i expected to enjoy this book, because i love translated literature by women and i never tire of reading aboi wish that were my life in three stories.
i expected to enjoy this book, because i love translated literature by women and i never tire of reading about france.
i didn't expect to be so impressed by it!
the author's self awareness, the way she writes emotionally but cleanly and sparsely, her rendering of her life through such clear and simple prose...all of it blew me away. i was enraptured by the last novella in particular, gobbling up the pages, my heart hurting, hoping for a happily ever after.
so who cares about the weaker moments.
bottom line: i am so pleasantly surprised. by a book i expected to like! what a treat.
(review to come / thanks to the publisher for the e-arc)...more
(review to come) (thank you from the bottom of my heart to the publisher for the arc) (buddy read of a lifetime with my favorite girshe's done it again.
(review to come) (thank you from the bottom of my heart to the publisher for the arc) (buddy read of a lifetime with my favorite girl elle)
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this is the most exciting news of my year and i got engaged the week it was announced....more
it has one of the best beginnings i've ever read, and it has one of the best endings i've ever read, and all of i need this book injected in my veins.
it has one of the best beginnings i've ever read, and it has one of the best endings i've ever read, and all of the middle parts are pretty damn good too.
its explorations of family, of naming, of the permanently unhealed wound of slavery, of gender and power, and of love are unforgettable.
i hate reviewing books i love at the best of times, and for this one in particular there is just no way i can do it justice.
bottom line: please, for the love of yourself, read it....more
halle said this book is the 70s equivalent of sally rooney, and she was completely right.
this is the kind of book that is so enjoyable for every seconhalle said this book is the 70s equivalent of sally rooney, and she was completely right.
this is the kind of book that is so enjoyable for every second it makes you want to go back and lower the rating of everything you've read of late.
it is so funny and so precise and so clever, and a page will have a random unshakable description that is so goddamn weird and right. i fell completely in love with these characters and with this book, and as the end of it approached i read slower and slower in the hopes i'd discover 100 or so pages had been stuck together and hiding.
i’m a longstanding opponent of the not like other girls trope (i’m on the record since like 2015, which mei am never happier than when i feel special.
i’m a longstanding opponent of the not like other girls trope (i’m on the record since like 2015, which means this hatred significantly outlives most of my opinions, relationships, and sweaters), but i do like to be unlike other people. i turn the average meal-to-dessert ratio on its head. i stan dunkin over starbucks. i am in the midst of a lifelong quest to have the single most disturbing sleep schedule i can.
and of course, above all, i am an appreciator of a good unpopular opinion.
however.
i don’t think my opinion of this book should be unique.
this book has a devastating 3.19, and this is in spite of being complete perfection from beginning to end.
i picked up a library ebook of this, and while several of my very favorites in the world loved this book, i kinda expected to 3.5 it and move on into my resting state of complete forgetting as soon as possible.
instead, i found myself highlighting swaths of text, almost buzzing with that oh my god is this is a five star this might be a five star feeling, resonating with the emotions depicted and stunned by how lovely and clear the writing was.
and then i finished it, bought a copy, and reread and annotated it barely a week after reading it for the first time.
it’s really an easy five star, filled with taboo topics and fascinating characters and revealing dynamics. it’s about love and sex, gender and power, and how to find yourself or even know what that would look like. it’s about searching for happiness and meaning while being unable to admit that’s what you’re doing.
it’s everything that i think about the most.
bottom line: read it!!!
-------------------- reread update
nothing says five star read like rereading after a week
-------------------- pre-review
never happier than when i love a book everyone hates :)
review to come / 4.5 or 5 stars
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the best thing that can possibly happen to a person is when they get very into a subgenre that is also simultaneously the single most trendy and common subgenre there is.
which, if you have the misfortune of having encountered me before, you know happens precisely never.
this book is so beautifullyi am almost speechless.
which, if you have the misfortune of having encountered me before, you know happens precisely never.
this book is so beautifully written, so emotive, and so brilliant. i initially gave it 5 stars, and i would have kept it there, except i have since read bluets and found it a slightly more satisfying (for me) version of this.
even still, it has to be 4.5.
han kang hive stays winning.
bottom line: wow wow wow.
