i will keep reading lit fic about weird lesbians finding themselves as long as emily austin keeps writing it.
so no surprise this is my first five stari will keep reading lit fic about weird lesbians finding themselves as long as emily austin keeps writing it.
so no surprise this is my first five star of the year! even better, it got my personal gold seal of approval: making me cry on an airplane.
i just think we're so lucky to have emily austin's wacky goofy funny cynical cutting loving brilliant brain helping us to navigate these unprecedented times. this book helped me make sense of so much in my own worldview: how i can love others and believe people are good, even while i am horrified to see the timeline we appear to be on.
being surrounded by strangers with so much love in my heart in this book that also manages to be funny...it was a treat beyond words.
bottom line: the book i needed when i needed it.
(thank you to the publisher for the copy!!!)...more
i'm scared of who i'll become when i don't have any more toni morrison to read.
there's no one like her on race, beauty, the cruelty of society, the wai'm scared of who i'll become when i don't have any more toni morrison to read.
there's no one like her on race, beauty, the cruelty of society, the way we carry past wounds with us, the attempt to love selflessly by people.
the fact that this is a debut is unbelievable. possibly the best first book i've ever read.
pecola is an unforgettable character, and the way this manages to tell her story even when it's through the perspective of others is masterful. everything in this book is thoughtful, everything down to the blue shirley temple cup contributing to the story of an unloved little girl, victim to the tragedy that befell her parents before her.
i feel at a loss for words. i desperately want to convince you to read this painful and upsetting and brilliant book — likely my favorite of the year.
bottom line: my 2000th read was a perfect one....more
every book i read this year that isn't by toni morrison is against my will.
it was a year in which i read my first toni morrison book, and then i read every book i read this year that isn't by toni morrison is against my will.
it was a year in which i read my first toni morrison book, and then i read 6 more of them.
there is nobody, absolutely nobody, like her.
morrison's writing is up in the clouds, filled with turns of phrase and plot that in any other narrative would be nonsensical, and yet it is unceasingly, unmercifully, constantly grounded in reality. the ways in which it moves toward the fantastical serve only to tell us in full detail of the pain of life — the selfish foolishness of people, the cruel machinations of an unequal society, the moving target of contentment.
i'm writing having finished her most canonical works, having 5 starred her four most read masterpieces all in a row. i have never in my life encountered an author i feel this way about. my lesson of 2024 is that toni morrison is the great american author.
bottom line: all i can say is do what i did: read everything....more
this is probably the most stunning exploration i've encountered of a fact of modern life that haunts me. inundated as we are with horrible news, we kethis is probably the most stunning exploration i've encountered of a fact of modern life that haunts me. inundated as we are with horrible news, we keep it all at a distance, our daily functioning relying on our shutting out that every murder, act of colonization, ongoing genocide is affecting or destroying or ending human lives as complicated and important as our own.
but the chance that a "minor detail" will strike us, as it strikes our protagonist when she encounters the story of the rape and murder of a palestinian woman by israeli soldiers that happened 25 years to the day before her birth, causes it all to collapse.
the connections it draws between our main character and the girl this violence happens to is also a disturbing, timely reminder of that same message. we are separated from those who are suffering only by minor details, in feeling and in chance.
this is a haunting and terrible story, and it's one whose twin in horror is occurring every day before our very eyes.
the least we can do is watch and feel and cry out no.
this book was the most exciting news of my year and i got engaged the week it was announced.
somehow, it still exceeded my life-altering, world-centerithis book was the most exciting news of my year and i got engaged the week it was announced.
somehow, it still exceeded my life-altering, world-centering, unrealistic-to-the-point-of-being-annoying expectations.
with every book, sally rooney seems to challenge herself in a new way, showing that in the years since her last release while we've all been pining and watching paul mescal fan edits she's been ever (somehow! still!) building on her craft. in beautiful world, where are you, for example, she displayed a totally new and mesmerizing use of visual language and natural motif that i fell in love with.
here, her use of perspective is stunning. i'm a multi-pov hater, but this manages to feel like something entirely different even as it follows the interiority of three characters. it seamlessly transitions between the three while still being vividly distinct: peter's staccato trains of thought, margaret's quiet self-reflection, ivan's anxious rambling. i've never read anything like it.
decisions like the little we see from within the two female characters in peter's orbit, and are immersed in the world of ivan's, feels so true to their characters and to their stories — and such an interesting facet to the characteristic sociopolitical explorations that are the true gem of rooney's writing.
