Katie

Ugh. I disliked this book from the beginning. I got a little more into it in the middle, and then rage quit minutes from the end (I was listening to it).

Though this wasn't one of my favorite of her books, I still loved it. There are sentences and paragraphs in here that are worth more than hundreds of other books.

This book was all over the place. It made more sense when you got to the part where she said she was taking mushrooms while writing it... She claims to be seeking answers from all kinds of disciplines, but it's strange to see equal weight given to science and random folks who have stories of when they “knew” something bad was going to happen. I did learn a thing or two–I enjoyed her discussions about the difference between anxiety and intuition, and she quoted from a lot of interesting books.

This book definitely had a lot of logistical plot items that were completely brushed aside (how did the girls get money for food? etc etc). but the writing was beautiful and I loved the way it depicted motherhood and wrestled with difficult topics.

This is a terrifying topic, and Hill writes about it so well. The book is honestly a page turner and so enjoyable to read, even with the serious subject matter. It's a few years old, but the questions it raises are still important, so it doesn't feel out of date at all.

Is this for 5 year olds?

This was well-written, but painful. I thought it was going to be a sort of light-hearted romp through the post-40 dating world, and instead it was just reading about a woman completely denying that she was falling apart from past trauma. I just kept saying “get help!” throughout the whole book.

This was a fun, quick read, especially for trail runners. I'm not much into thrillers but this one, while engaging, wasn't so tense that I couldn't enjoy myself. The second-to-last twist made me laugh. I'm looking forward to reading the author's mountaineering book now.

I listened to this and enjoyed it (at 1.5x). It's probably a 3.5 for me.

I just read South to American, and this one was too similar for me right now. Maybe I'll pick it up another time.

A quick and slightly painful read. I was prepared for the ending, and, really, how could it have authentically ended any other way?

This book was amazing. For those who consider themselves people pleasers, or codependent, here's a truer way to understand yourself and your actions. so much to think about and try to implement in this book.

This book was bleak but important. Wow, how many scams there are in the world. And it was super interesting to hear how MLMs have contributed to the political climate we have today. Depressing.

I'm not a huge fan of history, but I enjoyed learning from this book. It's obvious how much Perry cares about her subjects (both people and places).

I thoroughly enjoyed reading this book. I'm not generally a fan of reading history, but each chapter was short and engaging. Swetnam and his family are obviously good people, and I enjoyed the tidbits of his personal history that he included throughout the book. Since I know the Jemez well, I was more invested than the casual reader might be. Highly recommend for any current or former resident of the Jemez area!

3.5 stars for me. This was very funny, especially as read by the author, but felt like mostly fluff. Yes, it's an important issue, but she seemed more interested in giving us the blow-by-blow of many women's long sagas of being scammed, which ended up feeling repetitive.

Terrifying and depressing. Well worth the read to get a deeper understanding of what AI is, what it's capable of, and what it's destroying.

A fun, quick read. Other books kept mentioning it, so I decided it was finally time to take it off the TBR list.

I enjoyed this a lot (listened as an audiobook, and even the narrator frequently emphasizing the wrong word in a way that made sentences nonsensical couldn't dampen the enjoyment). The two stories were both engrossing, and the switching back and forth made them even more suspenseful. I learned a bit about a remote island in Chile, and had fun, too.

Super fascinating and engagingly written. My only quibble was that there was sometimes too much detail. Don't go into this expecting that you'll get practical tips for helping you stay injury-free–it's not that kind of book, despite the title.

I thought this made some interesting and excellent points. I also learned a lot about pop culture that I missed out on, and it was good to have it in context. I did have to skim quickly over most of the torture porn chapter, though.

Tried listening to the audiobook but the narrator was annoying, and I feel like some formatting was lost (I'm guessing some of what he read was poetry?).

This was so hilarious. I loved all the details in the drawings. It made me feel a little better about our insane political situation, at least for a few minutes.

Absolutely super fun. A treat. I love Vera Wong, and I don't care how cheesy these books are!

Eh. The backwards-in-time format of this book was sort of annoying, and the big reveal at the end wasn't that revealing.