------------ pre-review
holy f*cking moley.
review to come / 4.5 stars
------------ currently-reading updates
i have loyalty to two things in life: brown butter chocolate chip cookies, and han kang
periodically, i have to check to see if i still dislike poetry. for character development.
unfortunately, this has had, in this case, an unforeseen sidperiodically, i have to check to see if i still dislike poetry. for character development.
unfortunately, this has had, in this case, an unforeseen side effect: THIS TIME, I DID.
i read this last month (okay, two months ago, what about it i’m terribly behind) and i felt this sneaky sinking feeling i should 5 star it. but not to worry, because i’m doing this new totally normal not at all deranged thing where if i want to give a book 5 stars, i have to reread it before i review it.
so usually i am reading said book twice in one month.
like i said - normal stuff.
so i read this again. it’s still a 5.
this is prose poetry, which in this case means a tiny little book divided into number paragraphs of stunning writing, not only doable for me but pretty ideal. generally it’s my favorite kind of book: lovely turns of phrase, filled with beautiful explorations of what it is to be human / to hurt / to feel / to love.
throw in a bunch of fun facts and interesting topics and observations about sex and i’m in love.
bottom line: i never in a million years expected to say this but…kind of a dream!...more
to have been in a reading slump for more than a month, maybe longer, during which reading never even occurs to you and feels unnatural when it does, ato have been in a reading slump for more than a month, maybe longer, during which reading never even occurs to you and feels unnatural when it does, and then you start to feel it might be over and you finish a short book or two but then you pick one up that you actually can't stop reading, that you find your mind touching on in idle moments and your hands picking up whenever you have a spare moment - what a thing!!
this was beautiful, stimulating, and lovely, and reading a book called autumn during autumn, which is also my favorite season...pure bliss.
i adore what i learned. i adored the end. i adore feelings precisely like the one i had while reading this, finally out of a long, mournful reading slump.
bottom line: it's taking everything in me to wait till winter to read winter!
------------------ currently-reading updates
tis the season!
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i'll admit it. i added this book for aesthetic alone...more
I, for example, come extraordinarily close, and even I have my flaws. I work too hard. I give too much to charity. I cannot, FOR THENobody is perfect.
I, for example, come extraordinarily close, and even I have my flaws. I work too hard. I give too much to charity. I cannot, FOR THE LIFE OF ME, WRITE A POSITIVE REVIEW.
I can write negative reviews all day, and have fun doing it. Give me a book that is offensive, or dumb, or just plain bad, and we'll have the time of our lives roasting each other up.
But when I love a book?
Hoo boy. Bad news bears.
The highest compliment I can give a book is that it reminds me of Sally Rooney, the author of my heart, and Brandon Taylor's clear and lovely style does that in spades. This book wrapped me up in it, affecting the language of my internal monologue and the nuances of my mood and refusing to allow me to put it down until I finished - keeping itself at the forefront of my mind even if I did manage to take a break.
I read the author's short story collection earlier in the month, and while I didn't completely love it, I couldn't really shake it. Reading this seemed like a foregone conclusion, and was almost exactly like reading a novel-length version of some of my favorite stories from it.
This story, of Wallace, a gay Black science grad student surrounded by whiteness and solitude, even when in the company of others, has so much to say about violence, about race, about loneliness, about sex and love and cruelty.
There were very many characters in this book that I didn't like, but also I wasn't supposed to, but also even when I'm not supposed to I usually do anThere were very many characters in this book that I didn't like, but also I wasn't supposed to, but also even when I'm not supposed to I usually do anyway, often more than when I AM supposed to.
And also, in addition to this, there was a character I loved so much that I cried through her chapters (of which there are only two), an insanely earnest and vulnerable moment the likes of which has never occurred to me ever.
How the hell am I supposed to rate that?
I guess, considering that it's been a month since I read this and I haven't been able to stop reading or talking or thinking about it, but also it's been that same amount of time that there's still been one thing bothering me...four point five stars.
