tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12552780259528971492024-03-18T22:06:41.065-06:00Reading, Writing, and Mecome find your next great read on reading, writing, and meLanie Bricehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16181046426943796903noreply@blogger.comBlogger703125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1255278025952897149.post-15145510400191298062024-03-18T20:52:00.005-06:002024-03-18T20:52:39.799-06:007 Years of Reading, Writing, and Me Anniversary Ramble<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEir8T894VdFD6xDJTO0TbQscxAY51XVISXlxH0D6Cus_kWcNvqNvL1jEYsGvX2kknFb-qphxDTrtjkfrvqOnBaHJ-kCEHRCwO6_bdJ-p8ew_uBn8zyJ3bh-s2Q_UFO0AB7A4715NrsDBMEX7JXLkLOaw2C5wSJqqjT4NeZnsg2MT5KP8YLlCgf-3gd6HlXA/s4032/random%20book%20pile.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="4032" data-original-width="2675" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEir8T894VdFD6xDJTO0TbQscxAY51XVISXlxH0D6Cus_kWcNvqNvL1jEYsGvX2kknFb-qphxDTrtjkfrvqOnBaHJ-kCEHRCwO6_bdJ-p8ew_uBn8zyJ3bh-s2Q_UFO0AB7A4715NrsDBMEX7JXLkLOaw2C5wSJqqjT4NeZnsg2MT5KP8YLlCgf-3gd6HlXA/s320/random%20book%20pile.png" width="212" /></a></div>This anniversary always creeps up on me, but Google Domains was kind enough to remind me that today was the day in 2017 that I purchased the domain name to make my blog official. I'm pretty sure I started with a .blogspot URL that I kept for a few days before making the switch, but, in my head, March 18th is the day this blog was born. While my parents thought it was great that I was entertained over spring break week and that it might look good on a college application down the line (I was an 8th grader at the time), no one expected me to stick with it much past the original break. I'm a quitter. I fully acknowledge that. I'll stand behind the merits of trying and quitting until the day I die, but Reading, Writing, and Me is something I've never quit and honestly can't imagine giving up. Sure, we've had our extended breaks, but I've never retired it for good or even come close. And I'm so glad I still have it today.<p></p><p>In three years, I'll be celebrating a decade of talking about books online, which is wild. Even though I'll only turn 21 in July, I feel like I've seen the way we talk about books online evolve so much from when I first started. For one, TikTok and BookTok wasn't a thing. People said blogs were dying even back then, but I have seen so many of my favorite book blog outposts from back in the day fade away in the years since. Mostly, this is because I was a teen book blogger seeking out other teen bloggers who eventually went away to college and then adult jobs and got too busy to keep it up. Making the transition into adulthood has been an awkward one to navigate in my reading life, and I'm only now settling into it. It's been weird to watch Bookstagram change too with Instagram's shifting priorities. It's hard to find community with other small accounts or grow with one another anymore now that every faced of Instagram is so severely algorithmic, which is sad. I've made Reels, something I swore I would never do, because I wanted to reach other readers. Bookstagram certainly doesn't feel the same as it did – and not for the better, unfortunately. Blogs are still dead, but the rise of Substack newsletters and the internal turn of media gives me hope that having your own corner of internet will come back into fashion. I'll, hopefully, still be here as long as Blogger will have me. </p><p>Things have changed a lot since 2017, and I feel both like a totally different person than when I started this blog and also like I'm coming back to the girl who was bursting with so much excitement about books that she had to start a whole website to babble about them online. This blog gave me a place to work through my feelings on books, learn to read with an analytical eye, and connect with writers who proved to me that you could make a career in words. It's made me both a better reader and writer, and it validated taking that craft seriously, even as a young teenager. I wouldn't have written or finished so many manuscripts and short stories without the worlds this blog has opened to me. And while I spent my late teens exploring other interests and straying from books, in the last year, I've realized I was just running out of fear. I love books and writing so much that I was terrified I wouldn't be able to create a career from it, so I decided to stop trying before I truly began. I've realized how silly and ultimately tragic that is as an idea, and after getting a degree in music business (I'm nearly done now!), I know for sure that I just want to read books, talk about them, and write for the rest of my life, and I'm excited to embark on the daunting quest of making that happen. My email these days looks much like it did by 2018 full of automated replies from literary journals holding my short stories in their hands and NetGalley updates on the latest ARCs, and I couldn't be happier. </p><p>This blog has reminded me that I love reading when I felt burnt out. I've worked hard to build my own little community here, and you've stuck with me through growing up and growing into different genres and categories and phases. So a big thank you if you're reading this or have read any of my posts at any time. I'm still shocked when I log in to Blogger and look through my analytics. There's more of you reading my words every day than I can even picture. Thank you for motivating me and keeping space for me to keep coming back to yell about amazing books. Reading, Writing, and Me has genuinely been the axis that's held my life in place through seven very chaotic years of coming of age, and I'll always be immensely grateful that I still get to be here. Here's to seven more! </p>Lanie Bricehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16181046426943796903noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1255278025952897149.post-89321217360730504772024-03-12T13:02:00.004-06:002024-03-12T13:02:37.151-06:00The Girls by Emma Cline: book review<p><b><u></u></b></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><b><u><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiwQEXxvuxrClBH9VJa1j9b3oW1GxOXa-9bivGKR18TuAvPq9OyLHIxQ7900ORB-hyHH0P81xuYlMoqXdMYjoWTpyM8GKgDpeFAhngdBE7lUzRNL9glSc8OOtSNIHNKjgwZd8oxswhcrtdr6Fvg8FKDJQqdx4Bl2qjVDd6FwVeOheWBtdATXshkbQRp8Qd6/s3269/the%20girls.png" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3269" data-original-width="2709" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiwQEXxvuxrClBH9VJa1j9b3oW1GxOXa-9bivGKR18TuAvPq9OyLHIxQ7900ORB-hyHH0P81xuYlMoqXdMYjoWTpyM8GKgDpeFAhngdBE7lUzRNL9glSc8OOtSNIHNKjgwZd8oxswhcrtdr6Fvg8FKDJQqdx4Bl2qjVDd6FwVeOheWBtdATXshkbQRp8Qd6/s320/the%20girls.png" width="265" /></a></u></b></div><b><u>The Girls</u> by Emma Cline</b><p></p><p><b>Overview: </b>Evie was a part of a cult that ultimately committed murder. Except she wasn't present the night it all went wrong in 1969. Instead of prison with the rest of them, she lives a quiet life with an intimate knowledge of the group from The Ranch who committed the brutal killings and why they did it. With intersecting timelines between middle age and her time as a fourteen-year-old running away from home to spend time at the Ranch, her experience with this band of people comes to life showing how dangerously close she got to having her life forever altered. <b>Overall: 3.5</b></p><p><b>Characters: 3 </b>I found all of the characters in this book flat and hard to relate to. Evie in middle age was perhaps the most relatable. Her ability to reflectively look back and her nurturing feelings towards her friend's son's much younger girlfriend humanize her. But Evie as a teen feels removed. Her main defining trait is trying to desperately be older than she is. She's infatuated with one of the girls at the Ranch, but there's never a good articulation as to why this particular girl is so special. Everything is vague and hazy in a way that feels shallow rather than intentional. Everyone from her parents to the cult leader to the other girls in the cult are enormously lifeless. They're described in the same, spare way at each mention, and there's little development for anyone involved unless you count Evie between fourteen and her thirties or forties. It was hard to find a compelling character in this novel. </p><p><b>Plot: 4</b> The interesting thing about the book is that it's about someone who typically wouldn't be a main character. She was on the periphery of the crime. The media never knew her name, and she was erased from the Ranch's history. The framing of the book is that she's spurred to relive that summer by unexpected visitors at the place she's housesitting who remember offhanded stories about her involvement. It's a tenuous thread, and the entire present timeline, while being actually some of the better parts of the book, also feel very superfluous. It demonstrates Evie having grown and matured as you'd hope she would, but it's also a clear plot device. </p><p>Additionally, the past timeline could've been more concise. There's a lot of time devoted to random happenings and Evie going back and forth between the Ranch and her parents' houses in tedious detail. If these anecdotes had offered more development or insight, it would be understandable to draw these additional moments out in the way they are, but it just slowed down the pacing of a book that struggled to lift off the ground from the start. The last fifty pages are pretty interesting, though. </p><p><b>Writing: 3 </b>Every single noun does not need accompanied by an adjective and a very fluffy, over the top one at that. If you disagree with that statement, this is probably the book for you. It's clearly something many other people enjoyed given the immense praise heaped upon this book, but I found the writing clunky and hard to get past. Its mix of tedium and self importance was off-putting. I've owned this book since July 28th of 2019 (I found the receipt in the book), and I've picked it up, read the first chapter, and put it aside probably five times since then. While I was able to read the book fairly quickly from sheer force of will, which helped, I couldn't get over the distinct feeling that every sentence was painfully overstuffed without actually saying much at all. </p><p>I wasn't a huge fan of <a href="http://www.readingwritingandme.com/2023/05/book-review-guest-by-emma-cline.html" target="_blank"><i>The Guest</i> </a>when I read it last year, but I found some elements of it charming, which is why I decided to give her more famous novel another try. I guess I just don't get the hype for this one besides people being interested in a fictionalized twist on the Manson Murders. I'd take <i><a href="http://www.readingwritingandme.com/2023/05/book-review-guest-by-emma-cline.html" target="_blank">The Guest</a></i> any day if I were recommending one Emma Cline book to pick up. </p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: #ff00fe;"><b>More from This Author:</b></span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><b><i><a href="http://www.readingwritingandme.com/2023/05/book-review-guest-by-emma-cline.html" target="_blank">The Guest review</a></i></b></p><p style="text-align: center;"><b><span style="color: #2b00fe;">More on Reading, Writing, and Me:</span></b></p><p style="text-align: center;"><b><i><a href="http://www.readingwritingandme.com/2024/03/my-spring-break-2024-tbr.html" target="_blank">Spring Break TBR</a></i></b></p><p style="text-align: center;"><b><i><a href="http://www.readingwritingandme.com/2024/03/victim-by-andrew-boryga-arc-review.html" target="_blank">Victim ARC review</a></i></b></p><p style="text-align: center;"><b><i><a href="http://www.readingwritingandme.com/2024/03/kindle-reading-habit-confessions.html" target="_blank">Kindle Reading Challenge</a></i></b></p><p style="text-align: center;"><b><i><a href="http://www.readingwritingandme.com/2024/03/piglet-by-lottie-hazell-book-review.html" target="_blank">Piglet review</a></i></b></p>Lanie Bricehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16181046426943796903noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1255278025952897149.post-134299510258794942024-03-11T07:51:00.000-06:002024-03-11T07:51:24.153-06:00My Spring Break 2024 TBR <p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgyv0eX7191uD8E0v9tX-93PcdIsbsXVEIEgsc7wnW3arwBzk7fe-355RcNzQuhz4SKwp14xC8Azl1wTRjBJhwor6YgI-C9R9HuqoBvsCCXm7Cc7DSfU_twFfa13vk8el5dMXDqP2VBgGcW4uXdh0l4hU1NfwZ2GI2-0J-NEmHf83d-v1BS9zA1DF7k_sT-/s4032/IMG_9238.jpeg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="4032" data-original-width="3024" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgyv0eX7191uD8E0v9tX-93PcdIsbsXVEIEgsc7wnW3arwBzk7fe-355RcNzQuhz4SKwp14xC8Azl1wTRjBJhwor6YgI-C9R9HuqoBvsCCXm7Cc7DSfU_twFfa13vk8el5dMXDqP2VBgGcW4uXdh0l4hU1NfwZ2GI2-0J-NEmHf83d-v1BS9zA1DF7k_sT-/s320/IMG_9238.jpeg" width="240" /></a></div>This whole blog started with a trip to my local library to get a pile of books to fill time over spring break. That was my first trip to the YA section of the library, and it changed my life when the first book I read on that vacation inspired me to start the blog. This time, the library trip was less life changing but fun nonetheless. My mom had picked up a few books I'd put on hold ahead of time, but on the day we got into town, she dropped me by the library to check out the new releases shelf. My hometown library gets all the brand new books people are buzzing about, and there's never a wait (perks of a small town?), so I always take advantage of trying to read books that have months long waits on Libby when I'm home. I didn't want to leave her waiting too long, so I felt a bit like a contestant on a cooking show gathering ingredients from the pantry while the timer ticked down. I was overwhelmed by all the books I wanted to read. So, here's what I managed to gather in my arms, securing the top book to the stack with my chin, before hurling myself back into the truck. Maybe I'm too optimistic on how much I'll get through, but I'm giving it my best shot.<p></p><p>Here's a look at all the books on my TBR that I'm hoping to read either this week or very soon...</p><div style="text-align: left;"><h2 style="text-align: center;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi-hW8a3kSgxnpuXl4ooiEgvvggI5iWkaDc7W4zblHQxeehdJlp6Mf2GMOMzEce9JW0mpjqPgaMjXjEJgyuUMmdYU1sGmk8Sm-B5Zc2Nsj0t81uXFuxOfmVNrL01Nft4ttdaES67R-6IGRluSrYUeN-GP8r6yBN4WU7xNd_SxGmJgermAJky3qBZ_wjNR3r/s912/141274284.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="912" data-original-width="600" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi-hW8a3kSgxnpuXl4ooiEgvvggI5iWkaDc7W4zblHQxeehdJlp6Mf2GMOMzEce9JW0mpjqPgaMjXjEJgyuUMmdYU1sGmk8Sm-B5Zc2Nsj0t81uXFuxOfmVNrL01Nft4ttdaES67R-6IGRluSrYUeN-GP8r6yBN4WU7xNd_SxGmJgermAJky3qBZ_wjNR3r/s320/141274284.jpg" width="211" /></a></div></h2><h2 style="text-align: center;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit;">Holiday Country </span></h2><h3 style="text-align: center;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit;">by Inci Atreus</span></h3><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: white;"><b>From Goodreads: </b></span><span style="background-color: white; caret-color: rgb(30, 25, 21); color: #1e1915; text-align: left;">A seductive and lyrical debut following a young woman’s dangerous summer romance during an idyllic vacation on the Aegean coast</span></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="background-color: white; caret-color: rgb(30, 25, 21); color: #1e1915; font-family: inherit; text-align: left;">Ada adores spending every summer in a Turkish seaside town with her mother and grandmother at the family villa. The glittering waters, endless olive groves, and her spirited friends make it easy to leave her idle life in California behind. But no matter how much Ada feels she belongs to the country where her mother grew up, deep down, her connection to the culture feels as fleeting as the seasons.</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="background-color: white; caret-color: rgb(30, 25, 21); color: #1e1915; font-family: inherit; text-align: left;">When Levent, a mysterious man from her mother’s past, shows up in their town, Ada can’t help but imagine a different future for her mother―one that promises a return to home, to love, to happiness. But while playing matchmaker, Ada has to come to terms with her own intensifying attraction to Levent. Does the future she’s fighting for belong to her mother―or to her alone?</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="background-color: white; caret-color: rgb(30, 25, 21); color: #1e1915; font-family: inherit; text-align: left;">Lush and evocative, İnci Atrek’s Holiday Country is a rapturous meditation about what it means to experience being of two worlds, the limitations and freedom of a life in translation, and the intricacies of a love triangle that stretches across generations and continents.</span></div><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"><h2 style="text-align: center;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEibfgnxQdluSJ4jBG_ysLmEoIj7IE2D0b9phMrTDSMZ4DfGof2DIEC96cAemb0QM3rsMPqwmdD4r5s592qb0Vo9mr6F2lFOiTTh3PwC3unGgbHiijhe3A3PSAYl_3MY7ij75C7_8Y9rJ_CLzsELztP5S4mpKioYtF-TMihCgAAKKKMCbUUfkT3LECmIOdwK/s400/112974927.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="400" data-original-width="265" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEibfgnxQdluSJ4jBG_ysLmEoIj7IE2D0b9phMrTDSMZ4DfGof2DIEC96cAemb0QM3rsMPqwmdD4r5s592qb0Vo9mr6F2lFOiTTh3PwC3unGgbHiijhe3A3PSAYl_3MY7ij75C7_8Y9rJ_CLzsELztP5S4mpKioYtF-TMihCgAAKKKMCbUUfkT3LECmIOdwK/s320/112974927.jpg" width="212" /></a></div></h2><h2 style="text-align: center;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit;">A Nearby Country Called Love </span></h2><h3 style="text-align: center;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit;">by Salar Abdoh</span></h3><div><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: white; caret-color: rgb(30, 25, 21); color: #1e1915; font-size: 16px;"><b>From Goodreads: </b>A sweeping, propulsive novel about the families we are born into and the families we make for ourselves, in which a man struggles to find his place in an Iran on the brink of combusting</span><br style="box-sizing: border-box; caret-color: rgb(30, 25, 21); color: #1e1915; font-size: 16px; margin: 0px;" /><br style="box-sizing: border-box; caret-color: rgb(30, 25, 21); color: #1e1915; font-size: 16px; margin: 0px;" /><span style="background-color: white; caret-color: rgb(30, 25, 21); color: #1e1915; font-size: 16px;">Amid the alleyways of the Zamzam neighborhood of Tehran, a woman lights herself on fire in a desperate act of defiance, setting off a chain reaction of violence and protest. Haunted by the woman’s death, Issa is forced to confront the contradictions of his own family history, throughout which his late brother Hashem, a prominent queer artist in Tehran’s underground, had defied their father, a skilled martial artist bound to traditional notions of honor and masculinity.</span><br style="box-sizing: border-box; caret-color: rgb(30, 25, 21); color: #1e1915; font-size: 16px; margin: 0px;" /><br style="box-sizing: border-box; caret-color: rgb(30, 25, 21); color: #1e1915; font-size: 16px; margin: 0px;" /><span style="background-color: white; caret-color: rgb(30, 25, 21); color: #1e1915; font-size: 16px;">Issa soon finds himself thrown into a circle of people living on the margins of society, negotiating a razor-like code of conduct that rewards loyalty and encourages aggression and intolerance in equal measure. As the city explodes around him, Issa realizes that it is the little acts of kindness that matter most, the everyday humanity of individuals finding love and doing right by one another.</span><br style="box-sizing: border-box; caret-color: rgb(30, 25, 21); color: #1e1915; font-size: 16px; margin: 0px;" /><br style="box-sizing: border-box; caret-color: rgb(30, 25, 21); color: #1e1915; font-size: 16px; margin: 0px;" /><span style="background-color: white; caret-color: rgb(30, 25, 21); color: #1e1915; font-size: 16px;">Vibrant and evocative, intimate and intelligent, A Nearby Country Called Love is both a captivating window into contemporary Iran and a portrait of the parallel fates of a man and his country—a man who acknowledges the sullen and rumbling baggage of history but then chooses to step past its violent inheritance.</span></span></div><div><span style="font-family: inherit;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiIg_3NSViXvr2DecQ7A_vAfn_Y9uD-PPUp1AR6B40H70alrYPnIcSgBy15dPxF9ZY_ICVceKYhTrUATcZRgvVFcBet_UVVCpV9N6RmVMUls-7XfBrqr4hQZSZqRCJBoAbmrpT0TBe7kvX-tvlky-7Swa_42TxfS7NfM3FCUbn_6T3yvxjolx3oE5O20wMg/s450/174156231.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="450" data-original-width="298" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiIg_3NSViXvr2DecQ7A_vAfn_Y9uD-PPUp1AR6B40H70alrYPnIcSgBy15dPxF9ZY_ICVceKYhTrUATcZRgvVFcBet_UVVCpV9N6RmVMUls-7XfBrqr4hQZSZqRCJBoAbmrpT0TBe7kvX-tvlky-7Swa_42TxfS7NfM3FCUbn_6T3yvxjolx3oE5O20wMg/s320/174156231.jpg" width="212" /></a></div></span></div></span><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"><h2 style="text-align: center;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit;">Ellipses </span></h2><h3 style="text-align: center;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit;">by Vanessa Lawerence </span></h3><div><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: white; caret-color: rgb(30, 25, 21); color: #1e1915;"><b>From Goodreads: </b>Set in the glossy world of New York City media, this sharp and witty debut novel follows a young woman caught in a toxic mentorship with an older, powerful executive as she grapples with career, belonging, and the complexity of modern relationships in the digital age.</span><br style="box-sizing: border-box; caret-color: rgb(30, 25, 21); color: #1e1915; margin: 0px;" /><br style="box-sizing: border-box; caret-color: rgb(30, 25, 21); color: #1e1915; margin: 0px;" /><span style="background-color: white; caret-color: rgb(30, 25, 21); color: #1e1915;">When cosmetics mogul Billie rolls down her town car window and offers Lily a ride home from a glitzy Manhattan gala, Lily figures there could be a useful professional connection to broker. She’s heard the legends of Billie’s rise as a business titan, the product of white New England privilege and one of the few queer women in a corner suite. Lily feels stalled in a magazine industry threatened by social media, and in her relationship with her girlfriend, Alison. Mixed-race and bisexual, Lily’s spent her life negotiating other people’s sliding perceptions of her identity at the expense of her individual selfhood.</span><br style="box-sizing: border-box; caret-color: rgb(30, 25, 21); color: #1e1915; margin: 0px;" /><br style="box-sizing: border-box; caret-color: rgb(30, 25, 21); color: #1e1915; margin: 0px;" /><span style="background-color: white; caret-color: rgb(30, 25, 21); color: #1e1915;">Billie is charming and hyperconfident, and she seems invested in mentoring Lily out of her slump—from the screen of her phone. But their text exchanges—and Billie’s relentless worldview—quickly begin to consume Lily’s life. Eager to impress her powerful guide, Lily is perpetually suspended in an ellipsis, waiting for those three gray dots to bloom into a new message from Billie.</span><br style="box-sizing: border-box; caret-color: rgb(30, 25, 21); color: #1e1915; margin: 0px;" /><br style="box-sizing: border-box; caret-color: rgb(30, 25, 21); color: #1e1915; margin: 0px;" /><span style="background-color: white; caret-color: rgb(30, 25, 21); color: #1e1915;">As she navigates influencer interviews, cocktail lounge rendezvous, and staff meetings rife with microaggressions, all with one eye on her phone, Lily must ultimately work out not only what it is she really wants—but also how to make it a reality.</span></span></div></span><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"><h2 style="text-align: center;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhLpZU0MFBFmKU23RsQ668BYEPmXLToZ4QmM6FhLhQVQHAhyphenhyphenQ8v3lrEc_uBjyQ3q_AadA6q3saKfmoRvY-RgcFHstCMGZuELyXonur2XSOAeSUiDxSr6Td1ufgI4lct9rptLLdeoEldiv-HEOaqufNF5vttyVeZCyzeoJ4s19ldzy0nFM7wG7rros_zD3CH/s2113/176450755.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2113" data-original-width="1400" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhLpZU0MFBFmKU23RsQ668BYEPmXLToZ4QmM6FhLhQVQHAhyphenhyphenQ8v3lrEc_uBjyQ3q_AadA6q3saKfmoRvY-RgcFHstCMGZuELyXonur2XSOAeSUiDxSr6Td1ufgI4lct9rptLLdeoEldiv-HEOaqufNF5vttyVeZCyzeoJ4s19ldzy0nFM7wG7rros_zD3CH/s320/176450755.jpg" width="212" /></a></div></h2><h2 style="text-align: center;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit;">The Other Valley </span></h2><h3 style="text-align: center;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit;">by Scott Alexander Howard </span></h3><div><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: white; caret-color: rgb(30, 25, 21); color: #1e1915; font-size: 16px;"><b>From Goodreads:</b> Sixteen-year-old Odile is an awkward, quiet girl vying for a coveted seat on the Conseil. If she earns the position, she’ll decide who may cross her town’s heavily guarded borders. On the other side, it’s the same valley, the same town--except to the east, the town is twenty years ahead in time. To the west, it’s twenty years behind. The towns repeat in an endless sequence across the wilderness.</span><br style="box-sizing: border-box; caret-color: rgb(30, 25, 21); color: #1e1915; font-size: 16px; margin: 0px;" /><br style="box-sizing: border-box; caret-color: rgb(30, 25, 21); color: #1e1915; font-size: 16px; margin: 0px;" /><span style="background-color: white; caret-color: rgb(30, 25, 21); color: #1e1915; font-size: 16px;">When Odile recognizes two visitors she wasn’t supposed to see, she realizes that the parents of her friend Edme have been escorted across the border from the future, on a mourning tour, to view their son while he’s still alive in Odile’s present. Edme––who is brilliant, funny, and the only person to truly see Odile––is about to die. Sworn to secrecy in order to preserve the timeline, Odile now becomes the Conseil’s top candidate, yet she finds herself drawing closer to the doomed boy, imperiling her entire future.</span></span></div></span><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"><h2 style="text-align: center;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgRZXCJvtE2alCJiaWW-sDAM2tUEbDsTJuvgWGdGo-UZWygmuyxPS5AUmiF7c_wuGgsDuberREHjAdXnEC_YaYAjbBlP5Kd_B45CWi1VC5AAcGFDFiSTfnScJw49FiNWd2oCFfB_moUMbvXeaDrjeZIvqad9Jkle9gzoRV_NUmk4mMRvlDQmj1mTJjJK91-/s4800/139400621.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="4800" data-original-width="3113" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgRZXCJvtE2alCJiaWW-sDAM2tUEbDsTJuvgWGdGo-UZWygmuyxPS5AUmiF7c_wuGgsDuberREHjAdXnEC_YaYAjbBlP5Kd_B45CWi1VC5AAcGFDFiSTfnScJw49FiNWd2oCFfB_moUMbvXeaDrjeZIvqad9Jkle9gzoRV_NUmk4mMRvlDQmj1mTJjJK91-/s320/139400621.jpg" width="208" /></a></div></h2><h2 style="text-align: center;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit;">The Breakup Tour </span></h2><h3 style="text-align: center;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit;">by Emily Wibberly and Austin Siegmund-Broka </span></h3><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: white; caret-color: rgb(30, 25, 21); color: #1e1915; font-size: 16px; text-align: start;"><b>From Goodreads: </b>A rising-star musician has a second chance at love with an old flame she remembers all too well in this swoony romance from the acclaimed authors of The Roughest Draft .</span><br style="box-sizing: border-box; caret-color: rgb(30, 25, 21); color: #1e1915; font-size: 16px; margin: 0px; text-align: start;" /><br style="box-sizing: border-box; caret-color: rgb(30, 25, 21); color: #1e1915; font-size: 16px; margin: 0px; text-align: start;" /><span style="background-color: white; caret-color: rgb(30, 25, 21); color: #1e1915; font-size: 16px; text-align: start;">Riley Wynn went from a promising singer-songwriter to a superstar overnight, thanks to her breakup song concept album and its unforgettable lead single. When Riley’s ex-husband claims the hit song is about him, she does something she hasn’t in ten years and calls Max Harcourt, her college boyfriend and the real inspiration for the song of the summer.</span><br style="box-sizing: border-box; caret-color: rgb(30, 25, 21); color: #1e1915; font-size: 16px; margin: 0px; text-align: start;" /><br style="box-sizing: border-box; caret-color: rgb(30, 25, 21); color: #1e1915; font-size: 16px; margin: 0px; text-align: start;" /><span style="background-color: white; caret-color: rgb(30, 25, 21); color: #1e1915; font-size: 16px; text-align: start;">Max hasn’t spoken to Riley since their relationship ended. He’s content with managing the retirement home his family owns, but it’s not the life he dreamed of filled with music. When Riley asks him to go public as her songwriting muse, he agrees on one he’ll join her in her band on tour.</span><br style="box-sizing: border-box; caret-color: rgb(30, 25, 21); color: #1e1915; font-size: 16px; margin: 0px; text-align: start;" /><br style="box-sizing: border-box; caret-color: rgb(30, 25, 21); color: #1e1915; font-size: 16px; margin: 0px; text-align: start;" /><span style="background-color: white; caret-color: rgb(30, 25, 21); color: #1e1915; font-size: 16px; text-align: start;">As they perform across the country, Max and Riley start to realize that while they hit some wrong notes in the past, their future could hold incredible things. And their rekindled relationship will either last forever or go down in flames.</span></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: white; caret-color: rgb(30, 25, 21); color: #1e1915; font-size: 16px; text-align: start;"><br /></span></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiXW2QTDn20HAadzmH-fxJiK38OEcfidBiT40Zb3RhFzBBZ4DcZLDLDxCmb2YQn7Ba2cd4Unqntz5pdQ8_EGRE32DPVyXLH30Vd4rOPUEGP3TyhGHiG5ETs-oXunBWNrEdYGvGhA3GvpAZHSNkOCBGdrGCWEBAtSymIoYEz9MnIpx7doC0GDJulkj3U1dZu/s500/185767233.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="500" data-original-width="331" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiXW2QTDn20HAadzmH-fxJiK38OEcfidBiT40Zb3RhFzBBZ4DcZLDLDxCmb2YQn7Ba2cd4Unqntz5pdQ8_EGRE32DPVyXLH30Vd4rOPUEGP3TyhGHiG5ETs-oXunBWNrEdYGvGhA3GvpAZHSNkOCBGdrGCWEBAtSymIoYEz9MnIpx7doC0GDJulkj3U1dZu/s320/185767233.jpg" width="212" /></a></div></span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit; font-size: x-large;"><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit; font-size: x-large;"><br /></span></div><b>I Love You So Much It’s Killing Us Both </b></span></div></span><h3 style="font-family: inherit; text-align: center;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: medium;">by Mariah Stoval </span></span></h3><div><div style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium; text-align: center;"><span style="background-color: white; caret-color: rgb(30, 25, 21); color: #1e1915; font-family: inherit; font-size: 16px;"><b>From Goodreads: </b>Set in the suburbs of Los Angeles and New York City, </span><i style="box-sizing: border-box; caret-color: rgb(30, 25, 21); color: #1e1915; font-family: inherit; font-size: 16px;">I Love You So Much It’s Killing Us Both</i><span style="background-color: white; caret-color: rgb(30, 25, 21); color: #1e1915; font-family: inherit; font-size: 16px;"> is an immersive journey into the life and mind of Khaki Oliver, who’s perennially trying to disappear into something: a codependent friendship, an ill-advised boyfriend, the punk scene, or simply, the ether. These days it’s a meaningless job and a comfortingly empty apartment. Then, after a decade of estrangement, she receives a letter from her former best friend. Fiona’s throwing a party for her newly adopted daughter and wants Khaki to join the celebration.</span></div><span><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="caret-color: rgb(30, 25, 21); color: #1e1915;"><br /></span></div><span style="background-color: white; caret-color: rgb(30, 25, 21); color: #1e1915; font-family: inherit; font-size: 16px;"><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Khaki is equal parts terrified and tempted to reconnect. Their platonic love was confusing, all-consuming, and encouraged their worst impulses. While stalling her RSVP, Khaki starts crafting the perfect mixtape—revisiting memories of formative shows, failed romances, and the ups and downs of desire and denial—while weighing the risks and rewards of saying yes to Fiona again.