rooney also challenges herself to create characters who are simultaneously unlikable and real, making decisions that threaten to get you to put the book down and sigh while being mercilessly relatable and easy to understand.
that's what we're working with here. a novel in which every choice is so thoughtful that you can spend a minute reading a page, then pause for five minutes just to consider it. which is basically what i did (read: make myself spend a month reading this because i so dreaded not having any more of it to draw out).
peter and ivan each represent a shade of misogyny, of straight-white-man-ism in modern society, that doesn't forgive itself even while it refuses to let you ignore their own humanity and histories.
peter's perspective, made up of brief ulyssean phrases and stunning descriptions, varies as much from ivan's terminally introspective one as the two brothers do from each other.
rooney's past books have focused on waxing and waning romantic (and semi-romantic) relationships; beautiful world also features a platonic one at its core. this one takes as its subject siblings, at first nearly estranged, as they struggle toward each other.
anyway. i often hate multiple perspectives because it always feels there's one the author is more comfortable with, that the choice to distinguish the two is because they have to be different because they're different characters. rooney's decision is deliberate, each perspective difference thought out, and because of that both are wildly impressive.
i loved this book.
bottom line: all the it girls love intermezzo and all the it girls are right.
(thank you from the bottom of my heart to the publisher for the arc) (buddy read of a lifetime with my favorite girl elle)...more
it has one of the best beginnings i've ever read, and it has one of the best endings i've ever read, and all of i need this book injected in my veins.
it has one of the best beginnings i've ever read, and it has one of the best endings i've ever read, and all of the middle parts are pretty damn good too.
its explorations of family, of naming, of the permanently unhealed wound of slavery, of gender and power, and of love are unforgettable.
i hate reviewing books i love at the best of times, and for this one in particular there is just no way i can do it justice.
bottom line: please, for the love of yourself, read it....more
this is the kind of book that is so enjoyable for every second it makes you want to go back and lower the rating of everything you've read of late.
it is so funny and so precise and so clever, and a page will have a random unshakable description that is so goddamn weird and right. i fell completely in love with these characters and with this book, and as the end of it approached i read slower and slower in the hopes i'd discover 100 or so pages had been stuck together and hiding.
we all have soulmates. mine is short literary fiction.
anyone can write a long book and make you care about characters when they have hundreds of pageswe all have soulmates. mine is short literary fiction.
anyone can write a long book and make you care about characters when they have hundreds of pages to do it. managing to make me love three people so much in 84 pages that i cry to say goodbye to them, when i've spent barely a magazine in their company, is magic.
this is a short book, but it is perfect. i loved every page of it in a year where i barely seem to find books i like.
i am a big fan of liz bruenig's writing and a huge opposer of the death penalty, so the existence of this book is enough to make me read nonfiction—ani am a big fan of liz bruenig's writing and a huge opposer of the death penalty, so the existence of this book is enough to make me read nonfiction—and adore it.
the entire system of punishment in this country is intended to dehumanize those that reside within it, and numb the emotions of those that witness it.
this book is the antidote to that.
it is incredibly painful and consuming. i felt such deep sorrow while reading this, and such helplessness, and such disgust for the world that we live within. i felt grief.
but i also felt incredible gratitude, that bruenig continues to bring these topics that so many would see buried to light. and i felt love for the people depicted here. and i felt forgiveness.
then i spent hours upon hours trying to pick it back up, my brain absolutely rejecting the concept that i had finished it. i had a series of work calls, and after each i wanted to continue reading. i had a series of tasks, and i without fail attempted to stop doing them in order to read.
i could not stop thinking about this book!!!
so boom. 5 stars it became.
part of me prickled at the conceit of this, which is that creating a human life is an act of creation that is radical and artistic and important, and that nothing is taken from the strength and passion motherhood takes by virtue of its being societal default. i didn't think that going in, and i didn't really want to think it through most of my reading experience.
but that's part of why i am a good reader for this book. because it convinced me.
and on top of that gorgeousness, this is funny and sharp and populated with unforgettable characters. it's two distinct stories, and i loved both, which feels like the rarest thing ever.
this is in many ways about how it is a huge act of generosity to love someone, and maybe the most valuable thing you can do in this life.
and i love women and this book loves women and i love this book.
bottom line: love! life! jokes about capitalism! what more could you want.
------------------- reread update
i love this book too much.
