my friend told me this is "better conversations with friends" so i immediately read this due to a physical and existential need to prove them wrong.
anmy friend told me this is "better conversations with friends" so i immediately read this due to a physical and existential need to prove them wrong.
and it wasn't. obviously.
i don't LIKE the characters in conversations with friends, and i'm not supposed to...but i do love them. i do find them interesting and real.
but these bozos...oh boy.
we have four main characters here: kathryn and chris, who have been dating for 100 years; emily, a girl chris suddenly needs to romantically possess; and another guy who just happens to be there later, as much an innocent bystander undeserving of witnessing these fools mope around as we, the reader(s).
i thought i liked kathryn (and exclusively kathryn) for a while, and then i realized that actually i only pity her.
then i hated her more than anyone or anything in the world, up to and including buttered popcorn jellybeans and the buzzfeed lexicon.
nothing could be further from genuine interest than pity.
i did find this compulsively readable, though, so do with that what you will.
well, this 100 page graphic novel about food and scary stuff took me 3 days to read.
so either i'm in the reading slump of a LIFETIME, the likes of whiwell, this 100 page graphic novel about food and scary stuff took me 3 days to read.
so either i'm in the reading slump of a LIFETIME, the likes of which have only been seen in fairytale-style curses, or...this just wasn't that good.
i'm going with both.
to be honest, this book had no real voice. i knew it was not particularly memorable the second i finished it and i have to say, a month after the fact as i attempt to write this review, that instinct was correct!
the art was interesting but this felt...all over the place.
bottom line: a graphic novel that isn't a slump killer?? huh....more
hello and welcome to my review of a book i completely cannot remember reading, even though i read it in the recent past.
we're so happy to have you. (whello and welcome to my review of a book i completely cannot remember reading, even though i read it in the recent past.
we're so happy to have you. (we being myself and my failing brain, which is probably being destroyed as we speak by this hellsite and the excess sugar in my diet working as one.)
luckily, i took approximately two notes, indicating the following:
i liked what this book was TRYING to do, but it felt unfinished.
like yeah, it's an arc, but the writing...the plot...the romance...the side characters and backstories...i just wanted More.
bottom line: never a good sign when your mind files a book as "forget."
the downside of a pride & prejudice retelling is that it's hard to put a twist on perfection.
i often note in my reviews that if you don't have anythinthe downside of a pride & prejudice retelling is that it's hard to put a twist on perfection.
i often note in my reviews that if you don't have anything nice to say, you are supposed (according to boring people) not to say anything at all.
i have a couple of nice things, so let's get them out of the way immediately so i can complain:
i thought this was very funny and readable. i loved the characters and the authors voice. i will definitely try more from this author.
BUT.
here's the moment we've all been waiting for (when i'm allowed to be negative and annoying): 1) liza (lizzy)'s "prejudice" in this is racial and socioeconomic. she assumes darcy / dursey (a Filipino billionaire) is a Latino member of the staff at a party, which doesn't feel true to the original. 2) this relied so heavily on the original that i'm not sure it could stand on its own. 3) dursey is horny as hell. in a very creepy way.
in conclusion - i'd like to try more from this author...but not if it's a retelling. and also hopefully it will include fewer internal monologue musings about nipples.
bottom line: P&P forever. retellings...case by case.
------------------- tbr review
PRIDE AND PREJUDICE RETELLING!!!!!!! THIS IS NOT A DRILL!!!
one of my favorite books...retold as one of my favorite genres...
this was made for me, obviously.
...OR NOT.
dun dun dun!
whether you like it or not, gatone of my favorite books...retold as one of my favorite genres...
this was made for me, obviously.
...OR NOT.
dun dun dun!
whether you like it or not, gatsby (and my original 10-page-long now-deleted-by-the-capitalist-overlords-at-goodreads review of it) are wildly thematically rich.
it's one of the most precise and thoughtful books of all time - that's why it makes such a great high school required read. every light color and word choice can be analyzed. every character is complex and ultimately unredeemable. money and greed and the downfall they cause are crucial.
this book is gatsby without any of that.
in other words, gatsby without anything that makes it good.
the bones of this story weren't built to hold up everything anna-marie mclemore wants it to. to make gatsby and nick and jordan and daisy redeemed characters who care about things makes every theme in the book fall flat. to make a gatsby retelling a story of finding yourself and where you belong just doesn't work.