</span></div></span><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="caret-color: rgb(30, 25, 21); color: #1e1915;"><br /></span></div><span style="background-color: white; caret-color: rgb(30, 25, 21); color: #1e1915; font-family: inherit; font-size: 16px;"><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">One song at a time, from 1980s hardcore to 2010s emo, the shared and separate contours of each woman’s mind come into focus. Will listening to the same old songs on repeat doom Khaki to a lonely life of arrested development? Or will hindsight help her regain her sense of self and pave a healthy path for the future, with or without Fiona?</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEitkS2OjD71yB1NjzG9bzrG-U8Iijlg8X5z0EFy3oGGyHLzDdrN1513c5pSV4vwoJkKccb6maw2qP1ztFzgJ9SA_9DNI_0BwKrg7vv4SJK4ZakvI_9FvtLNCehPPshE2g-5wrEtGQG1vMNsNCY9xFje1LoBX9DnoRUPfX1auQ0EvRDvCWxG_Lqv1o3ZETrn/s500/185767233.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="500" data-original-width="331" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEitkS2OjD71yB1NjzG9bzrG-U8Iijlg8X5z0EFy3oGGyHLzDdrN1513c5pSV4vwoJkKccb6maw2qP1ztFzgJ9SA_9DNI_0BwKrg7vv4SJK4ZakvI_9FvtLNCehPPshE2g-5wrEtGQG1vMNsNCY9xFje1LoBX9DnoRUPfX1auQ0EvRDvCWxG_Lqv1o3ZETrn/s320/185767233.jpg" width="212" /></a></div></div></span></span></div><h2 style="font-family: inherit; text-align: center;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: large;">Antia De Monte Laughs Last </span></span></h2><h3 style="font-family: inherit; text-align: center;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: medium;">by Xochitl Gonzales </span></span></h3><div><div style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium; text-align: center;"><b style="box-sizing: border-box; caret-color: rgb(30, 25, 21); color: #1e1915; font-family: inherit; font-size: 16px;">From Goodreads: 1985</b><span style="background-color: white; caret-color: rgb(30, 25, 21); color: #1e1915; font-family: inherit; font-size: 16px;">. Anita de Monte, a rising star in the art world, is found dead in New York City; her tragic death is the talk of the town. Until it isn’t. By 1998 Anita’s name has been all but forgotten—certainly by the time Raquel, a third-year art history student is preparing her final thesis. On College Hill, surrounded by privileged students whose futures are already paved out for them, Raquel feels like an outsider. Students of color, like her, are the minority there, and the pressure to work twice as hard for the same opportunities is no secret.</span></div><span><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="caret-color: rgb(30, 25, 21); color: #1e1915;"><br /></span></div><span style="background-color: white; caret-color: rgb(30, 25, 21); color: #1e1915; font-family: inherit; font-size: 16px;"><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">But when Raquel becomes romantically involved with a well-connected older art student, she finds herself unexpectedly rising up the social ranks. As she attempts to straddle both worlds, she stumbles upon Anita’s story, raising questions about the dynamics of her own relationship, which eerily mirrors that of the forgotten artist.</span></div></span><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="caret-color: rgb(30, 25, 21); color: #1e1915;"><br /></span></div><span style="background-color: white; caret-color: rgb(30, 25, 21); color: #1e1915; font-family: inherit; font-size: 16px;"><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Moving back and forth through time and told from the perspectives of both women, </span><i style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit;">Anita de Monte Laughs Last</i><span style="font-family: inherit;"> is a propulsive, witty examination of power, love, and art, daring to ask who gets to be remembered and who is left behind in the rarefied world of the elite.</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhFOPIagBDgc2LP2GUjhyphenhyphenU7kcuc_O-oyfnOpR0sdGL0oToggcfHs5dc_NXg8PbWn67M0Ew2sUqyXWL1411gmkcBeigMrZ_DSVSA2jclYyw3um_f5FMjp6mi3L0llRJA2mrxzQNnbxy9eaPHTkjkSj-xhschAswW5SKxcPhtaaIJdUZnOMV6y-PtPeQWBNWQ/s2115/60416508.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2115" data-original-width="1400" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhFOPIagBDgc2LP2GUjhyphenhyphenU7kcuc_O-oyfnOpR0sdGL0oToggcfHs5dc_NXg8PbWn67M0Ew2sUqyXWL1411gmkcBeigMrZ_DSVSA2jclYyw3um_f5FMjp6mi3L0llRJA2mrxzQNnbxy9eaPHTkjkSj-xhschAswW5SKxcPhtaaIJdUZnOMV6y-PtPeQWBNWQ/s320/60416508.jpg" width="212" /></a></div></div></span></span></div><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"><h2 style="text-align: center;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit;">The Book of Ayn </span></h2><h3 style="text-align: center;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit;">by Lexi Freiman</span></h3><h3 style="text-align: center;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit;"> </span><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: white; caret-color: rgb(30, 25, 21); color: #1e1915; font-size: 16px; text-align: left;">After writing a satirical novel that </span><i style="box-sizing: border-box; caret-color: rgb(30, 25, 21); color: #1e1915; font-size: 16px; text-align: left;">The New York Times</i><span style="background-color: white; caret-color: rgb(30, 25, 21); color: #1e1915; font-size: 16px; text-align: left;"> calls classist, Anna is shunned by the literary establishment and, in her hurt, radicalized by the philosophy of Ayn Rand. Determined to follow Rand’s theory of rational selfishness, Anna alienates herself from the scene and eventually her friends and family. Finally, in true Randian style, she abandons everyone for the boundless horizons of Los Angeles, hoping to make a TV show about her beloved muse. </span></span></span></h3></span><span style="background-color: white; caret-color: rgb(30, 25, 21); color: #1e1915; font-size: 16px;"><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Things look better in Hollywood—until the money starts running out, and with it Anna’s faith in the virtue of selfishness. When a death in the family sends her running back to New York and then spiraling at her mother’s house, Anna is offered a different kind of opportunity. A chance to kill the ego causing her pain at a mysterious commune on the island of Lesbos. The second half of Anna’s odyssey finds her exploring a very different kind of freedom – communal love, communal toilets – and a new perspective on Ayn Rand that could bring Anna back home to herself. </span></div></span><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="caret-color: rgb(30, 25, 21); color: #1e1915;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></div><span style="background-color: white; caret-color: rgb(30, 25, 21); color: #1e1915; font-size: 16px;"><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">"A gimlet-eyed satirist of the cultural morasses and political impasses of our times" (Alexandra Kleeman), Lexi Freiman speaks in <i style="box-sizing: border-box;">The Book of Ayn</i> not only to a particular millennial loneliness, but also to a timeless existential predicament: the strangeness, absurdity, and hilarity of seeking meaning in the modern world.</span></div></span><h2 style="font-family: inherit; text-align: center;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj5xJhGhnNJN_2Sh2s2X3ctSaIqRi4dqcqS0qxU0TXJC_JJ6-hlj4drReKNHkL8YUG5lYLL2hZF7GkSy0CylHw74Ykl1wYrMs7wDJG02Q-kJQVBdR8eJPRhvXbd0mLSli-6aqNmDYaKVMn34Qp_b0ZIZvDGoauK4bCiiN-fpDemfHQD4Xv5Z8xQRS45_Af_/s2475/127282597.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2475" data-original-width="1613" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj5xJhGhnNJN_2Sh2s2X3ctSaIqRi4dqcqS0qxU0TXJC_JJ6-hlj4drReKNHkL8YUG5lYLL2hZF7GkSy0CylHw74Ykl1wYrMs7wDJG02Q-kJQVBdR8eJPRhvXbd0mLSli-6aqNmDYaKVMn34Qp_b0ZIZvDGoauK4bCiiN-fpDemfHQD4Xv5Z8xQRS45_Af_/s320/127282597.jpg" width="209" /></a></div></span></h2><h2 style="font-family: inherit; text-align: center;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: large;">Green Dot </span></span></h2><h3 style="font-family: inherit; text-align: center;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: medium;">by Madeline Gray</span></span></h3><div><div style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium; text-align: center;"><b style="background-color: white; caret-color: rgb(30, 25, 21); color: #1e1915; font-family: inherit; font-size: 16px;">From Goodreads: </b><span style="background-color: white; caret-color: rgb(30, 25, 21); color: #1e1915; font-family: inherit; font-size: 16px;">At 24, Hera is a clump of unmet potential. To her, the future is nothing but an exhausting thought exercise, one depressing hypothetical after another. She’s sharp in more ways than one, adrift in her own smug malaise, until her new job moderating the comments section of an online news outlet—a role even more mind-numbing than it sounds—introduces her to Arthur, a middle-aged journalist. Though she's preferred women to men for years now, she soon finds herself falling into an all-consuming affair with him. She is coming apart with want and loving every second of it! Well, except for the tiny hiccup of Arthur’s wife—and that said wife has no idea Hera exists.</span></div><span><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="caret-color: rgb(30, 25, 21); color: #1e1915;"><br /></span></div><span style="background-color: white;"><div style="caret-color: rgb(30, 25, 21); color: #1e1915; font-family: inherit; font-size: 16px; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">With its daringly specific and intimate voice, </span><em style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit;">Green Dot</em><span style="font-family: inherit;"> is a darkly hilarious and deeply felt examination of the joys and indignities of coming into adulthood against the pitfalls of the twenty-first century and the winding, tortuous, and often very funny journey we take in deciding who we are and who we want to be.</span></div><div style="caret-color: rgb(30, 25, 21); color: #1e1915; font-family: inherit; font-size: 16px; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div><div style="caret-color: rgb(30, 25, 21); font-family: inherit; font-size: 16px; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="color: #ff00fe;"><b>More on Reading, Writing, and Me:</b></span></span></div><div style="caret-color: rgb(30, 25, 21); font-family: inherit; font-size: 16px; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><b><i><a href="http://www.readingwritingandme.com/2024/03/victim-by-andrew-boryga-arc-review.html" target="_blank">Victim ARC review</a></i></b></span></div><div style="caret-color: rgb(30, 25, 21); font-family: inherit; font-size: 16px; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><b><i><a href="http://www.readingwritingandme.com/2024/03/kindle-reading-habit-confessions.html" target="_blank">Kindle Reading Habits Challenge</a></i></b></span></div><div style="caret-color: rgb(30, 25, 21); font-family: inherit; font-size: 16px; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><b><i><a href="http://www.readingwritingandme.com/2024/03/piglet-by-lottie-hazell-book-review.html" target="_blank">Piglet review</a></i></b></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><b><i><a href="http://www.readingwritingandme.com/2024/03/february-2024-reading-wrap-up.html" target="_blank"><span style="caret-color: rgb(30, 25, 21);">February</span><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="caret-color: rgb(30, 25, 21);"> 2024 Reading Wrap Up</span></span></a></i></b></div></span></span></div></div>Lanie Bricehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16181046426943796903noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1255278025952897149.post-64767071571455925012024-03-09T13:27:00.001-07:002024-03-09T13:27:34.697-07:00Victim by Andrew Boryga: ARC review<p><b><u></u></b></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><b><u><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiGUqKtQspCTheKFqAT-Jg77FvIU7FXr1xSUfO51Pog-VX0u-o7sne5GsPRqefC5odvO8SYZBcFyx8IjED6P4To_2nr1POuvQV0NfdhfTwFtttqe4qTOvu1EWCjVclrxfG620Ig4M9tAQwi9TnSB__X7S-TjhC7nZq-kV__4N_xw8NsNiYB6LVG9WvwZqxa/s4032/victim%20.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="4032" data-original-width="3024" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiGUqKtQspCTheKFqAT-Jg77FvIU7FXr1xSUfO51Pog-VX0u-o7sne5GsPRqefC5odvO8SYZBcFyx8IjED6P4To_2nr1POuvQV0NfdhfTwFtttqe4qTOvu1EWCjVclrxfG620Ig4M9tAQwi9TnSB__X7S-TjhC7nZq-kV__4N_xw8NsNiYB6LVG9WvwZqxa/s320/victim%20.png" width="240" /></a></u></b></div><b><u>Victim</u> by Andrew Boryga </b><p></p><p><b><i>Thank you to Doubleday for sending me this ARC for review purposes. All thoughts are my own.</i></b></p><p><b>Overview: </b>Javier always wanted to be a writer without having much direction with it. He liked the easy praise in school but shied away from leaning into the critical comments that would help him level up on college assignments. More than writing, he seemed to just want to be famous. From a first encounter with a college councilor to the people he meets at college to an early success at the college newspaper, Javier starts to realize that there's a niche for him to leverage his background growing up in the Bronx into writing opportunities where his work was indisputable. To keep earning praise, Javier stretches the truth like taffy until it inevitably snaps. This book is the slow chug up the rollercoaster before the bottom drops out from under him and a reflection on his rise and fall. <b>Overall: 4</b></p><p><b>Characters: 4 </b>Javier is so interesting because I feel like so many of the antiheroes or "unlikeable" lead characters in the trend right now are white women, and this flips the script featuring a Puerto Rican man in this complex role. Javier does a lot wrong. He manipulates, twists the truth, intimidates, and mows people down in the name of getting more likes, clicks, and recognition for his work. And, even as he sort of repents for it throughout the book, he also doesn't seem super apologetic about it all as he narrates the book with the privilege of hindsight. At the same time, Javier is far from irredeemable. While what he did was wrong, the way he guides you through his twisted logic makes it easy to see how he just took the next opportunity in front of him. At the end of the day, it is our culture and society at large that created the bubble for him to capitalize on. While Javier does a lot of people wrong, he's still a compelling main character.</p><p>Unsurprisingly, the characters that fill out Javier's world mostly exist in the story to serve its narrative and progression. His mother has a lot of pride and works hard to continue giving him a good life through adulthood. His friend Gio takes a very different path that's ripe for Javier to capitalize on but always has a grounded head on his shoulders. His college girlfriend offers a fascinating foil, and the memory of his deceased father guides his approach to managing his freewheeling writing career.</p><p><b>Plot: 4 </b>The book has a bit of a slow start, but it does pick up to be a fast read. I finished it in two days, and once I got past the first quarter, I didn't want to put it down. I think it suffers from being so linear instead of using strategic flashbacks to fill in background while letting us start in the meat of the story. The first few chapters going through his childhood offers important information, but it's a totally different read as it progresses. So give the book a little time to open up, because when it hits its stride, the slowly unfurling disaster from college onwards is well worth it. </p><p><b>Writing: 4 </b>The book teetered on a real edge for me with the voice. I feel like it did all ultimately come together, but it does play with some tropes that are tricky to fully pull off. One is that it seems to be modeled off of a very direct address memoire style. It's heavily acknowledged we're reading a book within a book, and most chapters and chapter breaks include second person address of the reader. I think that it does work and gives the book the slick vibe it's after, but there were moments where that wavered for me. The fast paced and outlandish series of cascading events, as well as the big picture societal questions it mines, makes up for any weaknesses in the writing itself though. </p><p>As I was wrapping up the book, I thought that it would be an interesting paired read with <i>Yellowface</i> by R.F. Kuang as they approach questions of racism, culture, class and privilege, and social media (particularly in the context of publishing) from different angles. They both excel in being very meta while also being quite thoughtful. This is a book that is brutally honest from all angles and will definitely stick with me. </p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: #ff00fe;"><b>More on Reading, Writing, and Me</b></span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><b><i><a href="http://www.readingwritingandme.com/2024/03/kindle-reading-habit-confessions.html" target="_blank">Kindle Reading Habit Confessions</a></i></b></p><p style="text-align: center;"><b><i><a href="http://www.readingwritingandme.com/2024/03/piglet-by-lottie-hazell-book-review.html" target="_blank">Piglet review</a></i></b></p><p style="text-align: center;"><b><i><a href="http://www.readingwritingandme.com/2024/03/february-2024-reading-wrap-up.html" target="_blank">February 2024 Reading Wrap Up</a></i></b></p><p style="text-align: center;"><b><i><a href="http://www.readingwritingandme.com/2024/02/greta-valdin-by-rebecca-k-reilly-book.html" target="_blank">Greta and Valdin review</a></i></b></p>Lanie Bricehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16181046426943796903noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1255278025952897149.post-63747548407101803382024-03-06T09:54:00.001-07:002024-03-06T09:54:09.942-07:00Kindle Reading Habit Confessions : the Instagram Kindle Challenge <p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjExOflrIDU1v5pMQpI6hJN0SHobWbI6WWJtX8ENRdTX-6NDEbwyP2OzGXeRLeP7UwqTyyRjW6-qxvhoTM-VDgxfy0sEEt0-OC61Z_GKlhuO0xbnin7hk1Un8zcW6zcRox_4BHjVIqrigCA6eHexTL3Yxi3MfoeflyxhFXk0EDTEMoee2Tedk8wqyCFYZKI/s3249/kindle%20front.png" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3249" data-original-width="3024" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjExOflrIDU1v5pMQpI6hJN0SHobWbI6WWJtX8ENRdTX-6NDEbwyP2OzGXeRLeP7UwqTyyRjW6-qxvhoTM-VDgxfy0sEEt0-OC61Z_GKlhuO0xbnin7hk1Un8zcW6zcRox_4BHjVIqrigCA6eHexTL3Yxi3MfoeflyxhFXk0EDTEMoee2Tedk8wqyCFYZKI/s320/kindle%20front.png" width="298" /></a></div>I've been an avid Kindle user for almost as long as I can remember since it was my mom's solution to my voracious reading habit. It's been my constant companion since elementary school – though I've owned a few Kindles over this time. If you're a Kindle user and are curious about someone else's reading habits or still unsure about the e-reader world but want to learn more, here's a glimpse at my Kindle habits. This is a tag I found on Instagram from <a href="https://www.instagram.com/heavenlybibliophile/" target="_blank">@heavenlybibliophile</a>, so go check out that post too! <p></p><p><b>Kindle Type:</b> I have a 2018 Kindle Paperwhite. Even though I've been a Kindle user since my mom gave me her OG Kindle that didn't even have a touch screen when I was in maybe 3rd or 4th grade, I haven't owned this Paperwhite since 2018. When my Paperwhite I bought in 2017 finally seemed like it might give out on me in October of 2022, I purchased a refurbished Paperwhite during a Prime Day sale. Funnily enough, I am apparently really bad with details cause I didn't realized it was refurbished until after I bought it, but it actually worked out because my Kindle is so much lighter and sleeker than my mom's 2022 Paperwhite (she, of course, bought the newest version because she reads descriptions before clicking purchase). </p><p><b>Kindle Unlimited: </b>I don't have Kindle Unlimited. When I first found out about it, the library just didn't have many books I was interested in. I think it has a broader array of options now, but I don't really see the point in subscribing to something like that when the Libby app exists to get e-books from your local library for free. I feel like Kindle Unlimited is like an Audible subscription; they only exist because a certain amount of the population doesn't know how many digital options libraries offer now.</p><p><b>Buy or Borrow:</b> Borrow! I bought e-books as a kid before it was so easy to get e-books from the library, but now, if I'm buying a book, I want the physical object. I'm happy to wait out a Libby hold time to get to use the library.</p><p><b>Time Left in Chapter or Time Left In Book:</b> Time left in chapter! I need to know if I can squeeze in one more chapter before bed or how long it's going to take me to finish the chapter I'm in the middle of to push me to read faster or get to the end. Without being able to physically flip the pages ahead, I need to know where I am in each section to feel at ease as a reader. </p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiCZBxej-O4Ti8uYW3AsuVHonOiwqaVIHp4X6IQ4GJB7WfnEXKxnHn4agUc5o8LTU_OxzMgCSCTMNHNUbNolTRZtp3_Itt75cvVmmQRY7fUzkijxQSKTxc2VmxMlUccFdfg9HLQB-CPJBCs-PGEYhorWGXoW_K4pYO5NlD8FdpEP5XEs2LJd5xI-wTbA_mj/s4032/kindle%20back.png" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="4032" data-original-width="3024" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiCZBxej-O4Ti8uYW3AsuVHonOiwqaVIHp4X6IQ4GJB7WfnEXKxnHn4agUc5o8LTU_OxzMgCSCTMNHNUbNolTRZtp3_Itt75cvVmmQRY7fUzkijxQSKTxc2VmxMlUccFdfg9HLQB-CPJBCs-PGEYhorWGXoW_K4pYO5NlD8FdpEP5XEs2LJd5xI-wTbA_mj/s320/kindle%20back.png" width="240" /></a></div><b>Font Size:</b> I'm the freak that has always had my Kindle on the smallest font size they offer, and I get super thrown off if my font size gets changed by accident. I can't imagine reading in any other size! I get asked all the time, "Can you really read like that?" when people look over my shoulder, but that's just how I've always had it. One day, my eyes will get weak enough that I'll have to up the size, but given that my far away vision is already so bad, I'm going to relish in my quality close vision.<p></p><p><b>Case or No Case:</b> Until I got on bookstagram, I had no clue that Kindles could even have cases! My Paperwhites have always been so hardy I tell people you could probably run them over with a truck and they'd be fine! So I don't really see the point of getting a case for it besides making it cuter (I love seeing all the clear shell cases with stickers in them). I will say, though, that my new Kindle is looking a little worse for wear on the corners and in the rubber bits around the screen because it basically lives in my backpack, so maybe I'm starting to understand the case thing. </p><p>I have put stickers on my last 2 Kindles, though. The first was a handmade sticker that I printed one of my drawings on. On this new Kindle, I just added a vinyl sticker from my local library. </p><p><b>Does Your Kindle Have a Name?:</b> People do that? It's probably like Lanie's Kindle (4) or something in my Amazon profile if that counts. </p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: #ff00fe;"><b>More on Reading, Writing, and Me</b></span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span><b><i><a href="http://www.readingwritingandme.com/2024/03/piglet-by-lottie-hazell-book-review.html" target="_blank">Piglet review</a></i></b></span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span><b><i><a href="http://www.readingwritingandme.com/2024/03/february-2024-reading-wrap-up.html" target="_blank">February Reading Wrap Up</a></i></b></span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span><b><i><a href="http://www.readingwritingandme.com/2024/02/greta-valdin-by-rebecca-k-reilly-book.html" target="_blank">Greta and Valdin review</a></i></b></span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span><b><i><a href="http://www.readingwritingandme.com/2024/02/good-material-by-dolly-alderton-book.html" target="_blank">Good Material review</a></i></b></span></p>Lanie Bricehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16181046426943796903noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1255278025952897149.post-78204342086714391322024-03-03T16:06:00.007-07:002024-03-03T16:06:53.601-07:00Piglet by Lottie Hazell: book review<p><b><u></u></b></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><b><u><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg41SMnjUp6IFwjNXXzKuJRORD4mEuEtcomgLHYBOtPvZz4erKeJ-EDuU28iwXC1bcer7ShF36rNLBlC3HYyVhXtRNybdOC_oWEZpltlrOR_NDqonHd3K4OzPfF-7ehB_wBM3jnYInBe6QvYAR4EKCYw4trk5EG2HQpyt_LUqx1v5a4xziz1XsnrIujVL7-/s3654/piglet.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3654" data-original-width="2556" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg41SMnjUp6IFwjNXXzKuJRORD4mEuEtcomgLHYBOtPvZz4erKeJ-EDuU28iwXC1bcer7ShF36rNLBlC3HYyVhXtRNybdOC_oWEZpltlrOR_NDqonHd3K4OzPfF-7ehB_wBM3jnYInBe6QvYAR4EKCYw4trk5EG2HQpyt_LUqx1v5a4xziz1XsnrIujVL7-/s320/piglet.png" width="224" /></a></u></b></div><b><u>Piglet</u> by Lottie Hazell</b><p></p><p><b>Overview: </b>Piglet likes to lose herself in food. She works at a cookbook publisher, her love language is making elaborate dinners for groups of friends or family, and eating itself also numbs her pain and worries. Food is her compass. Set to be married in only a few weeks, Piglet is navigating the stress of her strained family relationships, her pretentious in-laws, and her best friend and maid of honor potentially going into labor at her wedding. When, two weeks out, Piglet's fiancé reveals that their relationships rests on a lie, Piglet has to weigh maintaining the perfectly composed life she's built against destroying it all in the name of honoring herself. <b>Overall: 4</b></p><p><b>Characters: 4 </b>Piglet is deeply caring and hardworking. She's an immediately likable character, and we want to see her find genuine happiness. Unfortunately, her upcoming wedding does not seem likely to deliver that. When her fiancé reveals a devastating secret in the immediate lead-up to the wedding, Piglet feels strangled by the information. She spends the novel trying to contort herself to societal and familial expectations and only suffers more for it. While her heart knows what she needs to do, letting go of the marriage requires abandoning the stability she'd manufactured for herself. While she has a job and a successful career of her own, publishing doesn't pay very well, and she doesn't come from family money to fall back on. Kit, her fiancé, and his wealthy parents provide the comforts that Piglet has craved from supplying the downpayment on a house in Oxford to outfitting her kitchen full of Le Creuset cookware. With her sister already struggling financially, Piglet feels a sense of obligation to stick with this relationship and the financial security it provides, both for her and her family, even when it's already proven to be an emotional train wreck. </p><p>The novel is very much about Piglet working through her feelings around marriage, societal conventions, and class, and she is by far the most developed character. Everyone else is a bit dimmer in the background. There are some compelling external threads in Piglet and her best friend Margot re-evaluating their friendship in light of Margot's newly baby-oriented life. Within Piglet's family, there's a solid sister story and also a subtle yet impactful narrative around Piglet's relationship with her father. Part of Piglet's inability to emotionally want more for herself comes from what she's witnessed in her parents' relationship and their values, and we see her reconcile that in real time. We never learn much about Kit (even down to the details of what he did to ruin the relationship). He simply is the story's catalyst.</p><p><b>Plot: 4 </b>The book has a very quick pace. Having a countdown and then a chaos-filled wedding will certainly lend that to a book. Hazell also does a good job of taking a slow, emotionally nuanced story and making it unfold quickly by cherry picking only the most impactful, pivotal scenes and leaving the rest to the reader's imagination. In tandem with the will-they-won't-they of the wedding, Piglet is navigating intense relationship drama, questions around her career, and the difficult reality that you're the only one who can stand up for your needs at the end of the day. I finished the book in a weekend quite easily. </p><p><b>Writing: 4 </b>Lottie Hazell's writing is compulsively readable. The book and its style is pretty straightforward, which makes it easy to read for hours on end. Hazell got her PhD in creative writing centered on food writing, and that certainly comes through here. I love that she somehow finds a way to tie nearly every scene back to some kind of food anchor whether through cooking a particular meal or visiting a restaurant. It creates a consistent motif throughout the story and allows us to track Piglet's emotional center through her relationship with the food in the scene. </p><p>I've seen lots of comparisons to <i><a href="http://www.readingwritingandme.com/2023/09/supper-club-by-lara-williams-book-review.html" target="_blank">The Supper Club</a></i> by Laura Williams come up, and while I see the threads, <i>Piglet </i>feels fundamentally different to me. While there are themes of rejecting societal standards (like crash dieting before a wedding) through food in this book, <i>Piglet</i> struck me as exploring a relationship with food in a much more personal or intimate level than <i>Super Club</i>. They both have mouth watering food descriptions that take much of the book's real estate, though. I'd also say <i>Piglet</i> is a much lighter read than <i>Super Club, </i>too, as <i>Super Club </i>pushes for the darker, grittier parts of some of their mutual themes. </p><p>I would personally comp <i>Piglet </i>to one of my favorite compulsively readable books of last year,<a href="http://www.readingwritingandme.com/2023/11/the-happy-couple-by-naoise-dolan-book.html" target="_blank"> </a><i><a href="http://www.readingwritingandme.com/2023/11/the-happy-couple-by-naoise-dolan-book.html" target="_blank">The Happy Couple</a> </i>by Naoise Dolan. This is another will-they-won't-they wedding story, and while it grapples with somewhat different questions and utilizes an alternative structure, the books both have a similar tone, pacing, and theme of reckoning with societal expectations vs happiness.</p><p>This is a great debut novel, and I'll certainly be checking out whatever Hazell comes up with next.</p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: #ff00fe;"><b>More Like This:</b></span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><b><i><a href="http://www.readingwritingandme.com/2023/09/supper-club-by-lara-williams-book-review.html" target="_blank">Supper Club review</a></i></b></p><p style="text-align: center;"><b><i><a href="http://www.readingwritingandme.com/2023/11/the-happy-couple-by-naoise-dolan-book.html" target="_blank">The Happy Couple review</a></i></b></p><p style="text-align: center;"><b><span style="color: #2b00fe;">More on Reading, Writing, and Me:</span></b></p><p style="text-align: center;"><b><i><a href="http://www.readingwritingandme.com/2024/03/february-2024-reading-wrap-up.html" target="_blank">February 2024 Reading Wrap Up</a></i></b></p><p style="text-align: center;"><b><i><a href="http://www.readingwritingandme.com/2024/02/greta-valdin-by-rebecca-k-reilly-book.html" target="_blank">Greta and Valdin review</a></i></b></p><p style="text-align: center;"><b><i><a href="http://www.readingwritingandme.com/2024/02/good-material-by-dolly-alderton-book.html" target="_blank">Good Material review</a></i></b></p><p style="text-align: center;"><b><i><a href="http://www.readingwritingandme.com/2024/02/20-questions-book-tag-get-to-know-me.html" target="_blank">20 Questions Tag</a></i></b></p>Lanie Bricehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16181046426943796903noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1255278025952897149.post-83862826317028584662024-03-02T10:29:00.002-07:002024-03-02T10:29:29.450-07:00February 2024 Reading Wrap Up <p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEirRgUUr6kfWFpR4W2iMhXBGBWXUcI1JqCN68PfG9xQg9Oo6I6a2Dp1VqvgbWW4ygNkcg9XNCFGSw3I_qEvNSKU7JimTpveM2oqc3x5ofi9CmsLa8anVEVKrDjMeGpjroxe1GZReN8XNyT3g-VTSE8keEksNdOWOIp7dgEJpMhaZk8tTi47xkrC0esC6tzA/s4032/febraury%2024%20wrap%20up.