------------------- tbr review
literary fiction about what it means to be a woman...yeah this is up my alley
the other best thing a book can be is: - among the absolute fraction of things i read that magically, miraculously, divinely qualifies as 5 stars.
this is both.
i had no idea it was the great dream of my life to have three daughters and spend my days with them and my husband and a rescue dog picking cherries and telling stories in our orchard in michigan, but this was too damn dreamy for that not to be the case.
it's too auspicious, encountering my second beloved michigan cherry book. plus they're my favorite fruit. i will hereby be retiring from the review game in order to dedicate my life to google maps-ing "fruit trees accompanied by white farmhouses near lakes."
this book was strange and imperfect, kind of bumpy and (bizarrely) poorly edited and uncompelling in spots, but...i never stopped wanting to be reading it.
whenever i'm in my dear lovely favorite independent bookstore, i have a careful(ish) allowance. i can buy as many books from the on-sale rescue-these-books-from-remainder-table as my charitable heart desires, but i can only buy one full-price hardcover.
this was that one.
i chose really, really well.
bottom line: sometimes you think you'll love a book, and then you do. that feeling never gets old....more
once upon a time, i had a very long, very passionate review of this book uploaded, with very long, very passionate pages of comments, and generally itonce upon a time, i had a very long, very passionate review of this book uploaded, with very long, very passionate pages of comments, and generally it was one of my favorite reviews (and of one of my favorite books) with one of my favorite ensuing discussions.
i love ling ma and i want to kiss her on the face but that seems like a pretty major overstep so instead i'll just read everything she writes.
mini revi love ling ma and i want to kiss her on the face but that seems like a pretty major overstep so instead i'll just read everything she writes.
mini reviews for each story like i always do for collections when my weary brain allows me!
STORY 1: LOS ANGELES immediately i don't think i can review every one of these. this was too one of a kind, too striking, i'm speechless, and i have to do this EVERY TIME?!
about to give up already. rating: 4.25
STORY 2: ORANGES cover story. basically.
this doesn't have the same fervent originality as the first one but it's even more immersive and suffocating. rating: 4
STORY 3: G this allegory is so satisfying (if a little clichéd) it's like having a treat. rating: 4
STORY 4: YETI LOVEMAKING HELLO ANOTHER BEAUTIFUL METAPHOR THIS ONE NOT CLICHED AT ALL!!!!! rating: 4.25
STORY 5: RETURNING AHHHHHHHHHHH!!!
i don't want this book to end ever.
a story about books and the themes of books and it has the themes and also more themes and also also also... rating: 4.5
STORY 6: UNIVERSITY hmmmmmm.
fun recurring theme becoming apparent of the complexity of desire (i.e., a sense of dissatisfaction too elaborate to pin on any one thing) making happiness impossible in modern life. rating: 4
STORY 8: PEKING DUCK these are just so rich. rating: 4
STORY 9: TOMORROW whoa. rating: 4
OVERALL brilliant and incisive, more knowing and intuitive on the subject of being young and getting older in the 21st century than just about anything i've ever read. i know i'm going to return to this one, countless times mentally and more than once for a reread.
significantly better than the sum of its parts, and the parts are damn good. rating: 5
-------------------- tbr review
things i am willing to do in order to receive this book: - be nice (or try to be) - think about it a lot - ... - say please and thank you?
it worked. thanks to netgalley for the copy....more
i highly recommend reading this five hours into a six hour wait at an airport for an increasingly delayed plane, slowly feeling that overpriced-salad i highly recommend reading this five hours into a six hour wait at an airport for an increasingly delayed plane, slowly feeling that overpriced-salad identical-not-very-bookish-bookstores busiest-starbucks-in-world-history layover rage give way to an incredibly irritating fondness for everyone you see.
if you've been here a bit you may have seen me say my absolute favorite books remind me that life is magical, that even its mundane moments are filled with love and beauty.
this is that on every page.
this read couldn't have come at a better time for me, as i both marked the time between five star reads in months and navigate the growing seriousness of being super crazy stupid cheesy boring capital I capital L In Love for the first time—the scariest thing i've ever done.
this soothed me on both and made my heart feel full.
i’m a longstanding opponent of the not like other girls trope (i’m on the record since like 2015, which mei am never happier than when i feel special.
i’m a longstanding opponent of the not like other girls trope (i’m on the record since like 2015, which means this hatred significantly outlives most of my opinions, relationships, and sweaters), but i do like to be unlike other people. i turn the average meal-to-dessert ratio on its head. i stan dunkin over starbucks. i am in the midst of a lifelong quest to have the single most disturbing sleep schedule i can.
and of course, above all, i am an appreciator of a good unpopular opinion.
however.
i don’t think my opinion of this book should be unique.
this book has a devastating 3.19, and this is in spite of being complete perfection from beginning to end.
