Reading, Writing, and Me

Supper Club  by Lara Williams Overview: The supper club is a chance to reclaim power. It's permission to take up space in every way, to be loud and obnoxious, to gorge on all of life's pleasures without guilt. It's a framework 30-year-old Roberta desperately needs to cope with her past. In a narrative that bounces between the present day and Roberta's university life, we see how deeply the people and events of her college years impact her sense of self and the ways she interfaces with the world. Overall: 4 Characters: 5 It's the characters that make this book, which makes sense considering that it is more than anything an epic character study. Roberta is unfolded in many layers from flashbacks to bad past encounters and relationships that shaped her complex feelings around love and sex to the insecurities that cling to her friendships. She's also very much framed within the contexts of different worlds. Compared to Stevie, a painter and devout artist , Roberta c

It's been way too long since I've been to a proper book event. If I'm being super honest, I was lured into this because I was interested in going but also because I'd get extra credit in my English class this semester for going to a literary event. I love books, but I'm also a homebody, so sometimes I need the extra push. After being introduced to Zadie Smith's work through an essay we read in class and then picking up her novel Swing Time , it felt like fait that Skylight Books was hosting an event with her a short walk away in Little Tokyo.  I got to the theater almost an hour early because, much to my surprise, Smith was doing a signing after the event, and your place in line was determined by how early you checked in. So many authors that have big, ticketed events at theaters just pre-sign books for attendees, which is totally understandable, but it was cool to see Smith take a different approach. There were pre-signed books at check-in, and it being Los Ang