i love ling ma and i want to kiss her on the face but that seems like a pretty major overstep so instead i'll just read everything she writes.
mini revi love ling ma and i want to kiss her on the face but that seems like a pretty major overstep so instead i'll just read everything she writes.
mini reviews for each story like i always do for collections when my weary brain allows me!
STORY 1: LOS ANGELES immediately i don't think i can review every one of these. this was too one of a kind, too striking, i'm speechless, and i have to do this EVERY TIME?!
about to give up already. rating: 4.25
STORY 2: ORANGES cover story. basically.
this doesn't have the same fervent originality as the first one but it's even more immersive and suffocating. rating: 4
STORY 3: G this allegory is so satisfying (if a little clichéd) it's like having a treat. rating: 4
STORY 4: YETI LOVEMAKING HELLO ANOTHER BEAUTIFUL METAPHOR THIS ONE NOT CLICHED AT ALL!!!!! rating: 4.25
STORY 5: RETURNING AHHHHHHHHHHH!!!
i don't want this book to end ever.
a story about books and the themes of books and it has the themes and also more themes and also also also... rating: 4.5
STORY 6: UNIVERSITY hmmmmmm.
fun recurring theme becoming apparent of the complexity of desire (i.e., a sense of dissatisfaction too elaborate to pin on any one thing) making happiness impossible in modern life. rating: 4
STORY 8: PEKING DUCK these are just so rich. rating: 4
STORY 9: TOMORROW whoa. rating: 4
OVERALL brilliant and incisive, more knowing and intuitive on the subject of being young and getting older in the 21st century than just about anything i've ever read. i know i'm going to return to this one, countless times mentally and more than once for a reread.
significantly better than the sum of its parts, and the parts are damn good. rating: 5
-------------------- tbr review
things i am willing to do in order to receive this book: - be nice (or try to be) - think about it a lot - ... - say please and thank you?
it worked. thanks to netgalley for the copy....more
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
-------------------- tbr review
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.
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
They say there's a first time for everything but I, as a member of the never shuts up community, doubtGotta tell you, I don't really know what to say.
They say there's a first time for everything but I, as a member of the never shuts up community, doubted this day would ever come.
So I will keep this quick!
Lately I've had a hard time feeling books - as in actually have them impact me emotionally - so I've read increasingly crazy lit fic to attempt to undo it.
This just shattered all of that and fixed it no problem. I teared up.
I'm not ashamed, even if this wrecks my badass image. This book is emotive and touching and I care about the characters so, so much.
But enough yearning on main.
Bottom line: A book so good it broke me!
----------------- pre-review
going to stare at the wall for the next couple of hours
review to come / 4.5 stars
----------------- currently-reading updates
can i still call myself a bookworm if it took me this long to read this?...more
Cookies are my favorite food, and yet I am extremely picky about them. I'm a Phoebe Bridgers fan. I am the dreaded rarity that It's not easy being me.
Cookies are my favorite food, and yet I am extremely picky about them. I'm a Phoebe Bridgers fan. I am the dreaded rarity that is a blonde adult.
And I hate writing positive reviews.
In some ways, I make this easier for myself, due to the fact that I am so critical, hateful, and generally unpleasant that it happens as infrequently as possible.
But this is a double-edged sword, because I also have no reason to ever attempt to hone or even improve this skill.
Here we find ourselves. I have to write at length (because if I'm one thing besides difficult, it's verbose) about a perfect book.
This is a nightmare situation for me.
And even worse: THIS BOOK MADE ME CRY. A lot! Lately I've been tearing up at endings a lot, probably due to some hormonal imbalance or debilitating illness and definitely not emotion (I don't have those). But this was not a glamorous single tear sliding down my cheek.
This was a full-on ugly cry. From me. I only cry twice a year: at my annual rewatch of About Time, and when I am somehow held down or arrested and unable to prevent myself from listening to the song The Luckiest / watching an animal video / thinking too hard about a nice tweet I saw four months ago.
How do I write about THAT.
This is my favorite kind of story, one about how hard it can be to be alive in an on-fire world with a semi nonfunctioning brain, but also about how beautiful life is, how wonderful people are. This book is very funny, and very sad, and above all so lovely.
I don't know what to say beyond that.
Can't the five stars speak for themselves???
Bottom line: I will never get better at being nice. But this book deserves me to be.
---------------- pre-review
i am ashamed to admit this, but:
i am sobbing right now.
review to come / 5 stars
---------------- currently-reading updates
this book is about me (girl in therapy and being weird about it)
---------------- tbr review
when i see a title like that, all i can do is hit that want to read button...more
this book is a calm cool and collected 880 pages long, so elle and i will be tackling three chapters a day...every daywelcome to...MIDDLEMARCH MARCH.
this book is a calm cool and collected 880 pages long, so elle and i will be tackling three chapters a day...every day for this whole month.
join us as we melt our minds. i love a project!
DAY 1: CHAPTERS 1-3 immediately i am having fun. approx 30 pages per day for 31 days currently seems like the perfect way to read a book, i am walking on sunshine, i am breathing rainbows or whatever. this is beautifully written and a whole blast. i'm gonna live forever.