For me, this is a book of characters. The writing is lovely, but in relation to the people it creates and summons. There isn't much of a plot to speak of, beyond the shifting dynamics and relationships between them, namely Cleo and Frank, a semi-green-card marriage built mostly on passion and age difference, and those around them: Frank's younger half-sister, Zoë; Frank's friends, Anders, and another more boring and half-hearted inclusion whose name I don't remember; Cleo's best friend Quentin; Zoë's best friend Audrey; and finally, ELEANOR.
So basically this will be my review of this group of people.
(I keep wanting to call them people. They don't exist, emma! To my eternal chagrin.)
First - I didn't look any of those names up. So the fact that they stuck with me the way they did says a lot, no? I have the functioning memory of a goldfish, and not in the Ted Lasso motivational speaking way.
Let's start with the bad news.
I hate Cleo and her goofy artsy poetic depression very much. I find attempts at making violent mental illness beautiful to be very gross and in poor taste, at best, and devastatingly unrealistic at worse. I, like every vaguely creative young person, have multiple diagnoses, but my brain chemistry failures never include installing art with my self harmed body at the center for my loved ones to find, I will tell you that.
Who, in the midst of a depressive breakdown, even has the energy?
This is the only part of this book I genuinely and actively disliked. Fortunately or unfortunately, it was nowhere close to enough to get me to shut up about it.
Anyway.
Many of the people in Cleo's life are also somehow both unrealistic and uninteresting, like her drug addicted and toxic gay best friend (cliché, cliché) best friend Quentin and her brief love interest Anders (an older man who sleeps with younger women and doesn't view them as people, how original).
Frank, though he is a workaholic alcoholic with a younger wife and thereby also a cliché, somehow pulls off the grand accomplishment of being consistently intriguing to read about, as does his very annoying sister Zoë and her rarely present friend Audrey.
But none of them really matter very much, somewhat because all of them are supposed to be complicated and hard to like, but mostly because the greatest character of my reading life is in these pages.
Eleanor, Eleanor, Eleanor.
I love her so much I don't know what to do with myself. Her life, her jokes, her work, her allusions. Her mom and dad, her brother, her friends. Her house and her train rides and - I am genuinely getting worked up and I have to stop.
The last thing I'll say is that lately I have been holding a pen in my hand while I read, but I'm rarely prompted to use it.
There were countless exceptions in this.
Bottom line: If only characters were real.
------------------- tbr review
the very idea of cleopatra and frankenstein...think of what they could accomplish.
i would like to apologize to all of the dinners i ruined with friends, my boyfriend, family, and other loved ones because i cofirst five star of 2024.
i would like to apologize to all of the dinners i ruined with friends, my boyfriend, family, and other loved ones because i could not stop talking about the brilliant, dark, vibe-ruining concept of this book.
this was my first toni morrison, my first new favorite of the year, and the first time in a long time i've been completely dumbstruck while reading.
beautifully written, cleverly constructed, populated with unforgettable moments and characters.
i don't know what to say!
bottom line: a book that makes me speechless. a nearly impossible feat.
-------------------- tbr review
by reading my first toni morrison i believe i will ascend into a higher plane...more
After 18 years of literacy, 7 years on this hellsite, a thousand books read, and every genre tried at least one, I am finally ready to declare it.
The After 18 years of literacy, 7 years on this hellsite, a thousand books read, and every genre tried at least one, I am finally ready to declare it.
The best books are short works of literary fiction.
Here is a list of things the aforementioned subgenre has going for it: - They're beautifully written. - You can read them in a day. - They make you feel smart. - They are often brilliant and/or clever and/or thoughtful. - They make you think. - Even if you don't like it, it's over very quickly.
This book, for example, is very gorgeous, and philosophical, and made me ponder quite a bit, and I read it in a day. And I had time to read a whole other book.
Couldn't ask for more!
Bottom line: This could be a 5 star someday!