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="4032" data-original-width="3024" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEirRgUUr6kfWFpR4W2iMhXBGBWXUcI1JqCN68PfG9xQg9Oo6I6a2Dp1VqvgbWW4ygNkcg9XNCFGSw3I_qEvNSKU7JimTpveM2oqc3x5ofi9CmsLa8anVEVKrDjMeGpjroxe1GZReN8XNyT3g-VTSE8keEksNdOWOIp7dgEJpMhaZk8tTi47xkrC0esC6tzA/s320/febraury%2024%20wrap%20up.png" width="240" /></a></div>Last month, I was stuck in a bit of a <i>The Nix</i> rut trying to finish one super long book all month. I also struggled to find audiobooks I connected with, which didn't help the reading slump situation. I spent a lot of my reading time doing research for my final capstone project as well. February, however, I fell back in the swing of the reading thing. After the binge reading of winter break, I've finally recalibrated and I'm able to fully appreciate books again. This means that February gets a much more traditional wrap up post. I'm going to structure these almost as mini versions of my year end posts and give insight into what I read this month (so you can hear a bit about the nonfiction I don't post about and get a preview of fiction reviews coming your way), chat a bit about what I'm hoping to read next month, and then have a quick space for non-bookish stories grabbing my attention. <p></p><p>If February is the month of love, then my great love of the month was falling back in love with stories and storytelling. So let's get into all the details. </p><h3 style="text-align: left;">Stats </h3><div>I finished a total of 12 books this month, which was much better than what I projected in January. Having had such a slow, laborious reading month to start the year, I was ready to step back my overall goal, but after February, I'm well on my way to 75 or even 100 books for the year. Those 12 bring me to a total of 23 books complete overall. </div><div>7 of February's books were nonfiction audiobooks. I hit a really great stride with finding audiobooks I clicked with again, and I found myself wanting to prioritize listening time on walks, while cleaning, and while working. Audiobooks, music, and podcasts all occupy a similar space in my media time, and this month, audiobooks were clearly the winner. That means that the remaining 5 books were fiction reads. One was an ARC that came out in February, 4 books were Libby ebooks, and 1 was a reread of a book I own in hardcover, so I had an interesting spread of different formats for my reading this month. </div><div>As far as ratings go, I probably read so much this month because I finished so many incredible books that it made me hungry for more awesome reads. This has to be one of my most highly rated reading months ever since I discovered two 5 star reads and two 4.5 star reads. I'm pretty stingy with my 5 star designations, so that was no easy feat. These 2024 releases are shaping up to be incredible. My average rating given out was a 4, and my lowest rating was a 3 for an audiobook I didn't end up loving. </div><h3 style="text-align: left;">Fiction</h3><div>This might be my best run of finding books I really enjoyed in recent memory. While I struggled a bit with getting through pieces of <i>Midnight Ramblers</i> and <i>Good Material</i>, I thought they were worth reading in the end. I'm still thinking about <i>Martyr!</i>. I was scared that it would give me the biggest book hangover, but my limited time Libby holds kept me moving right along. Over my four-day weekend this month, I indulged in a physical read since I didn't have to carry the book anywhere. For some reason, I've been in a deeply Sally Rooney mood this month, and I always love rereading because I'm growing and changing so much year to year right now that reading a book I read a year or two or three ago means I have a totally new experience with it. Then I wrapped the month with the warm hug that is <i>Greta and Valdin</i>. </div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiZ6wdpOUkF2cBn2-9phV6JzpXsb9IctI_H0sDahuvigDk9bdBTfgVgqlMNPWpMGDNUX2p7n1jvL0X2XVjgohQMgGTbv2Y0jImiUmcAf8BaZmUenNqg_avNTxbcdDNcmfYCUoSLGY5NAqNizhdlRPKr3moArCojsFAvwYOfjJxt3-0mzwYJGdtB2RVLJ0Tv/s4032/midnight%20ramblers.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="4032" data-original-width="3024" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiZ6wdpOUkF2cBn2-9phV6JzpXsb9IctI_H0sDahuvigDk9bdBTfgVgqlMNPWpMGDNUX2p7n1jvL0X2XVjgohQMgGTbv2Y0jImiUmcAf8BaZmUenNqg_avNTxbcdDNcmfYCUoSLGY5NAqNizhdlRPKr3moArCojsFAvwYOfjJxt3-0mzwYJGdtB2RVLJ0Tv/s320/midnight%20ramblers.png" width="240" /></a></div><div><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><b><i><a href="http://www.readingwritingandme.com/2024/02/the-last-day-of-midnight-ramblers-arc.html" target="_blank">The Last Days of the Midnight Ramblers</a></i> by Sarah Tomlinson </b></div><div style="text-align: center;"><b>Overall: 4</b></div><div style="text-align: center;">A ghost writer embarks on two significant projects hunting for the truth behind one of the '70s biggest bands.</div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhS0fwgbhJY-C6Mo5J0GN2MVpNL9Rt4_O1OdAmNkK3B1Zbnrvi-aNB9gA9oWPJI5eT0BYguuIbzjSqMqjUtsyiO84-Hx3zB-X1-H1ZKV2vBSxsLVhd-kRdc2d3ldCh5eWnZOErAp4abWHG-aW7pfwn2qlXFG6JpXKPbDiCFwmjc-gL7y6iq7B-bgDGMOfNx/s3458/martyr.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3458" data-original-width="3024" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhS0fwgbhJY-C6Mo5J0GN2MVpNL9Rt4_O1OdAmNkK3B1Zbnrvi-aNB9gA9oWPJI5eT0BYguuIbzjSqMqjUtsyiO84-Hx3zB-X1-H1ZKV2vBSxsLVhd-kRdc2d3ldCh5eWnZOErAp4abWHG-aW7pfwn2qlXFG6JpXKPbDiCFwmjc-gL7y6iq7B-bgDGMOfNx/s320/martyr.png" width="280" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><b><i><a href="http://www.readingwritingandme.com/2024/02/martyr-by-kaveh-akbar-book-review.html" target="_blank">Martyr!</a> </i>by Kaveh Akbar </b></div><div style="text-align: center;"><b>Overall: 5 </b></div><div style="text-align: center;">A young man fascinated with death mattering visits an artist who chooses to die in a museum. </div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><b><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgbMf6uqLX_yTnIynY_BDNp5AoefHAKHToAr9VV9yqHov0Jk8_15e1VDvIge1Yx24etoV4nUrPzuJ4UdXnZRxBLJanMv7bCBcHSyRmBPEDD6gCFu9lx8ush6lGxttzpEjHw82yDsoboIFGhXKfvBa5yLoJIdn7YSLJKn2Z7nmGh12l8dGJQU9mPnXGDcGuU/s4032/good%20material.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="4032" data-original-width="3024" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgbMf6uqLX_yTnIynY_BDNp5AoefHAKHToAr9VV9yqHov0Jk8_15e1VDvIge1Yx24etoV4nUrPzuJ4UdXnZRxBLJanMv7bCBcHSyRmBPEDD6gCFu9lx8ush6lGxttzpEjHw82yDsoboIFGhXKfvBa5yLoJIdn7YSLJKn2Z7nmGh12l8dGJQU9mPnXGDcGuU/s320/good%20material.png" width="240" /></a></div><i><br /></i></b></div><div style="text-align: center;"><b><a href="http://www.readingwritingandme.com/2024/02/good-material-by-dolly-alderton-book.html" target="_blank"><i>Good Material</i> </a>by Dolly Alderton</b></div><div style="text-align: center;"><b>Overall: 4</b></div><div style="text-align: center;">Andy struggles to be single in his late thirties as his friends move into new stages in their lives.</div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><b><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhjvETTTtJeaYDzXDJ-miFWJ-7hrQctRPfT6EiiAaEdnVp0YXNglnFJfbiBf-5TQTQPceeax_CpRE2zfpr9xt9U8FvhYz2aMtbt0n2ojki45Y5w3r1C1BNkkHCNlMvK5KIdmxcNtT07s08GK4IwwvkJxBLbRwCGNUeT8gZphzaRdZlReJFUZHA5L-RxtM-M/s3504/beautiful%20world%20where%20are%20you.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3504" data-original-width="3024" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhjvETTTtJeaYDzXDJ-miFWJ-7hrQctRPfT6EiiAaEdnVp0YXNglnFJfbiBf-5TQTQPceeax_CpRE2zfpr9xt9U8FvhYz2aMtbt0n2ojki45Y5w3r1C1BNkkHCNlMvK5KIdmxcNtT07s08GK4IwwvkJxBLbRwCGNUeT8gZphzaRdZlReJFUZHA5L-RxtM-M/s320/beautiful%20world%20where%20are%20you.png" width="276" /></a></div><i><br /></i></b></div><div style="text-align: center;"><b><i>Beautiful World Where Are You</i> by Sally Rooney</b></div><div style="text-align: center;"><b>New Overall: 5 </b></div><div style="text-align: center;"><b>*rereview coming soon*</b></div><div style="text-align: center;">A young, famous author retreats to the Irish coast to recuperate and keeps in touch with her best friend via email.</div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjQ_PTHqDJAC5JjR0hLtNTJil_Ldlvdo2leowSVK60JjpCL3WJepCq6P7oqAPWYKEOIrOtnQ6mZEaqkYj1tboPNM9Mw99YOnzahvjDVY2iUkJ-V7aq3XpPI4yC1GNqag9IPGDay1Pmtx8DhKUuP-kPwUymxLWBzm8rSwRYXiHGY8C4VyUMtNFC_NB1NCRnq/s3313/greta%20and%20valdin.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3313" data-original-width="3024" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjQ_PTHqDJAC5JjR0hLtNTJil_Ldlvdo2leowSVK60JjpCL3WJepCq6P7oqAPWYKEOIrOtnQ6mZEaqkYj1tboPNM9Mw99YOnzahvjDVY2iUkJ-V7aq3XpPI4yC1GNqag9IPGDay1Pmtx8DhKUuP-kPwUymxLWBzm8rSwRYXiHGY8C4VyUMtNFC_NB1NCRnq/s320/greta%20and%20valdin.png" width="292" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><b><a href="http://www.readingwritingandme.com/2024/02/greta-valdin-by-rebecca-k-reilly-book.html" target="_blank"><i>Greta and Valdin</i> </a>by Rebecca K. Reilly </b></div><div style="text-align: center;"><b>Overall: 4.5</b></div><div style="text-align: center;">Two siblings in their late twenties in New Zealand navigate adulthood amidst their large, chaotic family.</div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><h3 style="text-align: left;">Nonfiction/Audiobooks</h3><p style="text-align: left;">My nonfiction reading is all over the map, and I can't be held accountable for it! I read all kinds of random things on audio from memoir to self help to sciencey books to essay collections to craft tomes. This month captures that pretty well. I don't review nonfiction books on here often because I honestly don't read them as critically as fiction and don't typically have much to say afterwards. If I especially love a book or think people should read it, I'll try to morph my review format to suit it and make a post about it, but I thought it'd be fun to do mini reviews in my wrap-up each month to give some suggestions if you're looking for some audiobook inspiration. This month, I actually reviewed 2 of my nonfiction reads on the blog – the first and last one I read. </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhSEj_rjewaekqiSvfSnnqw8sKzJGIua4xvzqcwi494w3DthKuS08c35fNaqSHUOjhnxmjaUmj71PFowyvB_H5nRQOpNUwRmuTmeq7lN99ZTNjuoCg54JF0PIVlixY7aB9Pryp9As0hArT489gdDaI1722O2FO7EaVLd2Hil63X4WhIQf8iTbsPcmhqzHg_/s4032/because%20internet.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="4032" data-original-width="3024" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhSEj_rjewaekqiSvfSnnqw8sKzJGIua4xvzqcwi494w3DthKuS08c35fNaqSHUOjhnxmjaUmj71PFowyvB_H5nRQOpNUwRmuTmeq7lN99ZTNjuoCg54JF0PIVlixY7aB9Pryp9As0hArT489gdDaI1722O2FO7EaVLd2Hil63X4WhIQf8iTbsPcmhqzHg_/s320/because%20internet.png" width="240" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><b><a href="http://www.readingwritingandme.com/2024/02/because-internet-by-gretchen-mcculloch.html" target="_blank"><i>Because Internet</i> </a>by Gretchen McCulloch</b></div><div style="text-align: center;"><b>Overall: 4</b></div><div style="text-align: center;">While this book came out in 2019, it's still incredibly relevant in capturing how language has morphed and changed on the internet. It's remarkable and well worth the read to think through about all the different ways we wield language in a day and take notice of how it's evolved. Super fun and accessible as a book too.</div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><img class="ResponsiveImage" height="320" loading="eager" role="presentation" src="https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1697260810i/195243800.jpg" style="text-align: start;" width="277" /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><b><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/195243800-cool-food?from_search=true&from_srp=true&qid=1Osz8QKKpz&rank=1" target="_blank"><i>Cool Food</i> </a>by Robert Downey Jr. and Thomas Kostigen</b></div><div style="text-align: center;"><b>Overall: 4</b></div><div style="text-align: center;">I had no clue Robert Downey Jr. cared about food or climate change before reading this one, but apparently he does. This book is somewhat unique in the food space for prescribing diet alterations not for health or aesthetics but to aid the planet. While some of the tips were pretty obvious, they did make some interesting suggestions and offer swaps to eat a more climate friendly diet. </div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><img class="ResponsiveImage" height="320" loading="eager" role="presentation" src="https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1674526451i/72173542.jpg" style="text-align: start;" width="215" /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><b><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/72173542-the-microstress-effect?from_search=true&from_srp=true&qid=OkXUnF9GF2&rank=1" target="_blank"><i>The Microstress Effect</i> </a>by Rob Cross and Karen Dillon</b></div><div style="text-align: center;"><b>Overall: 4</b></div><div style="text-align: center;">It's not the majorly stressful moments that wear away at us, it's all the tiny little cortisol spikes in between as you worry over the language in an email or constantly miss family events because of work. Society encourages us to abandon ourselves in the name of productivity, and this book offers an alternative perspective. They dive into what microstresses are, how they are detrimental in your life, and offer some decent tips about how to lessen them within the existing framework of your life. </div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><img class="ResponsiveImage" height="320" loading="eager" role="presentation" src="https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1627489209i/53487237.jpg" style="text-align: start;" width="211" /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><b><i><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/53487237-a-swim-in-a-pond-in-the-rain?from_search=true&from_srp=true&qid=AtdwuFL7xC&rank=1" target="_blank">A Swim in a Pond In the Rain</a></i> by George Saunders</b></div><div style="text-align: center;"><b>Overall: 4.5</b></div><div style="text-align: center;">This is an MFA class in a book. While I did struggle a bit with consuming the very long short stories from Russian literature that the lessons were structured around over audio, I still feel like I got a lot out of this book. The lessons about writing were open, useful, and not overly prescriptive, and it really added to the way I think about writing. It also made me even more hopeful that I'll get to attend an MFA program one day since the book gives good insight into how those classes operate. I would recommend picking this up as a physical book, though. </div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><img class="ResponsiveImage" height="320" loading="eager" role="presentation" src="https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1686575457i/173403935.jpg" style="text-align: start;" width="214" /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><b><i><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/173403935-i-ll-just-be-five-more-minutes?from_search=true&from_srp=true&qid=SABQ4q4TTO&rank=1" target="_blank">I'll Just Be Five More Minutes</a></i> by Emily Farris </b></div><div style="text-align: center;"><b>Overall: 3</b></div><div style="text-align: center;">It feels wrong to say that a book about ADHD was just too scattered and all over the place to hold my attention, but that's truly my issue with this book. I felt like I kept losing the train of thought the book was operating on. I just didn't click with the writing or style and wasn't able to find what I was looking for in this one. </div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><img class="ResponsiveImage" height="320" loading="eager" role="presentation" src="https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1685350594i/63876547.jpg" style="text-align: start;" width="212" /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><b><i><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/63876547-never-enough?from_search=true&from_srp=true&qid=cbw0SHXvmp&rank=5" target="_blank">Never Enough </a></i>by Jennifer Breheny Wallace</b></div><div style="text-align: center;"><b>Overall: 4</b></div><div style="text-align: center;">This book is all about the toxic achievement culture in highs schools, particularly in upper middle class families, and what the imperative to go to a shiny name brand college does to the teens who spend their lives resume building instead of learning. While I didn't experience this from my own parents, I did see these pressures starting as young as elementary and middle school in my peers before my own schooling experience turned away from the conventional. Having somewhat randomly ended up at USC for college, the school at the heart of the college admissions scandal that brought this parental anxiety into the mainstream conversation, I see the after effects of growing up in this toxic achievement culture in so many of my peers. And, honestly, it does not create the best environment for learning or socializing. While there wasn't anything groundbreaking here, I thought it was a solid book, and if you have a teen planning to go to college, this is a book you should pick up and consider when approaching that uncertain period. </div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><img class="ResponsiveImage" height="320" loading="eager" role="presentation" src="https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1626342666i/57028269.jpg" style="text-align: start;" width="200" /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><b><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/57028269-conversations-on-love?from_search=true&from_srp=true&qid=VlL53v6a5X&rank=1" target="_blank"><i>Conversations on Love</i> </a>by Natasha Lunn</b></div><div style="text-align: center;"><b>Overall: 4.5</b></div><div style="text-align: center;">*review coming soon*</div><div style="text-align: center;">This is on so many of those <i>read these books in your twenties</i> lists, so I decided that I'd finally give it a go. I won't say too much since I have a full review coming on it, but I definitely agree. It was especially fun on audio because all of the guest interviews are read by the guests themselves, so it almost feels like a narrative podcast. It gave me a new perspective on many kinds of love.</div><h3 style="text-align: left;">What I'm Currently Reading </h3><div style="text-align: center;"><img class="ResponsiveImage" height="320" loading="eager" role="presentation" src="https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1664927200i/62092265.jpg" style="text-align: start;" width="212" /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><b><i><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/62092265-the-late-americans?from_search=true&from_srp=true&qid=C0MSH196BJ&rank=1" target="_blank">The Late Americans</a></i> by Brandon Taylor</b></div><div style="text-align: center;"><b><br /></b></div><div style="text-align: center;"><img class="ResponsiveImage" height="320" loading="eager" role="presentation" src="https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1684817671i/63876551.jpg" style="text-align: start;" width="210" /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><b><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/63876551-on-our-best-behavior?from_search=true&from_srp=true&qid=aVzaRKyoRa&rank=1" target="_blank"><i>On Our Best Behavior</i> </a>by Elise Idehnen</b></div><div style="text-align: left;"><b>What's Next:</b></div><div style="text-align: left;">Mid writing this post, I got random Lucky Day Libby loans that have made me completely rewrite my reading plans for the next week, so I'll give you the books I've jumped into to try to read in 7 days first before I go back to my currently reading and then my originally planned next read. </div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><b>Audio:</b><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/127282631-grief-is-for-people?from_search=true&from_srp=true&qid=pjA0ve7LV4&rank=1" target="_blank"> <i>Grief Is For People</i> </a>by Sloane Crosley; <i><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/51089089-the-multi-hyphen-life?from_search=true&from_srp=true&qid=m9pPtcrXJK&rank=1" target="_blank">The Multi-Hyphen Life</a></i> by Emma Gannon</div><div style="text-align: left;"><b>Kindle: </b><i><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/127282554-piglet?from_search=true&from_srp=true&qid=EoAZ3nbWzm&rank=1" target="_blank">Piglet</a></i> by Lottie Hazell; <i><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/177185976-victim?from_search=true&from_srp=true&qid=jbcXJgV4Vg&rank=1" target="_blank">Victim</a></i> by Andrew Boryga (out 3/10)</div><h3 style="text-align: left;">Books on My Radar </h3><div>For the rest of the month, I'm not entirely sure where my library loans will take me. I do know that I've been dying to read <i>Piglet</i> (so I've jumped at the chance to speed read through it this weekend) and <i>Green Dot</i>. While <i>Green Dot</i> has a very long hold time because it's made such a splash, I realized that my hometown library always has print copies of in-demand books easily available so I got online, placed a hold, and it will be ready for me to read over spring break while I'm home. I'm so excited to get to read both these books. The bookstagram hype has gotten to me. If I have time while I'm home, I might revisit <i>My Year of Rest and Relaxation</i> since I own a copy and have been curious if my opinion about this one might have shifted like my opinions on Sally Rooney books.</div><div>Speaking of which, Sally Rooney just announced that she's releasing a new book in September, so it'll be a while before I actually get to read that one, but it is on my radar. Based on my current hold times, I anticipate getting to read <i>Supercommunicators </i>by Charles Duhigg, <i>The Courage to Be Disliked</i> by Ichiro Kishimi and Fumitake Koga, <i>I Love You So Much It's Killing Us Both</i> by Mariah Stovall, and <i>After You'd Gone</i> by Maggie O'Farrell.</div><div>What books are on your radar? Let me know in the comments or on Instagram! </div><h3 style="text-align: left;">Movies, TV, etc.</h3><div style="text-align: center;"><img alt="All of Us Strangers (2023) - IMDb" aria-hidden="false" class="sFlh5c pT0Scc iPVvYb" height="320" jsaction="VQAsE" jsname="kn3ccd" src="https://m.media-amazon.com/images/M/MV5BZmYzMjMzN2EtMGYwNi00ODc3LWI3YTctMjA5YjI1MGFkYTlhXkEyXkFqcGdeQXVyMDM2NDM2MQ@@._V1_FMjpg_UX1000_.jpg" style="height: 347px; margin: 0px; max-width: 1000px; text-align: start; width: 231px;" width="213" /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><b>All of Us Strangers </b></div><div style="text-align: center;">I don't watch movies often, but all of my friends love them, so I hear about a lot of movies, and sometimes I get intrigued. I decided to indulge in a film post-midterms, and since I love Andrew Scott from <i>Fleabag</i> and Paul Mescal just in general, this seemed like an obvious choice. I didn't realize that no plot (or very inconsistent confused plot) just vibes could extend into movies, but apparently it can, which suited me just fine. I did not cry, but I did spend an hour scrolling through various Tumblr theories about what that ending meant and then analyzed all of them with my friend over text afterwards.</div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><img alt="Normal People (TV Mini Series 2020) - IMDb" aria-hidden="false" class="sFlh5c pT0Scc iPVvYb" height="320" jsaction="VQAsE" jsname="kn3ccd" src="https://m.media-amazon.com/images/M/MV5BNzMzYmRiNGEtMDg5OC00OGZmLWFmNDktYzRlZTFkZmZiMjAzXkEyXkFqcGdeQXVyMTE2OTE2MzE1._V1_FMjpg_UX1000_.jpg" style="height: 347px; margin: 0px; max-width: 1000px; text-align: start; width: 236px;" width="218" /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><b>Normal People (The TV Show)</b></div><div style="text-align: center;">Now here's the place where I did shed some tears.</div><div style="text-align: center;">If you've kept up with my blog, you know I've had a long and greatly evolving relationship with Sally Rooney's work. I hated it as a teen when the buzz first started. I found her books boring and frustrating and I didn't get what the hype was for. Then, in junior year of college, I reread the books in preparation for writing an essay about how they're so deeply overhyped and flawed. But I found in the period between the two readings I'd lived exactly the kind of life that would lead me to fall head over heels for Rooney's stories, seeing myself in the pages and understanding the novels in a way I didn't before. So I ended up writing a very different <a href="http://www.readingwritingandme.com/2023/09/hope-romance-confusion-fragility.html" target="_blank">essay</a>. </div><div style="text-align: center;">All of this to say that I never watched the show. I watched <i>Conversations with Friends </i>when it came out<i> </i>because I was curious if Joe Alwyn could act, but I skipped this one. Since I've been in a Rooney mood, I gave it a go, and I finished it in two days. I see why the show was so popular now, and I think it's a very solid adaption of the book. The first half might be even stronger than the book, but it struggles at the end to convey the more nuanced aspects of the central relationship developing over email and long periods of time passing. It began to feel a bit rushed and all over the place. But, rarely, do I think the screen does a book so much justice, and the casting was truly incredible. </div><h3 style="text-align: left;">In Case You Missed It...</h3><div>To close, I just want to recap all of the reviews, tags, discussion posts, and more that I've posted over the course of the month. I share every new post on Instagram (<a href="https://www.instagram.com/readingwritingandme/" target="_blank">@readingwritingandme</a>) if you want to follow along over there for regular updates. It was so much fun to post a few discussion posts beyond the reviews and get to share my thoughts on some current bookstagram favorites and new releases. With the <i>You Are Here </i>review posted that means I still only have 1 holdover review from my winter break reading, so from here on out, all the reviews you'll see will be pretty much real time! </div><div>Also, if you're interested in more general pop culture, music, and internet culture related articles, I post a couple times a month on my newsletter Lanie Land, which you can find <a href="https://lanieland.substack.com" target="_blank">here</a>.</div><div><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><b><i><a href="http://www.readingwritingandme.com/2024/02/greta-valdin-by-rebecca-k-reilly-book.html" target="_blank">Greta and Valdin review</a></i></b></div><div style="text-align: center;"><b><i><a href="http://www.readingwritingandme.com/2024/02/good-material-by-dolly-alderton-book.html" target="_blank">Good Material review</a></i></b></div><div style="text-align: center;"><b><i><a href="http://www.readingwritingandme.com/2024/02/20-questions-book-tag-get-to-know-me.html" target="_blank">20 Questions Book Tag</a></i></b></div><div style="text-align: center;"><b><i><a href="http://www.readingwritingandme.com/2024/02/because-internet-by-gretchen-mcculloch.html" target="_blank">Because Internet review</a></i></b></div><div style="text-align: center;"><b><i><a href="http://www.readingwritingandme.com/2024/02/martyr-by-kaveh-akbar-book-review.html" target="_blank">Martyr! review</a></i></b></div><div style="text-align: center;"><b><i><a href="http://www.readingwritingandme.com/2024/02/you-are-here-by-karin-lin-greenberg.html" target="_blank">You Are Here review</a></i></b></div><div style="text-align: center;"><b><i><a href="http://www.readingwritingandme.com/2024/02/how-to-read-over-100-books-in-2024-from.html" target="_blank">How to Read Over 100 Books in 2024 from Someone Who's Done It</a></i></b></div><div style="text-align: center;"><b><i><a href="http://www.readingwritingandme.com/2024/02/the-last-day-of-midnight-ramblers-arc.html" target="_blank">The Last Days of the Midnight Ramblers review</a></i></b></div><div style="text-align: center;"><b><i><br /></i></b></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div>Lanie Bricehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16181046426943796903noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1255278025952897149.post-63180652594449573802024-02-27T12:08:00.001-07:002024-02-27T12:08:04.296-07:00Greta & Valdin by Rebecca K. Reilly: book review<p><b><u></u></b></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><b><u><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiighiV2Vl0nqVbm7M3RZlN4KmaFFv5gPqSPcWIcidThH8nJFnBHif1idkjAhzLCtGQjJOYGEHL-5V8SZEkwsO1Egywu1n7_HGOyxmjIBcJ5q3NJN5ZZez2BXYfKt57DU-iqd1tSntKT2Cbr_mUzMu9iZU2z_5Fwkw9lOO5YJH3h6HFQYOpwK_1z-I0QE5S/s3313/greta%20and%20valdin.png" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3313" data-original-width="3024" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiighiV2Vl0nqVbm7M3RZlN4KmaFFv5gPqSPcWIcidThH8nJFnBHif1idkjAhzLCtGQjJOYGEHL-5V8SZEkwsO1Egywu1n7_HGOyxmjIBcJ5q3NJN5ZZez2BXYfKt57DU-iqd1tSntKT2Cbr_mUzMu9iZU2z_5Fwkw9lOO5YJH3h6HFQYOpwK_1z-I0QE5S/s320/greta%20and%20valdin.png" width="292" /></a></u></b></div><b><u>Greta & Valdin</u> by Rebecca K. Reilly</b><p></p><p><b>Overview: </b>Greta and Valdin are siblings in their late twenties in New Zealand. They share an apartment and are each other's support system. Valdin is reeling in the aftermath of his break-up with a much older man and adjusting to a major career change from physics to hosting a travel show. Greta is finding herself and panicking about how she'll ever make enough money to live with her Russian and English literature masters degree. Zooming further out, they're surrounded by a large and chaotic family. An older brother who has a teenage son and a young daughter who has no filter. A Maaori mother and Russian immigrant father. A gay uncle and his shipping magnate partner whose brother happens to be Valdin's ex. They're a tight knit bunch but full of tangles as they're trying to figure out how to live, laugh, love in these conditions. <b>Overall: 4.5 </b></p><p><b>Characters: 5 </b>Most of the book alternates between Valdin and Greta's perspective in the most voicey first person possible. They jump off the page and invite you for a ride in their unique brains full of quirky details and asides that prove to be rabbit holes worth going down. It is the characters that make this book, and they are endlessly rich. Because each of these characters, including even the most minor ones, are so realistic and lively, it's hard to do them justice in review form. You simply have to meet Greta and Valdin and their family and let yourself be immersed in their world. </p><p>This is a book that will make you want to call your sibling or mom or dad and tell them you love and appreciate them.