Lina

This book just wasn't for me. The book is poetic and descriptive for the sake of being poetic and descriptive. It waxes on and on about the Earth to the point that I couldn't follow what was supposed to be happening. I wish we could have spent more time with the actual characters. The narrator was fantastic with the different accents and the dense descriptions.

A fast paced family drama. Quick read. I can imagine Billy being quite menacing in performance.

Anna Deavere Smith's work is better watched than read, but it is compelling regardless of medium. Fantastic documentation of those involved in the 1992 LA Riots and those events surrounding it.

The book starts strong, but gets lost in the POV hopping. It's hard to feel attached to the four main characters due to the switching around. The last third of the book unraveled in a jumble of supernatural elements, 

I can't imagine anyone but John Leguizamo performing these monologues. This show definitely lays the groundwork for his more recent work.

The ending was kind of a let down.

It's difficult to suss out the steps of Pain Reprocessing Therapy because of all the fluff. 

One of the most bizarre things I've read, and not in an enjoyable way. This book is heavily invested in urine.

Well, this play absolutely destroyed me in the most beautiful way possible. I haven't read a play like this in so long and I'm so thankful to be introduced to Martyna Majok through this. I want to see this play.

I'm a bit disappointed, because I wanted this play to really be something. It's modeled after The Laramie Project's style, but it doesn't have the heft of TLP. Perhaps because the Harvey Milk is more distant in our past than Matthew Shepard, or because of a lack of available material.

I wanted this to be better, because we need more plays and books discussing LGBTQ+ history. If we're going to put on plays about Matthew Shepard, then why not Harvey Milk? Why not Stonewall? Sadly, this play doesn't have the pay out to make this memorable.

It could be that I'm missing something, because I'm reading it instead of seeing or listening to it. A play is meant to be seen and heard, not really read. So, perhaps, the show fairs better when performed. There is original music attached to this script, so there is an element we're missing while just reading it.

Please read it despite my above comments. I learned things, and so will you.

This book is entirely too long. It's not that I'm not willing to work through long prose, but the pay off for this book was not worth the effort. There are wonderfully good sections to this book, but when you're not in one of those sections this book is just a chore.

I really loved and enjoyed this book. I listened to it instead of reading, and Lin Manuel Miranda's reading only made the story come more to life. I borrowed the physical CDs from my library, so I only listened in the car during my commute. I don't think I've ever looked forward to driving as much as I did while listening to this.

I never really knew where this story was going, and I liked that. I enjoyed that you, as a reader, got to discover things as the narrator did. Wonderful.

This author was recommended to me by a dear friend. Junot Diaz writes specifically about Dominican Americans in this book, but all the stories inside deal with ending and losing of love. I felt sucker punched at moments; being brushed by emotions from my own past.

I also started picking up some Spanish as I found myself looking up some of the Spanish words or phrases he interwove into the story. Even when I didn't feel so diligent in studying the words, I understood their meaning and their value to the story from the context surrounding them.

I don't know if it was the writing or the narration, but I was so tuned out of this book half way through. I guess just not for me.