------------------ pre-review
i think i'm finally figuring out how to pick up books i'll like.
only took me a million years.
review to come / at least 4.5
------------------ tbr review
what's your favorite genre that you made up? mine is short books with low average ratings...more
Here is a description of one of the best kinds of books, which is also among the best reading experiences:
When you wake up on a weekend morning duringHere is a description of one of the best kinds of books, which is also among the best reading experiences:
When you wake up on a weekend morning during which you don't have to really do anything, so you get your cup of coffee and get back in bed with your book, intending to read for only a little while, and instead you fall totally into the story and before you know it it's the afternoon and you've finished an excellent story and you're still in your pajamas and your coffee is cold.
This is an incredibly specific type of read to me, and one I only have probably once a year. I cherish it.
It requires the following: - lovely writing - characters I care about - a story that grabs me but is also comforting
Obviously, since my finding even one of these traits in a book is a rare feat that requires a parade and/or block party to properly commemorate its triannual accomplishment, all three in the span of a few hundred pages takes the kind of specific magic called for in old-timey witches' potions. A protagonist I truly like is approximately as fantastical and hard to come by as newts' eyes, or powdered sea urchin, or whatever.
I did kind of have to manually stay in this, from time to time - ideally I look at a page at around 11 am and look up upon shutting the book what feels like a moment later to discover it's hours later, and in this case I had to choose to stay with this, not consistently carried away by it.
So it's a four star miracle. But a miracle all the same.
Bottom line: I already feel nostalgic for this reading experience. In case that wasn't abundantly clear.
----------------- pre-review
holy moley.
i'm glad i waited to read a print copy. the audiobook could not do this story justice.
review to come / 4 stars
----------------- currently-reading updates
learning my lesson
--------
taking this off my currently reading because i just realized the audiobook was playing for approximately one hour and i was not even slightly listening.
Sometimes, something can be masterfully done and still be pointless.
McDonald's franchises can be inside beautiful buildings. Abstract art can be...in Sometimes, something can be masterfully done and still be pointless.
McDonald's franchises can be inside beautiful buildings. Abstract art can be...in existence. And a story like this one, the millionth book about a male unreliable narrator doing horrible things, can be excellent.
But why does it matter?
The fries will still taste the same (good for a few minutes and then not even food after that), I will still not understand art, and this story will still have nothing to add.
Since there has BEEN a canon to literary about, there have been books about men who are unreliable and bad. The writing style can differ, the evils that the men commit can vary, but fundamentally they are saying and doing the same thing.
So even this great author adding to that population still doesn't actually add anything. Because they're all the same.
Does that make sense?
Bottom line: I'm not angry, I'm disappointed.
Also, the abstract art part was a joke. That one's on me.
I mean it about the fries, though.
----------------- pre-review
this is a very brilliant book that i did not care for much at all.
review to come / 3ish stars
----------------- currently-reading updates
let's try this again
-----------------
i have to put this on hold, because i am currently about as likely to finish a 500 page book as i am to scale mount everest.
i read most of this stone-faced, face unchanged even as i was recalling repressed traumas with needle-like stabs, even as my heart ached for carmen mai read most of this stone-faced, face unchanged even as i was recalling repressed traumas with needle-like stabs, even as my heart ached for carmen maria machado, even as the pained gorgeousness of the writing took my breath away.
and then i got to the part where things are allowed to be happy again. and i burst into tears.
this is a beautifully written, brilliant researched, painful and raw and horrific and wonderful nightmarish fairytale of a book. it's 5 stars and i will never read it again but i will think about it all the time.
bottom line: sometimes, you read a masterpiece. sometimes, a book hits you at exactly the right time. finding both in one tome is once in a lifetime.
----------------- tbr review
do you ever put off reading a book because you know it'll hit you too hard?
file "one of the best writers i can think of writing about the thing that is closest possible to home" under that....more
This is an excellent, maybe perfect book, and I will never recommend it to anyone.
The edition I read is 951 pages long, and I read it in 24 hours. My This is an excellent, maybe perfect book, and I will never recommend it to anyone.
