this is my sister's boyfriend's mom's celebrity crush's memoir. and that's why i read it!
this book actually provided more insight into the deaf experithis is my sister's boyfriend's mom's celebrity crush's memoir. and that's why i read it!
this book actually provided more insight into the deaf experience than anything else i've read ever. it was enlightening and cute and fun without glossing over things or going easy on people.
i loved the first half of this the most, writing about growing up in a Deaf family, and i didn't love the back half as much, when it was synopses of reality television episodes, but overall this was SO MUCH better than i thought it would be. kind of a slay for low expectations.
bottom line: rare win for celebrity memoir!...more
the only thing better than a graphic novel is a coming of age graphic novel.
i often feel like graphic novels are limited in their ability to tell a futhe only thing better than a graphic novel is a coming of age graphic novel.
i often feel like graphic novels are limited in their ability to tell a full story, with full characters, and yet this one managed to relate 3 generational tales with 3 women in one family, sharing fatphobia and homophobia and misogyny, and do all of it convincingly and emotionally.
this was my 200th read of the year! and what a good one.
Story 1: MY SAD DEAD i love ghosts, and i love excellent short stories, and i love empathy. thithis was my 200th read of the year! and what a good one.
Story 1: MY SAD DEAD i love ghosts, and i love excellent short stories, and i love empathy. this is the middle about the former written with so much of the latter. rating: 4
STORY 2: A SUNNY PLACE FOR SHADY PEOPLE title story!!!
i don't like true crime, but i do like the creepy little inexplicable mysteries of life, the things that may have a mundane explanation we haven't found but seem to have some kind of liminal magic because we haven't. so i liked this story. rating: 3.5
STORY 3: FACE OF DISGRACE this didn't really nail the dismount in terms of the "point," but it was creepy and spooky and strange and that's pretty good too. rating: 3
STORY 4: JULIE i never expected to write the sentence "this story about getting railed by ghosts so often it becomes a health concern is surprisingly fatphobic," but life has its twists and turns. rating: 2.5
STORY 5: NIGHT BIRDS this is told from the perspective of a girl who is a rotting corpse about the various murdered and murderous women of her life. so it rocks. rating: 4
STORY 6: METAMORPHOSIS you have to respect the confidence of titling a story after one of the GOATs.
this metamorphosis is that of being a woman aging, and all that means medically and in the eyes of doctors, and also about extreme body modification, but. otherwise similar. rating: 4
STORY 7: HYENA HYMNS we interrupt this program for a gay horror movie. rating: 3.5
STORY 8: DIFFERENT COLORS MADE OF TEARS the scariest monster of all is a creepy old man. i don't make the rules. rating: 3.5
STORY 9: THE SUFFERING WOMAN this one's about me!
only more so now that i know it's about a ghost who complains a lot. rating: 4
STORY 10: THE REFRIGERATOR CEMETERY i love reading lit fic. the worst thing that people have ever done is always so much worse than my own sh*t. it's soothing. rating: 3.5
STORY 11: LOCAL ARTIST it's so perfect to have a horror story about a forgotten town where somehow teenage girls are still taylor swift fans. so true to life. her hold on those teenage swifties is like how they say roaches will survive an apocalypse.
no offense. rating: 4
STORY 12: BLACK EYES oh my god kids are scary. rating: 4
OVERALL this was the best case scenario of this book for me: genuinely frightening but also measured, with thought-provoking themes alongside nightmarish scenarios. the writing style was not really my preference, but honestly this collection being both scary and more than the sum of its parts is such a treat. rating: 4
i read this the day after juneteenth, but the truth is this little book is a must-read year-round, packing history and memoir abetter late than never!
i read this the day after juneteenth, but the truth is this little book is a must-read year-round, packing history and memoir and analysis into just 148 pages. it holds a contrast within itself — how annette gordon-reed can be a proud texan while remaining aware of the story of racism at its core — and manages to explore it more fully in a short time than some much longer books can claim.
this was the very weirdest, and possibly the funniest too.
patricia lockwood is such a one of a kind writer, like if the funniest pei love a weird one.
this was the very weirdest, and possibly the funniest too.
patricia lockwood is such a one of a kind writer, like if the funniest person you know who was also terminally online could write poetry. which i guess is maybe too on the nose of a description to be a comparison.
i liked this so much, but reading it made me think i might like her other book even more than i thought.
all the best writers are so unique and consuming that reading them makes you want to pick up everything they've done in a neverending cycle.
bottom line: if patricia lockwood only has 2 books, catch me constantly revisiting those books....more
i love books about women having mental breakdowns.
and this was kind of that, but what it mostly was was very, very good.
it's a brilliant exploration oi love books about women having mental breakdowns.
and this was kind of that, but what it mostly was was very, very good.
it's a brilliant exploration of womanhood, of what it means to mother and to work and to try to do your moral best and look around at everyone else and be unconvinced they're doing any of it — and for that worry to extend so far you wonder if you're actually doing any of it yourself.
this encapsulation of a few days in one ordinary life totally riveted me. i loved the protagonist's children, and while i wish a few more things were fleshed out — the husband, the babysitter, the ending — all in all this felt like drinking a cool glass of water.
i expected to enjoy this book, because i love translated literature by women and i never tire of reading aboi wish that were my life in three stories.
i expected to enjoy this book, because i love translated literature by women and i never tire of reading about france.
i didn't expect to be so impressed by it!
the author's self awareness, the way she writes emotionally but cleanly and sparsely, her rendering of her life through such clear and simple prose...all of it blew me away. i was enraptured by the last novella in particular, gobbling up the pages, my heart hurting, hoping for a happily ever after.
so who cares about the weaker moments.
bottom line: i am so pleasantly surprised. by a book i expected to like! what a treat.