</p><p><b>Plot: 4</b> This story has a clear beating heart that drives it forward, and that's all the plot I personally require. The way I view this book in retrospect is that it's about two things: romantic love and familial love. This is not immediately evident as you're reading. It sort of feels like you're just along for a very entertaining slice of life journey that's not necessarily heading anywhere. Looking back, though, we watch both Greta and Valdin run on parallel tracks around the two subjects. The family thread became apparent to me much faster, and I originally thought this was simply a book about the deep value of family and a reminder that through disagreements, family secrets, and messiness, they're some of the the deepest possible bonds and should be valued as such. And this is true, but it's more of a theme of the story overall than an actual plot thread. </p><p>In Valdin's part of the story, he is delving deeper into definitions of family, what it takes to build your own, and what it means to be a parent. He wants to learn about his family's past, and he also wants to get to know his family members in new capacities now that they're all firmly adults. In love, he's navigating whether you can find your way back to your "right person, wrong time" love and if you can make love work around life. </p><p>Greta is learning her own lessons around these subjects as the book progresses. She starts the book still grappling with her sexuality and tying up her self-worth in romantic relationships or flings. Greta has to learn how to be a good partner when life drops the right relationship in your lap, and she learns to grow into her relationship and herself simultaneously. With family, Greta is learning the often distressing truth that even when you feel like you know everything there is to know about your family that there are still secrets you might accidentally stumble upon, and often, your parents are more complex than your original view of them. </p><p><b>Writing: 4</b> This book brought me so much joy. Reading it was like drinking a hot chocolate on a freezing day and feeling the warmth slowly flow through your body. The book tackles serious topics like racism in New Zealand and homophobia in a significant way but weaves them within happy, goofy moments and touching ones and the mundane ones, just as they occur in life. The amount of detail effortlessly delivered and the vibrancy around every single character shows so much skill. I thoroughly enjoyed my time reading this book, and I would love to see more books from New Zealand published in the US! Hopefully <i>Greta and Valdin</i>'s utter explosion on bookstagram will send a signal to publishers that there is a real appetite.</p><p>I understand the <i>Normal People </i>comp for generating hype, but fair warning, the style of the two books could not be more different. <i>Normal People </i>cultivates a pretty significant narrative distance between the characters and the reader whereas <i>Greta and Valdin</i> is hyper close. I love both books, but they approach certain similar ideas in vastly different ways.</p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: #ff00fe;"><b>More on Reading, Writing, and Me: </b></span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><b><i><a href="http://www.readingwritingandme.com/2024/02/good-material-by-dolly-alderton-book.html" target="_blank">Good Materials review</a></i></b></p><p style="text-align: center;"><b><i><a href="http://www.readingwritingandme.com/2024/02/20-questions-book-tag-get-to-know-me.html" target="_blank">20 Questions Book Tag </a></i></b></p><p style="text-align: center;"><b><i><a href="http://www.readingwritingandme.com/2024/02/because-internet-by-gretchen-mcculloch.html" target="_blank">Because Internet: nonfiction review</a></i></b></p><p style="text-align: center;"><b><i><a href="http://www.readingwritingandme.com/2024/02/martyr-by-kaveh-akbar-book-review.html" target="_blank">Martyr! review</a></i></b></p>Lanie Bricehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16181046426943796903noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1255278025952897149.post-85565372331113967602024-02-23T10:39:00.001-07:002024-02-23T10:39:03.130-07:00Good Material by Dolly Alderton: book review <p><b><u></u></b></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><b><u><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhDaJyANAzddbAC7A6fN3V-0ZqbQ5jEYPXa6_7fqqmF-ZrWlTQ3yfYpgNaldQIbr00TJgWzW8gKOS1HFSRat-Ov7T1EoBvexSa1Ht4bLRO8JTXgBbGBbTekeRoa93VVdlKqzk4v_yigwtppVztSLywEe-y50cvgWSQR47MGkK-1LOpydBmr3zWCdXY5t5sM/s4032/good%20material.png" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="4032" data-original-width="3024" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhDaJyANAzddbAC7A6fN3V-0ZqbQ5jEYPXa6_7fqqmF-ZrWlTQ3yfYpgNaldQIbr00TJgWzW8gKOS1HFSRat-Ov7T1EoBvexSa1Ht4bLRO8JTXgBbGBbTekeRoa93VVdlKqzk4v_yigwtppVztSLywEe-y50cvgWSQR47MGkK-1LOpydBmr3zWCdXY5t5sM/s320/good%20material.png" width="240" /></a></u></b></div><b><u>Good Material</u> by Dolly Alderton </b><p></p><p><b>Overview: </b>Andy's longterm girlfriend broke up with him after a trip to Paris, and he's been wallowing ever since. We follow Andy as he learns to be single again at 35 and grieves a relationship he imagined would be forever. His friends aren't as present as he'd like, his ex-girlfriend moves on fast, and his comedy career is barely hanging on to add insult to injury. We watch Andy navigate a new relationship, try to revive his career, and struggle to move on from his ex because he can't find the closure he needs. Then, at end the book, we hear from his ex-girlfriend, Jen, to shade in the rest of the picture. <b>Overall: 4</b></p><p><b>Characters: 4 </b>Andy is a fine character. I liked him enough. He's sad but endearing and seems well intentioned for the most part. I don't think that Alderton did a bad job writing him by any means, but even though the book is written in first person, I never felt close to Andy. He shared internal feelings, but his actions in the world were so limited and repetitive, I found that I never fully connected with Andy. He felt a bit one dimensional the entire time, and he spends so much of the book in an emotional stasis that his character development struggles to have any consistency leading up to when everything is almost magically "fixed." There was just something flat about Andy that I couldn't fully pin down. This was underscored by the final chapter written in Jen's voice where she rehashes the whole of the book from her perspective. Her voice bounded off the page with so much nuance, depth, and realism. I heavily related to Jen's experience as a woman struggling with the reality that she likes her own company, doesn't really want kids, and could take or leave a romantic relationship. She's a fascinating character, but though no fault of Andy's really, she's so flat through most of the book as an object of nostalgic fascination that I didn't discover this until the end. In her voice, the beats of the story are just better, more interesting, more nuanced. Being given that point of view character only emphasized my questioning around why Andy needed to be the main character. </p><p>The rest of the cast is relayed just as flatly when looking through Andy's eyes. Jen is just a distant wish. Andy's best friend Avi and his wife Jane are reduced to well meaning young parents who want to support Andy but are in a different place in life. Emery is the foil to Andy's comedy troubles as Emery's career starts to take off and elevate him on their circuit. The character given the most nuance ends up being one of Andy's flings, but I can't say too much about that without giving major spoilers. I don't want to harp on Andy's portrayal as being unrealistic because he was written by a woman or anything like that, but there has been such an emphasis on the point of telling this story through a male main character, and I couldn't help but notice the characters that did really come to life were the women in the book whereas the male characters in general just felt so flat. I feel like Alderton was really reaching to make some grand point here and ended up missing the mark overall. </p><p><b>Plot: 4 </b>Break-ups are awful, repetitive wastelands where you think you'll feel the same way forever. That's what makes stories about the aftermath of an adult break-up so hard to capture because constant, monotonous repetition is difficult to pull off in an interesting way in novels. And Andy does a lot of the same things over and over. We watch Andy get drunk (usually alone), work a random job to pay the bills, do a 10 minute comedy set, and get drunk again – over and over in a decent amount of detail and little variation most times. Until I reached about 65% of the way through the book, I questioned why these scenes weren't more selectively chosen to skim down the process and present us only the best pieces. The threads about Andy's failing career were interesting. I wish more focus was given to Andy's struggling comedy career and what it means to reach middle age and be less sure than ever that your career is going to work out. These threads were some of the most compelling in the book, but ultimately, Alderton swerves exploring them in any real depth in order to grant Andy his happy ending. </p><p>The plot of the book feels much more interesting when it's speed relayed back through Jen's point of view. Condensed down to a few essential paragraphs for each incident, this book is really interesting. In the long form version, I did a lot of speed reading. </p><p><b>Writing: 4 </b>The biggest flaw of the book and its saving grace is randomly switching into Jen's point of view with no warning to give a final coda to the book. It's jarring when I appears, and I wondered why we were getting this random switch to summarize the book from the other side and answer all the lingering questions Andy had about the end of their relationship. Jen's side is so much more interesting because she has the answers, she has the internal conflict, whereas Andy is just mopey and confused. Getting that glimpse at the complexity of their relationship and her choice to leave it makes the book feel worthwhile and has left me mulling over some very important topics about subverting societal expectations and finding security in walking your own path through life. Sadly 90% of the book did not have this quality. Andy's positioning in this break-up simply didn't lend to him being a great main character.</p><p>I've always been a bigger fan of Alderton's for her nonfiction than her fiction. I thought<a href="http://www.readingwritingandme.com/2023/01/book-review-ghosts-by-dolly-alderton.html" target="_blank"> </a><i><a href="http://www.readingwritingandme.com/2023/01/book-review-ghosts-by-dolly-alderton.html" target="_blank">Ghost</a> </i>was a fun enough read but nothing remarkable. The ending chapter of <i>Good Material</i> elevates it above this first novel, but it's still a bit awkward and confused in itself and its execution. I just find that her voice is fun to read, but the elemental parts of the storytelling don't quite click in her novels, so if you just want to read a Dolly Alderton book to understand the bookstagram hype train, I'd recommend going for <i><a href="http://www.readingwritingandme.com/2023/02/nonfiction-book-review-everything-i.html" target="_blank">Everything I Know About Love</a> </i>instead<i>.</i></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: #ff00fe;"><b>More From This Author: </b></span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><b><i><a href="http://www.readingwritingandme.com/2023/02/nonfiction-book-review-everything-i.html" target="_blank">Everything I Know About Love nonfiction review</a></i></b></p><p style="text-align: center;"><b><i><a href="http://www.readingwritingandme.com/2023/01/book-review-ghosts-by-dolly-alderton.html" target="_blank">Ghost review</a></i></b></p><p style="text-align: center;"><b><span style="color: #2b00fe;">More on Reading, Writing, and Me:</span></b></p><p style="text-align: center;"><b><i><a href="http://www.readingwritingandme.com/2024/02/20-questions-book-tag-get-to-know-me.html" target="_blank">20 Questions Book Tag</a></i></b></p><p style="text-align: center;"><b><i><a href="http://www.readingwritingandme.com/2024/02/because-internet-by-gretchen-mcculloch.html" target="_blank">Because Internet nonfiction review</a></i></b></p><p style="text-align: center;"><b><i><a href="http://www.readingwritingandme.com/2024/02/martyr-by-kaveh-akbar-book-review.html" target="_blank">Martyr! review</a></i></b></p><p style="text-align: center;"><b><i><a href="http://www.readingwritingandme.com/2024/02/you-are-here-by-karin-lin-greenberg.html" target="_blank">You Are Here review </a></i></b></p>Lanie Bricehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16181046426943796903noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1255278025952897149.post-88768807201023643002024-02-21T09:42:00.000-07:002024-02-21T09:42:07.181-07:0020 Questions Book Tag: Get to Know Me Better<h2><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiAn5GTyIoRz_ffKYFIFFQSGSkx9MfxSHvOvfTMOD9i55GvheR0MX4Yku9Qoxg_m6nOnvdm1xCD__Mwu3sH1BR9DA2oJ3-g0UJ3oKGvnhZDtXOkkErAdArl3BURmG54-8vysDHO36xuWFMjOPeyMQrl3A07ad8cFDFgPqP3gtPE3oKbj0PoLBP6d3R-Wi6q/s4032/tea%20and%20yerba%20and%20conversations.png" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="4032" data-original-width="3024" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiAn5GTyIoRz_ffKYFIFFQSGSkx9MfxSHvOvfTMOD9i55GvheR0MX4Yku9Qoxg_m6nOnvdm1xCD__Mwu3sH1BR9DA2oJ3-g0UJ3oKGvnhZDtXOkkErAdArl3BURmG54-8vysDHO36xuWFMjOPeyMQrl3A07ad8cFDFgPqP3gtPE3oKbj0PoLBP6d3R-Wi6q/s320/tea%20and%20yerba%20and%20conversations.png" width="240" /></a></div>I'm excited to holding </span></span><span style="font-weight: 400;">myself</span><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"> to being more of a true book blogger this year instead of just a book reviewer like I have been recently. Last year, my reading really picked up, but I didn't quite hit my blogging stride. </span></span><span style="font-weight: 400;">While</span><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"> there's nothing wrong with just posting reviews, I want to connect more personally with my lovely community that's been here so long and let you know more of my thoughts and opinions now that I'm older! Or, if you're new here, introduce you to some of my staunch bookish opinions. I'd </span></span><span style="font-weight: 400;">also</span><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"> love to hear your thoughts on these topics. I had so much fun contemplating my bookish tastes and habits </span></span><span style="font-weight: 400;">for</span><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"> this, and it's fun to reflect on how I read. So consider this the start of more fun, chatty posts on the blog for 2024. </span></span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">Credit for the <a href="https://zezeewithbooks.wordpress.com/2018/07/19/20-questions-tag/ " target="_blank">20 Questions tag</a> goes to the fellow book blogger Zezee With Books from an index of </span></span><span style="font-weight: 400;">awesome</span><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"> tags on the blog. And </span></span><span style="font-weight: 400;">inspiration</span><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"> for doing this goes to<a href="https://www.youtube.com/@jack_in_the_books" target="_blank"> Jack </a></span></span><span style="font-weight: 400;"><a href="https://www.youtube.com/@jack_in_the_books" target="_blank">Edwards</a> who did this tag on his second channel as part of a call to bring back book tags, so here's my contribution. </span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-weight: 400;"><br /></span></span></div><div style="text-align: center;">How many books is too many books in a series?</div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-weight: 400;">I don't actually like series! I know that might sound bad in the book community, but series stress me out, especially if I'm not aware the book is in a series beforehand. I'm more open to it if I can read all the books back to back, but if I have to wait for a sequel, I'm probably never getting around to reading it. Luckily, I read mostly literary fiction, and there aren't many series in the genre. </span></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-weight: 400;"><br /></span></span></div><div style="text-align: center;">How do you feel about cliffhangers?</div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">Again, since I don't read series, </span><span style="font-weight: 400;">we're</span><span style="font-weight: normal;"> talking about cliffhangers that never get resolved here, so more </span><span style="font-weight: 400;">ambiguous</span><span style="font-weight: normal;"> endings in a way. This really depends on the book for me. Sometimes, it feels very fitting and appropriate, and I don't like when books get tied up too neatly, but I also don't like when a book abruptly stops with no hints of resolution for readers to make their own meaning out of</span><span style="font-weight: normal;">. </span><i style="font-weight: normal;"><a href="http://www.readingwritingandme.com/2023/12/laura-emma-by-kate-greathead-book-review.html" target="_blank">Laura and Emma</a>, </i><span style="font-weight: normal;">though, is a book </span><span style="font-weight: 400;">I</span><span style="font-weight: normal;"> </span><span style="font-weight: 400;">recently</span><span style="font-weight: normal;"> read that ends in a total cliffhanger, and I actually wasn't mad about it! </span></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></span></span></div><div style="text-align: center;">Hardback or paperback?</div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">Aesthetically? Hardcovers for sure. For </span><span style="font-weight: 400;">reading? Paperbacks. My arm starts to hurt when I read a long hardcover, and that doesn't make me want to do extra reading. I love how bendy and malleable paperbacks are, but that also means I tend to destroy them accidentally while I read. So I do prefer hardcovers if they're going to live in my personal library and get reread often, but for the actual reading experience, I'd rather have a paperback. </span></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-weight: 400;"><br /></span></span></div><div style="text-align: center;">Favorite book?</div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">This is a seriously impossible question for someone who reads as many books as I do! My two favorites of 2024 so far are <i><a href="http://www.readingwritingandme.com/2024/02/martyr-by-kaveh-akbar-book-review.html" target="_blank">Martyr!</a> </i>and <i><a href="http://www.readingwritingandme.com/2024/01/come-and-get-it-by-kiley-reid-arc-book.html" target="_blank">Come and Get It</a></i>. </span></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">But some of my overall top books in the last few years are: </span><span style="font-weight: normal;"><i><a href="http://www.readingwritingandme.com/2022/12/book-review-idiot-by-elif-batuman.html" target="_blank">The Idiot</a>, <a href="http://www.readingwritingandme.com/2023/12/ripe-by-sarah-rose-etter-book-review.html" target="_blank">Ripe</a>, <a href="http://www.readingwritingandme.com/2023/11/the-happy-couple-by-naoise-dolan-book.html" target="_blank">The Happy Couple</a>, <a href="http://www.readingwritingandme.com/2023/12/wellness-by-nathan-hill-book-review.html" target="_blank">Wellness</a>, Beautiful World Where Are You, <a href="http://www.readingwritingandme.com/2021/03/yolk-by-mary-hk-choi-ya-book-review.html" target="_blank">Yolk</a>, </i>and </span><span style="font-style: italic; font-weight: 400;"><a href="http://www.readingwritingandme.com/2023/10/the-rachel-incident-by-caroline.html" target="_blank">The</a></span><span style="font-style: italic; font-weight: normal;"><a href="http://www.readingwritingandme.com/2023/10/the-rachel-incident-by-caroline.html" target="_blank"> Rachel Incident</a>.</span></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">I actually made a friend who's getting into reading novels a list of all my highly rated books from the last few years. Is that something that would be fun to see in a post here?</span></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: italic; font-weight: normal;"><br /></span></span></div><div style="text-align: center;">Least favorite book?</div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">I made a rule with myself a long time ago that unless there was a </span><span style="font-weight: 400;">special</span><span style="font-weight: normal;"> circumstance, I wasn't posting anything worse than a meh-feeling review. I also typically DNF before I've read a whole book I'm going to hate. I do </span><span style="font-weight: 400;">remember</span><span style="font-weight: normal;"> that </span><i style="font-weight: normal;"><a href="http://www.readingwritingandme.com/2023/01/book-review-sorrow-and-bliss-by-meg.html" target="_blank">Sorrow and Bliss</a> </i><span style="font-weight: normal;">made me actually angry, and I totally didn't get the hype. But I wouldn't say it's my least favorite. Last year, my lowest rated book was 2 stars and went to </span><i style="font-weight: normal;">Glow in the F*cking Dark</i><span style="font-weight: normal;"> by Tara Schuster (that censoring is the </span><span style="font-weight: 400;">title's</span><span style="font-weight: normal;"> not mine). It's a self help book that </span><span style="font-weight: 400;">seriously grated on my nerves. </span></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-weight: 400;"><br /></span></span></div><div style="text-align: center;">Love Triangles? Yes or No?</div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">On the whole, no, because nobody does them right! There are a couple books out there that construct incredible, well balanced love </span><span style="font-weight: 400;">triangles</span><span style="font-weight: normal;"> that show what this trope </span><span style="font-weight: 400;">could be, but so often, there's a clear "right" person and then another random character that's so boring and flat that they just seem like an annoying, pointless diversion. If a book is going to have a love triangle, it better rip my brain in half. (<i><a href="http://www.readingwritingandme.com/2020/11/perfect-on-paper-ya-book-review.html" target="_blank">Perfect on Paper</a></i> is a love triangle that sticks out in my mind as one that worked super well, and I loved the book more for it.)</span></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-weight: 400;"><br /></span></span></div><div style="text-align: center;">The most recent book you just couldn't finish?</div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">This isn't about the book itself, this one is wholly on me. But I picked up </span><i style="font-weight: normal;">Blueberries</i><span style="font-weight: normal;"> because I've been seeing it all over bookstagram. I didn't know much about it </span><span style="font-weight: 400;">going</span><span style="font-weight: normal;"> in. I was </span><span style="font-weight: 400;">intrigued</span><span style="font-weight: normal;"> by the writing but didn't understand the form or what was happening at all, and I backtracked and read the summary. I was </span><span style="font-weight: 400;">honestly</span><span style="font-weight: normal;"> still confused, but I did notice that there was a certain amount of crime reporting mentioned, and I'm just not in the </span><span style="font-weight: 400;">place</span><span style="font-weight: normal;"> to read something like </span><span style="font-weight: 400;">that right now, so I skipped to the next book on my forever long TBR. </span></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-weight: 400;"><br /></span></span></div><div style="text-align: center;">A book you're currently reading? </div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-weight: 400;">As I'm writing this, it's President's Weekend, so I had a full 4 days off, and I decided to pause my normal reading and reread </span><i style="font-weight: 400;">Beautiful World Where Are You</i><span style="font-weight: 400;"> because I don't love reading hardcovers while I commute, but I'd been itching to reread this one. After that's wrapped up, I'll get back into </span><i style="font-weight: 400;">Greta and Valdin</i><span style="font-weight: 400;">, which I was 2% into when I interrupted myself.</span></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-weight: 400;">As far as nonfiction, I'm working my way through a creative writing craft book, which isn't super typical for me. It's called <i>A Swim in a Pond in the Rain</i> by George Saunders, and it's taking me a while to get through all the Russian short stories it's built around!</span></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-weight: 400;"><br /></span></span></div><div style="text-align: center;">The last book you recommended to someone? </div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">I just sent one of my </span><span style="font-weight: 400;">friends</span><span style="font-weight: normal;"> who's trying to get into fiction a super long list of every book I've given 5 stars in the last 3-4 years, so that would be a lot to share here. The more simple answer is that I've been trying to get one of my </span><span style="font-weight: 400;">other</span><span style="font-weight: normal;"> friends to read <i>Beautiful World Where Are You</i> so we can talk about it (she just started it today and reading her updates has been so fun), and I told my mom she should pick up <i>Martyr!</i>. </span></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></span></span></div><div style="text-align: center;">The oldest book you've read by publication date?</div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">This has to go to </span><span style="font-weight: 400;">one</span><span style="font-weight: normal;"> of those classics that I've read in school. For my creative writing class this </span><span style="font-weight: 400;">semester</span><span style="font-weight: normal;"> we read </span><i style="font-weight: normal;">Oedipus Rex,</i><span style="font-weight: normal;"> and Google says that story is from 429 BC, so I don't think we're beating that. </span><span style="font-weight: 400;">The</span><span style="font-weight: normal;"> oldest book I've read in the last few years for fun was <i><a href="http://www.readingwritingandme.com/2023/09/the-woman-destroyed-by-simone-de.html" target="_blank">The Woman Destroyed</a> </i>from 1967.</span></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></span></span></div><div style="text-align: center;">The newest book you've read by publication date?</div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">I read an ARC of </span><a href="http://www.readingwritingandme.com/2024/02/the-last-day-of-midnight-ramblers-arc.html" target="_blank"><span style="font-style: italic; font-weight: normal;">The Last Days of the </span><span style="font-style: italic; font-weight: 400;">Midnight</span></a><span style="font-weight: normal;"><i><a href="http://www.readingwritingandme.com/2024/02/the-last-day-of-midnight-ramblers-arc.html" target="_blank"> Ramblers</a></i>, so while I read it a while ago, it only came out on February 13th, so that's my answer!</span></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></span></span></div><div style="text-align: center;">Favorite author?</div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">There's too many to choose a single favorite! This is a funny question, though, because there are certain </span></span><span style="font-weight: 400;">authors</span><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"> who have a single book that I love love love but then I've been </span></span><span style="font-weight: 400;">disappointed</span><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"> by the rest of their catalog, and I feel like I can't name them here as an overall top author. I'm trying to think of an author who has a </span></span><span style="font-weight: 400;">super</span><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"> solid catalog through and through. I guess my basic answer is Sally Rooney. I would also add </span></span><span style="font-weight: 400;">Erin Hahn from my YA days and Mary H.K. Choi as another all around favorite. </span></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></span></span></span></div><div style="text-align: center;">Buying books or borrowing books?</div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">I mean, buying books is so much fun, but if I bought all the books I read, I'd be broke and drowning in paper. So, in that sense, borrowing. I also love that there's so much less pressure when you're borrowing a book. Don't love a library book? You can DNF in 2 pages and the only burden is </span><span style="font-weight: 400;">having</span><span style="font-weight: normal;"> to drive it back to the library. </span><span style="font-weight: 400;">With</span><span style="font-weight: normal;"> Libby, even that weight is gone. I'm so grateful to be able to borrow books, especially to constantly have books to read on my Kindle. I love browsing at indie bookstores, but I usually end up only buying books I've read before from the library that I've decided to add to my permanent collection. </span></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></span></span></div><div style="text-align: center;">A book you dislike that everyone else seems to love?</div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">I think that instead of creating more controversy, I'll just re-use <i><a href="http://www.readingwritingandme.com/2023/01/book-review-sorrow-and-bliss-by-meg.html" target="_blank">Sorrow and Bliss</a></i> here. I won't re-bring up everything I spelled out in that review, but that one was a major let down even though I see it all over bookstagram. </span></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></span></span></div><div style="text-align: center;">Bookmarks or dog years?</div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">Bookmark, except I rarely have a bookmark so it's usually a </span><span style="font-weight: 400;">receipt</span><span style="font-weight: normal;">, index card, paper scrap, or, my favorite, a </span><span style="font-weight: 400;">sticky</span><span style="font-weight: normal;"> note. Or even the dusk jacket folded over. I'm not morally </span><span style="font-weight: 400;">opposed</span><span style="font-weight: normal;"> to dog-earring, though, and will do that in a pinch. </span></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></span></span></div><div style="text-align: center;">A book you can always read?</div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">I'm not sure if there is a single book I could always come back to. I'm such a mood reader that I'm always looking for slightly different things in the books I pick up. But, on the whole, I'm almost </span><span style="font-weight: 400;">always</span><span style="font-weight: normal;"> down for some beautifully written prose mining into the life of a lost, stressed out, sad twenty-something. </span></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></span></span></div><div style="text-align: center;">Can you read while hearing music?</div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-weight: 400;">Yes! I'm weird like this, but I've spent so much time reading throughout my childhood and adulthood that I got used to doing it at recess, while someone else in the house is watching TV, or if there's a lot of chatter nearby, so I got used to reading through noise. On the train, I play music for my walks to and from the station, and for a long time, I just kept the music on while I read on the train. I've only recently started leaving my AirPods in with the music paused. But if I'm trying to drown something out, I'll still read with my regular pop music turned up. It's not my favorite way to read, but at this point, I'm convinced I could read through anything. </span></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-weight: 400;"><br /></span></span></div><div style="text-align: center;">One or multiple POVs?</div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">I'm not picky on this as long as the multiple POVs serve a really compelling purpose and that you've crafted unique, engaging voices for each character. The multiple POV thing is tough </span><span style="font-weight: 400;">because</span><span style="font-weight: normal;"> when it's good, it makes for some of the best books I've ever read. But when the voices are flat or if there's one character that I find myself wishing just narrated the whole thing, it will take a book I did like and lower it by a star. One POV is definitely the safe route, but I do like multiple POV stories.</span></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></span></span></div><div style="text-align: center;">Do you read books in one sitting or over multiple days?