also...lol @ nick predicting the great depression. ridiculous.
similarly the ending feels silly, if nice.
generally this book nails the language and vibe, and it has a lot of non-gatsby things going for it, and it's often fun.
overall it's a technically skilled retelling, but in the end without its core themes it's as shallow and lovely as one of gatsby's parties.
this book is like baking brown butter chocolate chip cookies and eating a whole tray, or getting your hgirls can have a little petty theft, as a treat
this book is like baking brown butter chocolate chip cookies and eating a whole tray, or getting your high school part time job paycheck and immediately spending it on a frozen coffee drink and 8 interchangeable crop tops from american eagle.
in other words it's too much of a good thing.
this is like gossiping for almost 400 pages. it has moments of gleeful "oh my god i can't believe she said that," but it doesn't have much else. it's never interested in going deeper than that.
i love to gossip but even i throw in a "i don't want to be mean" from time to time for good measure.
bottom line: you can't have your cake and eat it too. apparently....more
like.......the entire plot was moral lessons? it was as ii feel like i just went to kindness school.
this was pretty charming but insanelyyy didactic.
like.......the entire plot was moral lessons? it was as if the entire book was the last sentences from fables. hold the tortoise and the hare and the whole cool racing part, keep the part about not going very fast and avoiding naps.
the snooze parts, if you will.
bottom line: in many ways i liked it...but i didn't have fun.
------------------ tbr review
name a better genre than children's classics.
you can't. no other genre makes you sound smart while taking 45 minutes to read...more
this book rules because it's about this perfect girl who is extremely beautiful and interesting and smart and hot and universally adored and it's alsothis book rules because it's about this perfect girl who is extremely beautiful and interesting and smart and hot and universally adored and it's also autobiographical.
goals, really.
this is actually not eve's finest - normally she's funny enough that you can forgive her for knowing how charming and beautiful she is, but the balance is off here - and the writing feels weaker than her usual.
but you've got to hand it to her on the pride front. and the title.
bottom line: even the worst eve is still not that bad. but it's not that good either.
things i don't like: sister drama. boredom. maybe vampires?
the second i heard this book was vampire gothic horror set in the 90s, things i like: gore.
things i don't like: sister drama. boredom. maybe vampires?
the second i heard this book was vampire gothic horror set in the 90s, i was like...gimme.
but now i'm in the midst of an existential crisis, questioning everything about myself. in spite of my inhuman ability to rewatch the twilight franchise multiple times a year...do i dislike vampires? in spite of my sensitive stomach and physical rejection of all things gross...do i like gore? and in spite of the world-record-breaking excitement indicated by "vampire gothic horror in the 90s"...was this boring?
or maybe this book just wasn't for me.
one or the other.
bottom line: another thing i dislike - being disappointed by anticipated releases.
my semiannual attempt at belatedly reading the book everyone is reading.
which almost never goes well.
this time is no exception.
this is a book about chmy semiannual attempt at belatedly reading the book everyone is reading.
which almost never goes well.
this time is no exception.
this is a book about characters who spend decades and hundreds of pages doing unforgivable things to each other, and never feel bad or change or have character development.
it is also very much book club fiction, but while i like the occasional Everything Is Bad But Will End Up Happy And Repaired And Better Than Ever novel to soothe my spirit, i didn't like how this one got there. people died, people didn't change, people never felt bad, people do the same things at 80% through as at 1%.
bummer.
bottom line: i can never buy into books about siblings who are terrible to each other and never sorry. tough for all of you but me and mine are different.
not just because of that, but also because i don't like sad/sick this book is sweet and nice.
i am not sweet or nice.
we were destined not to get along.
not just because of that, but also because i don't like sad/sick kid finds happiness type books. they make me sad at the beginning but they don't make me happy at the end - things always wrap up too neatly, like if deus ex machina involved less cool greek god vengeance, so i'm left thinking about all the real-world sad and suffering children who don't have a random happily ever after following 280ish pages.
which is the type of thought i use books to escape from.
a lose / lose situation.
bottom line: not a bad book! just a very, very not-for-me book.
another excellent title + month pun, another paragon of literature added to my currently reading at the beginniwelcome to...THE MASTER AND MARCHARITA!
another excellent title + month pun, another paragon of literature added to my currently reading at the beginning of the month...you know what that means. IT'S ANOTHER PROJECT LONG CLASSIC INSTALLMENT (in which i read long classics segmented into smaller chunks over the course of a month to make them manageable). and this one is ordained from the heavens.
my friend asked me if i had ever read this book as we stood in the middle of a three-story barnes & noble and i said no and we looked down to see the one (1) copy left in the entire store.
so if i don't like it, i will be betraying not only my friend, but the universe itself.
let's get into it.
