Mahala
I truly thought the current state of romance novels was just not for me. I haven't enjoyed one so much since I was a teenager reading YA romance. This had me giggling and kicking my feet, and of course crying, which is the true sign of a 5 star read for me. 10/10 would recommend and will spend the next decade looking for a romance as perfect as this one.
I've been wanting to read this one ever since I read Wild and fell in love with it. Cheryl Strayed definitely has a way with words. I took this book and the advice offered in it with a grain of salt because as the author herself states, she has no technical qualifications to be giving advice. That being said, I viewed this less as a self-help book and more as a collection of experiences and stories from which to draw meaning ... or not. Whatever floats your boat. It seems that Cheryl is a highly empathetic and wise person, having truly meditated on and learned from her own experiences. She shared beautiful sentiments and made me want to change my life, just a little.
My favorite section was That Ecstatic Parade. It really fit where I am in life. And probably not in the way you're thinking if you've read this. But in the advice she gives.
This is basically a GOT fanfic. The male lead's name is like ~barely~ changed from the actual actor's name. I don't even really have an opinion about that, just making a statement.
This was ✨ok✨.
I'm annoyed because some parts of it were cute and made me want to like it. Unfortunately, most it was cheesy and cringey and over dramatic. Like, the characters are almost 40 and upset and worried about SILLY things. Adults acting like teenagers. The entire plot could've been avoided with a simple NDA.
And I'm all here for body neutrality and the like, but some of this felt a lot like, as another reviewer mentioned, getting “woke points” online.
It was also one of those books, like most romances to be honest, where you absolutely know exactly how the conflict/climax of the story is going to go. So you're basically just waiting the entire book for it to happen and hoping there's some decent dialogue or spice along the way.
I just wish it was more cute, less try-hard.
I'm not ready to give up on cartoon cover romances entirely yet. It took me too long to force myself to even try one. But I need recommendations for the BEST ones. If I don't like those, I'm just not the intended audience.
My least favorite in the series so far. It was still a decent read, but it could have been 200-300 pages. 700 pages was entirely too long and drawn out, I felt like barely anything happened.
Spoilers start here so stop reading if you don't want to be spoiled!
I feel like Tamlin deserves forgiveness and happiness now. I'm starting to become sympathetic to him now because he has been betrayed by all the people closest to him at this point. He's saved Feyre's life AND Rhys's now. It's enough. He needs to work through his anger, go to therapy, and then he deserves a real mate and better friends tbh. I mean, I personally don't want to read details about it, but I'd like just a couple sentences saying he has a mate and is happy. That's all. Outside of that, I'm so anxious to read more about Cassian and Nesta.
Appalachia is my home. I've never been all that interested in the history of it, but recently I've started to become curious about the heritage I used to be embarrassed by. I decided to seek out written works of the history of Appalachia in hopes of learning more about what was unfortunately not passed down to me generationally.
Let's start with the good. I started out hopeful with this book, and I did find many portions of it informative. I enjoyed reading the interviews and Appalachian life stories.
Unfortunately, that's about it. I guess the authors thought we didn't need the female perspective, because they interviewed many people, but very very few women. It started out with interesting notes about culture and history that were fading in modern day Tennessee. But then it seemed like they ran out of things to talk about, because they started romanticizing things that have clearly seen improvements like wooden bridges. They even talked about how frightening and dangerous they were to cross, but then said “those were the fun days.” Older does not always equate to better. There were a lot of reaches like this in the 2nd half of the book.
And then there was this: “Here lurked danger in natural abundance and in Indian tribes who viewed the intrusion of Europeans as a dark and dangerous time in their existence.” First of all, Native Americans. They were here first. And they didn't just “view” it as a dark and dangerous time, it WAS.
Anyway, I learned a little, but was disappointed by a lot.
I went into this with high expectations because I've devoured and loved and sobbed at every other Sepetys book. As always, I was anxious to learn about history that I, unfortunately, knew very little about. And the book did accomplish that much. I was disappointed by this one in a few ways, though. There were so many characters and so many POVs that I kept forgetting who was who. It jumped around a lot in POV and made it a little confusing to keep up. The pacing was dreadfully slow. Like ... slooooooooow. It makes me sad because I know this book had so much potential, knowing how incredible of a writer Sepetys is. But it fell flat. There was hardly any emotion, which was odd as it dealt with SUCH heavy and heartbreaking topics. Coming out of this, I felt like I learned about history, but not read a novel.
These are the stories that make me love Moriarty. This is probably my favorite second to Big Little Lies. I'd just about given up on her to be honest. I was disappointed by her last few books I read. But I needed something available right away on Libby so I gave it a shot. And clearly ended up reading it within 2 days. Such a sweet, easy read. Not for everybody obv but I really enjoyed it.