</div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">This all comes down to time! Usually, it takes me about 4-7 days to finish a book because life gets in the way, and I'm usually just reading before bed and on my commute. If there's a holiday where </span><span style="font-weight: 400;">I</span><span style="font-weight: normal;"> don't have other work to do and I can just read all day, I will absolutely read a book in one sitting. </span><span style="font-weight: 400;">Though</span><span style="font-weight: normal;">, in all honesty, even when I read a book in one day, I rarely finish a book without taking a couple quick breaks to scroll Instagram or get snacks. </span></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></span></span></div><div style="text-align: center;">Book you've read because of the cover?</div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">So many! Unless I get a recommendation from someone, almost every book I read starts with the cover. This is </span><span style="font-weight: 400;">definitely</span><span style="font-weight: normal;"> true for <i>Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow</i> and the pastel pink color drew me to <i>The Idiot.</i> <i>Ripe</i> and <i>The Happy Couple</i> also recently got me based on the cover. I requested <i>The Rachel Incident </i>off NetGalley because the painting on the cover was so beautiful. I am 100% a judge a book by its cover kind of person. </span></span></div></h2><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: #ff00fe;"><b>More on Reading, Writing, and Me:</b></span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><b><i><a href="http://www.readingwritingandme.com/2024/02/because-internet-by-gretchen-mcculloch.html" target="_blank">Because Internet nonfiction review</a></i></b></p><p style="text-align: center;"><b><i><a href="http://www.readingwritingandme.com/2024/02/martyr-by-kaveh-akbar-book-review.html" target="_blank">Martyr! review</a></i></b></p><p style="text-align: center;"><b><i><a href="http://www.readingwritingandme.com/2024/02/you-are-here-by-karin-lin-greenberg.html" target="_blank">You Are Here review</a></i></b></p><p style="text-align: center;"><b><i><a href="http://www.readingwritingandme.com/2024/02/how-to-read-over-100-books-in-2024-from.html" target="_blank">How to Read Over 100 Books in 2024 From Someone Who's Done It</a></i></b></p>Lanie Bricehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16181046426943796903noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1255278025952897149.post-20489456812854163172024-02-19T10:15:00.004-07:002024-02-19T10:15:25.038-07:00Because Internet by Gretchen McCulloch: nonfiction book review<p><b><u></u></b></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><b><u><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgk4sn3HwPZunJv2-73NRpbBKuW6QaUgtq99cJKrBPLcaphqpRCSkTngrgJUqYxrBPCSPQ3I4ukaA7W1JKmyNs7fRxmHxgmftPbN2lJCzfYnKXjozHiQ0LvdF_YQjdInhyphenhyphenXk7wzwCLo0NjM0C6zDuJhG4mx1k_ObV2thQTIgkRDew67lkHw3K6IPNL36rTe/s4032/because%20internet.png" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="4032" data-original-width="3024" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgk4sn3HwPZunJv2-73NRpbBKuW6QaUgtq99cJKrBPLcaphqpRCSkTngrgJUqYxrBPCSPQ3I4ukaA7W1JKmyNs7fRxmHxgmftPbN2lJCzfYnKXjozHiQ0LvdF_YQjdInhyphenhyphenXk7wzwCLo0NjM0C6zDuJhG4mx1k_ObV2thQTIgkRDew67lkHw3K6IPNL36rTe/s320/because%20internet.png" width="240" /></a></u></b></div><b><u>Because Internet</u> by Gretchen McCulloch</b><p></p><p><b>Overview:</b> Gretchen McCulloch is a linguist interested in a subfield of language that's often not taken seriously: how we use words online. And not even just words but emojis, memes, and all the other various weird forms of expression we use online. With an honest appreciation of someone who understands the power of the internet and its sub-communities, this is a really thoughtful and well rounded book, even as it is five years old and therefore ancient in terms of the internet. It covers the foundations and histories of internet communication in a thorough and open way that continues to keep it relevant. <b>Overall: 4</b></p><p>I have a real love for linguistics books written for a general audience about somewhat niche pop culture topics. This book reminds me a lot of <a href="http://www.readingwritingandme.com/2020/08/wordslut-nonfiction-book-review.html" target="_blank"><i>Wordslut</i> </a>where you learn a lot, but the writing is also super engaging and feels current and thoughtful. Odds are, you haven't spent much time considering how you change the way you wield language online and how that might vary in public posts vs private chats or composing a business email instead of a text message. From how we understand memes to our use of emojis, we've probably rarely considered how our understanding came to be, just intuiting their meaning from being frequent internet users, but there's actually a lot to document in how language changes when we move online. </p><p>At this point, the internet has been around long enough that there's even been changes in the meanings and usage of certain online only terms. For instance, lol started off as LOL, laugh out loud, for when something made you actually laugh. But these days, I'll end a sentence that's a half joke or sarcastic or just needs to seem less serious than it might appear on its own with lol. It feels like a punctuation mark or a tone indicator more than me telling anyone I've laughed out loud. Now, there are other ways we prefer to tell people that their message made us actually laugh. These nuances and so much more are explored in thoughtful detail in this book. This was a lot of fun and also made me appreciate the world the internet has developed into even more. Language is a fascinating thing, and this book strikes the perfect balance of teaching new things and having fun. </p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: #ff00fe;"><b>More Like </b><span style="caret-color: rgb(255, 0, 254);"><b>This:</b></span></span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="caret-color: rgb(255, 0, 254);"><b><i><a href="http://www.readingwritingandme.com/2020/08/wordslut-nonfiction-book-review.html" target="_blank">Wordslut review</a></i></b></span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="caret-color: rgb(255, 0, 254);"><b><span style="color: #2b00fe;">More on Reading, </span></b></span><span style="color: #2b00fe;"><span style="caret-color: rgb(255, 0, 254);"><b>Writing, and Me:</b></span></span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="caret-color: rgb(255, 0, 254);"><b><i><a href="http://www.readingwritingandme.com/2024/02/martyr-by-kaveh-akbar-book-review.html" target="_blank">Martyr! review</a></i></b></span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="caret-color: rgb(255, 0, 254);"><b><i><a href="http://www.readingwritingandme.com/2024/02/you-are-here-by-karin-lin-greenberg.html" target="_blank">You Are Here review</a></i></b></span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="caret-color: rgb(255, 0, 254);"><b><i><a href="http://www.readingwritingandme.com/2024/02/how-to-read-over-100-books-in-2024-from.html" target="_blank">How to Read Over 100 Books from Someone Who's Done It</a></i></b></span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><b><i><span style="caret-color: rgb(255, 0, 254);"><a href="http://www.readingwritingandme.com/2024/02/the-last-day-of-midnight-ramblers-arc.html" target="_blank">The Last Days of the Midnight Ramblers review</a></span></i></b></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="caret-color: rgb(255, 0, 254);"><b><i><br /></i></b></span></p><p><br /></p>Lanie Bricehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16181046426943796903noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1255278025952897149.post-46084342663056539122024-02-14T16:59:00.001-07:002024-02-14T16:59:12.065-07:00Martyr! by Kaveh Akbar: book review<p><b><u></u></b></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><b><u><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhxcwcWrAPDhwCFZy9CEVzNe_Cdyyu0gZu61Kz6pTE6hRwt7c-aARo5il99CoqQwz5Y6DfaITUQk4CmlCw-atEMsWWDS8bIKCxdqwfKq1nVU8TrYUgF6eUbL3Tu0NiUuEgZ8ZhLr9LiOWeueeDaGY9EzcTqz7prxyinLd1qc7EVo_nuUgwa0G-GB-i32raB/s3458/martyr.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3458" data-original-width="3024" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhxcwcWrAPDhwCFZy9CEVzNe_Cdyyu0gZu61Kz6pTE6hRwt7c-aARo5il99CoqQwz5Y6DfaITUQk4CmlCw-atEMsWWDS8bIKCxdqwfKq1nVU8TrYUgF6eUbL3Tu0NiUuEgZ8ZhLr9LiOWeueeDaGY9EzcTqz7prxyinLd1qc7EVo_nuUgwa0G-GB-i32raB/s320/martyr.png" width="280" /></a></u></b></div><b><u>Martyr!</u> by Kaveh Akbar </b><p></p><p><b>Overview: </b>Cyrus isn't attached to being alive, but he also desperately needs his death to matter. The obvious track to get there is through his writing. His poetry career hasn't gone much of anywhere since he graduated college. He honestly hasn't done much writing in the interim. He's been focused on addiction recovery and making it from one day to the next. His life has stalled, and his new recipe for making a name before his death is to write a book about martyrs whose death meant something. That sends him to New York City to meet an artist who's making her death matter. Turns out their lives are much more intertwined than it would appear. <b>Overall: 5 </b></p><p><b>Characters: 5 </b>This book is incredible. I'll say it over and over again throughout this review. But this book is incredible. From page one, Cyrus's voice jumps out with an incredibly strong sense of who he is. Cyrus lost his mom not long after he was born when the commercial flight she was on was shot down by the American military in Iran. Though he never knew his mother, grief has colored his life from his earliest memories. Then his father died as Cyrus started college. Cyrus has a best friend and roommate and maybe something more than that that proves to be the closest thing he has to family now. And there's his sponsor, Gabe, from AA. Cyrus is adrift and struggling to figure out how he fits into the world. The complexities of these questions scream off the page. </p><p>We also get to occasionally see from other characters' perspectives after we get to know them in Cyrus's world. We hear from Cyrus's uncle who served in the Iranian army, both Cyrus's mom and dad when they were young in Iran, Zee giving his own insight into his complicated relationship with Cyrus, and we get snippets of Cyrus's in-progress draft on martyrs. There's a couple more characters who lend their perspective but naming them feels too close to giving away spoilers. Every character bounces off the page in realistic way, feeling so human that you can feel their breath on your ear as they tell their story. The interweaving bits of the narrative diverging from Cyrus's main storyline slowly start to build on one another and allow the reader to put together pieces that Cyrus isn't able to yet and creates a spectacular ending. </p><p><b>Plot: 5 </b>The voice of this novel is so good that I could've loved this book if all that happened was grocery shopping and wandering aimlessly around Indiana. But what makes it a perfect book is that the events that unfold directly support a greater realization. There's a story that evolves into a powerful meditation on belonging, identity, and, dare I even say, the meaning behind why we're all alive. Cyrus struggles to feel like he fully belongs in America, but his father didn't introduce him to very many Persian traditions or aspects of culture. He's never been back to Iran. He doesn't necessarily love living in Indiana, but he doesn't know where else to go. After managing to stay clean from the drugs and alcohol that consumed so many years of his life, Cyrus is poised for a next chapter. It's an article from Twitter about an artist choosing to spend her final days dying of cancer chatting with museum patrons about death, living in the museum, that does it. For a boy who is utterly obsessed with having death matter, this is the ultimate catnip. </p><p>It gets Cyrus to New York where more of the pieces can begin to unfold together as he makes a connection with this artist that greatly alters his perspective with each conversation. At the same time, we get a woven narrative about his mother in the late '80s in Iran having her own adult coming of age where many of the same themes begin to bleed into Cyrus's story. The ending culminates in a series of emotional moments as all the intersection points become clear. There's a thoughtful, well drawn plot here which specifically lays down pieces to form a beautiful puzzle, but the plot is never too loud. It respects that these extremely rich characters are the delight of the novel, and like the best plots, simply hums in the background to support their cracking open. </p><p><b>Writing: 5 </b>Read this book for the prose alone. Every time I sat down to read, there was a line I wanted to highlight. As Cyrus thinks about how to create meaning from life or death, there's some truly beautiful lines about what those different meanings could be. Akbar was a poet before crossing into novels, and it's fascinating how that comes through in the prose. It's not flowery or wordy or over the top in any fashion, but it is most definitely poetic with a mastery of placing a few words together to deliver a tightly coiled gut punch. Also, every character has their own unique voice and style that comes through in the chapters from various points of view, which is impressive. This helps add to the feeling that every one of these diversions from Cyrus's chapters is vital even though it makes for a large cast. I found it particularly interesting that Cyrus's point of view chapters are written in a close third while some of the intercut chapters are told from first person and others from third. Those changes and specific choices based on the character offer subtle insights into where they are on a deeper level. </p><p><i>Martyr!</i> is a book with a lot going on with lofty goals but delivers on them in a way that feels effortless. </p><p><b>A Few Favorite Contextless Quotes:</b></p><p><i>"As if to incentivize the whole ordeal, the body offered you dreams. In exchange for a third of your living, you were offered sprawling feats, exotic adventures, beautiful lovers, wings." p. 32</i></p><p><i>"Midwestern politeness felt that was too, Cyrus learned, like it was burning cigarette holes in your soul. You bit your tongue, then bit it harder." p. 134 </i></p><p><i>"What I want to say is that I was happy. Not always, not even mostly. But I did know real, deep joy." p. 294</i></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: #ff00fe;"><b>More on Reading, Writing, and Me:</b></span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><b><i><a href="http://www.readingwritingandme.com/2024/02/you-are-here-by-karin-lin-greenberg.html" target="_blank">You Are Here review</a></i></b></p><p style="text-align: center;"><b><i><a href="http://www.readingwritingandme.com/2024/02/how-to-read-over-100-books-in-2024-from.html" target="_blank">How to Read Over 100 Books in 2024 (from someone who's done it)</a></i></b></p><p style="text-align: center;"><b><i><a href="http://www.readingwritingandme.com/2024/02/the-last-day-of-midnight-ramblers-arc.html" target="_blank">The Last Days of the Midnight Ramblers review</a></i></b></p><p style="text-align: center;"><b><i><a href="http://www.readingwritingandme.com/2024/01/even-if-it-breaks-your-heart-by-erin.html" target="_blank">Even If It Breaks Your Heart review</a></i></b></p>Lanie Bricehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16181046426943796903noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1255278025952897149.post-7305753760130739792024-02-10T08:53:00.005-07:002024-02-10T08:53:27.874-07:00You Are Here by Karin Lin-Greenberg: book review<p><b><u></u></b></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><b><u><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEisF3o8fA894FlqFC8mrQapj1ouuKlH2TG4vR5k_KbUpqrrwCSZJ7URozNw5905hxuFUOlMHEw5bglBu2ZwkND93CM6cmTJN5BUkGyzJXqJpyumHagPkianIIHLYuawmwSk3zAyHrUXcX8xolLIrv5vGB9b3ANFINj_QOBk-0tuTapRBlH-OMvO9rYZKynU/s3024/you%20are%20here.png" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3024" data-original-width="2907" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEisF3o8fA894FlqFC8mrQapj1ouuKlH2TG4vR5k_KbUpqrrwCSZJ7URozNw5905hxuFUOlMHEw5bglBu2ZwkND93CM6cmTJN5BUkGyzJXqJpyumHagPkianIIHLYuawmwSk3zAyHrUXcX8xolLIrv5vGB9b3ANFINj_QOBk-0tuTapRBlH-OMvO9rYZKynU/s320/you%20are%20here.png" width="308" /></a></u></b></div><b><u>You Are Here</u> by Karin Lin-Greenberg</b><p></p><p><b>Overview: </b>The mall is dying, but it's also still such a hub of life. From the bookstore to the hair salon to the food court, the mall brings together a group of people that would never talk to one another without the uniting fact that they all work in the mall. The book traces the individual and intertwined lives of a handful of people who depend on the mall. <b>Overall: 3.5</b></p><p><b>Characters: 3.5 </b>I've been struggling to figure out if the characters fell a bit flat or if the writing just didn't gel with me and that kept me from really getting into the characters. I think these two things are probably more related than an either-or thing, but I'm still struggling with how these characters didn't quite work for me, and at the same time, I did feel endeared towards them by the end of the book. </p><p>There are a lot of characters, and they are revealed through their own sections of the book where they're the focus of the close third. They might appear distantly in other characters' worlds, but it's only in their sections where we really learn about them. There's Tina, a hair stylist and her son, Jackson. They both harbor dreams that they think are too impossible to bother sharing with one another even though they're extremely close. Kevin runs the bookstore across the way. He's still in the middle of a PhD that's ambled along for years, and everyone thinks he's failed to live up to his potential. He's scared to admit that he might not want what everyone expects of him. Ro is an elderly lady who visits the mall regularly because she's lonely, and while she's fairly racist throughout, she starts to question her beliefs and why they exist because of her connections to the people in the mall. Maria is a high school girl who works in the food court. She has big dreams, too, but she's failed in getting the support she needs. </p><p>Mostly, these defining one sentence lines are all we get from these characters. They glimmer in their own ways sometimes, but because of the structure of the book, we get these massive info dumps about them every couple chapters instead of a slow drip of information that assembles into people. Also, they're all written very similarly, so with so many characters, they all kind of blend together into people we're simply told about. While some of the characters form bonds that are sweet or make you think about the importance of making connections with those that peripherally pass through your life, they just never quite grew all the way past their archetypes. </p><p>It's always hard to wrangle such a large cast and define them as individuals but also as a group.</p><p><b>Plot: 3 </b>This book felt insecure about what it wanted to be and a bit unsettled overall. While it would make total sense as a more aimless book solely centered around building a portrait of this mall and these inter-generational relationships, it gets injected with these awkward and somewhat random plot points that are just thrown in out of nowhere that feel either unnecessary or without the proper precedent to make you care. There's no weight to any of the plot points that are meant to be significant because they appear so passively. It feels like there was meant to be a bang because the author was scared the reader would get bored with the original idea, and the impact never fully landed while managing to disrupt her better instincts around building up these character portraits. There was so much promise in this idea, and the end product just feels insecure. <b>Somewhat Vague</b> <b>Spoiler: </b>Towards the end of the book, there is a shooting at the mall and one of our main characters dies. This particularly turned me off the book because it didn't make sense for the story and fell back on some pretty lazy tropes, in my view. It seemed thrown in because the author felt the need for more drama or a turning point from which to land the book, and I wholeheartedly disagree with that decision.</p><p><b>Writing: 3 </b>This was a hard one for me to get through because the writing is dense. Thick paragraphs with thick sentences that dump a lot of information. The language isn't particularly engaging or pretty, but it's also not a lively, fast moving read. I contemplated DNFing it a few times, but I was intrigued enough by the characters and the concept that I wanted to see it through. There was just too much information and too many paths taken at once to meld them in a satisfying way. I also feel like maybe an omniscient third that held all the characters at once or even a first person with shorter separate chapters might have allowed a stronger connection between the reader and the characters. There are some lovely and tender relationships that are revealed here, but they also feel shrouded behind a film and hard to access. I'm also a bit confused about how little the setting is developed for the biggest hook of the book being that it's set in a dying mall. There's hardly any description of the mall as a world or atmosphere and heavily relies on the reader to bring their own mall experiences to build out the landscape when this could've been a cool opportunity to make the mall's universe a character in and of itself. This book unfortunately just felt like a series of missed opportunities. </p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: #ff00fe;"><b>More on Reading, Writing, and Me:</b></span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><b><i><a href="http://www.readingwritingandme.com/2024/02/how-to-read-over-100-books-in-2024-from.html" target="_blank">How to Read over 100 Books in 2024 from Someone Who's Done It</a></i></b></p><p style="text-align: center;"><b><i><a href="http://www.readingwritingandme.com/2024/02/the-last-day-of-midnight-ramblers-arc.html" target="_blank">The Last Days of the Midnight Ramblers review</a></i></b></p><p style="text-align: center;"><b><i><a href="http://www.readingwritingandme.com/2024/01/even-if-it-breaks-your-heart-by-erin.html" target="_blank">Even If It Breaks Your Heart review</a></i></b></p><p style="text-align: center;"><b><i><a href="http://www.readingwritingandme.com/2024/01/january-reading-check-in-2024-already.html" target="_blank">January Reading Goals Check-In</a></i></b></p>Lanie Bricehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16181046426943796903noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1255278025952897149.post-87218980154378338642024-02-07T15:32:00.006-07:002024-03-03T16:25:20.839-07:00How to Read Over 100 Books in 2024 from Someone Who's Done It<h3><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-weight: 400;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiieV1882o8saej3NhO12091W1ZuvyC-Ca4TxkPbrAjE0vSE_ZubpKByzm7n6LK-ERFy1prLDWl0Lr0XBXPrCrdH4pcZa1pgHAfiU2DLZuNhlkb0LsRBXCkgyih8xh3uYxWCLV7t7VLWidvuW4gN4rvwPzAXqQ8Vp44oVh-GORrGANqsYG-6elcJjTBvaxW/s4032/books%20on%20floor.png" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3024" data-original-width="4032" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiieV1882o8saej3NhO12091W1ZuvyC-Ca4TxkPbrAjE0vSE_ZubpKByzm7n6LK-ERFy1prLDWl0Lr0XBXPrCrdH4pcZa1pgHAfiU2DLZuNhlkb0LsRBXCkgyih8xh3uYxWCLV7t7VLWidvuW4gN4rvwPzAXqQ8Vp44oVh-GORrGANqsYG-6elcJjTBvaxW/s320/books%20on%20floor.png" width="320" /></a></div>Last year, I read 126 books, and unlike a lot of people in the online book community, this wasn't typical for me. I'd done it before in high school when I attended asynchronous classes and spent some summer days reading on the couch without moving. But 2023's total was the most books I'd ever finished with 2017 coming in close at 119 books. Since high school, my life has gotten much more chaotic, and I couldn't imagine hitting those numbers again. In college, I've typically averaged around 35 books a year. I didn't expect much out of 2023 either, but as I gained reading momentum, I wanted to try to hit a three digit number of books read at least one last time. </span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-weight: 400;">I completed this goal while taking 19 units both semesters and working part time and then working full time through the summer, so I didn't have heaps of free time to devote to read. Having managed to read over 100 books in less than ideal reading circumstances, I thought I could offer up more specific tips on how to up your books read in the midst of a busy schedule. Here are some of the ways that I got creative and implemented new habits into my life to reach my reading goals.</span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></span></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">Audiobooks, Audiobooks, Audiobooks</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">This is </span></span><span style="font-weight: 400;">honestly</span><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"> the key to boosting your reading stats exponentially. If you truly just want to hit the over 100 books metric, this is the single </span></span><span style="font-weight: 400;">most</span><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"> important tip on this list. What's the fastest way to maximize your reading time? Be able to do it in multiple formats and constantly. With audiobooks, you don't have to be sitting and focused on a page to work towards your goal. On top of your actual physical reading time, you now consume books while on your morning walk, doing chores, cooking, driving, showering, or doing literally anything else. And you can even speed up how fast the narrator is reading. (I personally get super thrown by this, but I have been I'm </span></span><span style="font-weight: 400;">able</span><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"> to slowly adjust to 1.25x speed. I don't get how people listen on 1.5x!). </span></span></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-weight: 400;">While audiobooks just unlock a whole new world of possible reading time, they also allow me to more easily read multiple books at once. I typically read nonfiction as audiobooks and fiction in print, and because the two books I'm reading are in different genres and consumed in very different ways, I don't feel like I'm reading two books at once. To read more than 100 books in a year, reading multiple books at once is key, so figuring out how to do that in a way that works for you offers a solid head start.</span></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-weight: 400;"> </span></span></div></h3><h1 style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">Figure Out Where You Can Sneak in Reading During Your Day</span></h1><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-weight: 400;">There</span><span style="font-weight: normal;"> are random pockets in your day, I promise, where you could be reading but aren't. Whether that means giving up your half hour scroll on social media every few hours and replacing it with a quick reading session or choosing to read on the train instead of listening to music, there are a couple small spots to sneak in more reading in everyone's day. I do a lot of commuting and a lot of waiting for classes to begin, so I take those random pockets of time to try to read. Even fleeting moments like being stuck in a long line offers the chance to get a few pages in. I also try to give myself at least 5 or 10 minutes to read before I go to</span><span style="font-weight: normal;"> bed and when I wake up. I'm much better at the nighttime reading, but I always feel great when I can start the day looking at my book instead of looking at my phone. </span></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">This is all just to say that there are little underutilized moments where you can pull out your book and get a tiny bit of reading in that will add up over time. No random period of time is too small to make extra progress towards your goals. </span></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">Now, I do want to say that this hyper obsession with maximizing reading time does sometimes get old. I developed a lot of these habits when I needed a serious social media break, and I'm not in that spot anymore. But certain habits from this heavy </span><span style="font-weight: 400;">reading period in my life have carried over that I'm happy about. I read every time I get on the train now which ensures I'm getting in half an hour to an hour of reading a day. So even if it feels a bit extreme for a while, you might find some spots you'd like to continue reading in, even after you've met your goal.</span></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></span></span></div><h1 style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">Always Have Your Book</span></h1><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">This one seems obvious, but if you want to maximize your reading time, it makes </span><span style="font-weight: 400;">sense to</span><span style="font-weight: normal;"> always have your book. A Kindle can make this super easy because it's so light and fits in most bags. If you can read off your phone, downloading an app to be able to read ebooks works. Or you can lug around your </span><span style="font-weight: 400;">physical</span><span style="font-weight: normal;"> book, if that's the only way you want to read. Simply having the book with you will offer a massive head start on getting reading done. </span><span style="font-weight: 400;">Sometimes</span><span style="font-weight: normal;">, you'll carry around your book all day and never take it out once. But every once </span><span style="font-weight: 400;">in</span><span style="font-weight: normal;"> a while, there's a random gap of time you weren't expecting that offers the chance for quality reading. It always feels good to be ready to take those opportunities.</span></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></span></span></div><h1 style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">DNF the Book If You're Not Feeling It</span></h1><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small; font-weight: normal;">Now here's an idea that might seem strange at first. Do more reading by quitting more books! I promise this makes sense. You're not going to want to read a terrible book that you had the misfortune of picking up. You're also not going to want to spend every spare scrap of time you have reading a book that's meh. It's not <i>bad</i> in any way you can put words to, but it's just not clicking with your particular wants and needs as a reader at that moment. Ditch it! Even if you can't put your finger on why, if you're not loving the book and excited to read it, move on. Sure, sometimes there's value in pushing through these weird patches or analyzing why the book isn't clicking for you, but when you have goals to accomplish, sticking with a book that you think<i> ugh</i> about anytime you sit down to read it is not helping you get where you want to go. Don't feel guilty about it, and don't fall for the sunk cost fallacy around the pages you've already read. DNFing is a powerful tool in your toolbox. </span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small; font-weight: normal;"><br /></span></div><h1 style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">Use Your Library and the Holds System</span></h1><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">This is a bit random, but I found it really helpful </span><span style="font-weight: 400;">during</span><span style="font-weight: normal;"> my year of extreme reading and even today to spark my reading motivation. Anytime I heard of a new or interesting sounding book, I looked it up in Libby to see if any of my libraries had a copy. They usually do, but for most books, there's a few weeks wait. So I would put the book on hold, and in weeks or months, I'd get a random notice that it was now ready for me. Somehow, this always seems to align with when I'm close to finishing my current read or when I need incentive to finish my current read faster, so this was a great way to keep my reading progress moving forward even when I'm not chasing a goal. It also eliminates choice fatigue by allowing you to just read whatever book the algorithm hands you next, pre-vetted by your past-self</span><span style="font-weight: normal;">. It takes a little while to build up such a robust catalog of holds, but I've found it to be super motivating, even now when I'm not operating with lofty reading goals.