Reading, Writing, and Me

Mudflowers  by Aley Waterman Thank you for Dundurn Press for providing me with this e-galley for review purposes. This in no way impacted my review, and my opinions are all my own.  Overview: Sophie is 27, an artist, and grappling with her mother's death. Having moved from Newfoundland to Toronto with her best friend Alex, Sophie is doing a bit of aimless floating through the world. She and Alex go between being completely platonic friends and casually hooking up with, relationship boundaries that match the hazy quality of the rest of their lives. Then Sophie meets Maggie at work and becomes instantly obsessed with her in a way that she can't completely work out where it falls on the platonic/romantic line either. As Maggie gets introduced into the inner circle of Sophie's life, things get messy, and Sophie has to reconcile that even in a small, carefully curated world, things are always going to change. Overall: 3.5 Characters: 3 I like the idea of these characters, lost i

Swing Time  by Zadie Smith Overview: Our unnamed narrator takes us on the journey of her life growing up in North London and eventually existing around the world from New York to Paris to Africa. We learn about her youth and her love for her childhood dance classes, even though she was never destined or encouraged to be the star. Her best friend, Tracey, however, had all the promise. Growing up in similar estates, spending most of their childhoods together, the girls seem like they'll have similar paths and opportunities, but the finer points of their realities cause their paths to sharply diverge. We follow this narrator from elementary school all the way until she's in her early thirties. Overall: 4 Characters: 4 The characters are by far the most compelling part of Smith's novel. I didn't actually realize that our narrator doesn't have a name. I'm so bad with remembering them in books, I just assumed I'd forgotten it. I'm not entirely sure what to mak