Jessica

I feel really bad writing this review because Book Lovers was one of my favorite books last year.

What I loved about it: mature characters who subverted romance novel tropes and cliches.

This book: characters who were 30ish but felt much younger combined with all the tropes possible.

Wyn and Harriet were the worst. They didn't communicate at all - who ends a relationship on the phone after being together for that long? And who just accepts it and never wants to ask why? I didn't get their relationship, and the flashback scenes were confusing and cringey.

Then there's the friends group, none of whom I would want to be actual friends with. They also couldn't talk to each other and I'm not even sure they liked each other. They felt far younger than the age they were supposed to be.

And finally, the ENDING. I have never been so angry. She gives up her whole life and career to move to Montana to be a potter? Even though she admits she has no talent for pottery? I am so confused that we are supposed to celebrate this. She is going to end up resenting him so hard, especially when those med school loans come due. She could have switched specialties to a less demanding one if it was that bad, but there wasn't much lead up to her decision. It really felt like the opposite of everything I loved in Book Lovers, where the main female character does not want to give up everything for a man.

Emily Henry is a good writer, but this plotline... ugh. I can't say she'll be an auto read for me from now on.

This was my first book by the author, and I think it wasn't for me. I love horror with a side of humor (Grady Hendrix is one of my favorite authors.) Unfortunately, I didn't feel like anything happened for 80% of this book, and the humor wasn't funny to me. It also wasn't scary? Just not for me, but I would try another book from the author.

I originally read this soon after it came out, and I'm not sure it's held up well. There's a really weird bit about Enron, for example, which hasn't aged well. I'm open to recommendations for books about introversion which have more practical advice!

The main character has a serious case of “not like other girls.” I love the author's adult series, but this one didn't work for me

Seemed like it was going to be cute, but then we met the hero. He basically sexually harasses Dora at their first meeting, but we're supposed to understand that he's just “grumpy.” Nope. Not here for that.

3.5 stars. It was well written but I guessed the twists before they happened. Overall a good read and I would definitely read more of the author.

I like his other books but this one wasn't for me. I didn't feel any connection to the protagonist and there was way too much scientific jargon, especially towards the end. I skimmed the last part because I just wasn't interested.

I will confess that I didn't find this book very scary, but I did enjoy it. The descriptions of the ship and its passengers are vivid and I loved the main character's back story. Recommended!

“Between our ignorance of and unwillingness to expose our shame, we end up with leadership that turns a blind eye to sexual abuse, interactive styles that foster the maintenance of unspoken caste systems (not least being that between men and women) and doctrinal positions that hold that the proclamation of the gospel leads with the story that we are shameful sinners and follows up with the story that God loves us, rather than the other way round.”

So much this. A highly recommended exploration of shame through neurobiology and biblical texts. The author relates shame to our pasts, our relationships, and our vocations. An excellent read based on science.

So good. Just read it!

Four stars because I guessed the ending early on, but this was a very entertaining read! I especially loved the descriptions of the tarot cards.

Mandel is a fantastic writer. I loved her first novel, but was hesitant about the subject matter of this one. She's such a great writer that she almost got me on board with a book about ponzi schemes. But in the end, there were too many characters, with a focus on the one character I felt we never got to know, Vincent. Also, there were ghosts? Maybe? I'm not sure.

I will certainly be reading her next novel, but this one wasn't really for me.

So... on one hand, I really enjoyed the last quarter of this book. But on the other hand? I'm so tired of unreliable narrators that I would just kill for a mystery I could solve with the information I'm given. The beginning was quite slow as well.

This was a big disappointment to me. I know I'm in the minority, but I just couldn't get over my dislike of most of the characters.

Mixed review on this one. I thought that the premise was really interesting, but the narrator was really unlikeable, and there was too much focus on the mystery. Without spoilers, the end disappointed me. Meh. I did really like the first half though!

Wonderful. Very highly recommended.

When I first read about this book, I couldn't wait to get my hands on it. I read and loved all the Little House books as a child, and I was ready to find out the true story behind them.

I loved the first third of the book, which contains a chronology of Laura's life as contained in the books. I enjoyed the large amounts of historic detail, as I'm certainly not an expert in 19th century American history. But then I got to the end of that section, and my Kindle said I had read only 20% of the total book.

So what's in the rest of the book? By and large, a great deal of information about Laura's daughter Rose. I understand that she needed to be included, as she helped to create the little house series, but quite frankly she comes across as a vile human being. For the last 2/3 of the book, Laura recedes into the background, which is unfortunate since she was the reason I was reading.