The edition I read is 951 pages long, and I read it in 24 hours. My sister calculated that I read a page every waking minute, even as it was a workday. I have never in my life lived inside a story like I did this one.
I slept little. I couldn't focus on anything. When I tried to pick up books after this one they were pale imitations to what I had learned storytelling could be.
I have never loved characters like this, like I knew them. I have never gasped and cried and said "nonono" like I did with this.
This HURT.
So while it was an extraordinary experience, a one-of-a-kind story, maybe something I would otherwise have perceived as the type of book that keeps us reading...
Don't pick it up.
Because not only is this book so goddamn painful (and yes, everything you've heard about how sad this is is true tenfold), but it makes other stories feel less.
Consume at your own risk.
Bottom line: Damn you, Hanya Yanagihara, you evil sorcerer.
I'm a sucker for any story that makes us think about what makes life worth living, about the beauty in the mundaThis is an absolute stunner of a book.
I'm a sucker for any story that makes us think about what makes life worth living, about the beauty in the mundane. So this book, which explores how the aspects of the everyday that we may consider the "little things" - clocks, movies, music, chocolate, cats - make existence what it is, not because they're delicious or fun or even meaningful, but because they connect us with the people and world around us...well, that's right up my alley.
The point, always, is other people.
Bottom line: Little and lovely.
----------------- pre-review
"'There are so many cruel things in the world,' he once told us. 'But there are also just as many beautiful things.'"
and then later: "I began to tear up. My thoughts were too much for me to handle, so I turned to look out the window of the plane. Outside I could see the ocean filled with icebergs stretching on and on into the distance. The setting sun gave the sea of ice a purple hue - it was so beautiful it was almost cruel."
anyway, this was very good.
review to come / 4.5 stars
----------------- tbr review
i mean, first impression: that'd be kind of a bummer....more
One, this concept - a set of four siblings who go to a psychic who tells them when they will die, and thenI have two sets of feelings about this book.
One, this concept - a set of four siblings who go to a psychic who tells them when they will die, and then following them one by one through the decades as the predictions come true - is the best book idea I have read in recent memory.
Two, HOW DARE CHLOE BENJAMIN MURDER MY FAMILY.
I cannot read a good book about a family - especially about siblings - without coming out the other side thinking they are really related to me, in real life.
Finishing a book that fits this description is a heartbreak in and of itself, because you're saying goodbye to your loved ones, if you're the same kind of insane that I am.
But this is even more heartbreaking than usual.
Not a perfect book, and a very painful one, but beautifully written and filled with characters I truly love.
I'm going to go cry quietly now.
Bottom line: NEVER AGAIN.
Just kidding. If you hear about a well written literary fiction book about siblings hit me up immediately.
------------------- pre-review
aaaaaaaaand now i'm tearing up.
god damn. i hate when books ruin my steely reputation.
review to come / 4 stars
------------------- tbr review
whenever i hear about someone reading on a bus or a train or in a park or whatever i picture them reading this book, which i have not read, and which i know nothing about.
not sure what that says about me, but it's true.
clear ur sh*t book 50 quest 23: opulent cover...more
if you've had the misfortune of digitally encountering me before, you probably know what that means: i pick up the collected works (almost no entries have actually met this parameter) of various Respected Authors (a category that apparently depends on my mood) and read a story a day (except most saturdays, or when i'm slumping, or when i forget, or when i read more than one like the teacher's pet suckup i am) until i become a genius (which is funny because it will never happen).
anyway, this triumphantly fails to meet all guidelines. this is a selection of lucia berlin's stories, berlin is a recent entrant into the canon if she's there at all, i already accidentally read the first 17 stories, and i am dumber than ever.
so i'm not sure this can count as a genius project even if i'm being nice to myself. but i just remembered i make the rules so. f*ck it.
