Mari
Okay this one was a roller coaster! And it only took me half the time to read compared to previous books. The healthy pacing helped me enjoy spending more time with some secondary characters that are organically coming to the forefront. There were a lot of harrowing twists and turns with the Revolution on everyone's doorstep. I teared up a few times and was a little breathless too. Great installment to the Outlander series.
This book took me from a complete cluster of disarray into a person that always has a clean inbox. In my wildest dreams I never thought that could be possible. What a sigh of relief! I also could never find my exact organizational strategy, but Carson's quiz about finding and defining a productivity style helped me realize I'm a combination of an Arranger and Planner. Sometimes the simplest, most basic approaches need to be read and re-read to be remembered and believed. The tone is a little dry, but overall this book is pretty darn helpful.
The movie was soooo much better than the book. To be fair, the book and movie are 2 completely different stories. Andy in the movie has more heart, although Alex is less likeable. Unbelievable but the book does not resonate as well as the movie. The book seems disjointed and the characters unpolished. Read if you're curious, otherwise hard pass.
Falling into this book solely based on my love for the Devil Wears Prada movie is my fault and no one else's. I loved the movie and decided to read this trilogy backwards just because I like to live dangerously. Emily's book is a little stronger, but dear lord, this installment is definitely the worst. Andy is so very whiney and insecure to the point that it made the book hard to read. Too much whining and many questionable decisions later ended with a return to the overhyped boyfriend from the Devil Wears Prada. And what is it with everyone getting pregnant? It's a cult. Can't we have female leads whose careers and personhood aren't defined by their children for once? Disappointment wears Prada.
This book is packed with interesting historical and zoological facts, but oy what a slog! Every other chapter is disorienting with points of view changing and strange asides that don't keep to a clear storyline. Zookeeper's Wife is a fine book but it's really all over the place. I would not recommend it or read it again.
Okay, that ending was a little lackluster. I'm going to need a prequel book just about the amazing Su Yi! And the Eddie situation was a little too easily resolved. This book needed to be longer to properly wrap up some of these interesting storylines. The aunties also seemed easily pacified. Fun book! I just want more.
Excuse the vagueness as I try not to spoil anything specific in this book.
The most interesting things about this book are the battle at Alamance, a bear, and a snake bite. There was also a journal, and Roger gets into some fun adventures. Every other character was a bore. That's it.
Claire and Brie were strong heroines until this book, where they languish in child care for about 80% of the story. Alamance allowed a glimpse of the Claire we know and love from the first novel, and Brie gets some good hunting in, but beyond that, the situation for these capable ladies is grim.
Skip this one on your Outlander odyssey; it has about 10 different subplots that fizzle out. I miss the pacing and high stakes of the first 3 books.
This book is required reading for anyone who has an interest in understanding the class, gender, and race-fuelled 2016 American presidential election or just in understanding poor white America.
Riveting and thorough, this book doesn't pull any punches and includes Jefferson's stance on nature versus nurture, opportunist populist presidential campaigns exploiting the poor working class, glorification of poor white America in the media through figures like Dolly Parton and Honey Boo Boo, and the list goes on. Incredible how political history repeats itself.
Day's bubbly personality really carries this book at a great pace. Between all the fan stories and creative struggles, it's refreshing to learn how she overcame her own mental health challenges in such a tough entertainment industry and continued to encourage positivity and champion mental health. Love Felicia Day, love this book.
If you like your memoirs snappy, snarky, and real, then you're in the right place. Eddie Huang presents a no-holds-barred account of his quirky American family and the immigrant struggle. His voice reverberated in my Puerto Rican-American heart. I love his realist take on what it means to be American, self-made, and knowing when you have to “get in where you fit in.” Huang pulls from his street cred, law school training, literary theory, cultural food history—you name it—as he explains how a sweet punk kid became one of the foremost voices in the culinary world and originator of one of the only shows on American television with an Asian American cast, Fresh Off the Boat.
What can I say--this book opens like Hunger Games with a strong, hunting-savvy female lead and then dives into full Beauty and the Beast mode with the addition of fairies and dark fairy bargains.
The story is very straightforward with minimal surprises and uses dark fairytale tropes to its advantage. The first half lags with aimless palace wandering, although gives Feyre a chance to process and settle in.
Some bits were clunky; repeating that fairies were unable to lie too often, the event in the middle of the book, and asking the hero to set snares outside her palace room like fairies wouldn't notice.
I especially enjoyed the beautiful and emotional writing during the blue fairy scene that furthers Feyre's character arc.
Then, the pacing picks up and is maintained through the end with some interesting tension-building challenges. The romantic bits are cute, well-placed and elegantly fade to black. Yet, I wish there were more sister-to-sister scenes with no-nonsense Nesta in the second half.
Best of all: It has an actual natural ending in spite of being a series. Solidly enjoyable read.
A little taste of post-apocalyptic during the Black Plague in jolly Olde England–that's the core driver of Doomsday.
Kivrin was a likeable enough character who has her whole gung-ho academic perception of turned on its head when she's popped back on assignment to the Middle Ages. She's capable takes all challenges in stride, but there's only so much she could do in the face of disease.
In light of Brexit this year, there was some interesting tidbits about the English xenophobia interwoven into the book.
My favorite character and arguably the most beautifully written character in the book was Father Roche. He never ceased to be practical and human in the face of pestilence. His reasoning and poetic leanings balanced out the cast in the Middle Ages and painted a picture of how much a leader of small parish meant to people of that era.
I could have done without so much of the annoying American bell-ringers, but solidly good time-travel sci-fi overall.
❤
The summary is a jumping off point for this novelette, but the story itself is a series of Isabel's remembrances. The turns of phrase describing Portland and observations of other people are spare and vivid. The vintage dresses and old postcards pulled me in but Isabel's wistful wanderlust and endearing awkwardness sat me down until the last page.