Ricky

This text by TNH hit me as very timely.

I'm really surprised by how much I didn't like this book. I have really liked this author in the past but I did not at all care for how this book is written. It does some interesting things, but ultimately I can't say it came together very interestingly. Honestly the only thing that made me finish this book is that I was reading it for a Goodreads achievement. Fortunately I enjoyed the second half of the book better than the first half of the book which I hated, but even so I'm surprised that this book seems to be fairly acclaimed. I guess it all felt very mannered to me.

Whenever I'm reading a book like this I'm always thinking about that spectrum when it comes to MM romance novels of the extent to which these books seem like they were written by and for women. This book is definitely pretty far along that spectrum. I also felt like there was something American in the tone which was kind of weird because it's taking place in England or whatever. I looked up the author and was unable to determine for sure where she's from. I think it said she worked for the Washington Post or something but I thought maybe she could be British and working there. But then in the book she says the snow is like powdered sugar and then I was like oh yeah this girl is American because I'm pretty sure British people don't say powdered sugar. I could be wrong but that was my smoking gun lol. Anyway the dialogue is all really bad from my perspective. The people in this book don't speak or think like people I know in real life and certainly not like men I know in real life. But people seem to like this book so I'm glad it exists for them.

Almost three decades ago I set the intention to read all of Thomas Hardy's novels and really stalled out after reading four of his more famous ones. I picked up the challenge again in the past couple of years and I'm finally up to nine. This is such a nice change of pace from the tone of his other novels. It's funny what passes as a happy ending in the world of Thomas Hardy though. I was really amused along the way to see all of the elements that feel very Thomas Hardy but in a different kind of story. Not that it's that different, but the tone feels lighter and maybe more playful.

I sort of appreciate this book for trying to tackle a lot of difficult themes and topics, but it doesn't tackle them very well. and I really spent a lot of time reading this book thinking about whether a book has to tackle themes well and maybe it does and maybe it doesn't because maybe it's okay if books sometimes show how messy our civilization is. Also I had previously read The Outsider and I was aware that Holly was apparently a popular character but I couldn't really tell why from that book. It's definitely clear in this book. she's a very engaging character in this book. if I ever get around to reading any of the other books in this series, it will be because of her. I agree with a popular review on here that says that King is better at writing horror than thriller.

Never a good feeling when you are reading a story about the rise of the Nazis and it all feels like it was ripped from the headlines.

Essential queer memoir detailing life as an unapologetically queer person during the early to mid 20th century. Published in 1968 when its author was about 60 years old, it's wild that this book came out only one year after homosexuality had been decriminalized in England and Wales. (A dozen years before it was decriminalized in Scotland and 14 years before it was done in Northern Ireland.) There's something elusive about this book. The author clearly got through life with the need of a lot of defenses, so there might be even more distance than would be explained solely by his Englishness. I found myself thinking sometimes that Crisp would likely have been diagnosed as autistic if he had been alive in the 20th century. I wonder what his gender identity might have been had he been alive in this context. Anyway, it's a fascinating life story, engagingly told.

I stumble toward my grave, confused, and hurt, and hungry.