this is a book about a family nail salon sabotaging the chain that opens up across the street.
as someone who is a fan of both pranks and supporting smthis is a book about a family nail salon sabotaging the chain that opens up across the street.
as someone who is a fan of both pranks and supporting small business, i just hope the happy ending does not involve learning some kind of lesson about how crime is bad.
(review to come / thanks to the publisher for the copy)...more
so this was not my favorite romance novel of all time, but it would've been a really, really good dream. i'm 100% giving this 3 stars, but i would've so this was not my favorite romance novel of all time, but it would've been a really, really good dream. i'm 100% giving this 3 stars, but i would've been, like, super bummed to wake up after spending a sleep in it.
so that has to count for something.
(review to come)
--------------------- tbr review
i like one (1) romance and suddenly the author's whole backlist is on my tbr...more
this was a short book that was mostly about two things: - overcoming hyper-specific and very disturbing trauma - smut.
these are talia hibbert forever!
this was a short book that was mostly about two things: - overcoming hyper-specific and very disturbing trauma - smut.
these are two things that i don't love in my romances in general, and especially in combination due to the breakneck tone shifts switching back and forth between them entails, but i enjoy everything by talia hibbert and it was nice to read about these two nice people being nice to each other.
in the moments that weren't, you know. the stuff that makes me upset and the stuff that makes me blush like a proper old woman.
i'm sorry. i wish i was cool.
bottom line: not my favorite talia hibbert, but still by talia hibbert.
i'm sorry but. could this title / cover / author combo hit any harder.
this is of that weird subgenre of books that you give people when they graduate i'm sorry but. could this title / cover / author combo hit any harder.
this is of that weird subgenre of books that you give people when they graduate from college. the ones they sell in the gift aisle instead of the book section at target. they're usually adapted from a commencement speech and are roughly 65% illustration, 35% words.
it's weird to review a book that by many metrics is not a book, but this is pretty good for what it is. inspiring. a unique perspective. it's basically the same themes as one of those viral facebook posts that's like "oprah didn't start her show until age whatever," but a little more up my alley.
bottom line: the best (published book) of the worst (kind of gift to receive).
thank you to colm tóibín for understanding what few do: all the books i like should get sequels.
this book is the absolute most i could enjoy any storythank you to colm tóibín for understanding what few do: all the books i like should get sequels.
this book is the absolute most i could enjoy any story that refused to go anywhere i wanted it to go, and in fact at any given time was following one nightmarish plot point with another unique hellscape of its own making.
in many ways this book was very similar to the last one — woman leaves one life and visits another path she could have taken and has to choose between them, ending on an emotional crisis and then a cliffhanger — but it wasn't as charming and i found it very stressful.
it also had three perspectives, which was a bummer because i love eilish (an evildoer who can do no wrong in my eyes) and i don't much care about anyone else.
it was still evocatively written and in many ways an excellent read, but it just wasn't so much for me.
bottom line: i guess i'll just hope for another random sequel in 15 years.
------------------- tbr review
i haven't read the first one yet but i still know i want to read the second
it is not realistic, it does not progress logically, it does not care about following the precedent it has set for itself. it's kithis book is a lot.
it is not realistic, it does not progress logically, it does not care about following the precedent it has set for itself. it's kind of confusing and everything happens really fast and emotionally and the romance and the friendships essentially just spring up fully formed like the greek gods who popped out of zeus's head.
(you read that correctly. this is, ostensibly, a romance, and the love story that is, presumably, the plot doesn't really unfold in any sort of narrative way. but it's fine. we have 300 pages of dialogue to get through.)
what it IS: fun. it's funny and silly. it's 99% conversations made just for the terminally online.
by book standards, i don't know how much i loved this (no plot, characters kind of hard to track), but if i pretend it was a blog or 1,200 tweets i'm like...masterpiece.
bottom line: a great book for when you really want to be scrolling.
