Katie

I liked that this book didn't provide a lot of pat, easy answers. Things were messy, and they stayed messy. It was a great look at what it's like to be thrown into a majority-white school when you're not white.

Wow. Just wow. This was one of the most engrossing nonfiction books I've read in forever. It was very hard to put down. So well-written, so fascinating and horrible and wonderful all at the same time. Bobrow-Strain is an amazing writer. I'd read anything he writes.

This really was a beautiful book. I was suspicious at first, as the first chapter features a mystical experiences with moss, a bear, and a cave! But I kept going on because it's one of Ed's favorite books, and I was not disappointed. The thing I liked most about it was the author–the stories about her life, the way she made them relevant to the moss, the questions she asked and the scientific experiments she designed to answer them. She seems like an amazing person to know. I did notice my mind wandering a bit after the 10th description of a certain kind of moss's leaf shape, but she does a great job of bringing it all together and making you see why it's important.

Well, I couldn't help feeling this was a slight rip-off of the Tsar of Love and Techno, but the similarities were only surface ones (linked stories set in Russia). The linkage wasn't nearly as well done in this book, though some of the stories did shed a different light on the main mystery. It was an engrossing read–I read it in one night.

Okay, I came back to edit this after reading The Death and Life of Aida Hernandez right after I finished this. This book was fine, but the Death and Life is something else. Read that not this!

This was a quick read, but an eye-opening one. You could tell the author was writing to address some of his critics, which is a bit boring for those of us that weren't in on the original controversy. But the topic is interesting and important, and he sheds a lot of light on what it's like to be undocumented in our country.

This was a lot of fun, but also a thoughtful look at what it means to be an American, and at the concepts of belonging and home. And, of course, the dog Bug reminded me so much of my dog, that of course I was going to enjoy reading it!

A life well spent.

This was a fun read. I enjoyed getting to know the characters, and there were lots of twists and turns.

This was billed as hilarious. While there were funny moments, it was also very disturbing. I also can't wrap my head around certain contradictions in Carroll's personality, but I guess that's not a problem I need to solve. :)

I enjoyed this, but it definitely got weirder as it went along...

I really enjoyed this. I already knew and follow most of the information, but the stuff that was new to me was really game changing! Now if only I could get my carnivore son to read it...

I enjoyed this book's spin on the vampire story.

I loved reading this book. The characters were all people I wanted to know better, and it was a good change from my recent reading that's been all about terrible things happening over and over. Not to say that bad things don't happen, but the characters' strength, intelligence, and wisdom helps them to survive.

This was funny and smart. The metaphors were great. I'm not sure how it ended, though! And I didn't get even half of the references and in jokes. Still, an enjoyable read, if occasionally heavy-handed.

I wasn't thrilled with this book. I couldn't tell what was fact and what was fiction (well, that was part of the charm, too) and the story, while interesting, wasn't compelling enough for me. Also, reading about men getting crazier and crazier started to lose its charm.

Jenny Offil is amazing. After reading her, all other authors seem way too wordy. Why do they give you all that background information you don't need? Reading Jenny Offill feels like solving a puzzle.

Wow. This is an incredible book. I wish I could make it required reading for everyone. There was so much I hadn't thought about, and so much that I had thought about but hadn't understood until I read this book. I also really like that she doesn't brush aside different experiences of people of different races–she goes in to the structural causes that make Black people have different experiences of gender (etc.) than white people.

I liked this a lot, but I guess I didn't LOVE it. It was interesting, and moving, but very subtly. I'm glad I read it.

One review says, “This book is exceptional.” I agree. I kept thinking, “Is he allowed to say that??” This book contains the truth in a way that very few other people are willing to state it. I wish everyone in our country could be required to read and digest its contents.

This was a combination of heartbreaking history and meetings with interesting people who showed how that history impacted their lives today. You can tell the author is a great guy, and it was fun riding along with his interactions with all the people he met. I learned a lot from the history part of the book, as well.

Oh, how I loved this book! It was moving, hilarious, sad, infuriating, and fun.

Wow. This book is angry from start to finish and it has every single right to be. I've read about these issues from so many different viewpoints that it was refreshing to read a book that is just really, really furious.

This was a powerful and interesting book. I wish it had focused more on his work post-prison, but I guess that's the sequel!

I love the idea of this book, but I'm not sure how well it played out. The conversations are more like disjointed quotes–you feel, reading them, that you're left out of most of the discussion. Also, I see a lot of what seems to this white outsider as blaming the victim. For example, in the discussion of representation in movies, there's a lot of talk about characters that black actors play or write or both that reflect stereotypes or reflect badly on black people as a whole. But isn't that the fault of a society that doesn't let black people be individuals? You don't see white people talking about how they shouldn't have made The Joker because that character reflects badly on white people. Just my two cents.

I really love the questions at the end of each chapter, and the diversity of voices that is included in the book. I especially liked the parts written by Ed Gordon.

I loved the setting. I want to see a movie of it! It reminded me of Adventures in Babysitting or any other crazy happens in one night story. Came back to add that I keep thinking about the two different world views of the characters, and how I loved seeing them out in the open and discussed and argued about. Made me think a lot about my own thought processes and assumptions about life.