(review to come / thanks to the publisher for the e-arc)...more
i went into this book totally blind, an incredible experience i really, really advise against.
(if you choose not to heed that warning, by the way, stoi went into this book totally blind, an incredible experience i really, really advise against.
(if you choose not to heed that warning, by the way, stop reading now.) (in other words, plot summary ahead.)
all i knew going in was that this was an award-winning memoir, and as i read a hundred pages of 90s culture and college memories and idyllic california scenery i lulled myself into a false sense of security. i fell in love with our author, hua hsu, and his friend ken, and their attempts to be cool and unbothered while being earnest and loving to the core.
and then the actual event happens, and i was so surprised and so upset that tears sprang suddenly to my eyes.
this is not a perfect book. like grief, it meanders, doubles back on itself, feels both mundane and unpredictable. and it really, really captures all of it.
new rachel cusk release...huge day for the most annoying girl you know
(me)
PARADE is a short book in four long sections, each unified by an artist namenew rachel cusk release...huge day for the most annoying girl you know
(me)
PARADE is a short book in four long sections, each unified by an artist named G, who seems to be a different person in each rendering — varying in gender, location, medium, and emotion.
i found the first two of these to be cloaked in mystery: i knew they were saying something interesting, but i needed some sort of key in order to access the room of their meaning. the third story was that key for me. it used a familiar format similar to the OUTLINE trilogy: artistic and opinionated people sharing their beliefs at length. i love that structure and i found it very comforting, as well as illuminating. it detailed questions about the meaning of art and, like much of rachel cusk's work, it feels like autofiction, but in a different way, more distant. you wonder, if like sally rooney in BEAUTIFUL WORLD, WHERE ARE YOU, cusk has taken on her medium as a means of asking the questions that she has asked herself: what is the meaning of my life's work?
beyond that, this focuses on the violence of life, how it's so often proximate to its beauty — the close relationship between the two is perhaps best exemplified in their side by side role in art. it's about how one can be an artist and a mother, about the violence and the beauty of life as a woman, about gender and power and talent, death and legacy.
or maybe not. maybe this is just a book about paintings. regardless, i really enjoyed it.
bottom line: i love when a book makes me feel all pretentious.
groundbreaking feminist literary classics is like my family.
i expected more of an Anarchist Feminist vibe from this one, and instead what i got was kigroundbreaking feminist literary classics is like my family.
i expected more of an Anarchist Feminist vibe from this one, and instead what i got was kind of a grown-up version of the kind of island of the blue dolphins / boxcar children type kiddie survivalist classics i used to buy three for a dollar from my library booksale with, like, quarters i'd scrounged up from couch cushions.
who knows where kids acquire money, is what i'm saying.
that was a fun ride in and of itself, minus the fact that it had the kind of devastating ending that should make it infamous everywhere around the world. i'm not even of the opinion that animals in books are all that great, or that their deaths are the most upsetting of any character type.
until now, i guess.
sorry for the spoiler? but i'm actually sparing you unexpected suffering. so never mind. you're welcome. welcome to my version of does the dog die dot com.
anyway. in addition to all that, this is a pretty striking exploration of the role of humans in the world, and it made me wish all of us were dead except for maybe one lady who can help the cows and pet cats.
that's my new political perspective. also i'm calling not it.
i so appreciate that her stories were published and we get to read from an incredible voice, even if she was gone far may diane oliver rest in peace.
i so appreciate that her stories were published and we get to read from an incredible voice, even if she was gone far too soon. these stories brilliantly explore race in america, and capture a searing image of a bygone era that is not in the distant past.
bottom line: i'm grateful these stories are finally being shared.
just a few pages into this i already felt like i couldn't catch my breath.
i read two jesmyn ward books in one month, and this one was so excellent i fjust a few pages into this i already felt like i couldn't catch my breath.
i read two jesmyn ward books in one month, and this one was so excellent i felt like i had to go back and lower the rating of the other one. the evocative, emotional, propulsive way she writes is so one of a kind.
this book doesn't have the magic aspect of the others i've read by her, and i think it's stronger for it. in its place is an unforgettable love and bond between the characters, who are full and rich. this book is hard to read and even harder not to.
some of the best things in the world: - sisters - books with pretty covers - most anticipated books living up to your expectations.
https://www.instagram.some of the best things in the world: - sisters - books with pretty covers - most anticipated books living up to your expectations.
the great love of my life is one i've had almost the whole time. my sisters and my brother are now and forever, since the day they were born, the favorites, the most important people to me.