CHAPTER 1: NEVER TALK WITH STRANGERS oh how i love when chapters have titles.
this book has 32 chapters, so it doesn't work PERFECTLY, but i'm incredibly brave and dedicated and it's pretty close, so. onward at roughly 1 chapter per day.
immediately this is so cool.
CHAPTER 2: PONTIUS PILATE a fairly long and extremely jesus prequel-y second chapter is a damn bold move.
i see why people DNF this.
CHAPTER 3: THE SEVENTH PROOF I DID NOT SEE THAT COMING.
I WAS TOLD IT WOULD HAPPEN AND I DID NOT SEE IT COMING.
CHAPTER 4: THE CHASE not as climactic as the title and the immediately preceding events and the overall vibe would make it seem.
CHAPTER 5: THERE WERE DOINGS AT GRIBOEDEV'S for those moments when the plot has really kicked off and things are shocking and violent and high-stakes and you're like, "i wish i could be reading lengthy descriptions about restaurants and the group of writers that meet there right now."
CHAPTER 6: SCHIZOPHRENIA, AS WAS SAID i feel prepared to say i have no idea what's going on.
CHAPTER 7: A NAUGHTY APARTMENT this certainly didn't bring any enlightenment.
CHAPTER 8: THE COMBAT BETWEEN THE PROFESSOR AND THE POET this was the most logical chapter yet. and it took place in an insane asylum.
CHAPTER 9: KOREVIEV'S STUNTS out of the insane asylum and into the insanity.
CHAPTER 10: NEWS FROM YALTA folks, i don't know how to tell you this, but...we are 5 days behind. sometimes procrastinating a project you completely made up and assigned yourself feels a lot like self-care.
CHAPTER 11: IVAN SPLITS IN TWO let's be clear that there is nothing i would rather read about than a friend group involving a dark magic practicer, his weird annoying sidekick, and a cat. but can i not read about their trials and tribulations instead of alternating members of the russian public's reactions to them...
CHAPTER 12: BLACK MAGIC AND ITS EXPOSURE i mean, this HAS to be good. ... the real magic trick was me predicting this would be fun from title alone!!
CHAPTER 13: THE HERO ENTERS no heroes, please...i'd like to spend some more time with our bad guys... ah. the titular MASTER.
CHAPTER 14: GLORY TO THE COCK! i mean...come on. it's too easy.
CHAPTER 15: NIKANOR IVANOVICH'S DREAM i cannot for the life of me remember these russian-ass names. can you blame me? everyone's name has 11 consonants and 8 of them are Vs.
CHAPTER 16: THE EXECUTION pontius again...i'm at a loss.
CHAPTER 17: AN UNQUIET DAY now this is the kind of nonsense i can get behind. this is just magic and tomfoolery. i feel comfortable here.
CHAPTER 18: HAPLESS VISITORS i still don't know what's going on but someone just hit someone else over the head with a roast chicken. so i have no complaints, really. how could i when literary genius is unfolding before me.
CHAPTER 19: MARGARITA we're caught up AND we've checked both of our titular boxes. what a day.
CHAPTER 20: AZAZELLO'S CREAM this chapter is dedicated in its entirety to describing the power of a nice lotion.
CHAPTER 21: FLIGHT sometimes, as a woman, you have to run out of your house naked, become a witch, turn invisible, and start smashing windows. it happens to all of us.
CHAPTER 22: BY CANDLELIGHT very cool to go to the devil's house and mainly be like, "oh sick, his chessboard has animated pieces." très stoic.
CHAPTER 23: THE GREAT BALL AT SATAN'S the absolute must-attend event of the season.
CHAPTER 24: THE EXTRACTION OF THE MASTER well. here they are. the titular duo, in the flesh, hanging out at the devil's house. and still i have no idea what this book is about.
CHAPTER 25: HOW THE PROCURATOR TRIED TO SAVE JUDAS OF KIRIATH oh my god. more pontius.
