Reading, Writing, and Me

The Hole We're In  by Gabrielle Zevin Overview: The Pomeroy family are fundamentalist Christians. When the book starts, the father, Roger, has uprooted the family to move to Texas while he completes a PhD in education. We follow the family's troubles that range from adultery to financial thievery to clashing values over how to see the world from the 90s all the way through until 2022. The book makes the argument that, perhaps, we never quite make it out of the holes we're born in. Overall: 3.5 Characters: 3 The thing about this book is that almost everyone is a villain. But they are also very average. The Pomeroys are bad parents, but, really, they just do the same things that heaps of other parents do. They put their belief systems ahead of their own children's needs, they're hardheaded, they're cold. They also open credit cards in their children's names when they go broke and ruin their credit forever, which is pretty exceptionally not great, but for the m

The Happy Couple  by Naoise Dolan  Overview: On the eve of an ill-fated marriage we relive Celine and Luke's romantic lives leading up to this point in hopes of answering life's big question – should they get married. Along the way, we hear from the bride, the sister of the bride, the uncle of the bride, the groom, and two of the groom's exes before everyone collides again on the wedding day. No one is sure about going through with it, but neither the bride nor the groom wants to be the first to cancel. This book dives deep into the age old question of why people should and shouldn't get married.  Overall: 4 Characters: 4 Nearly every character mentioned in the book gets at least a scene told from their point of view, which means we get to know this broad cast quite well. I have to hand it to Dolan that even in close third, as we shifted through narrators' heads, it was immediately clear who's point of view we were looking through, and they each offered their ow