I wanted so badly to love this book. I've seen rave reviews, I LOVE the title and cover, the synopsis sounded good. But I didn't love it. Honestly, it tried so hard to be beautiful and poignant and literary that it kind of became the opposite. It ended up being torturously slow and descriptive. In the end, I felt like I ~should~ be devastated or overwhelmed with emotion but I was just left lacking any feeling at all. It's like the author tried so hard to sound poetic and beautiful that they forgot there was supposed to be a plot. And it's disappointing because it's not like it's not beautiful writing. It is. It has the potential to be amazing, but unfortunately it was not. And I'm really sad about that. 2.5/5 stars.
I have very mixed feelings on this. First of all, I wouldn't recommend this as a first look into personality types by any means as this is seemingly not based in research at ALL. The author is not a scientist or doctor and has no real qualifications to create four personality types, but has done so based on personal opinion and observation. So I took the whole thing with a grain of salt and would suggest anyone else to do so as well.
That being said, it has been interesting to me to consider how my “tendency” and those of other people in my life might affect my behavior, relationships, way of thinking, etc. This was really just more of a thought project than anything, and it did indeed get me thinking. But I'd like to dive further into similar thoughts that have real research to back it up.
And as a huge side note, she completely missed the meaning of Taylor Swift's Shake It Off. “I stay out too late, got nothing in my brain,” is sarcasm, Gretchen. If you don't know what you're talking about, don't say it. :)
I'm always so torn on whether I like Fredrik Backman books or not. There's always a ton of hype around anything he authors. But I'm still on the fence. I loved the story here, it was quirky, cute, hopeful, sad, happy, all the things. I enjoyed getting to know the characters. I'm just not sure if I vibe with the writing style. I feel like sometimes he tries too hard to be quirky and it just makes me roll my eyes. All in all, I'm still on the fence on his books so I'll probably end up picking up another one if I'm being honest. A big shrug emoji is all I can conjure up anytime I read him.
Years ago, I really wanted to read this book. Top of my TBR. I couldn't wait to be inspired. But I never got around to picking it up. Then I started hearing the bad reviews of Rachel Hollis and her books. But I really am not someone that likes to just believe everything I hear, even and especially if it's overwhelmingly negative. Cancel culture is so real, and the tiniest misstep can spark it. It's kinda crazy. I wanted to give this book a chance and not start by focusing on those negative opinions so I went into this thinking I was going to prove everyone wrong.
That didn't work out. I listened to the audiobook narrated by the author. Her personality really shone through in her narration. And frankly, I feel like we wouldn't be friends. And this is really no fault of hers, but our personalities just don't mesh. I'm not a “HEY, GIRL, HEY” type of person. It really seems that Rachel is. I tried to keep an open mind, however. But as it went on, it just became increasingly clear that this was written for one particular audience. The basic middle class Gen X (possibly older milennial) straight white woman. I truly can't imagine anyone else relating to this book. I would LOVE to be proven wrong, seriously.
I didn't realize this was so very Christian before I read it either. I assumed it'd just be your run of the mill “I did this and you can too” self-help book. No. About a million times she mentions faith, Jesus, etc. Nothing wrong with that if that's what you believe, but again, written for a very specific audience and excludes a huge population. This is probably my bad for not researching it more beforehand. No biggie.
At first, I thought people were being too harsh on Hollis in their reviews. But when I got more than 30% in, I understood what they meant when they talked about her incessant humblebragging. This woman invented humblebragging, I think. And I drew the line when she got to the chapter about not taking no for an answer. Like, ok sis, we understand you're persistent. That's a great quality to have. But to full on attribute your success to “not taking no for an answer” and literally nothing else?? And to take a step farther and have the audacity to say that other people aren't successful solely because they “took no for an answer????” Please. It's too much. I really hope I don't need to explain all the things wrong with this because, geez, it's a laundry list. There's also a hint of racism and ableism sprinkled in at the end, just for a little spice.
I'm giving this two stars instead of one because I'm sure it wasn't easy to share the trauma of going through the adoption process. And props to her for that. But yikessssss @ the rest.
This one is tough to review! I'm giving it 3.5 stars rounded up to 4 (because Jeffrey Bezos refuses to give us half stars). Some parts made me roll my eyes, some parts made me cry. I'm going to keep this short because I don't really have anything insightful. The 7-year-old main character was definitely precocious (as I think she was meant to be), but sometimes too much to the point of annoyance. And that just made me think maybe she wasn't wise, she was just a brat. But then it's also a lovely found family story, a story of grief and love and choices and anger and friendship and really getting to know people and realizing they all have a story instead of just judging them by what you see.
This was my first Backman and I'd like to read another. I can't quite tell if I enjoyed this one or not.