CHAPTER 26: THE BURIAL please, no...not more pontius...not more pontius in a long chapter on a day i don't feel like reading this...take mercy...
CHAPTER 27: THE END OF APARTMENT NO. 50 i'm sick today and i'm making it absolutely everyone else's problem, so...all i can say is that if this chapter so much as alludes to jesus christ's lifetime, mikhail bulgakov should live in posthumous fear.
oh my god.
CHAPTER 28: THE LAST ADVENTURES OF KOROVIEV AND BEHEMOTH well, it happened. i finally got too tired of this book to go on and took a days-long break that included the entire end of march. happy april. let's finish this.
CHAPTER 29: THE FATE OF THE MASTER AND MARGARITA IS DECIDED hard to imagine a scenario in which i spend as much time, as many pages, and as significant a portion of my mental health on two characters and care this little about their "fate."
CHAPTER 30: IT'S TIME! IT'S TIME! crossing my fingers that the time in question is "time for this book to be fun again." ...i don't want to jinx anything, but...
CHAPTER 31: ON SPARROW HILLS the nicest thing i can say about this one is that it's like two pages long.
CHAPTER 32: FORGIVENESS AND ETERNAL REFUGE i am like pavlov's dog, except instead of drooling i experience unfettered rage and instead of a bell ringing it's this f*cking book talking about pontius f*cking pilate again.
EPILOGUE thank god.
OVERALL there was a lot going for this book. talking cats. tomfoolery. dark magic. big parties. annoying people eating dinner. institutes for the mentally insane. decapitation. a woman becoming a witch. the devil himself.
but unfortunately none of it was enough to save itself from what was either a terrible, unforgivable translation (which, thanks to the unheeded warnings in the comments, i'm leaning towards) or a propensity to total nonsense.
for the first time in this project's somewhat considerable history, i did not have fun. what a bummer. rating: 2.5...more
romance novels with excellent body positivity >>>>>
romance novels with fun groups of friends >>>>>>>
romance romance novels with food descriptions >>>>
romance novels with excellent body positivity >>>>>
romance novels with fun groups of friends >>>>>>>
romance novels with a romance that doesn't click with you... <<<<<<
so here we are. at a 2.5 star rating.
this isn't the first time that my least fav part of a romance novel has been, you know, the romance. but it hits like the first every time!!
primarily the pacing of this was off to me - it was like: (view spoiler)[a kiss at 25%, sex scene a bit after, exclusivity a bit after that, and an ily pretty soon? (hide spoiler)]
i am in a romance novel for the miscommunication. the drama. the yearning. in this case, it didn't feel like tension built - the tension was behind the scenes if anything? i've looked at almond croissants with more yearning and angst than there was in this book.
a lot of time was skipped also, sometimes a month passing in half a sentence, so it felt simultaneously hard to focus and like if i didn't focus everything would completely fall apart immediately.
aaaand the workplace element also felt like too much - by the end it wasn't clear how they could coexist and date and work and blah blah blah.
exactly the kind of real world complications i read romance to forget about.
bottom line: this had so much going for it! just not the things i needed.
--------------------
ok glamorous
(thank you to the publisher/netgalley for the e-arc)...more
whatever my sins were in a past life, my punishment is accidentally picking up poetry.
and taking myself way too seriously.
and loving cookies more thanwhatever my sins were in a past life, my punishment is accidentally picking up poetry.
and taking myself way too seriously.
and loving cookies more than any other food but being unendingly picky about what constitutes a good one.
and learning words from books, causing me to mispronounce them when i try to say them out loud, and then forevermore not being able to remember which is the correct pronunciation and which is my made up one.
but mostly the poetry one.
i don't think this book gets itself. our main characters are a group of local teens on the jersey shore, and 99% of their shared personality is that they hate everyone who comes for the summer (the other 1% is being, like, the greta thunbergs of the east coast), except they kind of don't hate people who come EVERY summer (which, it is revealed in the author's note, includes our author), and also they can fall in love with a shoobie (which to my knowledge has always been a day-tripper, but in this book is just an out of place visitor) and in fact the plot circles around them doing so.
anyway.
other than that, i'm not much of a fan of hagan's writing. and not just for the aforementioned poetry-curse related reason - i actually like poetry a lot of the time i pick it up - but because hers is the type that to me just seems to take liberal advantage of the enter key.
and also to center around Serious content at the expense of characters/their relationships/the forced-in romance/things that make stories feel realistic.
but i think i'm done complaining now.
bottom line: a well meaning book! just not one that does it for me.
