Jessica

Short. Impressionistic. No plot. But really lovely portraits. I think this one will stick with me, but must be in the correct mood for it.

A few good lines:

“That's all there is to the self, or the so-called ‘self': traces of the people we rub up against. I loved Joanna's words and gestures and let them become part of me, intentionally or not. I suppose that is at the core of every relationship and the reason that in some sense no relationship ever ends.”

“We live so many lives within our lives – smaller lives with people who come and go, friends who disappear, children who grow up – and I never know which of these lives is meant to serve as the frame.”

“And I suppose that's what's at the heart of it for every person suffering from anxiety; the fact that life, by its very nature, is impossible to manage.”

“When I was younger, I often thought I should travel more and farther, spend more time in foreign countries, that I should be in a constant state of velocity so that I could get out of there and truly live, but with time I have come to understand that everything I was looking for was right here, inside of me, inside the things that surround me, in the money jobs that turned into my actual jobs, in the constancy of the everyday, in the eyes of the people I meet when I allow my gaze to linger.”

Skimmed/DNF. Weird. Who is the target audience??

A solid follow-up. Think I will wait a bit to read 3 and 4. This one was bleaker. The end gave me a little bit of the ick. I find middle books are often the weakest link in a series, so it won't deter me from reading the next one(s).

Tiniest short story ever, but feels like a Homeric epic. I wish to know everything about this world. There is what at first blush appears to be some vile (era-syntonic) anti-semitism in the first paragraph, but then it seems wholly rebuked. I am choosing to believe that it is a problem of translation.

10/10 recommend. Reminded me of so many other good books. A touch of Dickens, Kundera, Camus. Just amazing writing.

“Books are mirrors: you only see in them what you already have inside you.”

On to the next.

DNF. Read the first book and really looked forward to this one as well, but for whatever reason, it just didn't work as well for me. Did download the app and may check out some of the mediations, but this book really could have been a pamphlet instead.

Lovely stories.

3.5 stars. Quick and enjoyable. Minor annoyance of decidedly contemporary language repeatedly snapping you out of the mood. ‘Meditation', ‘paranoid', ‘parse', ‘well, excuse me' (sarcastically). Every time it happened, I would find myself annoyed all over again. It was like the words were put in for a first draft and then a sloppy editor never went back to help bring the language into line. That said, an enjoyable woman-focused historical/magical story with some LGBT representation. Overall, recommend.

Lovely. Sticks. Recommend.

“There's no hierarchy of pain. Suffering shouldn't be ranked, because pain is not a contest.”

Memoir that reads like a novel. Honest, insightful, compassionate, thought-provoking. Def would recommend.

An interesting memoir from a skeptic uniquely positioned to interrogate the leading thinkers (and quacks) on the front-lines of something that has (until recently) been impossible to measure. Maybe I will give it a go...?

Content warning: intergenerational trauma. And not much else.

Probably a 4.5. Fluffy, but satisfying.

Life (and love):
“The ending doesn't matter. What matters is how we get there. To face what's ahead with as much dignity as we can muster and make the most of the time we have left.”

Every mother ever:
“My heart is so much more than it once was, even if it now beats outside my chest.”

Just didn't really resonate with me. Also, How does she know she doesn't return home?? She 100% could have... She kind of makes that point 1000 times.

I refer you to Gabriella's review for my exact thoughts.

“She knew now that it didn't work that way, that the things you did or failed to do could not be erased by anything, not even love.

But still, they tried. The trying would be the life's work, they both understood this, and there would be no day when they would celebrate a resolution.”

While I was engaged with the story pretty quickly. I was not really moved much until almost ½-way through. Then I was. Extremely compelling. People are flawed. They are broken. But love them anyway. Give people you love the benefit of the doubt. And tell them you love them. And hold tight to that love.

Really, really, really good. So good. So personal and raw and real. But also, so much of it is universal and resonant. Absolutely everyone should read it. Everyone.

“I was a mess and then I grew up and away from that terrible day and became a different kind of mess—a woman doing the best she can to love well and be loved well, to live well and be human and good. I am as healed as I am ever going to be. I have accepted that I will never be the girl I could have been if, if, if. I am still haunted. I still have flashbacks that are triggered by the most unexpected things.”

I am a sucker for a good women's perspective retelling. This one does not disappoint.

Very extremely meta. This is classified as a novel, but it is hard to believe that it is not highly autobiographical. Writer, NYC, COVID. Some of it reads like a copy paste exercise of all the cutesy quotes and musings that just couldn't be worked in any other way. Many nuggets of truth, just not very organically interwoven. That said, feels like bits will definitely stick with me. Fast read. Also, Vetch makes me sad.

DNF. Hindsight is 20/20 and all, but just came across as smug and self-indulgent. So much has happened since 2016. I find most popular political discourse does not withstand the test of time. This is no different.

These little essays stared into my soul. Now adding to my to-read list: everything ever written by [a:Zadie Smith 2522 Zadie Smith https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1478188567p2/2522.jpg] and [b:Meditations 1168191 Meditations Marcus Aurelius https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1383681793l/1168191.SY75.jpg 31010].

What a world. Very enjoyable fantasy. Definitely will read prequel.

My only complaint is that while it was quite long and built a massive, massive world with a thousand years of history, religion and mythology, it suffered significantly with pacing issues. It probably should have been two or three books.

The narration of the audiobook is pretty good, but some of the voices were distracting. The narrator does not do a good job with male voices, deep = evil a lot of times, and an emperor of what is described as a vaguely eastern land talks like Colonel Sanders. Very, very distracting.

A Black Mirror episode in written form. A quick dystopian read.

I could not put this down. So good. Any minor annoyances are completely outweighed by the what this book has to say and how it says it. 10/10 recommend.