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Showing posts from January 5, 2025

Didion & Babitz by Lili Anolik: nonfiction book review

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Didion & Babitz  by Lili Anolik Overview:  Joan Didion and Eve Babitz are defining LA writers, and it turns out, they ran in similar circles and even briefly worked together. Still, Didion and Babitz painted strikingly different pictures of LA, and their careers took vastly different trajectories. While Didion only grew steadily more famous until she became a literary icon in old age, Babitz's career flamed out early and without much note before being revived many decades later, elevating her books and aura back into a Didion-level conversation. This is the story of Didion and Babitz, but if I'm being honest, this is really a book about Babitz and the author's obsession with the writer. Overall: 3 Notes: I didn't think I would have such strong feelings about a book about two people I didn't go in with many feelings about. I'd read an excerpt of Didion in a creative writing workshop in college and listened to an audiobook about her, and I picked up Babitz...

NW by Zadie Smith: book review

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NW  by Zadie Smith Overview: This is a book about a neighborhood more than a single character. The novel opens with Leah in her mid-thirties grappling with whether she'll give into the societal pressure to have children and becoming obsessed with the woman who robbed her. A news bulletin Leah notices at a party bleeds into the next section where the victim of the crime's story unfolds in the last few days of his life. Then we shift back to the origin story of Natalie, Leah's lifelong best friend. We trace Natalie's life from growing up in the estate to university to being married with children and realize Natalie's life isn't as perfect as it seems. Through the lens of Leah, Natalie, Felix, and others who grew up around them, the book takes a more expansive look at the NW.  Overall: 4 Characters: 4 Leah is the daughter of Irish immigrants. She never had Natalie's drive, but she did have a sense of self preservation. She fumbled through her philosophy degree,...

Rejection by Tony Tulathimutte: book review

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Rejection  by Tony Tulathimutte Overview: This book is technically a short story collection in the sense that it's made up of seven standalone stories, but it is unique in the sense that they're mostly interconnected. Characters from one story hop into another and weave into other pieces of the narrative. So there's an impression here that becomes larger than what a conventional short story collection conveys. The themes of this book are all united around the concept of rejection. It starts with the most expected of the possible stories and becomes progressively more unhinged and meta as it progresses. While there are some pieces I couldn't help but skim, it did pose some interesting questions. Overall: 4 The Feminist:  This story was interesting enough. It felt expected in a lot of ways as it's centered on an intellectual, self professed liberal feminist white man. He's never had any luck with dating despite having tons of female friends, and it charts the unra...