----------------------- tbr review
pinning my happiness hopes dreams and optimism on whether i like a romance novel again. which is kinda romantic if you ask me...more
i could give a lot of reasons i wanted to read this, but the top one was always going to be "look at that gold detailing on the cover."
unfortunately ii could give a lot of reasons i wanted to read this, but the top one was always going to be "look at that gold detailing on the cover."
unfortunately it turns out it's orange, and that this book is not really for me.
i love short books, but that's because i typically read literary fiction, and books about the ennui in the life of a woman in her 30s don't normally need extra pages to clear up any confusion.
this, about polish magic in chicago featuring a romance, a movie theater showing alien as a cover, climactic, action-packed sequences like a guy trying to pick a flower, and musical mythical creatures, probably could've used some.
but it wasn't a bad time.
bottom line: i don't really know what happened in this book, but i might've liked it.
i've read books where the synopsis is better than the actual book, but this is the first time i've wished the whole book was the prologue.speculative!
i've read books where the synopsis is better than the actual book, but this is the first time i've wished the whole book was the prologue.
this great hemisphere begins in modern-day new york city, as a Black unhoused woman who is continually overlooked by society gives birth to a baby who is literally invisible. this brief introduction to our story is striking and raw, and i found myself gobbling up the pages.
then, moments after the birth, we're dropped 500 years in the future and this becomes a strange, almost young-adult-dystopian feeling sci-fi speculation of what our world could be. instead of the emotional and pared down writing we had, we have to spend passages of dialogue with quirky inventors who are explaining why there aren't hovercrafts.
it's a bummer.
bottom line: another point in favor of prologue haters.
this is a book about monsters and girls and girls who become monsters and monsters who become girls.
it's also a book i really wanted to like. it has athis is a book about monsters and girls and girls who become monsters and monsters who become girls.
it's also a book i really wanted to like. it has a weird eerie cover! it has weird eerie contents! it's filled with teeth and blood and sex and ghosts! i like books with all of these things.
in execution, though, it felt uneven, maybe less than the sum of its parts. the stories didn't seem to build on one another, and though their synopses varied, their themes felt unrelentingly the same. it was more cringey than spooky, and generally seemed as though the author's intent may have been beyond the scope of her writing talent.
in other words, a debut!
that being said, i'll definitely read more from this author.
this was the rare short story collection that makes me wish it'd been a novel instead: one synopsis, pursued to the extent of its meaning, rather than many short stories shallowly delving into the same one.
but i found it fast-paced and readable, two things i rarely think about short story collections.
bottom line: this is a review of a book about monster girls written by a girl monster. sorry i'm mean.
------------------ pre-review
...ok fine i'm judging books by their covers again
anyway. this is such a fun idea for a book, and i love quirky strong voices, and i love books aoye, i can't wait to read this!
that one was bad, sorry.
anyway. this is such a fun idea for a book, and i love quirky strong voices, and i love books about sisters.
unfortunately it's just hard to tell a story about complex family relationships through one sided phone calls. or any story, really. i had no idea what was going on at any given time, and i made it through all 336 pages without understanding what the italics signified. (was it someone else talking? luciana quoting conversations? luciana's sidebar thoughts? all three? i was so confused and for what!)
there were some touching grandmother-granddaughter moments in this, but the sister relationship at the center (and all the others really) were sadly one note.
which doesn't leave for much of a plot in a family drama.
bottom line: the epic highs and lows of books i expected to like and kind of did.
the thing about collecting everything an author has ever written about a subject as broad as "art," as she wrote it with no future awareness of its lothe thing about collecting everything an author has ever written about a subject as broad as "art," as she wrote it with no future awareness of its looming collection, is that you definitionally are kinda taking the good with the bad.
i'm not new york-y, in so many ways: i don't pay a lot in rent, i'm not adventurous, i stay inside a lot, and i don't know how to even begin to understand abstract art. i don't think i'm above it. quite the opposite. i would never be like "my four year old could create this painting / bash this barbie's head in / create this sculpture that is a talking refrigerator." i'm closer to the four year old — it just goes over my head.
i loved the parts of this that included maggie nelson in conversation with interesting people, including those i hadn't heard of and those i had. i loved the parts that were explorations of things i know, or of books.
but for me, there is only so much blood and sh*t and gore and violence smashed into a canvas or a polaroid or film recording i can bear.
bottom line: i always love maggie nelson but she is way cooler than me. this was made up of exclusively the cooler than me parts.
this one is nice and has some moments of being more than that, but it's overall disappointingly one note:i can't stop reading short story collections.
this one is nice and has some moments of being more than that, but it's overall disappointingly one note: these could run together, a series of quotidian moments and strangely abrupt endings. i enjoyed reading this at times, but it won't stick with me.
sorry.