i picked up a library ebook of this, and while several of my very favorites in the world loved this book, i kinda expected to 3.5 it and move on into my resting state of complete forgetting as soon as possible.
instead, i found myself highlighting swaths of text, almost buzzing with that oh my god is this is a five star this might be a five star feeling, resonating with the emotions depicted and stunned by how lovely and clear the writing was.
and then i finished it, bought a copy, and reread and annotated it barely a week after reading it for the first time.
it’s really an easy five star, filled with taboo topics and fascinating characters and revealing dynamics. it’s about love and sex, gender and power, and how to find yourself or even know what that would look like. it’s about searching for happiness and meaning while being unable to admit that’s what you’re doing.
it’s everything that i think about the most.
bottom line: read it!!!
-------------------- reread update
nothing says five star read like rereading after a week
-------------------- pre-review
never happier than when i love a book everyone hates :)
review to come / 4.5 or 5 stars
-------------------- tbr review
the best thing that can possibly happen to a person is when they get very into a subgenre that is also simultaneously the single most trendy and common subgenre there is.
it's another title + month based pun, it's another classic on my currently reading list, it's another PROJECT LONG CLwelcome to...SEPTEMBERHOUSE-FIVE.
it's another title + month based pun, it's another classic on my currently reading list, it's another PROJECT LONG CLASSIC installment, a project by which i take on classics i've been procrastinating reading in itty bitty sections to make them seem manageable.
this one isn't long, but i did only add it to my want to read list because i somehow have a bookmark that says "everything was beautiful and nothing hurt" and i feel like a poseur.
so similar in impact.
let's get into it.
CHAPTER 1 i think this book has like 10 chapters, so i'll just read one a day till it's done and call it the world's worst project selection in terms of accuracy.
to be honest i just want an excuse to read it immediately.
CHAPTER 2 "The most important thing I learned on Tralfamadore was that when a person dies he only appears to die. He is still very much alive in the past, so it is very silly for people to cry at his funeral. All moments, past, present and future, always have existed, always will exist. The Tralfamadorians can look at all the different moments just that way we can look at a stretch of the Rocky Mountains, for instance. They can see how permanent all the moments are, and they can look at any moment that interests them. It is just an illusion we have here on Earth that one moment follows another one, like beads on a string, and that once a moment is gone it is gone forever."
i mean. holy moley.
CHAPTER 3 this book has a character who briefly appears and in his short time with us says that if you're writing an anti-war book, you may as well write an anti-glacier book for how effective it will be. both war and glaciers are here intended as timeless and permanent parts of human life.
with climate change now making glaciers a much more impeachable concept, this statement acts as one of strange and ironic and twisted hope.
CHAPTER 4 "Well, here we are, Mr. Pilgrim, trapped in the amber of this moment. There is no why."
if i have to get abducted by aliens i hope they're also wise.
CHAPTER 5 it's always fun to see another book you've enjoyed or want to read mentioned in a book you're actively reading and enjoying. like a special guest star appearance.
CHAPTER 6 do you know the meme where a book / movie / tv show / romping good time / limited series / human life has to end when they say the title?
anyway. this book would've just ended.
CHAPTER 7 one of those books where you're like "i could write a whole paper about this" every other page.
CHAPTER 8 this book is somewhat unique in antiwar books for its admission that war is intended to make shells out of heroic people, and that "one of its effects" is to prevent people from being "characters."
it seems there is an impulse to think antiwar media will be more effective if this truth is ignored, but i've never found that to be the case. the most disturbing part of war, after all, is its anti-humanity.
CHAPTER 9 a while back my boyfriend was flipping through my copy of this book and laughed pretty hard, but i didn't ask why because he appeared to be fairly close to the end and i didn't want to be spoiled.
i have to say, i gave him more literary benefit of the doubt than he was entitled to for laughing at what i now realize was a drawing of boobs.
CHAPTER 10 welp.
