Martha

Short and sweet. 

Sooooo close to a DNF. Multiple times I wondered...did ai write this....

Unserious fun ‘thriller' quick listen. It could've done more with the character and plot but was still effective. 

Think I would have loved if I'd read instead of listened. Audialy it's slower than I usually enjoy. Had to finish with the Don Leslie audio and much preferred this version. 

Does not shy away from science and personal connection in a way that was beautiful to me. Was a little confused by the structure at the beginning. 

Will be recommending this one. Unlike any other mystery, thriller, mental illness novel I've read. The second quarter got a bit drawn out. 

Very sweet book. Writing is too blunt for my style but easy to read and def met the hopeful bingo box. 

Don't read much horror but I enjoyed this for its humor and overall entertainment in taking a family drama in a totally different direction than my usual. 

He's such a good audio book reader. Accessible and engaging writing on inhumanity of our global systems. 

Loved parts of this bc of the feelings the author created. But also found parts feeling too blunt in messaging. Also didn't jive with the second and third person narrative. 

I think marketing this as a murder mystery or crime novel does it a disservice by setting expectations that aren't true to the focus of the story. It's much more about societal expectations of gender, relationships to food and family, and a very intimate, sometime slow, description of women finding a life that brings them happiness. 

Writing style takes getting used to but ended up loving it. 

Loved the history parts, learned a lot! Writing read YA, easy to read but not what I expected. 

Must listen to, wish I had read the afterword first. Beautiful meditation on historical trauma and resilience. Hard to follow a few of the transitions. 

Loved the story concept and take on time travel. Writing was pretty average for me. 

I wanted to love this weird girl book. Some pieces and threads were interesting but I was also often bored? I could see it being a great novella or short story (of course easy for me to say), bc I could see where it was going and then it took 200 pages to get there. 

I could not stop listening. Content has about every trigger warning and I definitely wouldn't be able to listen to this at other points in my life. I was really compelled by the story, the writing and the voice actors. I cant put a finger on where I stand in the tension (contradiction?) of the author wanting to focus the story on the victims and survivors, not the defendant, but in doing so in a fictional way and using fictional names contributing to the exact problem? Or is it enough that, because this was 50 years ago and it's not possible to tell those victims' stories, that this is positive enough?

Started out reading paperback and switched to audio for logistical reasons. Some of narrator's voices really annoyed me - two of the women were unnecessarily winy and ditsy and Benny's voice was a miss for me too. And while this is a long novel and some parts could feel too extended, overall I found those to fit the experience of reading this so well. The level of detail brought me into the story, into their home. I neither loved nor hated the narrative structure, more appreciated it as different and interesting. 

I like the authors description of the book as a fairytale for adults ala princess bride but the woman adventures in search of her love. Entertaining for YA and adults. 

Loved the story but sometimes bored with the writing. 

Delightful, playful and thoughtful writing on pregnancy, motherhood, loss and finding joy every day. Weird and I loved it. 

So many thoughts about this book. 400 pages was too long and almost stopped reading halfway bc I get the approach of capturing the acid head vibes but it just wasn't fun to read (sober) for sooo many pages. Feel like I need to go read more about the pranksters in a historical context to accompany a book that came out in the moment. While these aren't the choices I'd make, it's super interesting to understand people so hyper focused on community and living outside established expectations. 
And where is anything more on Faye?? 

Beautiful writing and character building as usual with this author. But a much slower build to the ‘who done it' part of the book, which may be off putting for some but it's clearly intentional to be making this about the people rather than the action. More thriller than mystery this one. 

Great book to read while sick, easy and fun plot. A bit heavy handed writing at times but much better than the last TJR book I read. 

Gut wrenching and hopeful(?) about war genocide survival and being a parent and children in that history.