Kat

this is the best audiobook i have found to date, and one of the best memoirs i've “read” too. i liked Patrick Stewart on ST:TNG but wouldn't describe myself as a particular fan of his, but this memoir is extremely charming from beginning to end. some of it is interesting, some is humorous, some is thoughtful, and some is even a little scandalous. throughout, he approaches the tale of his life with honesty, humility and vulnerability. and his reading of it is a delight, sounding as natural as if he's relating these stories to a close friend over dinner.

memoirs read by the author might be the only genre of audiobooks that are improved by the audio format, or at least, so far they are the only ones i've been (mostly) capable of listening to without also wanting to at least skim through the text and maybe highlight passages (which somewhat defeats the purpose). anyway i mostly know Abby from her podcast with Glennon, and it turns out that this book covers her life up until just before their first meeting (the one Glennon's has waxed poetic about so often), which was a bit of a disappointment. but it was interesting to hear about Abby's life as a professional athlete, what it was like to become an accidental poster child for LGBT rights, and a bit about her history with drugs and alcohol and her journey to sobriety.

i kind of see what he is trying to do here but i hated most of this book, and the bits i didn't hate, i resented for not being good enough to counterbalance the hours i spent reading some of the worst things i have ever read. huge swaths of it are gross and much of the rest of it is sad, and if there are a few exquisite paragraphs amongst the morass, i'm here to tell you that you can find equally good paragraphs in other books. well-written, interestingly-structured, unique, yes; but in the service of nothing i cared to experience.

i thought i would finish it out of a desire to see if the payoff would make it all worthwhile (it didn't) but in the end, what really got me over the finish line was a combination of morbid curiosity and sheer bloody-mindedness. a merely bad book could be left unfinished; a book that i am going to describe henceforth as one of the worst i've ever read deserves me to at least not walk out at intermission.

more than anything else, the book reminded me of insufferable boyfriends i had in college, the sort who would not close the bathroom door while doing their business because “we should be completely comfortable with each other's bodies” and then imply that if i preferred some privacy i was somehow prudish or close-minded or sexually repressed.

anyway, don't read this.

it was okay. the central mystery didn't really have a satisfying payoff and the extremely self-satisfied twee/cleverness got grating after awhile. just not a lot of depth to it. narrator of the audiobook was good.

god, i'm sorry, giving this a one-star review feels like kicking a puppy but honestly the only reason i finished it at all is that (1) it was short and (2) i didn't feel like pausing my bike ride to change the audiobook. and probably (3) i tend to finish books i'm not enjoying, which is a habit i should probably break.

anyway it's not really this book's FAULT that i just don't seem to like “cozy” found-family fiction in which the stakes are low, the plot is eventless and the tension is nonexistent. i hated Long Way To A Small Angry Planet, i hated Light From Uncommon Stars and i hated this. and it's got an especially grating urban-fantasy / a-funny-thing-happened-in-my-d&d-game vibe that winkingly introduces outlandish real-world concepts such as “coffee shops” into a fantasy setting, practically elbowing the reader in self-indulgent smugness as the characters go on a journey of inventing novelties such as to-go cups and guitar amplifiers from first principles. and of course it ends with a saccharine sweet moral, thoroughly unsubtle and thoroughly predictable.

probably this says more about me as a person but i would like some drama. i would like some SUFFERING. i would like to occasionally worry about whether everything is going to turn out alright in the end. in fact i would like to stay up past my bedtime with my eyes glued to the pages because i need to know how it ends.

this is the first time i've ever seen a theatrical production (shoutout to Central Square Theater, in Boston) and gone home and read the script that same evening. then i ordered a paper copy for my library.

the play is astonishing, extraordinary, sprawling, ambitious, profound, devastating, inspiring, subversive, queer, deeply moving. i've been thinking about it for days. there is so much about it that feels seared into my heart.

hope, when it can't be discovered in certainty, can almost always be located in indeterminacy (Kushner, from the Foreword)

so interestingly i have a friend who asserts these are the good fairy books (versus ACOTAR) and i found ACOTAR unputdownable whereas i could barely get through this one, but it was about the right level of complexity for an audiobook, which i did appreciate about it. still trying to break myself of the habit of rereading/skimming what i've already listened to as an ebook, though. will have to see where the story goes...

I don't know much about her as a musician, but this is notably good as an audiobook. Not only to hear the story in her own voice, but because she sings passages of songs she's talking about, plays piano during the chapter breaks, and includes guest voices from all parts of her life (running the gamut from her mom to Jay Z to Barack Obama).

