andrea

nope. a few of the music references i liked, libraries are always great, but the writing was meh and the main characters especially were meh. flat and absolutely predictable.

very good

smart writing, good story.

meh.

very very good. immediately on to book 3.

started out so strong, but got tangled up and bogged down. way too tidy an ending. ah well.

the last two chapters were particularly great. the last line hit me, a mom of two girls, hard. will definitely read more by this author.

fantastic!

i rarely write reviews but as there are some fairly harsh reviews for this book at the top of the goodreads page, well, here's my two cents:

i started running last year right after i turned 43 and now, a year later, still running and considering training for a half-marathon, I have begun wondering what my (running) future can really hold. isn't it too late? isn't it too pointless? won't it just eventually be depressing? a morose cherry on the cake-that-is-aging? i don't even like the running itself that much - i like much more that i have run (though there are moments, especially after the first two miles or so where it can feel pretty wonderful for a minute or two). still, i keep wanting to run so i do – but for what?

and that is where this book came through in spades. i learned a lot about running strategy, the history of women running in north america especially, and about how running can impact aging. all three topics inspiring and impactful, both to my running and to my life generally. i love the connections runners make with their sport to life - which since i was never an athlete, is news to me. more importantly, i got little snapshots of all these different female runners, ranging between their 40s to almost 100. amazing! also, the author always told us at what age the various women began running, which i found especially inspiring.

the final chapter where the author has reached her long-awaited half-marathon at the world masters, is going through her four motivational words to help her mental game - “fun”, “stronger”, “faster”, and “fearless”-, and is remembering what her previous year building up to that race was like, was touching and rang very very true. this was some hard-won and important wisdom, all distilled into the good stuff for us lucky readers. if the author is generous enough to share, i am more than happy to receive.

was super-wary of the fbi part but its inclusion in the story ended up at least reflecting some of the, to put it extremely mildly, screwed up ways the fbi inherently, historically, and actively still is. so that is better than probably 98% of any american novels that have the fbi in it, much less a ya book.

i also just liked the characters, especially the elders and daunis' extended family and stormy and macy. i liked the romance ending, too - strong but realistic with a large dose of possibility.

i wouldn't hate a sequel here - but please, no more fbi.

oh and i was correct about the hockey pucks - it was so obvious though, chekhov and the gun and all that.

forcing my murderbot reading binge to pause for a few days, but we'll see how long i can hold out. three books (sure, sure, novellas, whatever) in three days is a lot even for me lol. off to read George Saunders...

Frustrating read because there was a very good story to tell here. Some really nice writing too, as expected by Solomon. All of this was interspersed with inconsistent worldbuilding, chaotic structuring, poor pacing - and a protagonist whose thoughts, unfortunately, drive the story, with their incessant hand-wringing interrupted by sudden and bewildering action. Surely the fragmentation etc was deliberate, but for a story to succeed, it still has to be a good story. Ah well. Still, I won't forget the book, so there is that.

not for me. the author's voice is remote, cold, and often snotty but in a boring kind of way.

Oof, that was tremendous. I read this right after finishing Sue Miller's Monogamy, so two books back-to-back about a marriage. This was by far the superior.

Never was interested much in Shakespeare, kind of got even more soured by that Shakespeare in Love movie, but this book was really lovely and vivid and heartfelt.

I won't forget any of these characters any time soon.

nooooo. just noooo.

not a fan.

no real answers, lots of narcissistic nyc-elite ramblings where ‘everyone' seems to know everyone else, lots of drama and bemoaning, and ultimately just a string of vignettes. and at the end of the day? the two most hyped shamees are back in corporate PR positions and publishing books written in their mansions.

also, i kept waiting for ronson to get real and show proof of his own self-proclaimed twitter groupthink and really analyze it. never happened.

the only two real insights: daisy's point about the story we tell ourselves and controlling the narrative at least in our own head and (4chan girl) mercedes' point about the police trying to gain control of the internet.

she is consistently wonderful.

it was good at first but got much weaker towards the middle and end. sloppy writing and editing, lots of jumping around and assumptions every which way that we, the reader, were supposed to just accept. for example: no real explanation of how time travel would work, no conflicted feelings re:their relationship or her complete dropping of the conference/career ambitions, how his supreme richness made all things possible (which is a gross concept already, of course), and so on. still, entertaining overall and so i'll read book 2. two big pluses that make this possible is the collection of characters and the general worldbuilding.

first book read on new kindle ~ first book I've finished in months. perhaps not a coincidence, but i still love paper more.

First audiobook I ever finished because a) it was short, b) it was Carrie Fisher reading it. I could listen to her for days and will definitely look for more of her writing and/or narrating.

it has been so long since i read a romance novel - and this was a good one when compared to the many i read years ago. there were definitely some hot scenes especially in the beginning.. but unfortunately the story relied on the super familiar trope of ‘oh it is all just a misunderstanding'/temporary failure to communicate which made the it all flat ultimately. what i wish all these books would do is instead show true conflicts, true disagreements, real stuff we all deal with. loving someone and being loved and yet truly having a conflict or issue that needs resolving or at least understanding, patience, compromise, etc.

oh i did like that the protagonist had autism, and for the most part i believed it and learned a bunch just watching how she navigated her life. ..but again the way she basically instantly magically was fine with the romantic interest touching her whereas before she didn't even like her mother to hug her, that was annoying and took me out of the story a bit.

also annoying and beyond-cliched is that she became, about a third of the way into the book, a total knockout. yawwwwwn.

one thing i did like, and what drew me initially, is the romantic interest being asian, albeit half-asian. there needs to be more books like that and i am glad the author's next book also has an asian guy as the love interest.

i will read more by this author but also keep my expections somewhat low as it will probably be a quick kinda-fun read but ultimately forgettable. and that's ok i guess.

she makes my head clear in times of sadness/monotony/dread/etc. reading her, my feet are firmly on the ground but that feels like a hopeful thing, a wonderful thing i had forgotten about in all my misery or whatever.

i love ali smith books.

first time finishing it, though i am sure i read most of it in 2018. will of course read more austen soon.

A clever and fun picture book, full of folk tale characters. I liked that not everything was explained in the plot, that you had to figure out a main part of it for yourself via the images.