bottom line: my favorite thing about short story collections is that you never know what's next. that wasn't true of this one....more
a girl and her resistance fighters hunting ku klux members? how have i not read this yet
unfortunately the answer is that that concept is just better ta girl and her resistance fighters hunting ku klux members? how have i not read this yet
unfortunately the answer is that that concept is just better than the execution to me.
the writing style wasn't quite my cup of tea, and the plot — starting out with action, followed by several chapters of nothing, followed by a too-swift end because this book is very short — was not structured in a way to overcome that.
although i did like the nightmare sequences. i can appreciate a good old-fashioned spookfest.
bottom line: a little bit too good to be true....more
in the acknowledgments of this book, the author says he wrote "the type of angry that still leaves room for love." this book is exquisitely, desperatein the acknowledgments of this book, the author says he wrote "the type of angry that still leaves room for love." this book is exquisitely, desperately angry, justifiably so, but we end well before it seems like we've found the love.
this is a book with a lot of great ideas and a lot of great feelings that spends its energy on the wrong ones. in its synopsis, it seems like it's the story of a girl with superpowers, who can level cities and see the future. really, it's the story of her brother, who is incarcerated — which is a better story.
in truth, the sci fi element of this book takes away from its reality, as does its playfulness with time and fantasy and perspective. in its moments of clear-eyed storytelling, it is striking and raw, but it more often is bogged down in so many literary devices and plots that distract.
i would read more from this author, and i'd hope it isn't genre fiction.
i grew to really care about these characters, a compliment i can give best by saying i'm a multiple perspectivefamily drama family drama family drama!
i grew to really care about these characters, a compliment i can give best by saying i'm a multiple perspective hater and yet enjoyed reading from each of this book's three points of view.
unfortunately, this swap — from mother to son to grandmother — left a few gaps that felt inexplicable. we leave one character having abandoned one parent and embraced the other, and return to the opposite with no explanation. things i thought we'd find resolved by character development — the mother's reliance on the son, the son's unwillingness to love, the grandmother's ambition and stubbornness, relationships to power and to wealth, the grandfather and father themselves — we similarly find either magically fixed or unchanged by the end. the story's central theme, revolving around genetics and race and money and class and what makes us who we are, similarly stuttered out.
while i liked a lot about this, i thought it didn't register the whole point of family dramas. i knew these characters in some ways, but i didn't know the bonds between them.
and as a family drama stan, i can't get over that!
bottom line: a lot to like but not the stuff i wanted to.
the worst part of this romance book is the romance.
the best part of this book is: it's genre-bending. it's bantery. it's filled with unforgettable chathe worst part of this romance book is the romance.
the best part of this book is: it's genre-bending. it's bantery. it's filled with unforgettable characters and a cool flower shop and a lovely setting in harlem. it is unrealistic in literally every way but most of the time that is fine too.
but i didn't like the love story, which is insta, and which is the story. no matter what the surroundings i can never seem to get past that one trope. it is my kryptonite.
i had so much fun with the rest of this! but not with the biggest part.
toni morrison books are like cookies (i tried and failed to have just one).
this is the second book in the beloved trilogy, and therefore i had to readtoni morrison books are like cookies (i tried and failed to have just one).
this is the second book in the beloved trilogy, and therefore i had to read it after beloved, or at least theoretically did the Right Thing in doing so, but i wish i was weird and random and quirky and read them out of order.
like beloved, this explores the aftermath of a striking act of violence among loved ones, with unique perspective and writing you have to work to earn the reward of understanding. but unlike beloved, its inspiration (the titular jazz) and its characters aren't for me, and i loved its predecessor so much that this was always going to be a tough sell.
who knows. for me it's that i'm constantly, low-level craving cookies, but that's not the fodder of genrewhat does it mean to be a woman in a body?!?!
who knows. for me it's that i'm constantly, low-level craving cookies, but that's not the fodder of genre-bending semi-dystopian lit fic.
this book leans too far into the lit fic part — the first 90% is normal unhappy woman discovering she hasn't been Truly Alive, featuring tragedy and shameful backstory and forbidden romance.
then the last 10% is completely insane.
it feels a bit too little, too late. i wanted to spend more time exploring what this book revealed itself to be about (big tech's oversteps, the surreal nature of being female and alive), which felt unique, rather than the very well-trod steps we'd spent exploring before.
oh well!
bottom line: we'll get em next time.
----------------- tbr review
i will read any book about women with a pretty cover. that's all it takes
Loading...
