: what a talent!
------------------- tbr review
there's something about old-fashioned books about sisters falling in love
(thanks to the publisher for the audiobook e-arc)...more
pretty sure this was on my to-read list because someone said it's the best murakami.
but that must've been a cruel prank.
reading murakami books is alwpretty sure this was on my to-read list because someone said it's the best murakami.
but that must've been a cruel prank.
reading murakami books is always a balancing act between how weird and cool his brain is and how much he hates women.
i will let you guess where this one, which is not magical and centers around infidelity, lands.
so many completely insane things happen in this book: two guys in a bar who can't even speak about how a woman aged because it's too horrifying and disgusting; a guy who thinks it goes without saying that he would cheat on his wife whenever she's pregnant; a father-in-law being like "actually i'd prefer it if you would cheat on my daughter"; a motif of women with leg disabilities that is handled about as well as you would expect.
and then there are the normal misogyny tropes: a woman who doesn't know she's beautiful and that's what makes her beautiful. a woman who is despised by other women because she's simply too hot. women who are supposed to be attractive being continually described as teenagers.
it's so bad.
bottom line: as always, i am praying for haruki's wife....more
this rocked beyond my wildest guesses. so quirky, so funny, so one of a kind: everything these weirdo characters did was unpredictabin THIS economy??!
this rocked beyond my wildest guesses. so quirky, so funny, so one of a kind: everything these weirdo characters did was unpredictable, and yet somehow they felt so real, and i cared about them and their relationships and their bizarre plans.
i will say the thing that keeps this from a 5 star is the fact that the baby at the core of the plot mostly feels like some sort of nearby puppet, in that his name is mentioned a lot but i don't really get his vibe. but that's fine too.
i just have baby fever of the literary variety. i can't explain it either.
bottom line: my first book by this author and now i have to read them all.
(4.5 / thanks to the publisher for the e-arc)...more
if you told me "what's the most fun thing about a gender-bent YA retelling of frankenstein in which the monster is a teenage girl with a crush," i douif you told me "what's the most fun thing about a gender-bent YA retelling of frankenstein in which the monster is a teenage girl with a crush," i doubt i would have been like, "the world." but it's true! the best part of this book is amaris, an island where uphill is boring and downhill is fun, and everything is fried food and blackberries and night markets. generally i was unprepared for how hungry this book would make me.
i was also unprepared for how...boring it would be? i don't know how this book managed to have vibrant world-building and genuinely humorous moments and still feel dry, but this never felt easy to pick up. there wasn't much of a plot to speak of, and what did exist moved in fits and starts, with deus ex machina and instalove and character non-development making up for the fact that this book is 99% description.
so. do with that what you will.
bottom line: pros and cons!
----------------------- tbr review
you had me at "YA retelling of frankenstein in which the monster finds love"
judith is like the forrest gump of publishing — at every turn, you're like she was here too?! sylvia plath, anne frank, jufine. i'll say it. girlboss!
judith is like the forrest gump of publishing — at every turn, you're like she was here too?! sylvia plath, anne frank, julia child. she just keeps popping up at cornerstones of american literature.
this was a fun read, if a little rough morally — it was written and published posthumously, and it's hard to know if judith (who wrote very unrevealing memoirs in her lifetime) would have wanted this level of transparency. it does try to rely on her own words, and it is a clear and interesting image of its subject.
this particular use of that trope has the same half-historic past and half-mysterious present as maurein another life i'd like to be a teen detective.
this particular use of that trope has the same half-historic past and half-mysterious present as maureen johnson's other books, and the same ragtag group of kids in a boarding situation, and the same crime from one hundred years ago and similar present crime unfolding, and the same creepy old estate from yore setting, but there are a few key differences.
1) our protagonist does not set out to do any sort of mystery-solving. this means at the halfway mark, we have no intention of detective work, we have no clues, we have no case. we only even have one creepy happenstance.
2) this is not a series, so both mysteries are solved at about the same time (and, slight spoiler, neither take much actual detective work, if any at all). that is less fun as well.
3) we spend altogether less time with our quirky cast of kids and more time on tragic backstory.
so while i had a good-adjacent time occasionally, this was definitely not my favorite maureen johnson book.
bottom line: there were the good tropes, there were the bad tropes.
this is much denser than i expected — the language is heavy and poetic. it's wfine. i'll admit it. i like sports.
and i really, really liked this book.
this is much denser than i expected — the language is heavy and poetic. it's well written and demands your attention.
ostensibly this is a book about basketball, which rocks, but it's also about so much more: where we come from, what that means. invisibility. homelessness, the cycle prison gets you in.
i didn't know most of these stories, because i'm relatively new to admitting i like sports and because i was either a child or a twinkle in god's eye at the time they occurred, which was the best and worst part of reading it.
i think every reader should be a sports fan, because fundamentally both are about great stories, so there are few things like hearing the greatest sports moments for the first time from an eloquent voice. this book follows lebron's career in fits and starts, while telling the story of ohio neighborhoods and our author and so, so many other things.
it was nonlinear and rhythmic, leaving the reader discombobulated and primed for the heaviest emotional hits. some stories don't get endings. some don't get middles or ends. there are worse things.
anyway. i'm off to wikipedia.
bottom line: a book so interesting its only problem is that it can't possibly answer all the questions it makes the reader ask.
this cover is exactly what reading a book you're obsessed with feels like.
and this book is like if the unbelievably secondhand stressful parts of younthis cover is exactly what reading a book you're obsessed with feels like.
and this book is like if the unbelievably secondhand stressful parts of young adult books in which the newly magical / haunted / superhuman teenagers refuse to do their homework were interspersed with passages of brilliant analytical clarity.
it also is very debut-y, which is a nice way of saying it contains lines like the protagonist reading plath's ariel for the first time in her "oven-hot bedroom" that just make you want to curl up and die.
it's about a first-generation asian immigrant from australia, who receives a fellowship to work on her "postcolonial" novel and/or "postcolonial sylvia plath" phd in england. she doesn't really do either, is the plot.
i don't love sylvia plath and this book (perhaps intentionally?) affirmed all of my reasons for that unpopular opinion, which was both fun and annoying.
but it did have lots to say about misogyny, and some about race and privilege, and some about academia, and i found almost all of it interesting.
bottom line: i liked the good more than i disliked the bad!...more
and true to my personal female experience, something just felt off here — i don't know if this was strangely translated, or just lacjust girly things!
and true to my personal female experience, something just felt off here — i don't know if this was strangely translated, or just lacking in plot and answers, but this felt very concerned with building a slow-moving and confusing dystopian world and not much else.
the perspective, which switched between past and present and future, sometimes within one sentence; and the language, which alternated between very simple and very purple; and the structure, featuring chapters of somewhat unpredictable timeline mixed in with lines of what might've been poetry, all contributed to a very slow, unfortunately annoying, generally confusing reading experience.
if it had been done with more style, i probably would've liked it. as is...
i've read a lot of japanese literature about cats since i discovered how much it rocks, but this didn't hit the same.
this was simimy kind of medicine.
i've read a lot of japanese literature about cats since i discovered how much it rocks, but this didn't hit the same.
this was similar to what you are looking for is in the library and the travelling cat chronicles in that it's about people's problems being solved by a mysterious entity that knows just their very solution, but it wasn't as good.
the characters didn't feel as real and the world felt a little harsher and also goofier.
not to mention the weird and bizarrely dark magical subplot.