</span></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></span></span></div><h1 style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">Have a Full TBR </span></h1><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">This is a similar tip to the one above, but before you </span><span style="font-weight: 400;">embark</span><span style="font-weight: normal;"> on </span><span style="font-weight: 400;">your</span><span style="font-weight: normal;"> reading </span><span style="font-weight: 400;">journey, make sure that you've come up with a list of at least 10 books you're excited to read. Try to consistently add to the list and replenish it as time goes on so you never get stuck asking yourself what to read next. This can stall you out for days or weeks, losing precious time trying to stumble into the right story. I wouldn't hold yourself to any prescriptive order for completing this TBR list. Just try to cultivate a broad array of ideas that can speak to a variety of moods and interests so that you never fall into a slump where you're not reading at all. Go ahead and place library holds for these or add them to your Ideas list on Libby. You certainly don't need to purchase all these TBR books! </span></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-weight: 400;"><br /></span></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="color: #ff00fe;">More on Reading, Writing, and Me:</span></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span><i><a href="http://www.readingwritingandme.com/2024/02/the-last-day-of-midnight-ramblers-arc.html" target="_blank">The Last Days of the Midnight Ramblers review </a></i></span></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span><i><a href="http://www.readingwritingandme.com/2024/01/even-if-it-breaks-your-heart-by-erin.html" target="_blank">Even If It Breaks Your Heart review</a></i></span></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span><i><a href="http://www.readingwritingandme.com/2024/01/january-reading-check-in-2024-already.html" target="_blank">January Reading Check-In</a></i></span></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span><i><a href="http://www.readingwritingandme.com/2024/01/friends-and-strangers-by-j-courtney.html" target="_blank">Friends and Strangers review</a></i></span></span></div>Lanie Bricehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16181046426943796903noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1255278025952897149.post-29313213225864420412024-02-05T12:24:00.004-07:002024-02-07T15:32:56.350-07:00The Last Days of the Midnight Ramblers: ARC review (out 2/13/2024)<p><b><u></u></b></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><b><u><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi9nfB4Gq97HZSQ7x8m7Sgnn4frlO-XSRQwDoG00umb_OaMDvLlqm_zrIewt2-m6imuQ79oiWg4UOFDJIt6PIP9X_p737NxFMd16nrnq42NQUeujB3Odyk3tb9wLcEHCqAKGcRmXK8HNryCd_uld88oGpXD1VPL-kI4Yd87aEdqStgbm1AWzEHx-VrwKCKk/s4032/midnight%20ramblers.png" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="4032" data-original-width="3024" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi9nfB4Gq97HZSQ7x8m7Sgnn4frlO-XSRQwDoG00umb_OaMDvLlqm_zrIewt2-m6imuQ79oiWg4UOFDJIt6PIP9X_p737NxFMd16nrnq42NQUeujB3Odyk3tb9wLcEHCqAKGcRmXK8HNryCd_uld88oGpXD1VPL-kI4Yd87aEdqStgbm1AWzEHx-VrwKCKk/s320/midnight%20ramblers.png" width="240" /></a></u></b></div><b><u>The Last Days of the Midnight Ramblers</u> by Sarah Tomlinson (Release Date: 2/13/2024)</b><p></p><p><b><i>I received an ARC in exchange for an honest review. All thoughts here are my own.</i></b></p><p><b>Overview: </b>Mari is a mid-level ghost writer who has stumbled into the chance of a lifetime to score a bestseller by writing the memoire of a woman greatly attached to famous 70s band the Ramblers. Desperate to score a career saving hit, Mari is focused on uncovering the secrets around one of the original band member's mysterious death in 1969. She's willing to sacrifice just about anything to get to the truth. Mari is immersed in the dark, twisted, weird, and sometimes dangerous world of celebrity where she finds surprising allies and dangerous adversaries along the way. <b>Overall: 4</b></p><p><b>Characters: 4 </b>A lot of what's difficult about this book is that Mari is our protagonist, but she spends all of her time trying to extract a different story and is focused on these rockstars. This leaves Mari in a weird spot in the narrative where we want to know about her as we navigate the world through her eyes, but the author seems worried about giving us too much of Mari and diverting the story away from the Ramblers. This ultimately leaves us in a somewhat confusing spot of disconnect with the main character. Mostly, we know that Mari is in a tough financial situation and that she didn't have a good childhood because her father had a gambling addiction. His addiction. she claims, informed her ability to work with the celebrities she ghost writes for in navigating their unpredictable moods. Unfortunately, we're just told about Mari's neglectful father over and over again without seeing anything in the present day or a flashback to really make the reader <i>feel</i> it or understand on a deeper level. The moments with her sister also seem awkwardly shoehorned in to try to provide her character a separate sense of being away from the Ramblers, but her relationship with V, though on the page, feels similarly cardboard to the troubles with her father. Mari and her world is pretty one note. </p><p>Mari's narrative arc also struggles because, for so long, her main desire in the book doesn't make sense intuitively or in the context of the aims of job, and that mismatch isn't expressed well in the story, so when she ultimately sets aside that pursuit for the logical one, there isn't a ton of satisfaction to glean. </p><p>The cast of the Ramblers, on the other hand, are built out with more depth. Dante is an aged rocker that still has a huge heart. Anke is a guarded, mysterious, alluring soul who's been through a lot and still has many secrets to work through. Jack is a bit callous and hard. Singrid has been the band's fixer so long that she might have lost the plot. Even the assistants and very minor players in the Ramblers orbit are interesting. These people have compelling nuance and lots of layers. The book is really about the Ramblers, but that's sometimes difficult for it to fully put forward within the structure of this book. </p><p>There is a sweetness that develops between Mari, Anke, Dante, and their son Oddy. It's clear that Mari is given this absent dad to make these bonds ultimately sweeter, so I wish that her development as a character could've been stronger so this would had more of an impact.</p><p><b>Plot: 4 </b>This ghostwriter archetype is also tricky because the life of a ghost is pretty monotonous. There's the interviews with the celebrity, tons of writing, which I know first hand isn't much to look at as someone puzzles through words on a computer screen for hours on end, and some bursts of spy movie level action. This book is so reminiscent of<i><a href="http://www.readingwritingandme.com/2021/12/fiction-book-review-daisy-jones-six-by.html" target="_blank"> Daisy Jones and the Six</a></i> that it's hard not to make a comparison. It seems they are even pulling inspiration from the same real life band. <i>Daisy Jones</i> managed a better flow and sense of urgency because it relied on transcriptions of interviews. It allowed the dramas of the band being uncovered in hindsight and with the sense of reflection that <i>Ramblers</i> attempt to capture to flow effortlessly. In this book, I wish they'd found a way to circumvent the monotony of being a ghostwriter more or leaned into it harder and made the book confidently about Mari the ghostwriter instead of about the Ramblers. There are many ways to write a compelling novel about a writer, and that just didn't happen here, mainly because the author seemed unsure how interested she was in that concept. The book often struggles between wanting to be about Mari and the experience she shares with the author of being a music writer turned ghost and wanting to just tell a twisted 70s rock and roll story, so it ends up not really doing either.</p><p>While the stories told through each interview scene were different, there were just so many scenes of Mari wanting, somewhat irrationally, to pry a ton of secrets out of an unwilling subject, and the celebrity not giving much. There are so many of the same scenes stacked on top of each other to pad the book between the few intriguing moments that by 60% I was losing motivation a bit. </p><p>There is enough forward motion to keep a casual reader going. The sense of mystery as well as the stakes rapidly escalate for the final 20% of the book as all the clues throughout finally triangulate, and Mari finds herself in a dangerous situation. There is something readable about the chapters even as they can get lengthy and repetitive as you're always wondering what the next small clue might lead to. So, while there are definite flaws in the construction, it can still be an enjoyable read.</p><p><b>Writing: 4 </b>This is a good beach read. If you like Taylor Jenkins Reid books, it's definitely worth picking up. I had hoped that because the author was a music journalist and ghostwriter that there would've been more depth in the portrayal of these jobs. There wasn't a sense that real, intimate, insider knowledge went into these pages, which was a bit of a letdown for me as I love music journalism and I'm fascinated by the idea of ghostwriting. The prose is easy enough to read and on certain occasions skim through, which is always nice in a lighter, quick read. But the style is repetitive and some passages feel like an exercise in how many synonyms for weed the author can think of. But there are enough charming moments in there to counterbalance the awkward quirks. If you love reading novels about celebrities or the '70s music scene, it's definitely worth a read through. You might come away with some interesting tidbits. </p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: #ff00fe;"><b>Referenced In This Article:</b></span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><b><i><a href="http://www.readingwritingandme.com/2021/12/fiction-book-review-daisy-jones-six-by.html" target="_blank">Daisy Jones and the Six review</a></i></b></p><p style="text-align: center;"><b><i><a href="http://www.readingwritingandme.com/2022/01/malibu-rising-by-taylor-jenkins-reid.html" target="_blank">Malibu Rising review</a></i></b></p><p style="text-align: center;"><b><span style="color: #2b00fe;">More on Reading, Writing, and Me:</span></b></p><p style="text-align: center;"><b><i><a href="http://www.readingwritingandme.com/2024/01/even-if-it-breaks-your-heart-by-erin.html" target="_blank">Even If It Breaks Your Heart review</a></i></b></p><p style="text-align: center;"><b><i><a href="http://www.readingwritingandme.com/2024/01/january-reading-check-in-2024-already.html" target="_blank">January Reading Goals Check-In</a></i></b></p><p style="text-align: center;"><b><i><a href="http://www.readingwritingandme.com/2024/01/friends-and-strangers-by-j-courtney.html" target="_blank">Friends and Strangers review </a></i></b></p><p style="text-align: center;"><b><i><a href="http://www.readingwritingandme.com/2024/01/come-and-get-it-by-kiley-reid-arc-book.html" target="_blank">Come and Get It review</a></i></b></p>Lanie Bricehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16181046426943796903noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1255278025952897149.post-59996261780147938522024-01-31T13:57:00.007-07:002024-01-31T13:59:14.882-07:00Even If It Breaks Your Heart by Erin Hahn: YA ARC review<p><b><u></u></b></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><b><u><br /></u></b></div><b><u><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjm5TAdBzxCAt_b4FlE6WeVQn2bIR-kEQ3yhfytRC7JY3WqQKloTdbCdtVeHj7RQl7BWPr1unb2May2-8LmpCSjyEuso0SfSzb-xgfa5kTEuaBHhyphenhyphen0AxPxo1Mlaj5AWG30D1G_Xa0DyoSg6WAS-cpKlYttYUj89wQyACB2aHV-c7x4SJf2sBP8Cun69pIfw/s4032/even%20if%20it%20breaks%20your%20heart.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="4032" data-original-width="3024" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjm5TAdBzxCAt_b4FlE6WeVQn2bIR-kEQ3yhfytRC7JY3WqQKloTdbCdtVeHj7RQl7BWPr1unb2May2-8LmpCSjyEuso0SfSzb-xgfa5kTEuaBHhyphenhyphen0AxPxo1Mlaj5AWG30D1G_Xa0DyoSg6WAS-cpKlYttYUj89wQyACB2aHV-c7x4SJf2sBP8Cun69pIfw/s320/even%20if%20it%20breaks%20your%20heart.png" width="240" /></a></div>Even If It Breaks Your Heart</u> by Erin Hahn </b><p></p><p><b><i>A big thanks to Wednesday Books for sending me an e-ARC of this book for review purposes. My thoughts are all my own.</i></b></p><p><b>Overview: </b>Case has lost his best friend and, with that, some of his purpose. Walker was his partner in crime at the rodeo where they were two promising young bull riders. But when Walker passes away due to his terminal illness, Case has to figure out how to face life alone. Winnie is barely holding the world together. After graduating high school early and getting a job on Case's family ranch to help support her family, she's burning out at 19 from all the responsibility. She's an undeniable talent on a horse, but what no one seems to understand is that Winnie doesn't have the same luxuries of choice that others do. Eventually, though, Winnie will have to figure out what she'd do with her dreams if given the chance. When Winnie and Case's paths intersect, they immediately recognize they have plenty of lessons to learn from one another. <b>Overall: 5</b></p><p><b>Characters: 5 </b>Ugh. Case is my favorite kind of YA hero. He's sensitive and well versed emotionally. While he's a bull rider and has grown up on a ranch, he's not a stereotype, and he doesn't give into the expectations of how a "teenage boy" has to be convincingly written. Case is the kind of guy I want to hang out with. He's given a tough journey over the course of the book learning to build a life without his best friend in it, and he faces each lingering echo of grief with bravery. Part of that comes out in wanting to help others with an intensity because he doesn't know how to help himself. He's also given a lot to learn about privilege over the course of the novel as he's forced to look outside the bubble he's lived in. </p><p>Winnie is sassy and smart and self assured – a quintessential Erin Hahn heroine. She has barrel racing talent oozing out of her, and she has the confidence in her abilities. That's never a question. Winnie's hurtle to climb is giving herself permission to dream and finding the trust in others to get there. Having heaps of responsibility given to her in the form of essentially raising her younger siblings, she's always had a weight on her shoulders that would be strange to lose despite the burden. While I've never faced challenges or responsibilities as hefty as Winnie, I related to her journey of giving herself permission to make up lost time being a kid as an adult after taking life way too seriously. Learning to trust is hard, and it's a journey that takes an entire book to chip away at. </p><p>There's a rich world of characters surrounding Winnie and Case. Case's friend Pax steps in to support him from behind the scenes. Case also negotiates a somewhat tense relationship with his dad, eventually coming to understand him better by the end of the book, and he gets support from their housekeeper who raised him, Kerry. Winnie has her younger sibling, her moody teenager brother who has a good heart and her genius fourth grader sister who wants to live life by her side. There's also her father who Winnie has to care for like a third kid. And she gets support from her horse trainer in and out of the arena as well.</p><p><b>Plot: 5 </b>What I really love about the plot of this novel is that it subverts regular romance expectations. Every place I thought it'd take a predictable and slightly irksome turn, it stayed the course and did its own thing. While Goodreads calls it a romance and Winnie and Case's love story does play a significant role, I don't see this as the actual genre. (And this is not in any way to diminish romance as a genre but to give a broader view for those who might not be a huge fan of the genre). Their romance isn't the point to me. It's a part of the larger development. And the tension and plot points of the novel honor that perspective. </p><p>This is a book about navigating grief. It's a book about learning to depend on a community you've never had before and understanding that your dreams are as valid as everyone else's. I like that Case and Winnie were allowed to just develop their connection as a healthy, safe, supportive refuge. </p><p><b>Writing: 5 </b>If you've read my blog for a while, you know that Erin Hahn is an author that I love, particularly when it comes to YA. I'm definitely sad that this is the end of her YA run, at least for now, but it feels incredibly full circle though. She shines the most when writing about worlds encapsulated in country songs, and this book has me thinking a lot about <i><a href="http://www.readingwritingandme.com/2019/03/youd-be-mine-review.html" target="_blank">You'd Be Mine</a></i>. This book warmed my heart. I loved the rodeo setting and the message and the execution. While the topics are heavy, this isn't a sad read. There's so much hope and love and laughter woven in between that it leaves you with that classic YA sense of hope. It never goes dark. And, much like my experience with the first time I downloaded Erin's debut book off NetGalley on a whim, I devoured this book in a day, not wanting to let go of the story. Fantastic characters, great sense of world building, funny banter, and a solid heart – what's not to love?</p><p>Also, it's a little wild to reflect on time through these books. I was reading up to the eighteen year old characters when <i>You'd Be Mine </i>came out, and now I'm a year older than Winnie is in the book reading and living right along with her. </p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: #ff00fe;"><b>More From This Author: </b></span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><b><i><a href="http://www.readingwritingandme.com/2019/03/youd-be-mine-review.html" target="_blank">You'd Be Mine review</a></i></b></p><p style="text-align: center;"><b><i><a href="http://www.readingwritingandme.com/2021/07/never-saw-you-coming-by-erin-hahn-ya.html" target="_blank">Never Saw You Coming review</a></i></b></p><p style="text-align: center;"><b><i><a href="http://www.readingwritingandme.com/2019/12/more-than-maybe-review.html" target="_blank">More Than Maybe review</a></i></b></p><p style="text-align: center;"><b><i><a href="http://www.readingwritingandme.com/2019/03/into-ya-with-erin-hahn.html" target="_blank">Built to Last review</a></i></b></p><p style="text-align: center;"><b><i><a href="http://www.readingwritingandme.com/2019/03/into-ya-with-erin-hahn.html" target="_blank">Into YA Interview with Erin Hahn</a></i></b></p><p><br /></p>Lanie Bricehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16181046426943796903noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1255278025952897149.post-10051687475756922282024-01-29T12:07:00.002-07:002024-01-29T12:07:13.909-07:00January Reading Check-In 2024: Already Changing My Reading Goals<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi68ddFNbkza3K2NjFAluEb-z2d4HE6sk7l_ftc_FI78lShzAtasVmSTHG4lMLIQ3EfutjEnjIxgg23ofOWwgZFryhdCe2tEI5f6vUJm-FAvND__dwi-aJL1jrBT7Re_uzOhA2z8qERggWubyqf5fLmVwvyttw4egoz9wKsEQf6bvJrADvfXTtY2YRZtZUc/s4032/shelfie%20for%20january.png" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="4032" data-original-width="3024" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi68ddFNbkza3K2NjFAluEb-z2d4HE6sk7l_ftc_FI78lShzAtasVmSTHG4lMLIQ3EfutjEnjIxgg23ofOWwgZFryhdCe2tEI5f6vUJm-FAvND__dwi-aJL1jrBT7Re_uzOhA2z8qERggWubyqf5fLmVwvyttw4egoz9wKsEQf6bvJrADvfXTtY2YRZtZUc/s320/shelfie%20for%20january.png" width="240" /></a></div>You know how when you do things for a few months or maybe even a year, you find a reliable pattern and settle in. You make big pronouncements: This is just how I am now. And then things change again! This is me admitting that I spent most of January reading one and only one fiction book and no audiobooks, which is a stark change from the stats that I rolled out to you in my <a href="http://www.readingwritingandme.com/2024/01/my-2023-reading-stats-in-great-detail.html" target="_blank">2023 round up </a>where I regularly read 17 books in a month. <div>This is a more dramatic portrait than the actual reality, but right now, it <i>feels</i> like I only read one book this month. So far in 2024, I have, in fact, read 9 books (as of January 25th and that's not even counting that one fiction book I've spent all month reading and will hopefully finish before the 31st). The thing is, I read all 9 of these in the week I was at home in January (or at least finished them after reading the majority of it in 2023). Then I downloaded Nathan Hill's extremely long debut novel <i>The Nix</i> on my Kindle and started reading it on the second half of my plane journey to LA to start the new semester. I'm currently only 65% of the way through. This is probably 400 pages of reading, but it is still far behind where I expected to be after my rapid reading through last fall and break. </div><div>But, here's the thing. I've probably read the same number of words, if not more, than I usually do in a month. They just haven't been novels or easily quantifiable on a tidy spreadsheet. I've read a massive quantity of articles as I've jumped into the gigantic research project that is my senior thesis trying to get ahead on the research before my other classes kick in. I've also read random chapters from craft books and assorted short stories for my creative writing class. That's most definitely reading, but it doesn't get counted in the same way. </div><div>So I've made very slow progress through <i>The Nix</i> as I've been going to bed too late to read before passing out most nights, I've given most of my at home daytime reading over to my research project, and I'm taking fewer on-campus classes so I generally do less waiting around where I tell myself all I can do with the time is read. That 65% I've read of <i>The Nix</i> has been primarily accomplished in 30 minute distracted chunks on the train. I could certainly cut back on my social media time and stop allowing myself to count scrolling on Tumblr as "research" to gain a bit more reading time, but I honestly just don't feel like it. Beyond being online more, I've tried to invest more time into activities like cooking, exercising, and going on long walks outside. Now that I think about it, a lot of the free time I poured into reading my Kindle on my couch has probably been the new scraps of time I've taken for walking. </div><div>I think this is partially to do with the fact that I chose to read a very long book (something I have a history of struggling with) during a very busy period of my life. I am a perfectionistic, goal oriented soul, and seeing the progress bar on my Kindle quickly fill encourages me to keep tearing through a book. Just read one more chapter, my brain thinks. But it takes a lot of page turning to even gain 1% in my current read, which just doesn't make the reading experience feel particularly pressing. </div><div>I finished two very long books in December with relative ease, but all I had to do during that period was read, so everything flowed faster. I just can't find a sense of urgency in myself or in <i>The Nix</i> itself to finally finish it. I'm trying to set aside more time for it now simply because I'm starting to get an itch to do some Sally Rooney re-reading, and I have ARCs that need reviewed on a specific timeline. But, generally, I've felt comfortable living in <i>The Nix</i> abyss forever, only making occasional check ins. </div><div>Note to self: only read long books on holiday. But, besides that mistake, I'm totally fine with my very slow reading progress since the semester has started. I'm a bit burnt out on reading. I sometimes read a book a day over break. That's a lot of other people's words floating around in my head, and as much as I love it, January seems to always be the month that I slow down and digest all that holiday reading and consume less. In 2023, I only read 5 books in January. I'm doing a lot more writing, I have classes, and I have a giant project that's due in April. If reading and I need to take a brief, well intentioned pause, I can live with that. </div><div>Also, I'm always a bit slower with my fiction reading than my stats would indicate. When I'm not trying to read 752 page books, I tend to average a book a week, which is only 4 books. The other 13 come from my audiobook habit, which was going <i>strong</i> through 2023. I fell out of love with a lot of the podcasts I was listening to, music just served as a reminder of the mistake of a degree program I was stuck in, and at least listening to audiobooks gave me the dopamine thrill of getting to write down a new book in my spreadsheet every few days. Because I hadn't consumed much nonfiction to that point, there was a massive ocean of content to choose from. </div><div>Now things look a little different. I've started and quit 3 different audiobooks this month, and I've found my tolerance for mediocre background noise has gone down. My very important, time consuming research project has sabotaged me in yet another way. It's reminded me of how much I love music and artists and their fandoms. It's brought joy back into my music listening, starting with One Direction giving me a silly serotonin hit and bleeding into reintroducing me to so many of my favorite artists that I just stopped listening to last year. So, for most of January, I've been filling my apartment with music. I think this also goes hand in hand with working on writing more as music is so intwined with my fiction writing process too. I've also been craving more podcasts and YouTube videos and other forms of audio media that I ignored for most of 2023. I even chose to watch a movie the other day. Everything comes and goes in seasons is what I'm learning, and this season just isn't great for my reading goals (or probably this book blog, sorry). </div><div>What maybe shocks me most about all these reading revelations is that it doesn't upset me one bit. I don't feel like I'm failing, and I'm not worried about not hitting this year's reading goals. Maybe I should've made it lower. Maybe this is the place where I publicly revise my goal back down to 50 or 45 or something. But reading well over 100 books in 2023 has been oddly freeing when it comes to reading goals madness. I never thought I would or could read that many books in a year as an adult, and I proved that I'm more than able to do so. That's enough. If I want to spend 2024 focused on a wider variety of hobbies and interests and passions, awesome! If I want to read ridiculously long books that take forever, so be it (though I can pretty much promise you that's not where my reading life is heading). If I want to slowly reread books I loved, searching for their tiny nuances, that's perfect. I've already climbed my reading Everest. I don't need anything more. </div><div>Honestly, I'm just happy that I've continued to read, even if it's less, as I've gotten busier. I'm not making progress on my spreadsheet, but it's not for a complete lack of trying. I've picked up the book and finished a little more every day. I'm not in a slump. I'm not worried about what I'll read next. I'm a little worried I'll die still reading this one book (can you tell I'm an impatient soul), but I know that the lessons I learned from the epic reading marathon of last year are sticking. I am consistent. I get on the train, and I pull out my book. Anything else I manage is cake. </div><div>I heard Jack Edwards mention in his 2023 reading stats recap video recently that he actually wants to read <i>fewer</i> books this year, and I'm ready to co-sign that mission. Do less to do more, perhaps?</div><div><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: #2b00fe;"><b>More on Reading, Writing, and Me:</b></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><b><i><a href="http://www.readingwritingandme.com/2024/01/friends-and-strangers-by-j-courtney.html" target="_blank">Friends and Strangers review</a></i></b></div><div style="text-align: center;"><b><i><a href="http://www.readingwritingandme.com/2024/01/come-and-get-it-by-kiley-reid-arc-book.html" target="_blank">Come and Get It ARC review</a></i></b></div><div style="text-align: center;"><b><i><a href="http://www.readingwritingandme.com/2024/01/penance-by-eliza-clark-book-review.html" target="_blank">Penance review</a></i></b></div><div style="text-align: center;"><b><i><a href="http://www.readingwritingandme.com/2024/01/my-2023-reading-stats-in-great-detail.html" target="_blank">2023 Reading Stats</a></i></b></div><div><br /></div>Lanie Bricehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16181046426943796903noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1255278025952897149.post-83681733538244764252024-01-25T21:36:00.003-07:002024-01-25T21:36:09.169-07:00Friends and Strangers by J. Courtney Sullivan: book review<p><b><u></u></b></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><b><u><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEghwRCV1-SreJmJWSlWLkDowQuq9ubApjN5MXEPr4EJCuARm155q3XAm785_okn59VCcBHw1330uY4icrMU08yYbNMZTD4HyrxhzESpGn3CzEIMJ8kE6Sl__UKnRaj2yh8yXQLzNDKHNvDafAf5CT1jlS2220tM4JNI9XOF4Al8whhPs7ddcnXGzgwPuzI2/s3024/friends%20and%20stranger.png" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2913" data-original-width="3024" height="308" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEghwRCV1-SreJmJWSlWLkDowQuq9ubApjN5MXEPr4EJCuARm155q3XAm785_okn59VCcBHw1330uY4icrMU08yYbNMZTD4HyrxhzESpGn3CzEIMJ8kE6Sl__UKnRaj2yh8yXQLzNDKHNvDafAf5CT1jlS2220tM4JNI9XOF4Al8whhPs7ddcnXGzgwPuzI2/s320/friends%20and%20stranger.png" width="320" /></a></u></b></div><b><u>Friends and Strangers</u> by J. Courtney Sullivan</b><p></p><p><b>Overview: </b>Elisabeth has been taken from her beloved Brooklyn and plopped down in a nowhere college town in upstate New York. She has no friends, just her husband and infant. Her career has been put on hold with having a child, and she's disconnected from herself. Then, in an open call for babysitters, she meets Sam. Sam is a senior at the college and a natural with the baby, but she has her own challenges as she's pulled between her ambitions and her much older British boyfriend. Sam and Elisabeth quickly pass the employer-babysitter boundaries into a murky friendship full of power imbalances. <b>Overall: 4</b></p><p><b>Characters: 4 </b>Elisabeth is having a bit of an identity crisis and is more than a little lonely when the book begins. She's stressed about the state of her finances and her family as questions around her husband's job, secrets in their marriage, and whether to expand their family dominate her headspace. She feels like she doesn't fit in with the suburban moms she meets. When Sam offers her adult conversation, she can't help jumping at the chance. Elisabeth is clearly one of those obliviously well meaning people. She's not good at acknowledging her own privilege, only wanting to highlight what she lacks, and she tries to do her best by people in ways that end up twisted or against what those she's trying to help would have wanted. Elisabeth is a generally good person that does bad things, and, for that, she's a lead character you can continue to pull for through her questionable approach. Elisabeth's character offers a solid exploration of some of the darker aspects of motherhood despite loving her child deeply as well. </p><p>Sam is the other point of view character. She's more aware of the appropriate boundaries that should exist in this working relationship, but her life is already full of blurred boundaries. Her boyfriend is in his 30s when she's barely entered her 20s, and she fancies herself all grown up, so Elisabeth, in a strange way, becomes fitting company. Sam is stuck between so many worlds, Elisabeth's house offers an escape. She has to fight to form bonds with the staff working in the college kitchen where she does her work study, and she can't comprehend that she'll never fully understand their situation even though she has less privilege than some of her school friends. At the same time, she doesn't fully relate to her wealthy peers with their international vacations and lax approach to money. Much of Sam's college experience is defined by not belonging anywhere obvious in the social stratification and constantly being surprised by the subtle nuances within the simple stories those around her tell. </p><p>The rest of the cast – Elisabeth's husband and his family, Sam's friends and her boyfriend Clive – fill out their worlds and add complications to the story. There's clearly a lot of heart poured into Andrew's dad that becomes an adoptive father/grandfather figure to both Elisabeth and Sam. </p><p><b>Plot: 4 </b>Much of the book revolves around the themes of privilege and the nuance that exists within it. This is most obvious in the subplot about Andrew's father's The Hollow Tree theory about the people displaced from their jobs in the town and how corporations are driving them out of business. He is dismissed as crazy through most of the book because what he's saying is inconvenient. Much of Sam's compass for interacting with the world is based on the level of privilege she perceives someone has. She talks down about her rich friend but later regrets saying bad things about her friend because of her wealth. She feels betrayed when she learns that Elisabeth's parents are rich when Elisabeth painted herself as struggling in her early adulthood in New York. Still, when she wants to help her friends who work in the college cafeteria, she takes away their agency in her attempt to help and then struggles to admit that she has more privilege than they do with her being a student at the college. This is all to say that there are constantly stories that seem one way at face value and then are given layers of nuance or caveats that broaden Sam's view of the world. This is also a novel largely about the stories we choose to tell about ourselves and how that guides our interactions with others.