Katie

This was a great compilation of fun outdoor activities, locations, ideas, explorations, etc. And it mentions the Los Alamos Nature Center (by the wrong name, but, hey, you can't be picky).

This was one of those books where the research reveals what you pretty much would have guessed already, but the author does a good job of spelling everything out clearly, and with lots of evidence. The anecdotes and students' stories are interesting.

This was just as good as the other volume (which I read first). True to life problems and heartbreak. Plus, it's fun getting to know little Shannon.

I'm not sure what the fuss was about this book. Maybe my hopes were too high; maybe I just wanted it to be like Fly By Night, which is impossible–that book is just too good. Anyway, the crow was a weird mix of crass, poetic, trite, and flowery, in a way that just didn't seem to fit together. The book obviously tried really hard to be funny, but it didn't succeed. And all of the pat answers and wrapped up emotions were a bit much to swallow.

I'm not sure how this got on my list since I'm trying not to read books about white women anymore. But it was okay. The characters weren't all that likable, but they were understandable–I mean, you understand why they act the way they do. There was a lot of telling and not much showing, but that did make the story move along.

This book was full of male energy–too full for me. There were lots of stories of satisfying revenge.

I don't think I ever truly understood the phrase “the male gaze” until reading this book. Women, when they are present, are mostly objects. At least as far as I got into this, this was the case. There were a few poems by women, but, basically, doesn't pass the Bechdel test.

This was a ton of fun to read. I think the author and I think similarly in a lot of ways. It's always great to have someone way more articulate than you are put your thoughts into words. :) Of course, I do wonder about the other side of some of the stories she tells.

I am so jealous. I want to do this so bad, except that I'd be terrified at the very first descent into a canyon. :) Douglas Preston is a great writer–I've admired him since I read The Day the Dinosaurs Died in the New Yorker. I know he writes a bunch of mysteries, but I like his nonfiction.

Shannon Hale is so great in any format. This book captures the awful pain of being a sixth grade girl.

These stories were a bit depressing, but still somehow fun (like an afterparty??). I felt invited in to the Cambodian community and got a tiny taste of what it's like to be a part of it.

I didn't 100% love every word in this book, but I loved probably 99% of it, which is good enough for 5 stars. :) Sophia is funny but in this book she's even smarter and more insightful than she is funny.

This book was very basic (ie, trite). I only got through two chapters (Death and Sex) but each one started with a list disguised as a paragraph of all the different ways, say, that someone can die, or that people can be intimate with each other. Was she trying to meet a word limit? Then there were some interesting stories of people's lives, then she attempted to sum the chapter up with some banal non-wisdom.

This was a 4.5. Laura Lippman is one of my favorite authors, and this didn't change that a big. I really enjoyed trying to figure out if the main character was the bad guy or the good guy. In the end, I guess he was both.

This was very interesting (giant squid! bioluminescent poop!), full of good stories and not too much science (my eyes might have glazed over once or twice). A great read.

This is probably a 3.5 for me. Interesting story and characters, but it left so many loose ends and unexplained things. Maybe it was just trying to pack too much in to one story.

I mean, reading this was kind of like watching a car chase movie, but you had to imagine the car chase part in your head. And since I'm not a huge fan of car chase movies, it was only okay.

Wow. This was super fascinating. I loved the author's conversational style, and the peek into his life, and into what it's like to be a Muslim in America.

Um. I ended this book in confusion and just smh. It was okay? But I'm not sure what the point was.

This was a good read, interesting, page turner. But I can't help resenting that a middle class white woman goes to prison and gets rich off it while so so many woc don't.

Ugh, I have no idea how this got on my want to read list, but I hope I don't have many other recommendations from the same source. One-dimensional characters, treacly writing, etc.

Andrew read and loved this, which is why I read it. I didn't love it, but I did find it very funny. I think I kept expecting it to be one of those “middle aged white man messes up over and over” books and it kept not being that, which was a little jarring for me.

Oh, man. I read this book straight through in one sitting. I love, love, loved it. You already know the basic outlines of the story before you read it, but it's so much more than just a dog learning to use some words. There's so much information about how humans learn to talk, about how to be a good teacher, and there are so many fascinating stories about the creative ways that Stella uses and combines her words.

I tore through this 700+ page book, basically forsaking the rest of my life to keep reading. Really, almost nothing happens, but you just want to keep going, getting deeper into these people's lives. I loved Yanagihara's straightforward way of writing, even if the characters and plot occasionally became a little melodramatic.

I enjoyed getting to know the characters in this book, even if the story felt fairly predictable, and too easily and quickly wrapped up at the end.