I had zero expectations because I do judge books by their cover and, frankly, I don't like this one. I assumed this would be your run of the mill beach romance. I was right and wrong. It's a beach romance, but not the cheesy run of the mill variety.
Jake and Mallory end up bonding one night in 1993 because “the dog chased the cat chased the rat.” A series of events left them alone in her cottage on Nantucket on Labor Day weekend. They have other commitments and life happens, but they vow to spend every Labor Day weekend at her cottage no matter what.
This is the story it sounds like it would be. It is. But what I loved about this was the atmosphere. I've never been to Nantucket and know nothing about it but I felt like I was there with them. The sun and salt air. And I felt so connected to the characters, Mallory in particular. They felt like real people. And we can't deny the pop culture references in the characters, UDG = AOC, red lipstick and all. It brought it all down a notch and made it somewhat satirical and not so heavy. Whether that was the goal or not, I'm not sure. But I enjoyed it.
Despite my prejudgement, here I am on a Friday at work crying at the end.
I must not be intellectual enough for this because this was the most boring and pointless book I've read in ages. It's small print so it's eternal even though it's only around 400 pages. It took me weeks to finish this, WEEKS. I 100% would have DNF'd this had it not been for the fact that it fills a prompt on my reading challenge this year.
I excitedly picked this up at my local used book shop as it's been hyped up recently on TikTok's book community as a thriller they couldn't put down. I think I must be jaded from reading too many thrillers because I don't get the hype.
Plot holes abound, the characters are almost totally unbelievable, and the writing style is, frankly, childish. The dialogue ... I'm at a loss for words. I'm truly stunned at the amount of hype this book has gotten lately. Here's the thing, if you don't read many thrillers, maybe this will be your cup of tea. If you don't care whether it's realistic or not, sure. But don't go in thinking this is the new Gone Girl. I assure you, it's not. However, it IS a quick read. I finished it in a weekend of very casual reading. Fast paced, keeps you entertained, kind of like a Lifetime movie in novel form. Yeah, that about sums it up.
If you've followed me for awhile, you've probably noticed how few five star ratings I give out. There are two objectives that have to be met: Did it make me feel ALL the feels? (Usually meaning did it make me scream cry and/or sob uncontrollably to the point where I think about the book the next day and cry?) And will I reread this infinitely? So yeah, it's pretty rarely that a book fits both these conditions. This one fit neither. This novel didn't make me sob and I will probably never reread it. But I'm giving it five stars. Let's dive in.
What I enjoyed:
This is my first Wally Lamb book, but it won't be my last. He's an incredibly gifted writer. To write a 900 page book that kept my attention all the way through is really a talent. To write a book about a character that is SO unforgivingly everything I despise about baby boomers that I didn't hate, frankly, is astounding. (Don't @ me, I'm not sorry.) The protagonist, Dominick, is so real to me. I rooted for him while simultaneously thinking he was the worst. He was a complex and very flawed character, a real person. All the characters were so well written.
This was a HARD read. Reading this wrecked me. I won't be able to read it again. But not in the way that books usually wreck me. It was DIFFICULT to read about the onset and progression and ultimate extremes of Thomas' schizophrenia. And coming from a home where a close family member deals with very untreated mental illness, it hurt. It was so so hard to read the anger and resentment and burden that Dominick felt about caring for Thomas because I've felt it myself. Dude, it was a tough read. But it was tough because it was so real. The writing was just so spot on. The ricocheting between love and hate, ach.
What I didn't enjoy:
Strangely, I thought I would feel more -something- when the big event happened. I'm not sure why. And I can't tell if I am content with that or not. Otherwise, I have no complaints, honestly.
Would I recommend?
Okay, trigger warnings abound. Just to name a few: Domestic abuse, emotional abuse, death, infant death, suicide, violence, rape, paranoia, mental illness. There's so many, I'm sure I've forgotten some. Please do your due diligence and research it if you have triggers. If you like heavy subject matter and realistic fiction, yes. Just yes. If you prefer your fiction to be very fictionalized, no. Definitely no. Happy reading. :)
Educated is so truly bizarre that it reads like fiction. I borrowed this book from my husband's coworker. She told me to read the synopsis and when I did, it sounded like a VC Andrew's novel. I've seen people raving about how good this memoir is, but I was still blown away. It's a memoir of mental illness, abuse, family, paranoia, the importance of education, and did I mention abuse? Yikes.
I couldn't put it down. I was so absorbed in her world that when someone started talking to me in real life, I had a full five seconds of confusion about where I was and who I was. That's how riveting Tara's writing is. I was absolutely drawn in to her surroundings, her emotions. It's heart wrenching. It's also such an incredible story of the absolute necessity of education. Something said near the end really hit hard for me. To paraphrase, the difference between the siblings who left the mountain (and the delusion) and who stayed was an education.