STORY 1: ANGEL'S LAUNDROMAT sheesh. you can immediately tell lucia berlin was That Bitch. i kept rereading paragraphs but it could have either been due to lack of focus on my part or because i really wanted them to sink in, like when you replay your favorite song because you weren't appreciating it enough. let's err on the side of positivity for once. rating: 3.5
STORY 2: DR. H.A. MOYNIHAN this made me dearly miss my grandpa, who - while not a maniacal and disturbing dentist indulging in raging alcoholism - was a kind of ornery old guy with a penchant for jack daniels. or maybe it was just that phoebe bridgers' cover of summer's end came on shuffle while i was reading this. either/or. rating: 4
STORY 3: STARS AND SAINTS i have spent, as i write these little notes in my little notebook that i will later transfer to my little goodreads, most of the past 48 hours in public. as someone with untreated (but diagnosed!) anxiety that is rapidly devolving into agoraphobia, that means i have spent most of the same period believing myself so horrifically awkward it warrants execution. this made me feel better. rating: 4
STORY 4: A MANUAL FOR CLEANING WOMEN i always expect a lot from title stories. here, i was right to. rating: 5
STORY 5: MY JOCKEY a one pager. bold. update: i later learned this was one of the only stories lucia berlin wrote to be recognized in her lifetime, so i feel stupid for not liking it as much as some of the others...but i don't. so. speaking my truth. rating: 3.75
STORY 6: EL TIM i hated reading this but that was maybe the point? this felt like ottessa moshfegh, and surrounded by the other stories in this collection it made me like ottessa moshfegh less. rating: none
STORY 7: POINT OF VIEW i just fell in love. i'm in love with this story. it'll be an autumn wedding and you're all invited. rating: 5
STORY 8: HER FIRST DETOX i'm like 1/8 of the way through this collection and already dreading finishing it. rating: 5
STORY 9: PHANTOM PAIN it do be like that. that's all i can say. rating: 4.5
STORY 10: TIGER BITES all of these stories are: - excellent - semi-autobiographical - in an endlessly confusing way. rating: 4.5
STORY 11: EMERGENCY ROOM NOTEBOOK, 1977 very grateful for a year to ground me. i have no f*cking idea when most of these take place. rating: 3.5
STORY 12: TEMPS PERDU too gross for me. i'm sensitive. rating: 3
STORY 13: CARPE DIEM i am getting some anxiety rep with devastating accuracy here. rating: 4.5
STORY 14: TODA LUNA, TODO ANO well f*ck. this was nice. this book is giving me so precisely what i need that it feels like a prescription. i read this on a plane fleeing the same goddamn place the protagonist of this story is fleeing. rating: 4.5
STORY 15: GOOD AND BAD i love when i feel kind of meh about a story and then i come back here to write that and see the title i noted down earlier and go "OH! well that changes things." rating: 3.5
STORY 16: MELINA this one is kind of basic and silly, but with the same stunning writing, and it made me remember the others are truly brilliant. rating: 3
STORY 17: FRIENDS like the last one, but improving from the cliché and trite. rating: 4
STORY 18: UNMANAGEABLE addiction is very scary. the least hot take of all time, but this story knocked the sense out of me. rating: 4
STORY 19: ELECTRIC CAR, EL PASO allow me to reflect on what the hell this one means. rating: none
STORY 20: SEX APPEAL in a shocking twist, it turns out the men of hollywood have ALWAYS used their power and charisma to be f*cking disgusting. rating: 3.75
STORY 21: TEENAGE PUNK i am such a d*ck. here i am adoring this book for like 18 consecutive stories and then have two i like but don't love and nearly pitch a fit. thanks for winning me over anyway, lucia. rating: 4.5
STORY 22: STEP good song. one of vampire weekend's best. lucia berlin published three volumes of stories in her time, none of which garnered much attention, and then this little number was published a decade after her death and near-inexplicably sold more than all three of them combined in a matter of weeks. this may include most of the stories in those three, but i don't care. this is good enough that i'm tracking down all of them. rating: 4.5
STORY 23: STRAYS it's a metaphor, see. you put the double meaning right in the title but you don't give it the power till the ending. rating: 4.5
STORY 24: GRIEF well now i am just petrified of having my relationship with my sisters turn out like this. more importantly, people just don't go on holiday like they used to. that's something i've learned from this project. rating: 4
STORY 25: BLUEBONNETS people are scary. in multitudinous ways for countless reasons. men especially. rating: 3.5