----------------- tbr review
honestly i think it'd be cool to be called a hurricane. kind of a badass nickname
i am many things. a sally rooney fan, primarily. this is "primarily" both because it is the #1 way i prefer to identify myself and because it is relevi am many things. a sally rooney fan, primarily. this is "primarily" both because it is the #1 way i prefer to identify myself and because it is relevant to this review: the title vaguely reminded me of a passage in conversations with friends, so i immediately added it to my to-read list and never looked back.
i am a cookie eater, secondarily. this is secondarily because i likely spend the second-most amount of time in my life doing this.
and i am annoying, thirdly, for reasons i won't explain, but if you need a reminder you can reread the preceding two paragraphs and reflect.
but a multiple-perspective enjoyer is not one of the things i am.
and this is the all-time leader in Extremely Multiple Perspective. there's like 100 chapters, and seemingly each one is about a total stranger.
this is mostly about the idea of beauty in modern times, and i very much enjoyed that aspect. i liked the exploration of how common plastic surgery is, and what it means.
but the actual characters and stories i didn't feel invested in.
turns out that's more important.
bottom line: we'll get em next time!
2.5
------------ currently-reading updates
this title made me think of sally rooney. and i read everything that makes me think of sally rooney. and yes, everything makes me think of sally rooney
turns out there are reading slumps (and depressive episodes) even talia hibbert can't solve.
this is news to me!
this was not a bad book, but it felt soturns out there are reading slumps (and depressive episodes) even talia hibbert can't solve.
this is news to me!
this was not a bad book, but it felt so different from the brown sisters books as to be by a different author. i love that series and would die at its hand and this didn't have the same charm for me.
but really what does.
bottom line: i was a soulless demon before reading this book, and i stayed that way during and after!...more
**spoiler alert** i can tolerate a lot of things in books, but i cannot tolerate NONSENSE.
people would never act like this! and if they do, don't tel**spoiler alert** i can tolerate a lot of things in books, but i cannot tolerate NONSENSE.
people would never act like this! and if they do, don't tell me! ignorance really is bliss and i would rather live in what is apparently a fantasy world where people are normal and no one is this insane.
for example.
if the girl i was kind of dating screwed my dad and i found out from my dad's friend, and then i went to look for the gf so we could talk and she grabbed my head, dug her nails in, screamed into my face, and shoved me, i would not APOLOGIZE.
i would be arrested for the federal crime i'd immediately commit.
anyway this is a romance between a girl and her boyfriend's dad.
i loved the beginning of this book, and i'll keep trying this author because i love their style, but this romance...EW. not even just for the setup (which is a lot but not insurmountable), but these characters, and their weird bogus compliments, and their instalove, and...bleh.
the father picks a girl half his age he just met over his kids (one of whom was, again, in love with her at the time their relationship was consummated).
so i'm on team The Kids. which made this book not go very well.
also it's repetitive.
and you don't dice an onion to caramelize it.
bottom line: unhinged!
2.5
--------------------- tbr review
i wish every book had a title that was like a long compliment
This Christmas season, I spent all of December - nay, all of the time since it dipped below 70 degrees - looking forward to the Big Day.
And then the This Christmas season, I spent all of December - nay, all of the time since it dipped below 70 degrees - looking forward to the Big Day.
And then the very same night I arrived home for the festivites, I tested positive for COVID-19 and thereby had to spend the entirety of the Christmas-to-New-Years lineup in quarantine.
That feeling is roughly the same as how I feel being disappointed by a Talia Hibbert Christmas romance.
Romance novellas are always tough because I NEED EVERY PART. I need the getting to know the characters. I need the yearning. I need the falling. I need the drama. I need the happily ever after.
This skips the getting to know the characters in favor of yearning that is based on so much miscommunication it converted me, someone who is so anti-love that I wish every romance was 99% angst, into a miscommunication trope hater.
On top of that, the little bit of characterization we do get is inconsistent. The love interest, for example, spends first scene depicted as anxious and then later as "laid back" and "not giving a f*ck."
So do with that what you will.
Bottom line: I need a win.
2.5 stars
-----------------
reading books by Black authors for Black History Month!
Loading...