OVERALL this book was mind melting and funny and smart and touching and painful, as was realizing that the quote i love so much that it inspired me to read this book is not meant sincerely.
not everything is beautiful. a hell of a lot hurts. we shouldn't respond to death with nonchalance—we should never accept that that's how it has to go, not all of the time, not right then. war is evil, and things mean things, and we should keep life close to us even when it's tempting to release it, to pull your hand back as if from a hot stove.
and the hurting makes the beautiful more beautiful anyway. rating: 5...more
periodically, i have to check to see if i still dislike poetry. for character development.
unfortunately, this has had, in this case, an unforeseen sidperiodically, i have to check to see if i still dislike poetry. for character development.
unfortunately, this has had, in this case, an unforeseen side effect: THIS TIME, I DID.
i read this last month (okay, two months ago, what about it i’m terribly behind) and i felt this sneaky sinking feeling i should 5 star it. but not to worry, because i’m doing this new totally normal not at all deranged thing where if i want to give a book 5 stars, i have to reread it before i review it.
so usually i am reading said book twice in one month.
like i said - normal stuff.
so i read this again. it’s still a 5.
this is prose poetry, which in this case means a tiny little book divided into number paragraphs of stunning writing, not only doable for me but pretty ideal. generally it’s my favorite kind of book: lovely turns of phrase, filled with beautiful explorations of what it is to be human / to hurt / to feel / to love.
throw in a bunch of fun facts and interesting topics and observations about sex and i’m in love.
bottom line: i never in a million years expected to say this but…kind of a dream!...more
even at the best of times, when i am absolutely on the ball and everything is perfect and life is going my way and i am organized and well stocked in cookies and persian cucumbers (the two best foods), the very best i can hope for in terms of how much time passes between when i read a book and when i review it is 3 weeks.
but that's beside the point, because we are firmly in the two month category on this one.
i just...don't know how to do it. i've never READ anything like this - how would i know how to write about it?
this is just so stunning. so lovely.
the simulation theory and the corresponding idea of SO WHAT, to put it as basically as possible, are two things that have always fascinated me, and now here i find them transcribed so lovingly???
at first i didn't know if i'd like this book - doubted i would, really - as characters from the glass hotel popped up but wow. how different. the two couldn't be more dissimilar.
which is a compliment.
bottom line: a really good book with a perfect ending.
(update: raising to 5 stars 6 months later because i can't stop thinking about this book)
------------------ reread update
doing the normal thing i do where i reread a book i think is a 5 star almost immediately as some kind of weird gobliny test
------------------ pre-review
oh, gosh. life is so lovely.
review to come / 4.5 or 5 stars
------------------ tbr review
will this be a perfect glorious beautifully written book i never stop thinking about (station eleven) or a confusing mess that makes me almost inexplicably mad (the glass hotel).
I, for example, come extraordinarily close, and even I have my flaws. I work too hard. I give too much to charity. I cannot, FOR THENobody is perfect.
I, for example, come extraordinarily close, and even I have my flaws. I work too hard. I give too much to charity. I cannot, FOR THE LIFE OF ME, WRITE A POSITIVE REVIEW.
I can write negative reviews all day, and have fun doing it. Give me a book that is offensive, or dumb, or just plain bad, and we'll have the time of our lives roasting each other up.
But when I love a book?
Hoo boy. Bad news bears.
The highest compliment I can give a book is that it reminds me of Sally Rooney, the author of my heart, and Brandon Taylor's clear and lovely style does that in spades. This book wrapped me up in it, affecting the language of my internal monologue and the nuances of my mood and refusing to allow me to put it down until I finished - keeping itself at the forefront of my mind even if I did manage to take a break.
I read the author's short story collection earlier in the month, and while I didn't completely love it, I couldn't really shake it. Reading this seemed like a foregone conclusion, and was almost exactly like reading a novel-length version of some of my favorite stories from it.
This story, of Wallace, a gay Black science grad student surrounded by whiteness and solitude, even when in the company of others, has so much to say about violence, about race, about loneliness, about sex and love and cruelty.
Bottom line: Just read it!!!
----------------- book club update
i loved this book when i first read it, and i loved it even more this time. and now i really need to talk about it with someone so please join book club discussion: https://www.instagram.com/p/C3i17w1LZpD/
5 stars!
----------------- pre-review
"when you know you know" - most people about true love / me about authors i like
They say there's a first time for everything but I, as a member of the never shuts up community, doubtGotta tell you, I don't really know what to say.
They say there's a first time for everything but I, as a member of the never shuts up community, doubted this day would ever come.
So I will keep this quick!
Lately I've had a hard time feeling books - as in actually have them impact me emotionally - so I've read increasingly crazy lit fic to attempt to undo it.
This just shattered all of that and fixed it no problem. I teared up.
I'm not ashamed, even if this wrecks my badass image. This book is emotive and touching and I care about the characters so, so much.
But enough yearning on main.
Bottom line: A book so good it broke me!
----------------- pre-review
going to stare at the wall for the next couple of hours
review to come / 4.5 stars
----------------- currently-reading updates
can i still call myself a bookworm if it took me this long to read this?...more
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