STORY 26: LA VIE EN ROSE a few days ago, i was fleeing a place i hate and had run out of reading material just before my flight. the universe smiled upon me because there was an outpost of one of my favorite indie bookstores in the terminal (and when is there ever anything but hudson news anymore), and then full on grinned because there was exactly one copy of this book left - which had been on my to-read list since i saw it in the non-airport location of said bookstore. so i grabbed it, spent the remaining time before my flight walking around, boarded, sat in my seat, hit shuffle on my spotify (in which i only have, like, 2 playlists named variations of "songs i like" with hundreds of entries), and thought my thoughts. for some reason, i was turning the phrase "la vie en rose" around in my head, thinking of lucy dacus's cover of that song, wondering if it was still in my playlist because i hadn't heard it in a while, when boom - the song ends, the next song plays, and it's "la vie en rose." out of hundreds. right at the moment i considered it. i was so stunned i wanted to take my earbuds out and tell someone, but i am not that person, so i did a :o face to myself and picked this book up. skimmed the table of contents, which i don't usually do but for occasions with short stories. and then - no f*cking way. a story, midway down the list's second page: "la vie en rose." life is quite fantastic, from time to time. this is pretty wonderful too. rating: 4.5
STORY 27: MACADAM little and lovely. rating: 4
STORY 28: DEAR CONCHI even lucia berlin's love stories are so realistic it hurts my feelings. reading this story at the same time as a rom-com felt like a moment to moment reality check. rating: 4
STORY 29: FOOL TO CRY lucia has so many self-insert names for herself. lou, lu, carlotta, dolores...but at the same time there's like 5 stories about each one. are they the same character? are they not? am i supposed to put two and two together or would that make seven? ARGH. anyway, any protagonist who says things like "I decided to use the word dear instead of expensive from now on" and answers the question what do you find boring with "Nothing, actually. I've never been bored" is a special favorite to me. AND a great last line? lucia, you spoil me. rating: 5
STORY 30: MOURNING reminds me of that sally rooney quote: “If people appeared to behave pointlessly in grief, it was only because human life was pointless, and this was the truth that grief revealed.” but this is prettier and subtler. rating: 5
STORY 31: PANTEON DE DOLORES these stories are so good i want to mansplain them. the reversal of the traditional definitions of "lonely" versus "alone"... rating: 5
STORY 32: SO LONG i paused this story halfway to buy every lucia berlin book i could find. rating: 5
STORY 33: A LOVE AFFAIR i can't keep adoring multiple characters per story like this. i'm a hater. i'm not built to hold so much in my heart. rating: 5
STORY 34: LET ME SEE YOU SMILE so it turns out a story about an adult sleeping with a minor is never going to work for me. not if the genders are reversed, not if it's written by sally rooney, not if it's written by lucia berlin. f*cking grossos. i will say it's funny how lucia wrote a self-insert character and then had every other character compliment her at length. rating: 2.5
STORY 35: MAMA killer of an ending. rating: 4.5
STORY 36: CARMEN carmen, from the latin, name of the roman goddess of childbirth. god f*cking damn, lucia. rating: 5
STORY 37: SILENCE these perfect stories oh my god. i feel like i'm going insane. too much five star content at once, it's hurting my brain functioning, i'm destroyed, i'm melting, it's the wicked witch of the west without the flying monkeys over here. rating: 5
STORY 38: MIJITO the empathy here. i can't even review these beyond exclamations anymore. rating: 5
STORY 39: 502 another new name for lucia's fictional versions of herself: lucille. far out. rating: 4
STORY 40: HERE IT IS SATURDAY oh god. this time lucia wrote a character that is herself so that every other character can compliment her, but this time it's a freedom writers / finding forrester / white savior goes to school situation. the character's last name is even six letters beginning BE. thanks for making it a slight bit easier to say bye, lu. great ending, though. rating: 3
STORY 41: B.F. AND ME silly and little and nice. rating: 4
STORY 42: WAIT A MINUTE this was so beautiful and real that i spent the whole story trying to keep it at a distance. i knew if it clicked into place for me it would be too, too much. f*ck. it still was anyway. rating: 5 but more if i could
STORY 43: HOMING the last one. i'm sorry for what i said about you making it easier to say bye, lucia. i didn't mean it. oh, no. of course this one would be extraordinary. i want to cry. rating: 5 and still more if i could
OVERALL this book knocked me out. i don't know what to tell you. never in my life has a collection of stories done anything like this to me. i'll be thinking about this forever, in a million different ways. rating: 5...more
My limited and rarely tested abilities to write a five star review, ever decaying and decreasing from laWell, well, well.
