Troy

Loved and agreed with the message of the book, but extremely clunky execution. Plot holes, naive one-dimensional characters, no trust in the reader to grasp the subtext.

Fine, a few nice moments but mostly forgettable

Some clunkiness at times but also a lot of nuance to the main character and her relationships. A quick and worthwhile read.

The ick:reward ratio here is WAY off

Good stuff with a lot of "oof" moments, but the overlapping settings tended to blur a lot of the stories into a big sad cynical mush

Perfect read for spooky season

The name of the book is Jazz and yet I was wholly unprepared for the lyricism of Morrison's writing. As usual, her characters are flawed, complex individuals, but there's an ambiguity and circularity to this novel that isn't present in Sula or Song of Solomon.

This is the first book of Hanif's that I've read and it lived up to expectations. Poetic, nostalgic, present, weaving resonant stories from history, pop culture, and adolescence.

Overall a lovely quick read but I wish there was more exposition: I wanted to get to know Red and Blue as individuals before diving straight into the romance.

This book is ambitious and hard to wrangle at first. So many interwoven perspectives, some in the same chapter, some of them (Jules, Alex) difficult reads for different reasons. It's a mixed bag because of this, but the high points (Dolly, Old Lou, the PowerPoint chapter) really deliver.