Reading, Writing, and Me

Heart the Lover  by Lily King  Overview: The narrator makes it clear from the outset, she is writing a book, finally, about, in many ways, the one that got away. The first page reads: "You knew I'd write a book about you someday. You said once that I'd dredged up the whole hit parade minus you. I'll never know how you'd tell it. For me it begins here. Like this." The story then travels through three parts—the college years where the narrator meets Yash and the romance begins, a fragment in the middle when she has a young family and her life has turned away from him, and a third part where she's drawn back to him under dark and unfortunate circumstances, not in a romantic way but in a sense that ultimately offers reflective closure. Based on the flap copy that describes how Yash returns to her life "crashing into the present, forcing her to confront the decision and deceptions of her youth," I was honestly expecting a very different book. Overall:...

Discontent  by Beatriz Serrano Overview: Marisa has a cushy middle management position in the creative department of a swanky agency. She really doesn't have to do much in her job. This is both great and horrible. Great because Marisa isn't interested in doing much but horrible because this thing that defines her provides no fulfillment as she finds the entire corporate world and everyone in it boring and stupid. Marisa spends the entire novel just hoping to get hit by a bus as she endures the hot August Madrid days going into the office. Overall: 3.5 Characters: 4 I don't disagree with Marisa. I enjoyed her disaffected, snarky voice in general. I did, ultimately, struggle with the fact that she thinks she's so much smarter than everyone else, inherently better than them, but she chooses to continue working at the same horrible company as the rest of them. She's not actually going to do anything about the fact that she hates her life. She's not repulsed enough t...