Look what the cat dragged in.
My limited and rarely tested abilities to write a five star review, ever decaying and decreasing from lack of use. We meet again.
I will continue to make my own lack of skill the audience for this review, just for a moment, because this is a special occasion. This isn't just any five star book, although that would be a fairly once in a blue moon event as well.
You and I - you, of course, being my minimal talents - need to get it together.
This is a SALLY ROONEY book. And not just any Sally Rooney book, but possibly my FAVORITE Sally Rooney book. Could very well be my favorite book by who is likely my favorite author, in other words. Rooney has published one excerpt, one essay, three novels, and four short stories, and I have read her work 22 times, in total.
Also notably, there is a book I have called the following: - my Bible - the book of my heart - my literal and figurative self, distilled into pages - my most recommended book - my favorite book of the last 150 years - nearly my favorite book of all time, second only to Alice's Adventures in Wonderland - my comfort book - the closest thing I have to a religion
It's a book called Conversations with Friends, it's also written by Sally Rooney, and it seems to have been dethroned by this one.
There's a reason I've put off writing this review for two and a half months. The stakes are f*cking high.
So where do I go from here?
I can tell you that, so long as I live, I expect never to encounter writing like this again. Writing so clear and lovely, writing that summons new images and thoughts and emotions you've never considered and acts as a kind acknowledgment of the scariest and deepest and truest ones you quietly have.
I can say that this book begins with a launch, a tossing into the pool, an unceremonious jumping in that's more like a continuation, an assumption you've been there all along. That though it begins suddenly it feels like coming home.
I can note that these are some of Rooney's best and worst love stories, the ones you root for the most with the most complicated and "bad" and problematic people populating them, and that it's so beautiful to have those two things coexist.
I can attempt to work out my feelings about these characters, that while I feel for them and am fascinated by them and may adore them, it's almost beside the point of everything else. That for me, a person who reads for characters, the characters are wonderfully done and the realest yet, and the least important part, for me.
I can add that this is also an incredible act of bravery by Rooney, that it serves a huge leap in scope and in style and in intention from her previous books, that she has been criticized for much of her still-nascent career in a way that feels mean-spirited by the aging totems of Literature, and that instead of ducking her head and conceding to the characterization of her work as vapid and millennial, she filled her third book with so much heart it's hard to fathom.
I can try to describe what this book means to me, what it's like to spend most of your life trying on cynicism like a Halloween costume, scratchy and seamy and not quite right, to indulge in pithy "I hate everyone" negativity when people seem to be the only real reason life is worth living, and then have your very favorite author - who, it may have been mentioned, holds a fairly outsize role in your heart and mind - tell you she thinks so, too.
I want you to know, and I can try to convey, that love and friendship are all that matters, and that this book is the loveliest way of giving yourself the gift of letting yourself believe that.
I will try to tell you so many things if they get you to read this book.
Bottom line: This is a once in a lifetime one, for me.
----------------- note
as if i needed more reasons to find this book completely perfect: free palestine
----------------- reread pre-review
the first time i read this, i finished it in a sitting.
the second time, i savored every word.
review to come / 5 stars / more if i could
----------------- reread updates
i don't know how long i can go without rereading a sally rooney book. but i'm not willing to find out
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i wish i could say this was as good the third time...but i can't.
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