so when i heard that the creator of one of my favorite characters was writing about the relationship that has defined my time on earth, i was both nervous and excited.
fortunately this is a really good book.
no depiction of sisterhood may ever feel as wonderful as mine does to me, but this book was swirling with emotion. its depictions of feeling and of place were striking: i'm not sure how the author has the twofold ability to make you feel like you are in a lovingly restored house in hampstead, spinning with anger, or in a crumbling cabin upstate confused and needing your mother, or in an atelier in paris about to throw up, but it made for a consuming and grounding read.
oddly for an author whose characters have stuck with me, that was a bit where it lost me this time around. while the sisters' dynamics, feelings, and even homes felt so very real, i didn't feel the same for their selves.
but you can't win them all, and with this book, you win most.
bottom line: i stay winning.
------------------------ tbr review
well. one of my most anticipated books of the year, from the author of one of the most exciting debuts in recent years, is about my favorite topic (sisters) has the prettiest cover i’ve ever seen in my life (look at it) and is now in my possession.
i’m not sure what happens now but it might be spontaneous combustion.
honestly i'll read anything chanel miller writes, children's books included.
i don't know if i had middle grade books as good as this one when i was mihonestly i'll read anything chanel miller writes, children's books included.
i don't know if i had middle grade books as good as this one when i was middle grade (whatever that is), but i do know that i'm glad that today's middlest grades and all the middles of the future do.
this was sweet and fun, cute and whimsical and inspirational with a little lesson that felt nice and true and not cheesy. and also really great drawings. i enjoyed just about every second of it.
at a time when palestinians are being dehumanized by so many, i am grateful for the release of this book, which beautifully shows the opposite to be tat a time when palestinians are being dehumanized by so many, i am grateful for the release of this book, which beautifully shows the opposite to be true.
this is a book about complicated people, neither good nor evil, those who are doing their best and those are not and those who may be beginning to try to. it would be apt at any time, but it is especially timely today.
if i'm not supposed to judge books by their covers, why do they have such beautiful ones?
and i have to call this installment of picking reads based onif i'm not supposed to judge books by their covers, why do they have such beautiful ones?
and i have to call this installment of picking reads based on visual aesthetic a success. what a damn good time!
there is no medicine quite like the subgenre of book club fiction in which everything starts out completely terribly and then is incontrovertibly solved within a few hundred pages. it's restorative, like a good haircut, or a well-toasted bagel. keeps ya going.
this is a great example of that especially, because it's funny. books are rarely funny. i'm a really big fan of them (and i have the serial killer-adjacent level of meticulous goodreads history to prove it) but even i have to admit it. not exactly the go-to location to laugh any harder than when you kind of puff air out of your nose.
but this was funny, and soul-healing, and (although predictable in its plot points and its half-twists) pretty unique.
bottom line: a pretty big win for judging by covers, i have to say.
selecting the romance novel i will pin my hopes, my dreams, my next comfort read, my choice to be literate, my happiness, and all my chances at likingselecting the romance novel i will pin my hopes, my dreams, my next comfort read, my choice to be literate, my happiness, and all my chances at liking anything on
and this time...it worked???
this was so cute and fun and unique. i really fell for these characters and more importantly, for this apartment...
this book should be jailed for convincing my city-mouse self i need a spare bedroom for my busts of dead poets and my ivy and my shelves of travel books and my robin's egg blue chair.
the romance in this was sweet, but like all romance books, i liked the character arc and the details even more: the food, the journey, the banter. to be fair, that's not a bad problem to have.
bottom line: this was such an unexpected good time....more
the best way i can describe this book is it's as if foolish hearts, which is perhaps my all time favorite YAthis might have been made for me in a lab.
the best way i can describe this book is it's as if foolish hearts, which is perhaps my all time favorite YA contemporary, were transformed into a quest-based goofy middle grade fantasy, perhaps my favorite made up hyperspecific subgenre.
the actual Plot part is a lil weak but who cares. i'm in it for the banter and the crusty bread and cheese.
more authors should write the same narrow niche for ages and then just be like "f*ck it we ball" and write a totally different, equally specific book. it worked for taylor jenkins reid, it worked for emily henry, and i'm ready to declare it works for emma mills!
bottom line: huge win for the me community.
----------------- tbr review
trying YA fantasy for the first time in years just to feel something
(thanks to netgalley for the e-arc)
Merged review:
this might have been made for me in a lab.
the best way i can describe this book is it's as if foolish hearts, which is perhaps my all time favorite YA contemporary, were transformed into a quest-based goofy middle grade fantasy, perhaps my favorite made up hyperspecific subgenre.
the actual Plot part is a lil weak but who cares. i'm in it for the banter and the crusty bread and cheese.
more authors should write the same narrow niche for ages and then just be like "f*ck it we ball" and write a totally different, equally specific book. it worked for taylor jenkins reid, it worked for emily henry, and i'm ready to declare it works for emma mills!
bottom line: huge win for the me community.
----------------- tbr review
trying YA fantasy for the first time in years just to feel something
Loading...
