Reading, Writing, and Me

Everyone In This Room Will Someday Be Dead  by Emily Austin Buy Everyone In This Room Will Someday Be Dead via Bookshop! This is an affiliate link which means I may receive a small commission from your purchase at no cost to you. Thank you for supporting the blog! TW: depression, suicidal thoughts, alcoholism, mentions of possible self harm Overview: Gilda has been depressed since she was 11. She's also fairly anxious. She thinks about death quite frequently. Her dishes are piled up in her sink, and she lost her job at the bookstore because she couldn't bring herself to get out of bed. She also frequents the emergency room quite often for a variety of ailments from broken arms and cuts to near constant panic attacks. Trying to find free therapy, she accidentally stumbles into a Catholic Church that thinks she's there to be the new receptionist. So atheist, Lesbian Gilda takes on a new character to accept the job which leads to plenty of hijinks. Overall: 3.5 This is the per...

The Idiot   by Elif Batuman  Buy The Idiot via Bookshop!  This is an affiliate link which means I may receive a small commission from your purchase at no cost to you. Thank you for supporting the blog! Overview: Selin starts her freshman year at Harvard in 1995. She's coming from New Jersey, which isn't too far, but she doesn't know all that will be in store for her in Boston. The story follows, in great detail, her freshman year navigating new classes, deciding on a focus of study, making friends, negotiating roommate conflicts, and falling into an entanglement of sorts primarily via email, which is still new and exciting and confusing. The second half of the book sees Selin going abroad to visit France with a friend, go to Hungry to teach English in a village, and Turkey to see family which greatly alters her worldview. Slow progressing, much like real life, the book plods on capturing minute details and feelings in a way that ultimately builds out a compelling inner wo...