</p><p><b>Writing: 4 </b>This was an interesting read. There were a few stretches where I wondered where the story was going and what certain mundane scenes were leading to, but it was largely entertaining throughout. Sullivan has an effortless writing style and did a good job of differentiating Sam and Elisabeth's voices in the various sections. She weaves in a lot of complex ideas and dilemmas without weighing down the story. </p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: #2b00fe;"><b>More on Reading, Writing, and Me:</b></span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><b><i><a href="http://www.readingwritingandme.com/2024/01/come-and-get-it-by-kiley-reid-arc-book.html" target="_blank">Come and Get It ARC review</a></i></b></p><p style="text-align: center;"><b><i><a href="http://www.readingwritingandme.com/2024/01/penance-by-eliza-clark-book-review.html" target="_blank">Penance review</a></i></b></p><p style="text-align: center;"><b><i><a href="http://www.readingwritingandme.com/2024/01/under-influence-by-noelle-crooks-book.html" target="_blank">Under the Influence review</a></i></b></p><p style="text-align: center;"><b><i><a href="http://www.readingwritingandme.com/2024/01/rouge-by-mona-awad-book-review.html" target="_blank">Rogue review</a></i></b></p><p style="text-align: center;"><b><i><br /></i></b></p>Lanie Bricehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16181046426943796903noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1255278025952897149.post-36895358925875810492024-01-19T11:07:00.004-07:002024-01-24T10:10:58.364-07:00Come and Get It by Kiley Reid: ARC book review<p><b><u></u></b></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><b><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><b><u><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjqfImP-gEIu446XCLiA9fkOB9u-5EMveq7oHkDBTJGDUzf-qHOimDaTiUil4yxlarikuG6TlWTxQzvuHdPhbtyDq2RRUcrtmli3ocDkV5punX7-BaK_ryvAKE7rop0WHAx8jNCOzjHfweHzdvJJsz9rD0b6eKWIa1soBOez4gMmj3ZX4KDo_FcoOg7cInG/s3780/9B57BDA9-AE10-4931-B47E-5F5C22EC3DE5.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3780" data-original-width="3024" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjqfImP-gEIu446XCLiA9fkOB9u-5EMveq7oHkDBTJGDUzf-qHOimDaTiUil4yxlarikuG6TlWTxQzvuHdPhbtyDq2RRUcrtmli3ocDkV5punX7-BaK_ryvAKE7rop0WHAx8jNCOzjHfweHzdvJJsz9rD0b6eKWIa1soBOez4gMmj3ZX4KDo_FcoOg7cInG/s320/9B57BDA9-AE10-4931-B47E-5F5C22EC3DE5.jpeg" width="256" /></a></div>Come and Get It</u> by Kiley Reid </b></div></b></div><p></p><p><b>Available 1/30/2024</b></p><p><i>Thank you to G.P. Putnam for generously sending me an ARC of this book for an advanced review. All thoughts are my own. </i></p><p><b>Overview: </b>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 somewhat devastating effect. <b>Overall: 5</b></p><p><b>Characters: 5 </b>We spend the first part of the book getting to know the major players within their own lives. You'll spend a little time while wondering what all these people have to do with one another, but if you can be patient, the payoff is great. Told in third person, the book mainly focuses on Agatha, Millie, and Kennedy's points of view with Tyler, her friends Casey and Jenna, and Payton getting filled in by their interactions with the other girls and Agatha's spying or "research". This ends up being a very effective way to tell the story because each POV character has such a unique perspective. </p><p>The specifics of the characters are where the richness of the book comes from, and I don't want to diminish that experience, so I'm just going to speak on it broadly. Reid excels in getting us to understand and empathize with the motivations and actions of each character when we're looking through their eyes but then does a fantastic job of flipping the perspective around and allowing you to see the flaws that exist within each character. Even the ones that seem angled as characters we're not supposed to like have a real humanity that still pulls at your heartstrings. The development here is remarkable, and they play off each other so well. </p><p><b>Plot: 5 </b>It's hard to talk about what this book is about except for summarizing it as a bunch of confused, lost people at one small town college. There's definitely a major moment at the end where tension is ratcheted up to a ten and all the tiny bad choices pile on top of each other to spell disaster. It's satisfying to watch all of the small moments from earlier in the book collide and bring all these seemingly separate characters together, but it definitely takes patience and investment in the individual characters themselves to get there. I read it in two days, though, so it's definitely interesting and will grab your attention if you trust that Reid is going somewhere. </p><p>The payoff of the book is remarkable and somewhat haunting, though. At its core, <i>Come and Get It</i> is about how we all make choices that seem tiny and inconsequential on our end. A note quickly dashed off, an easy dismissal that doesn't get a single thought, the wrong moment to finally decide to chill out. You might not know the consequences immediately or ever, but your small choices can have massive repercussions in others lives. We see those cause and effects ripple through this small community. </p><p><b>Writing: 5 </b>I was already a huge fan of Kiley Reid from <i>Such a Fun Age</i>, and this book did not disappoint. I actually think I liked it a little more. Reid ups the complexity and sets more plates spinning in the air to bring together in the end than in <i>Such a Fun Age </i>that primarily focuses on two characters. There is plenty of connective tissue, though, between the books in themes handling privilege, class, racism, and the question around inappropriate age and power dynamics, but they manifest in a completely unique way in <i>Come and Get It</i>. Reid packs a lot into these pages without ever weighing down the prose, and it comes together to create a truly breathtaking final image. </p><p>On a quick final note on the ending, this isn't a direct spoiler but could maybe be viewed that way, I really like the balance that Reid found. There are consequences and things fall apart, but there is a lingering note of hope and possibility there as well. There's a pathway for these characters to get back to what they really want, and they're not left stripped of everything they've worked for, which is a place that too many literary fiction books like to leave their messy cast. </p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: #2b00fe;"><b>More on Reading, Writing, and Me:</b></span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><b><i><a href="http://www.readingwritingandme.com/2024/01/penance-by-eliza-clark-book-review.html" target="_blank">Penance review</a></i></b></p><p style="text-align: center;"><b><i><a href="http://www.readingwritingandme.com/2024/01/under-influence-by-noelle-crooks-book.html" target="_blank">Under the Influence review</a></i></b></p><p style="text-align: center;"><b><i><a href="http://www.readingwritingandme.com/2024/01/rouge-by-mona-awad-book-review.html" target="_blank">Rouge review</a></i></b></p><p style="text-align: center;"><b><i><a href="http://www.readingwritingandme.com/2024/01/the-getaway-list-by-emma-lord-arc-ya.html" target="_blank">The Getaway List review </a></i></b></p>Lanie Bricehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16181046426943796903noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1255278025952897149.post-84424640016641987632024-01-18T11:36:00.009-07:002024-01-18T11:36:55.425-07:00Penance by Eliza Clark: book review<p><b><u></u></b></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><b><u><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEinXNvfnWdmjkq3oCIS0Uh1WeHIiB3VCqC9hhedadG5lJEaoFoOECJyib_M53UsdFVIg1o2onO2A-zR8psDKNjwhHjNTV6GoySI3X0L2q5FqyF3zh4lFdx9se1oIbAXU-EpZPa9zq8dCXoOMl0Qd_MBPeQN8-_8StbMkKCEvzo_S2s8Ddrdqg5-muD2HvSv/s4032/penance.png" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="4032" data-original-width="3024" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEinXNvfnWdmjkq3oCIS0Uh1WeHIiB3VCqC9hhedadG5lJEaoFoOECJyib_M53UsdFVIg1o2onO2A-zR8psDKNjwhHjNTV6GoySI3X0L2q5FqyF3zh4lFdx9se1oIbAXU-EpZPa9zq8dCXoOMl0Qd_MBPeQN8-_8StbMkKCEvzo_S2s8Ddrdqg5-muD2HvSv/s320/penance.png" width="240" /></a></u></b></div><b><u>Penance</u> by Eliza Clark</b><p></p><p><b>Overview: </b>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. <i>Penance</i> 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. <b>Overall: 4.5</b></p><p><b>Characters: 4.5 </b>Alec Z. Carelli is our narrator and the author of <i>Penance </i>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. He's a bit of a ridiculous figure, but he does make for an interesting guide through the novel. It's rare to have the author of a book that is not the author of the book but also is. Regardless, Clark pulls it off, and in a way, some of the less successful writing just feels in keeping with Carelli's style. He's there to take the fall and to spark a conversation about true crime. </p><p>The girls are each given their own section in the novel (as well as one girl who was falsely accused). There's a ton of background provided on the murderers as well as the victim because Carelli includes extensive interviews around the girls. You get a very clear picture of who these people are through secondhand accounts, and it's fascinating to see fictional characters constructed this way. I won't tell you about them in detail because that's why you read the book, but they are all fascinating. </p><p><b>Plot: 4.5 </b>This is a gripping book. I stayed up way too late reading it most nights because I didn't want to put it down. It's written in a very reader-friendly style, and I found that I was reading it faster because much of the book unfolds in narrations of interviews with various subjects and simply relaying facts – like a nonfiction book. There isn't much traditional prose to speak of, and that was really fun. You find out the broad details of the murder upfront, and then the vast majority of the rest of the book is learning about all the histories and interpersonal dramas and what lead up to the murder. The actual crime is a very minimal part of the book, which I really appreciated. </p><p>I feel like it's worth noting that the book isn't scary, which I feared. I listened to true crime podcasts for a year or two when it was really trendy, but I had to totally cut myself off when I moved out on my own. I was scared this book would be distressing like those podcasts, but it really wasn't. The fictional crime is horrible, but it's not dwelled on or graphically described in the book, seemingly on purpose. Also, the crime is so specific and personal that it didn't spike my anxiety in that "this crime could happen to anyone" way. The point of the book is to dissect true crime culture and examine it through the lens of a fictional book on the subject and the impact that it has, and in that, it most definitely succeeds. It also moves the book away from the worst parts of the genre since its entire motivation is working as a critique of the industry. </p><p><b>Writing: 4.5 </b>Eliza Clark is a gifted writer for being able to manage so many layers successfully. It's a book that could've toppled over at any point, but Clark has such a firm grip on every aspect that you just melt into the story and the world and this wild author as well as the lives of the girls. I didn't enjoy the prose sections where Carelli essentially writes fan fiction of the girls lives that ended up at the end of basically every section. They're just stilted and awkward and the regular book format is much more fun to read, but I don't feel like I can fault Clark for this. These short stories add to the sketchy things Carelli did in the book, so they serve a narrative purpose, and I don't even know if Clark herself is responsible for them just being meh because she's making a point and writing as Carelli. This has to be the weirdest review I've ever written, but this is probably the most unique book I've read this year, so I guess it's fitting. Even though I've heard <i>Boy Parts </i>is quite scary, I am intrigued to read more of her work.</p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: #2b00fe;"><b>More on Reading, Writing, and Me:</b></span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><b><i><a href="http://www.readingwritingandme.com/2024/01/under-influence-by-noelle-crooks-book.html" target="_blank">Under the Influence review</a></i></b></p><p style="text-align: center;"><b><i><a href="http://www.readingwritingandme.com/2024/01/rouge-by-mona-awad-book-review.html" target="_blank">Rouge review</a></i></b></p><p style="text-align: center;"><b><i><a href="http://www.readingwritingandme.com/2024/01/the-getaway-list-by-emma-lord-arc-ya.html" target="_blank">The Getaway List review</a></i></b></p><p style="text-align: center;"><b><i><a href="http://www.readingwritingandme.com/2024/01/the-last-thing-he-told-me-by-laura-dave.html" target="_blank">The Last Thing He Told Me review</a></i></b></p>Lanie Bricehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16181046426943796903noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1255278025952897149.post-33926788205793854692024-01-13T10:09:00.003-07:002024-01-13T10:09:26.375-07:00Under the Influence by Noelle Crooks: book review<b><u><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhq_bkom2ITusQibLt-9BbepjijYeLnTTRp63O_s_CdGohVe8KvOuGRjlhRXS3Wl3X2gft2Knx2Mv0nogkvS9fVI2sgIuHR9Tk26Jf0Sb42TrfoREhuhZLXJQOlzRgWGMPvWB9v1HMyWrauP7GrZ4u_l2-VrGIHqRIxCl6EMpWyoS5GIJXmG6AMp1pFAPuu/s2964/under%20the%20influence.png" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2890" data-original-width="2964" height="312" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhq_bkom2ITusQibLt-9BbepjijYeLnTTRp63O_s_CdGohVe8KvOuGRjlhRXS3Wl3X2gft2Knx2Mv0nogkvS9fVI2sgIuHR9Tk26Jf0Sb42TrfoREhuhZLXJQOlzRgWGMPvWB9v1HMyWrauP7GrZ4u_l2-VrGIHqRIxCl6EMpWyoS5GIJXmG6AMp1pFAPuu/s320/under%20the%20influence.png" width="320" /></a></div>Under the Influence</u> by Noelle Crooks</b><div><b>Overview: </b>Harper needs a job. In New York, she's lost every publishing job she's had through no real fault of her own, and she's only staying afloat through the generosity of her friend and roommate, Poppy, covering the bills. When Poppy finds an ad for an influencer looking for a visionary support strategist, she convinces Harper to apply. Against the odds, she gets the job and begrudgingly moves to Nashville to work for a mommy blogger turned mega influencer (and maybe cult leader), leaving behind everything she'd built in New York and her bookish hopes and dreams. And, wow, is Harper in for a rollercoaster. <b>Overall: 4</b></div><div><b><br /></b></div><div><b>Characters: 4 </b>Here's the thing with this book as a whole. It didn't knock my socks off. All the characterization is a bit shallow, and there's nothing particularly beautiful or deeply inspirational/impressive here. But it is tons of fun, and Crooks does a good job of creating these larger than life personalities that jump off the page. Sure, they're more caricatures than characters, but that's part of the fun of a high concept, slightly goofy book that examines a pretty absurd part of modern culture. Charlotte, the influencer in question, is almost unbelievable in how self absorbed she is, but also, we all know a Charlotte. Poppy is the stereotypical spoiled rich girl that tries hard and is genuinely nice but also pretty clueless. Harper is the scrappy heroine who learns how to thrive in her compromised environment, falls a bit too hard into her new job, and then has to break the spell for everyone. </div><div>There are plenty of loose ends and relationships that get put down and then inexplicably picked up again. There's a romance that's very hard to buy into given the limited time we spend with these characters and the small amount of time they spend together. Everything in this book has to be taken with a grain of salt to be properly enjoyed, but if you can buy into the absurdity and not look too closely, it's a quick, fun read. </div><div><br /></div><div><b>Plot: 4 </b>One thing this book does is move fast. There's always a new twist or turn or problem or surprise in each chapter. While some parts are pretty predictable, there are so many swerves that even if you know where it's going, it's still page turning. The book is running at 100 mph straight through to the end, and sometimes, that's exactly what you need. It's a light book that touches on darker themes but never dips all the way into them, and it'd be a good way to break out of a reading slump. </div><div><br /></div><div><b>Writing: 4 </b>This is one of those reviews where I feel like I have to meet the book where it's at. What it promises is fun and absurdity, and on that, it delivers. There are definite flaws in the execution, but it feels hard to knock the book for those elemental things when it does a great job of creating an all encompassing, larger than life world to get swept up in. This isn't a super technical book. It's not about the sentence level prose because it's not trying to be. It's aiming to be a great beach read, and it's succeeding in that. So, as long as you know what you're getting into, it's a hard book to be disappointed by. </div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: #2b00fe;"><b>More on Reading, Writing, and Me:</b></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><b><i><a href="http://www.readingwritingandme.com/2024/01/rouge-by-mona-awad-book-review.html" target="_blank">Rouge review</a></i></b></div><div style="text-align: center;"><b><i><a href="http://www.readingwritingandme.com/2024/01/the-getaway-list-by-emma-lord-arc-ya.html" target="_blank">The Getaway List review</a></i></b></div><div style="text-align: center;"><b><i><a href="http://www.readingwritingandme.com/2024/01/the-last-thing-he-told-me-by-laura-dave.html" target="_blank">The Last Thing He Told Me review</a></i></b></div><div style="text-align: center;"><b><i><a href="http://www.readingwritingandme.com/2024/01/my-2023-reading-stats-in-great-detail.html" target="_blank">My Reading Stats 2023</a></i></b></div>Lanie Bricehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16181046426943796903noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1255278025952897149.post-62865110659359196382024-01-10T08:09:00.007-07:002024-01-10T08:09:55.965-07:00Rouge by Mona Awad: book review<p><b><u></u></b></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><b><u><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgE0lqaw7RKB0Zztx6Kt8fczqaIL_jNCwP1Oc3uCC-5jikYVhvOidd-9VCCiG8AzPjbMywFyy3nSslhPRIfdKnNJrdBU_UEr9-NWrjkaM0bUdpzGgHGGiaGkcCb9ND4YPeX5IuclLoLeYBTVCKLv8317fhsu0G1-SOiRQa-Paf1fu-IZo_2SZpnkqwE2wSB/s3568/rouge.png" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3568" data-original-width="3024" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgE0lqaw7RKB0Zztx6Kt8fczqaIL_jNCwP1Oc3uCC-5jikYVhvOidd-9VCCiG8AzPjbMywFyy3nSslhPRIfdKnNJrdBU_UEr9-NWrjkaM0bUdpzGgHGGiaGkcCb9ND4YPeX5IuclLoLeYBTVCKLv8317fhsu0G1-SOiRQa-Paf1fu-IZo_2SZpnkqwE2wSB/s320/rouge.png" width="271" /></a></u></b></div><b><u>Rouge</u> by Mona Awad</b><p></p><p><b>Overview: </b>Belle is obsessed with skincare, a trait inherited from childhood through beauty obsessed mother. Belle is living her own life back in Montreal when she gets a call that her mother has passed away in California. When Belle goes to settle her mother's estate, she starts putting together some of the weird signs she saw in her mother right before her death and ends up getting sucked into a terrifying, soul-sucking spa world that puts her own life at risk. Drawing on a ton of fairytale elements and blurring the lines between reality and the mystical, Mona Awad delivers another truly disorienting novel. <b>Overall: 3</b></p><p><b>Characters: 3</b> I had a really hard time finding the depth in these characters that I'd hoped for. There's just not enough grounding to truly tap into anyone in this cast. Belle spends so much time brainwashed that we never get to find out who she is as a person or see her grow. We get flashes of her childhood and see that there's a lot of pain and conflict with her mother, but there are so many fantastical elements that obscure the emotional core of Belle's experiences. Both Belle's mother and grandmother are so cold and removed that it's hard to form any attachment to them. There are some interesting characters that Belle encounters in California like her mother's handyman/possible lover that wants to help Belle, but so much of the novel takes place in the weird spa on the hill that we hardly spend time with these more interesting, grounded figures that also help shed small insight into who Belle is.</p><p><b>Plot: 3 </b>This book is very plot heavy, but it's so rambling that none of the events that happen carry any weight or intrigue in the moment. The whole book is about digging into this spa/cult/soul stealing mansion on the hill connected to themes of beauty, but the book is written in such a disorienting manner that it's hard to feel momentum or a sense of urgency. The writing is easy to read quickly, which is the only thing that kept me moving through the book. </p><p>Awad's signature style is sort of spacey and confusing when it comes to the rules of the world. What's hallucination? What's magic? What's going on? Everything is just a little upside down in her worlds, and you can't question it too intensely. The issue here is that there's absolutely no grounding at all. There's no framework to build on or set of intentions to follow along and give gravity to Belle's experiences. <i><a href="http://www.readingwritingandme.com/2023/03/book-review-bunny-by-mona-awad.html" target="_blank">Bunny</a></i> works off a clear character, in a clear setting, with a clear set of rules around the magical, horror elements. While you question whether it's real magic or the main character's insanity, the book definitely has scaffolding that supports these stranger elements and keeps the book moving. <i>Rouge </i>is as truly amorphous as the jellyfish it's obsessed with. </p><p><b>Writing: 3 </b>I honestly wasn't sure I was going to review this book because I was just so confused about what was going on the entire time. There are so many elements that are thrown around with very little resolution or clear sense of direction. There's everything that happens within Rouge, there's two different dress shops, there's lots of fairytale motifs that are chaotically thrown in without an understanding of what they build to. The rose motif and Belle's name pulls from Beauty and the Beast. There's some important high heels that are reminiscent of Cinderella. Rouge ends up having a vibe very similar to Ursula in the Little Mermaid. Having finished the book, I'm not sure how it's all meant to come together or the bigger sense it's meant to bring, but I do like the fairytale whimsy. </p><p>While I don't feel like a lot of the book gelled for me, I did like the ending. For a book that never felt like it was building to something, the ending provided a real sense of satisfaction and had a grounded sense to it that I wish was present in more of the book. It felt satisfying and fitting, and it actually made me like the book better, which I wasn't expecting. </p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: #ff00fe;"><b>More from the Author:</b></span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><b><i><a href="http://www.readingwritingandme.com/2023/03/book-review-bunny-by-mona-awad.html" target="_blank">Bunny review</a></i></b></p><p style="text-align: center;"><b><span style="color: #2b00fe;">More on Reading, Writing, and Me:</span></b></p><p style="text-align: center;"><b><i><a href="http://www.readingwritingandme.com/2024/01/the-getaway-list-by-emma-lord-arc-ya.html" target="_blank">The Getaway List review</a></i></b></p><p style="text-align: center;"><b><i><a href="http://www.readingwritingandme.com/2024/01/the-last-thing-he-told-me-by-laura-dave.html" target="_blank">The Last He Told Me review</a></i></b></p><p style="text-align: center;"><b><i><a href="http://www.readingwritingandme.com/2024/01/my-2023-reading-stats-in-great-detail.html" target="_blank">2023 Reading Stats</a></i></b></p><p style="text-align: center;"><b><i><a href="http://www.readingwritingandme.com/2023/12/ripe-by-sarah-rose-etter-book-review.html" target="_blank">Ripe review</a></i></b></p>Lanie Bricehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16181046426943796903noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1255278025952897149.post-88631853202517224802024-01-09T09:21:00.003-07:002024-01-09T09:21:23.763-07:00The Getaway List by Emma Lord: ARC YA review<p><b><u></u></b></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><b><u><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgBxbNsTY2h3zygVdFO35k-Z6AfxGLeMvn3x4XxvkfGp_UPpIqFKhlk9D0mJ1Vf2Awvz9wEoN5XrtZ5KAHLLrg7ZZCdGmLw9gzLij1UR7iAr1za2GWgn2oUxM7AKFUGOkrnBkj9wgOdv-3SPQX3ra5szzFBHhukKGIOT1mwlWMG6ux10c8P6BUkGtzdq1Qw/s4032/the%20getaway%20list.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="4032" data-original-width="3024" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgBxbNsTY2h3zygVdFO35k-Z6AfxGLeMvn3x4XxvkfGp_UPpIqFKhlk9D0mJ1Vf2Awvz9wEoN5XrtZ5KAHLLrg7ZZCdGmLw9gzLij1UR7iAr1za2GWgn2oUxM7AKFUGOkrnBkj9wgOdv-3SPQX3ra5szzFBHhukKGIOT1mwlWMG6ux10c8P6BUkGtzdq1Qw/s320/the%20getaway%20list.png" width="240" /></a></u></b></div><b><u>The Getaway List</u> by Emma Lord</b><p></p><p><i>Thank you to the publisher for gifting me an advanced copy of The Getaway List for review purposes. All thoughts are my own. </i></p><p><b>Overview: </b>Tom and Riley were best friends from the time they were kids. Then Tom moved to New York City with his mom when they're young teens and everything changed. Suddenly, Riley didn't have her best friend anymore. As they miss each other's major life moments, they create The Getaway List of all the things they'll finally do when they get back together. The summer after high school graduation, with neither of them planning to attend college in the fall, Riley defies her mom's wishes to go to New York and reconnect with Tom. Reunited, they let the Getaway List fill the gaps that have emerged in their friendship since they last spoke. <b>Overall: 4</b></p><p><b>Characters: 4 </b>Riley is a hyper, adventurous, and outspoken, but she also has a shy side. She's grown up being extremely close to her mom, who is a single parent, but a rift develops as she learns that her mom has intentionally separated her from Tom all these years. Riley isn't sure how to cope with the distance that develops between her and her mom, even as she's excited about a summer reconnecting with Tom and hopefully improving her writing. This struggle between asserting your full adult independence and still deeply loving and caring for your parents is the most compelling part of the book. She so desperately wants to be a fully formed adult, but her footing is shaky and unsure, and all of her defaults still operate on being a kid. Emma does a fantastic job of capturing how difficult it can be to figure out how to navigate that divide at the end of your teenage years. </p><p>Tom was the glue that held Riley's Virginia life together and the center of the friend group, but he shrunk into himself when moving to New York. Over the course of the summer, Riley sets out to help him rediscover his old confidence in the context of his new, confusing world. </p><p>The friend group they form in NYC and Tom and Riley's single mothers that heavily figure into the plot. There's Tom's distant friend they run into making deliveries for an app service who instantly becomes part of their mini friend group, and then they run into a boy at a creative writing class who sticks to them like glue. While there are compelling elements to this story of friendship, they didn't quite feel genuine. The friendships were just too instantly close without anything forging such a tight bond. Everything was just a touch too manufactured or contrived to fully sink into the novel. </p><p><b>Plot: 4 </b>The book follows a loose structure based off the Getaway List to guide Riley's journey of coming into her own across a New York summer. I was surprised to find out the book was barely over 300 pages, though, because I found myself doing a lot of skimming and jumping around to the dialogue to get through it. The writing is solid, and many of the ideas are interesting, it just wasn't quite drawing me in as wholeheartedly as past Emma Lord books have unfortunately. There aren't enough points on the Getaway List to fully rely on it for structure, and the book unfolds somewhat aimlessly without much to support it. The characters just aren't strong enough to carry the book and the pacing felt somewhat off.