The beginning and end are especially interesting as she interrogates what it means to be true to yourself, hold boundaries and let go of people-pleasing and the judgements of society. A lot of bits in the middle were kind of whatever as someone who doesn't really care that much about the details of her rise to stardom, but might be more interesting to a fan.

I don't listen to many audiobooks, as even when I've tried, I find myself wanting to sit down with the printed pages, whether it's to understand a dense passage, get the benefit of visual information (maps, graphs, etc) or highlight quotes. This memoir is the first audiobook I've encountered that I think was actually stronger in the audio format, and I didn't have FOMO and end up essentially reading/skimming it a second time on paper.

this is kind of trashy and yet i am obsessed with it

this was fine, i probably should have read it when it was more immediately relevant, but anyway. Solnit and Samantha Irby are of course fantastic and are the stand-outs here. a few other interesting essays.

i deeply and profoundly loved this book and there were many MANY things that spoke to me about it and which i have been thinking about for weeks since finishing it:

* everything about gender and identity
* the search for connection and belonging as a human universal
* found family
* gods of a place, your path through life being represented literally
* the idea of reparenting yourself to resolve past traumas
* connections with others that are strong enough to recur in different lives / reincarnations
* the search for transcendence and whether/when a desire to connect with a larger truth can masquerade as self-harm or obsession... or vice versa

i was extremely excited to see that Crowley wrote a magical realist history of Ireland, especially when i saw that it includes my ancestors specifically, by name.

however it was a little too straight historical fiction for my tastes, with the magical realism mostly only present in hints and intimations. i found it hard to follow and hard to connect with emotionally.

the strongest part was the side tale of the woman and the selkie, which seemed to have no connection to, or bearing on, the larger plot.

i did appreciate the line at the end that implied it is a prequel to Little, Big.

Witch Baby is the protagonist and she goes to NYC so obviously this was my favorite one so far

ok have to dock a few points because it is borderline culturally appropriative BUT at its core it's about what happens when the things that help you transform yourself become the same things that haunt you because you have invested them with too much power

these are starting to feel like they don't have anything new to offer idk

i wanted to read this because i enjoyed the off-Broadway production so much, but it's... not nearly as good as the show. also, Jules (my favorite character in the show) isn't nonbinary in the book, so.

this was eerie and compelling and beautiful and unforgettable

(i love u Gillian and i'm sorry but) this was such a hot mess of copy-pasted self-help tips and the few personal stories from GA's life are extremely generic.

i can't be bothered to write anything more about this but please enjoy the dippy acronyms i highlighted:

Fear = False Evidence Appearing Real
Trust = To Rely Upon Spiritual Truth
Ego = Edging Goodness Out
Act = Action Changes Things

These stories are all beautifully written and a bit harrowing, but almost all of them are also unresolved: they set up a very interesting world and story and then leave you wondering what will happen. Many of them involve characters trapped or stranded somewhere and awaiting rescue. They're almost more like vignettes or tableaux than short stories per se. Whether it's because the names, characters and worlds are so intriguingly sketched out with so few words, or because of the unresolved nature of the stories, I have the feeling I'll continue to ponder many of them. My favorite was City of Shells.

a sweet (and sometimes bittersweet) story. i was really emotionally invested in the characters, and a few things about the plot surprised me. the details really made it feel more like a biography than a work of fiction.

an odd, bemusing California-punk fairy tale.

a very readable retelling of Norse myths, in a voice that is certainly Gaiman's.

i didn't expect this to be as deeply affecting as it was, nor as relatable. T&S are close to me in age, and both the larger culture of the time and the social dynamics of their high school friend group seemed very familiar to me and brought up a lot of nostalgia. musician memoirs are hit-or-miss, but given that their deeply emotional and evocative lyrics form the backbone of their music, i shouldn't have been surprised to find this well-written and emotionally resonant.

Interesting somewhat experimental sci-fi. I liked its obsession with memory and identity and it has a bit of a puzzlebox nature, though it's not clear the thing as a whole has clear answers.

this had its moments i guess but i have read better-written things on ao3 and i got extremely tired of “cozy scene where loveable misfit main character eats food with found family”. any drama introduced is resolved within a few pages and you always know exactly what is going to happen and that everyone will be fine, and the attempt at humorous pop-culture aware plot (especially at the end) is just very cringe