Reading, Writing, and Me

Come and Get It  by Kiley Reid  Available 1/30/2024 Thank you to G.P. Putnam for generously sending me an ARC of this book for an advanced review. All thoughts are my own.  Overview: Agatha's life is falling apart, so when she gets an offer to guest lecture for a year at the University of Arkansas, she takes the leap of faith. It's a fresh start and will hopefully offer new inspiration for her next book. Millie is a second time senior after taking a year off to care for her mom and an RA in a dorm few are excited to work in. Unlike her fellow RAs, she cares deeply about her job and saving up money for a house downpayment. Within the dorm, there's one suite that stands out. Kennedy has transferred to Arkansas after things went horribly wrong at her Iowa school, and she struggles to adjust. Tyler is a social butterfly with a typical mean streak, and Payton only wants the dishes out of the communal sink by morning. While seemingly unrelated, all of their lives intertwine to so

Penance  by Eliza Clark Overview: In a small English sea town, three girls set their schoolmate on fire. That is both what this book is about and very much not what it's about. Penance  by Eliza Clark is the story of a true crime book by the same name by a fictional author that has become embroiled in controversy after its publication. The fictional writer has taken massive liberties, written prose inferring the girls' thoughts and feelings, stolen therapy writing, and taken advantage of the friends and family members he's interviewed. Through the course of the book, you read his true crime book with the addition of prefaces, interviews with the author after the publication, and more. It is truly a meta reading experience. Overall: 4.5 Characters: 4.5 Alec Z. Carelli is our narrator and the author of Penance within the book. He's middle aged, self absorbed, and set on saving his career in journalism and true crime after two flop books and getting cancelled on Twitter. H