</p><p><b>Writing: 4</b> Emma Lord has such a bubbly writing voice that is somewhat infectious, however, as someone who is twenty and relatively close to having credibly been a teen, the number of times the word "teenybopper" was used really threw me out of the book. It's a word I've only ever heard my mom use, and it just felt dated. I've never heard someone my age or my brother's age (he's seventeen) naturally use the word in speech. There were just a few moments like this that didn't quite click for a contemporary YA novel. I've loved Emma's past books (particularly <i>Begin Again</i>, which was an early 2023 favorite), but there was just something about <i>The Getaway List</i> that didn't fully click with me. </p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: #ff00fe;"><b>More from Emma Lord:</b></span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><b><i><a href="http://www.readingwritingandme.com/2019/11/tweet-cute-review.html" target="_blank">Tweet Cute review</a></i></b></p><p style="text-align: center;"><b><i><a href="http://www.readingwritingandme.com/2023/02/ya-book-review-begin-again-by-emma-lord.html" target="_blank">Begin Again review</a></i></b></p><p style="text-align: center;"><b><span style="color: #2b00fe;">More on Reading, Writing, and Me:</span></b></p><p style="text-align: center;"><b><i><a href="http://www.readingwritingandme.com/2024/01/the-last-thing-he-told-me-by-laura-dave.html" target="_blank">The Last Thing He Told Me review</a></i></b></p><p style="text-align: center;"><b><i><a href="http://www.readingwritingandme.com/2024/01/my-2023-reading-stats-in-great-detail.html" target="_blank">My 2023 Reading Stats</a></i></b></p><p style="text-align: center;"><b><i><a href="http://www.readingwritingandme.com/2023/12/ripe-by-sarah-rose-etter-book-review.html" target="_blank">Ripe review</a></i></b></p><p style="text-align: center;"><b><i><a href="http://www.readingwritingandme.com/2023/12/2023-goals-check-in-2024-goals-making.html" target="_blank">2023 Goals Check In and 2024 Goals</a></i></b></p>Lanie Bricehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16181046426943796903noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1255278025952897149.post-34681958838306391732024-01-05T08:24:00.002-07:002024-01-05T08:24:16.391-07:00The Last Thing He Told Me by Laura Dave: book review <p><b><u></u></b></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><b><u><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiR4g-vslxDzg7vm4sHyOupeaGKOBAvHLGo7vYE-yd4_lfraPIec_8ik6iyMV9YZi_i5RK5hzS80L0ViBft1leENZrow7QNLN6teE58MQ7AtXb3H4gYEFLIguAbALwZ8D2RT1xlYILwk7g09vK5IMiMeWKPM16k2UJPAKmryntwCgPFhyphenhyphenPRGkM1_ul2mxCC/s4032/the%20last%20thing%20he%20told%20me.png" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="4032" data-original-width="3024" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiR4g-vslxDzg7vm4sHyOupeaGKOBAvHLGo7vYE-yd4_lfraPIec_8ik6iyMV9YZi_i5RK5hzS80L0ViBft1leENZrow7QNLN6teE58MQ7AtXb3H4gYEFLIguAbALwZ8D2RT1xlYILwk7g09vK5IMiMeWKPM16k2UJPAKmryntwCgPFhyphenhyphenPRGkM1_ul2mxCC/s320/the%20last%20thing%20he%20told%20me.png" width="240" /></a></u></b></div><b><u>The Last Thing He Told Me</u> by Laura Dave</b><p></p><p><b>Overview: </b>Hannah is a thirty-eight-year-old woodturner working in New York City when she meets Owen by chance. He's in town from San Francisco on a work trip, and they have an instant connection. In the two years that follow, Hannah struggles to find acceptance in his teenage daughter Bailey's life. Then, one day, Hannah gets an ominous note from Owen, and he disappears in a confusing cloud of questions. Going against law enforcement's recommendation, Hannah takes Bailey with her on a quest to answer the giant questions Owen has created and find him again. The answers they find are almost worse than the mystery. <b>Overall: 4</b></p><p><b>Characters: 4 </b>I like Hannah. She's genuinely trying her best at all times, even through very stressful situations. We learn about her background being abandoned by her parents and raised by her grandfather and her deep connection with her woodworking. This gives her depth and some guiding principles when her new husband throws her for a loop and leaves her with his teenage daughter. We know enough about Hannah to provide weight for what unfolds, but the characters aren't really the point in this book. </p><p>Bailey is a moody teenager, which Hannah is remarkably understandable about. It's mainly Hannah reminding the reader of how special and important Bailey is while we're only shown her generally hateful attitude. I wish Bailey had been allowed to have a few more layers, but I also get that this is a first person novel told from Hannah's point of view, so there's only so much we're getting into her. </p><p>We also don't know a ton about Owen, and as the novel progresses, it turns out everything Hannah and Bailey know about Owen is fake. We get small glimpses of his character through flashbacks that are incorporated every few chapters that show that he is sweet and caring and attentive. These aren't very long or detailed, but they are incredibly important to give the reader at least a small indication about why this guy is so worth fighting for. </p><p><b>Plot: 4 </b>It takes about 120 or so pages to really get to the thriller aspect of this book, which is surprising because the book is only 300 pages. It's not even that there's too much set up, she just spends a lot of time sitting at home and processing, meeting various law enforcement agents, and sitting with her friend, Jules before she starts figuring anything out. Even after they leave the city on their quest, it takes a while for them to find any leads that get them closer to the answer and raise the stakes. The anxiety it creates grows slowly. While it's never a particularly scary novel for a thriller, there is more urgency at the end. It's fast paced even before it gets off the ground, and each chapter asks interesting enough questions that it makes you want to keep reading and discovering the layers of deceit and the why's behind them. </p><p><b>Writing: 4 </b>This is a super quick, easy read. I finished it in a day without really trying. It's only 300 pages, but it's also compulsively readable, and I was shocked at how quickly I was able to read a page. The writing doesn't feel overly simplistic. Instead, it feels like Dave is making a very intentional choice to not let the writing interrupt sinking completely into the story and allowing it to come alive. The way she writes is super digestible, which helps the pace and urgency. It was a good read, and if you're looking for a bit of a thriller but not one that'll make it hard for you to sleep, this is a good choice. </p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: #ff00fe;"><b>More on Reading, Writing, and Me:</b></span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><b><i><a href="http://www.readingwritingandme.com/2024/01/my-2023-reading-stats-in-great-detail.html" target="_blank">My 2023 Reading Stats</a></i></b></p><p style="text-align: center;"><b><i><a href="http://www.readingwritingandme.com/2023/12/ripe-by-sarah-rose-etter-book-review.html" target="_blank">Ripe review</a></i></b></p><p style="text-align: center;"><b><i><a href="http://www.readingwritingandme.com/2023/12/2023-goals-check-in-2024-goals-making.html" target="_blank">2023 Goals Check in and 2024 Goals</a></i></b></p><p style="text-align: center;"><b><i><a href="http://www.readingwritingandme.com/2023/12/the-pisces-by-melissa-broder-book-review.html" target="_blank">The Pisces review</a></i></b></p>Lanie Bricehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16181046426943796903noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1255278025952897149.post-85889587709483377182024-01-02T10:26:00.007-07:002024-01-02T10:32:11.148-07:00My 2023 Reading Stats in Great Detail: Reading Over 100 Books in 2023<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh2QiIJB9-0P60N-Pd6DqXHuph1VUEaFET1qR5_wz5fTt5PlP7ZvdDE-WrZsGJfHTbcl7aKrLAfwIKbFD16gr1vu-lzsg6WdbYV_EBeU4XyeaBoayOPGFuOs3CrM4Qc-W2lj3V0o4ZDpR_86BgLWICK8nePXATrbKDZrXkI3CXz5T4cmYZ4FgntwRKUjvWr/s4032/close%20up%20shelf.png" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="4032" data-original-width="3024" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh2QiIJB9-0P60N-Pd6DqXHuph1VUEaFET1qR5_wz5fTt5PlP7ZvdDE-WrZsGJfHTbcl7aKrLAfwIKbFD16gr1vu-lzsg6WdbYV_EBeU4XyeaBoayOPGFuOs3CrM4Qc-W2lj3V0o4ZDpR_86BgLWICK8nePXATrbKDZrXkI3CXz5T4cmYZ4FgntwRKUjvWr/s320/close%20up%20shelf.png" width="240" /></a></div>This is always a monster of a post to write, and it's taken me multiple days to compile everything, but I officially have every random stat and figure about my reading that I could pull from my spreadsheet. I've been sharing my reading stats on the blog for years, and I've included much of that data in this post as well, but if you want to look back at last year's, you can do so <a href=" http://www.readingwritingandme.com/2023/01/my-2022-reading-stats-in-review-2023.html" target="_blank">here</a>. This was a big reading year for me, and it was interesting to see how I stacked up against my early high school self who spent full days sitting there with a book. Whether you read 5 books or 400 books, if you picked up a book this year, that's a major win, and you should feel super proud of yourself! As you'll see, sometimes beating your reading goal doesn't come from a place of having a good year overall. So that's just my little caveat that reading is impacted by so many factors.<p></p><h2 style="text-align: left;">The Major Stats</h2><div>This is definitely my biggest win of the post, and maybe the biggest win of all my goals personal and professional in 2023. I finished <b>126 books</b>, which, as you'll see when I start comparing years past is quite the accomplishment and something I did not anticipate when I started 2023. With only setting my goal at 50 books, I managed to well exceed what I'd aimed for.</div><div><br /></div><div>Now, for some context, here's the number of books I've read in years past so you can see just how big of an outlier my 2023 total was, especially in recent years. It was my biggest reading year yet. I will caveat this with the fact that I barely listened to audiobooks in 2017, so almost all of those books were either e-books or physical books that I had to sit down and read. This isn't to say that audiobooks aren't reading, but it is worth noting that the audiobooks allowed me to continue reading while doing other things like cleaning the house and vastly expanded my possible reading time. 2017 and 2018 me had the advantage of being in online, asynchronous high school, though, so there was infinitely more time than present me bouncing between taking 19 hours at school and a 6 day a week summer job. </div><div><br /></div><div>2023: 126 books</div><div>2022: 37 books</div><div>2021: 39 books</div><div>2020: 74 books</div><div>2019: 88 books</div><div>2018: 116 books</div><div>2017: 119 books</div><div><br /></div><div>The next logical questions is, sure, you read a lot of books, but what does that look like in pages? No shame in reading short books – they tend to be my personal preference – but I've found that it's interesting to compare pages read year to year because the total number of titles doesn't tell the whole story of how much reading I actually did. Take 2022 and 2021 for instance. I only read 2 more books in 2021, but I read significantly more pages too, or 2017 in pages vs 2023. This year's grand total was <b>40,960 pages</b>. That's a lot of pages! I did read two over or almost 600 page books in December alone, and some of the nonfiction audiobooks I finished were hefty, so I was looking forward to a solid number here. This year, I really dropped my fear of reading big books or books that might take a while to complete, and this is the metric where I get to see that come through. Finally clearing that hurdle of fearing how long it would take me to finish a long book has opened up my reading world, and conquering that in my biggest reading year yet helped reinforce that. To compare it to page counts of years past:</div><div><br /></div><div><div>2023: 40,960 pages</div><div>2022: 12,304 pages</div><div>2021: 13,760 pages </div><div>2020: 24,878 pages</div><div>2019: 30,220 pages</div><div>2018: 40,519 pages</div><div>2017: 37,626 pages</div></div><div><br /></div><div>Calculating this section gives me a new gratitude that I finally learned how to do some things with a spreadsheet in the last two years. I have manually added it all up before, and let me tell you, it's a nightmare. I am a books girl, not a math girl. </div><h2 style="text-align: left;">The Genre Breakdown</h2><div>Let's get this out of the way quickly. Most of the books I read this year fall into broadly fiction or nonfiction. I've used much more elaborate tagging schemes in years past, but this year I was lazy. I used a few special genre tags, but if I had any doubt, I just called it either fiction or nonfiction. In hindsight, it'd be fun to see how many biographies, memoirs, histories, science books, etc I'd read within nonfiction, but alas, I was not that specific. I did give out a couple specific fiction tags, so there's a bit of insight I can give you there, but this is definitely the weakest data set of the breakdown. All literary and general fiction and even some books with speculative elements all got lumped in here. Also, I know short story collections and YA aren't genres, but this is the only place it makes sense to give a breakdown of these categories. </div><div><br /></div><div>Nonfiction: 57</div><div>General Umbrella "Fiction": 57</div><div><div>Short Stories: 3</div><div>YA: 3</div></div><div>Romance: 2</div><div>Horror: 1 (though, thinking back, I feel like I read at least 3 books with some kind of horror element, just not enough to primarily call it this)</div><div>Thriller: 1</div><div>Mystery: 1</div><div>Mythology Retelling: 1</div><div><br /></div><div>The results of my poor tagging are now abundantly clear. As I noted with horror, literary fiction plays with so many random genre elements without being entirely genre that they're hard to categorize, and the ones I did place in specific genres were done off Goodreads tags and vibes, so it's incredibly imprecise. I did read overall more spooky books this year, something I've shied away from in the past. Granted, I say spooky for a reason. I still cannot stomach straight up scary, and these are all pretty mild interpretations of the genres.</div><div>I also want to note that nonfiction and fiction look neck and neck at first glance, but all the other individual categories are all fiction titles, so really I read 69 fiction books to 57 nonfiction books. I dabbled in reading some short story collections this year, which was fun. They're so under appreciated, and as I try to write more short stories, it feels important to read them. And you'll notice a small gesture to the YA world. These reads were from favorite authors I still have a soft spot for, and most were from ARCs publishers emailed over to me. I also read less romance than in the last few years. I found romance to be a good entryway into reading books meant for adults as many of my favorite YA writers were moving there and a lot of those books have a voiceyness and pacing that is more akin to YA. The more comfortable I got with my new age category, though, the more I realized that romance just doesn't appeal to me that much just like I don't read much sci-fi or fantasy. I'll pick it up here or there, but I largely moved away from it this year.</div><h2 style="text-align: left;">The Ratings Are In</h2><div>Now it's time to look at the ratings I've given out this year, which taps into a bit more of the book blogger side of things. Did I enjoy the books I read? My average score was a <b>3.68</b>, which would round up to a 4 on the whole and half star rating system I use. This is super solid! Given the number of books that I read and that I'm a lot more likely to power through audiobooks that I just feel meh about, I think this means that I did enjoy the majority of what I read this year. </div><div>My review philosophy has generally stayed pretty consistent. I give out 5s pretty rarely, so they're weighty. There are books that I absolutely love that I give a 4.5 in the end. At that level, it's really just a vibes thing for me. 4s mean the book was good and I enjoyed it. I just didn't <i>love</i> it, and a 3.5 is generally where books that feel average fall. I don't give out many 3s and rarely anything below that because I'd rather DNF than finish a book I'm going to give that kind of score. If your book is a 2, I probably quit reading it long before it made the spreadsheet. </div><div>So which books got the coveted 5 stars this year? You can check out my <a href="http://www.readingwritingandme.com/2023/12/top-10-favorite-fiction-books-of-2023.html" target="_blank">Top 10 fiction reads</a> for a mix of the 5s and 4.5s that I loved, but here's a list of the ultimate 5 star holders in the order I read them (there are <b>11 total</b>). There are too many 4.5s to list:</div><div><br /></div><div><a href="http://www.readingwritingandme.com/2023/03/book-review-pizza-girl-by-jean-kyoung.html" target="_blank"><i>Pizza Girl</i> </a>by Jean Kyoung Frazier </div><div><i><a href="http://www.readingwritingandme.com/2021/01/reread-reviews-emergency-contact-by.html" target="_blank">Emergency Contact</a></i> by Mary H.K. Choi (reread)</div><div><i><a href="http://www.readingwritingandme.com/2023/05/romance-review-book-lovers-by-emily.html" target="_blank">Book Lovers</a></i> by Emily Henry</div><div><i><a href="http://www.readingwritingandme.com/2023/06/book-review-pineapple-street-by-jenny.html" target="_blank">Pineapple Street</a></i> by Jenny Jackson</div><div><a href="http://www.readingwritingandme.com/2023/08/book-review-iona-iversons-rules-for.html" target="_blank"><i>Iona Iverson's Rules for Commuting</i> </a>by Clare Pooley</div><div><i><a href="http://www.readingwritingandme.com/2023/08/book-review-mostly-true-story-of-tanner.html" target="_blank">The Mostly True Story of Tanner and Louise</a> </i>by Colleen Oakley</div><div><i><a href="http://www.readingwritingandme.com/2023/11/if-i-survive-you-by-jonathan-escoffery.html" target="_blank">If I Survive You</a></i> by Jonathan Escoffery</div><div><i>Even If It Breaks Your Heart</i> by Erin Hahn (2024 YA release)</div><div><i><a href="http://www.readingwritingandme.com/2023/11/death-valley-by-melissa-broder-book.html" target="_blank">Death Valley</a></i> by Melissa Broder</div><div><i><a href="http://www.readingwritingandme.com/2023/12/on-beauty-by-zadie-smith-book-review.html" target="_blank">On Beauty</a></i> by Zadie Smith</div><div><i><a href="http://www.readingwritingandme.com/2023/12/wellness-by-nathan-hill-book-review.html" target="_blank">Wellness</a></i> by Nathan Hill</div><div><br /></div><div>On the more negative side of things, I gave out<b> two 2 star</b> ratings, both to nonfiction audiobooks. One by a prominent self-help writer and one by a popular podcaster. Since I didn't review them on the blog and can't give nuanced thoughts as to why in this space, I'll let them remain nameless. But that was my lowest rating this year. Otherwise, I gave out nineteen 3 stars, twenty-seven 3.5 stars, fifty-two 4 stars, and fifteen 4.5 stars. </div><div><br /></div><div>To close out this section, let's see how my average ratings stack up to years past. I'm honestly shocked that this is my first year that my average rating dipped out of the 4s, but I think the audiobook factor I mentioned earlier has a lot to do with it. Also, interestingly, it started trending down last year before this steep drop. I'm not sure what to make of that. </div><div><p style="caret-color: rgb(33, 33, 33); color: #212121;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">2017: 4.2</span></p><p style="caret-color: rgb(33, 33, 33); color: #212121;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">2018: 4.24</span></p><p style="caret-color: rgb(33, 33, 33); color: #212121;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">2019: 4.24</span></p><p style="caret-color: rgb(33, 33, 33); color: #212121;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">2020: 4.27</span></p><p style="caret-color: rgb(33, 33, 33); color: #212121;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">2021: 4.29</span></p><p style="caret-color: rgb(33, 33, 33); color: #212121;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">2022: 4.11</span></p><p style="caret-color: rgb(33, 33, 33); color: #212121;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">2023: 3.86</span></p></div><h2 style="text-align: left;">When Were They Published</h2><div>I always find it interesting to see when the books I'm reading were published. Of course, I love staying up on new releases, so they always constitute a lot of my year's reading. But, in years past, as I've started to dive into a new category, I've read more and more backlist books alongside the new releases. I really like having this mix, though, as a book blogger, I definitely feel a pressure to stay up to date on the new releases. Ultimately, <b>56 </b>of the books I read were published in 2023. </div><div>As for the oldest book, I was surprised to remember that I'd read a book from 1967 this year. This was <i>The Woman Destroyed</i>. Though, granted, I read it because it was trendy on bookstagram. I love seeing books from the past get tons of new attention alongside newer releases. Other older books I read include <i>The English Patient</i>, which came out for 1992, that I read for class. And <i>On Beauty</i> from 2005, which I loved. There's plenty of books from the early 2000s and early 2010s sprinkled in along with plenty of somewhat new releases from the 2020s. </div><h2 style="text-align: left;">My Best Months</h2><div><div>So let's take a closer look at these 126 books together and start breaking down exactly how my year of reading played out. Here's a look at how many books I read each month:</div><div><br /></div><div>January: 5 books</div><div>February: 7 books </div><div>March: 13 books</div><div>April: 11 books</div><div>May: 7 books</div><div>June: 8 books</div><div>July: 5 books</div><div>August: 5 books</div><div>September: 15 books</div><div>October: 17 books</div><div>November: 17 books</div><div>December: 16 books</div><div><br /></div><div>You can see the year got off to a pretty average start. Well, better than my typical averages, but nothing crazy. In March, we see our first double digit uptick in books read. That is honestly because the Spring 2023 semester was a really tough one for me. I didn't enjoy most of my classes, I started to feel really isolated and unhappy in LA, and I desperately needed an escape. Reading got me through a childhood of always feeling out of place, and I decided to recommit myself to that kind of turn inward as a coping mechanism. This is to say, as happy as I am that I spent the time reading and as proud as I am of the total, sometimes there's some less happy motivations propelling these huge numbers of books forward. </div><div>You'll notice in the summer months, I clocked relatively low numbers for the year as a whole. I went home this summer, worked full time at a place I loved being at, and was surrounded by family. It was a much healthier situation, and I managed to still read a book a week or a bit more, which I think is great. In future years, I'd probably like to see most months look like this because I was busy and living a full life. Just as long as it doesn't signal a reading slump. Then, in the fall, there's a major spike again. I had a hard transition back to LA, but I'd also already figured out my coping strategy of throwing myself into books entirely. Also, in the fall, to combat the silence in my apartment, I dove deep into audiobooks, replacing a lot of the podcast listening I was doing before. Leaning into audiobooks as well as a commitment to being on my phone as little as possible and therefore reading on the train and in any random downtime boosted my fall semester numbers. It's funny to see that in December with a full two weeks to just read I didn't have a record month, but that's likely to do with being home and not really listening to audiobooks for as much of the day. </div><div>While I was super excited to see the final total this year, breaking it down by month and analyzing the why has made me realize that this isn't something I necessarily want to repeat. I want to keep being an active and engaged reader. It's one of my favorite hobbies. And I want to keep replacing social media time with books as well. I just hope that in future years my reading isn't motivated from a sad place. Thankfully, my time in LA is almost over, so hopefully I'll be able to pack in the books till early May, give myself a nice head start, and then see where things take me for the rest of the year. </div></div><h2 style="text-align: left;">All The Formats</h2><div>Last year, I talked about how I was moving away from ARCs and no longer requesting them. I felt like I was reading too inconsistently to take on a responsibility like that. Having found my reading flow again, though, I did request and was granted a couple ARCs this year, which was a lot of fun. I love getting to read advanced books as a book blogger, and I'd missed that perk of the job for a while. While I still want to keep my ARC consumption low, I'm excited to get into reading more of them in 2024 and hopefully bring you my thoughts on the latest books faster than the interminable library hold lines allow. </div><div>That leads me to talking about all the different formats I read books in this year. Obviously, audiobooks were a new major player. Primarily, I read on my Kindle because it's so much easier to take back and forth to school with me. At home over winter break, I've gotten to indulge in a lot more print books, so I think there should be a quality spread this year:</div><div><br /></div><div>E-book: 55</div><div>Audiobook: 55</div><div>Hardcover: 11</div><div>Paperback: 6</div><div><br /></div><div>I really think if you're reading a high number of books each year and living a normal life that audiobooks probably play a key role in that final total. Or at least that's true for me. There's nothing better than getting to read while doing things where you normally couldn't read. Over the course of this year, I fell out of love with a lot of the podcasts I was listening to. There are still a couple that I check in with, but when I really started to curate my social media feeds and be intentional about what I was consuming, I realized a lot of the podcasts I listened to were funneling the same ideas I was trying to get away from online. Still, I spent a lot of time alone in an apartment just craving voices around me, so over the course of a few months, I transitioned to doing almost all my listening through audiobooks. Realizing Libby offered audiobooks was also a game changer since I've always enjoyed them but services like Audible are so expensive. It's really fun to read more nonfiction, learn about a ton of random things in a focused way, and get to utilize the library in a new way. Libby has powered basically all my reading this year, as you'll see in a second. </div><div><br /></div><div>It's also worth accounting for where I got my books. The vast majority are library loans. I would not read like I do without the library. I definitely did some book shopping this winter, which factored in, and like I mentioned earlier, I was lucky enough to be granted a few ARCs as well. Here's a breakdown of where the books I read this year came from. </div><div><br /></div><div>Library (digital): 106</div><div><div>Books I Own: 13</div></div><div>ARC: 4</div><div>Library (physical): 4</div><div><br /></div><div>This year was a very digital reading year. I read a couple books I bought for school, fun, or were already on my shelf, but largely, my Kindle did the heavy lifting whether from the library or ARCs. I never pay for e-books because Libby is such a fantastic resource, and it makes reading on the go so so easy. Please get a library card and download their app if you haven't! Reading mostly digital books meant that every time I left the house, my book was in my hand, and I worked hard to choose reading before looking at my phone. I've found reading digitally also helps me read more because it's easier to read in the dark, while eating, or while lying down than with a physical book. When I'm reading a physical book, I tend to sit down and read </div><div><br /></div><div>I also thought it would be fun to calculate how much I saved by using the library. My hometown library used to print the amount saved on the bottom of your check-out receipt, and I thought that was the coolest thing, so I decided I'd try to calculate it for myself. While there's price variability in format and there's always a range on what's charged, most of the books I bought this year were around $28 for a new copy. To keep it simple, I used that figure multiplied by the 110 books I read from the library this year which meant I saved a staggering <b>$3,080</b> by using the library. Like I said, I wouldn't read nearly as much as I do without the library access. </div><h2 style="text-align: left;">The Longest & The Shortest</h2><div>We touched on pages a bit earlier, but I thought it'd be fun to talk about the longest and shortest books I read this year. The longest goes to <i>The Bee Sting</i>, which shouldn't surprise anyone that reads this blog. That book is very very long at 645 pages. Actually, that's a lie. The longest book I read this year was <i>Empire of Pain</i>, but it was an audiobook, and I didn't know how long it was until I recorded it in my spreadsheet, so it doesn't feel the same. But that book clocked in at 560 pages. I read <b>12 books</b> total that I consider long (400 pages or longer). The competition for the shortest book I read this year is much tighter. It ultimately goes to <i>Mouth to Mouth</i> at 179 pages, which is the only book I read that dipped under 200 pages. Going through my spreadsheet, I was shocked at the number of books I read that were 240 pages exactly. There were 4. I know that doesn't seem like a lot, but there was no other page count that exactly matched across multiple books.</div><h2 style="text-align: left;">My Blogger Report Card</h2><div>The second half of this year, I really fell back in love with book blogging and got much more serious about it once again. Reading a ton, I think, naturally spills into my enthusiasm for talking about books and wanting to see growth on the blog. I wrote tons of reviews this year, so many that I still have ten waiting to be published from 2023. Which leads me to my big blogger slump of the year. I wrote every review right after I finished reading the book, but sometimes, it would take me weeks to post the reviews. Sometimes even months. I was bad at remembering to post and even worse at making the accompanying Insta post. This is something I tried to put a much more concerted effort into in the second half the year, and I even upped my photo game and creativity along with it. </div><div>This fall, I also tried to get off my personal social media, and while I filled that void in a lot of ways, spending more time on my Bookstagram was definitely a byproduct. I figured that if I was using my book blogger account I was "working", building a network, talking to other readers, seeing what tags and popular posts were out there. Those were all good things, right? Regardless of whether I was harming the spirits of my original ban or not, the more time I devoted to it, the more growth I saw, which was really gratifying. I'd let my bookish platforms fall by the wayside in recent years, and it was fun to see how much they flourished once again when I gave them a bit of water and tried to let them bloom. It didn't take much effort to see a great return (though, that's in my very limited view and not like, actually impressive viral numbers. My corner of the bookish internet has always been pretty small and always will be). Though my Instagram community isn't huge, I am constantly amazed that over 10,000 of you read my posts every month. And while the new ones get love, it's even cooler to see how reviews I wrote years ago for books and authors I really cared about like Kathleen Glasgow's work still gets so much attention on the blog. That's always a good reminder that the work I do now doesn't just disappear in a day or two when it's no longer at the top of someone's feed. A post I write tomorrow could help someone find their new favorite read five years from now, and that's pretty awesome. </div><div> I'm really proud of how I was able to give a new life to the blog and start to settle in this new age category. Now that I've rediscovered my footing in this world, I'm excited to see what will come next. And more than anything, I'm really really glad that when I was in a slump with the bookish world, I didn't leave this site behind. It means just as much if not more to me now as an almost 21 year old as it did at 14. Let's make 2024 another great reading year! And thanks to all of you for sticking around. </div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: #800180;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: #800180;"><b>More End of Year Posts:</b></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><b><i><a href="http://www.readingwritingandme.com/2023/12/2023-goals-check-in-2024-goals-making.html" target="_blank">2024 Goals and 2023 Goals Reflection</a></i></b></div><div style="text-align: center;"><b><i><a href="http://www.readingwritingandme.com/2023/12/my-top-nonfiction-and-audiobook-reads.html" target="_blank">Top Nonfiction Reads and Audiobooks of 2023</a></i></b></div><div style="text-align: center;"><b><i><a href="http://www.readingwritingandme.com/2023/12/top-10-favorite-fiction-books-of-2023.html" target="_blank">Top 10 Favorite Fiction Reads of 2023</a></i></b></div><div><br /></div>Lanie Bricehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16181046426943796903noreply@blogger.com0