5 stars for the first 3rd, 2 for the rest.

I couldn't finish this book. All the characters were awful, and the writing made me cringe.

Sample: “Beau laughed—a sound that, for reasons unknown, I felt in my uterus.”

Ewwww. No.

I read this for the reading challenge prompt: Books that involve a bookstore or library. It was fairly entertaining, but I can't claim I got a ton of new reading ideas from it (although it did remind me that The Virgin Suicides was set in the 70s, helping me with another prompt.) The author's voice is very funny, and I did particularly enjoy her letters to books that she didn't like. Still, I've read other books of this sort that I enjoyed more. 3.5 stars.

3.5 stars. I wasn't initially sure whether I wanted to read this novel. I suffered from an eating disorder for many years (although, thankfully, it never got as dire as Lia's) and I tend to avoid reading books that I think will be triggering.

First, the good. The author does a good job capturing one of the hidden truths of the illness - that even when you are weak, and cold, and hungry, you feel strong. Strong because you have absolute control over this one aspect of your body, when maybe you can't control anything else in your life. I also really enjoyed Lia's relationship with her stepsister and stepmother. Her relationships with her actual parents, who we don't see as often, are less fully fleshed out. It's not until the end that we get a glimpse of her mother as a real person, and I'm not sure we ever get there with her father. But then, to Lia they are distant figures, so maybe that makes sense.

What I didn't like: The author's choir to frequently use crossed out phrases, while an interesting idea, did not work for me. The writing is dense and poetic, but it can be hard at times to understand exactly what's going on. It was disorienting, and sometimes hard to know if something was really happening (again, this is probably because Lia wasn't sure either, so it's not really a negative, but I thought it was used a bit too often.)

Cassie, the friend whose death starts Lia's spiral, is seen through Lia's eyes as something less than a fully realized character. Spoiler Are we supposed to believe that she's really haunting Lia? I don't think we ever really know.

Overall, I was not entirely satisfied, but I can't say I wasn't emotionally affected either. It could certainly be triggering to those with histories of disordered eating. It doesn't glamorize eating disorders (Cassie's fate, in particular, is gruesome) but there's always some risk of that with this topic.

My biggest issue with this book was the world building, or the lack thereof. Look, I get that we're being asked to suspend our disbelief, and that the world wasn't necessarily the point of the book. But I just couldn't get past the fact that I didn't understand how the notification system worked at all.

It didn't help that I couldn't connect with either of the main characters. The romance felt forced, and kind of came out of nowhere. I'm still interested in reading other books by Adam Silvera - maybe this one just wasn't for me.

This book takes a fascinating premise and completely squanders it. The notion of sleeving is a good concept, and I was excited to read about it. I had a few issues:

1. Most of the women in this novel exist only to be attractive, and to be into our narrator. And since he doesn't really seem like a sparkling conversationalist, I don't get it.

2. The violence. Look, I'm not a prude. This may be one of the few times that the amount of violence in a book really turned me off. It certainly made me not care about the main character anymore.

3. The Catholic thing made me uncomfortable. I don't know, I feel like maybe it wasn't necessary to call that religion out specifically.

4. It was boring. I thought the last section would never end. I could forgive all the rest if it weren't boring.

I tried to watch the first episode of the new series on Netflix, and I couldn't get into that either.

I was ready to go all in on this book. The premise is similar to [b:The Uncommon Reader 1096390 The Uncommon Reader Alan Bennett https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1317064291s/1096390.jpg 1792422], but it lacked the gentle charm of that book. I didn't find myself caring very much about any of the characters, and the queen herself seemed a bit over the top. I forced myself to finish, as I was reading it for the “Book about a real person” prompt in the 2018 Popsugar challenge, but it was slow going.

I'm disappointed in this book. I shelved it back in 2012, and finally got around to it in 2018. One of the reading challenges I'm participating in had a prompt for books with two authors, and I thought it was perfect!

I liked the strange friendship between the angel and demon. I was on board with the plot, and quite enjoying myself, when Adam and his friends were introduced. They are written much younger than their supposed ages, and they prattle on for pages at a time. I just couldn't get past them. It really soured me on the book. I love Neil gaiman (less so Prachett) and felt this book wasnt really characteristic of either.

Predictable

I can't say that I was a huge fan of this one. Characterizations were paper thin, and the dialogue was not believable.