DAY 2: CHAPTERS 4-6 somehow i have been cursed with reading not one, but two books about the devil's work on earth (beautiful twenty-something women marrying random dudes in their 40s) at the same time. gotta give it up, though: i'm not even at the 10% mark and i'm invested enough to do all but scream NOOOO at the pages.
DAY 3: CHAPTERS 7-9 listen to this roast: "He has got no good red blood in his body [...] Somebody put a drop under a magnifying-glass, and it was all semicolons and parentheses." insanely good. i like this will ladislaw character!
DAY 4: CHAPTERS 10-12 there's like a full page of dialogue in this about how dumb men look playing the flute and in other words i think i am in love with this book.
DAY 5: CHAPTERS 13-15 i could read about rosy for 100 years. i could read about dodo for 50 years. i could read about will for 25 years. i am reaching the end of my patience with mr. old man husband and dr. boring guy.
DAY 6: CHAPTERS 16-18 for the first time thus far, i almost missed a day. you may be tempted to say "emma, it hasn't even been a week, how are you already almost missing days" and to that i would respond a) i'm doing a WHOLE OTHER PROJECT right now and b) i'm lazy. technically it's 1:19 a.m. and thereby i did miss a day, but i ascribe to my own calendar, which is whenever i'm awake it's one day and then when i go to bed and wake up it becomes the next. this was very trying (three in a row of the more town politics-y chapters) but i did it in spite of dawning sleepiness.
DAY 7: CHAPTERS 19-21 AND WE'RE BACK TO DODO AND LADISLAW! that sounds like a truly unlistenable indie band. anyway, after all those chapters about chaplaincies and town doctors, it's a treat beyond words to read about these two again. speaking of treat beyond words, i just remembered i have Trader Joe's Dark Chocolate-Covered Cherries™️...hang on, middlemarch. let me get my priorities in order. oh man i'm having so much fun. 1,000 pages of dodo and ladislaw dialogue, please and thanks.
DAY 8: CHAPTERS 22-24 i've straight up been looking forward to this since i put it down yesterday. i don't want to jinx anything buuuuut...if this level of fun keeps up we may just have a 5 star on our hands. we have now entered Book 3, which has the cheery and promising title "Waiting for Death." i'm in heaven.
DAY 9: CHAPTERS 25-27 27 is my favorite number. just a fun fact. this fred vincy character sure is a ding-dong, and a bit of a jerkoff to boot. chapter 26 uses the phrase "to be caught tripping," a moment which i imagine is what people mean when they say a timeless classic.
DAY 10: CHAPTERS 28-30 wow. can you believe it! almost a third done already. time flies when you're assigning books to yourself like homework. relatedly: best homework ever. this rules.
DAY 11: CHAPTERS 31-33 anyone else as stunned as i am that i haven't yet missed a day? if you aren't you should be. do not believe in me. a cliffhanger!!!!!!!!
DAY 12: CHAPTERS 34-36 we are now entering book 4: three love problems. my guesses for the three titular issues in question: 1) Dodo's Old Man Husband Is The Worst And His Young Artist Cousin Rules 2) Mary Garth Deserves Better Than Fred Vincy But Will Probably End Up With Him 3) Somehow Middlemarch's Hottest Single Is Engaged To Some Poor Guy. No Thanks, As A Reader next book is called "THE DEAD HAND," very ominously, and we're getting some foreshadowing as to what that means here on the day of featherstone's funeral. technically that's a spoiler but i don't think "oldest character dying in a sprawling 1000 page novel" is much of a twist. already today is so long and i'm not even halfway through the first of the three chapters but!!! "There would be a satisfaction in being buried by Mr. Cadwallader, whose very name offered a fine opportunity for pronouncing wrongly if you liked." this is so funny. and i haven't even mentioned yet that there's an oft-referenced place called Freshitt. okay and: “I dare say Dodo likes it: she is fond of melancholy things and ugly people.” me using dating apps.
DAY 13: CHAPTERS 37-39 okay. i am suddenly multiple days behind. in my defense: on sunday i took medical leave of reading (so scared of slumping again) and yesterday i was equal parts busy and anxious, and thereby effectively illiterate. but the good news is: today is a 9 chapter day!!! (it is really a reflection of how much fun i'm having that this is good news, instead of the sickening impact of procrastination.) "Each looked at the other as if they had been two flowers which had opened then and there." golly. this is a very witty and smart and beautifully written book, and the nicest thing i can say about it is that there are approx 100,000 characters and i'm not having that much trouble remembering them. huge praise.
DAY 14: CHAPTERS 40-42 haha. chapter xl. “The lad is of age and must get his bread.” was this published YESTERDAY? i'm losing my damn mind current character ranking: 1) dodo 2) will 3) rosamond 4) mary 5) fred 6) celia any of these guys as the focus: good with me. when we open up a chapter and i see the dreaded word "lydgate"...a different story!
DAY 15: CHAPTERS 43-45 as very witty people in the comments pointed out: IT'S THE MIDDLE OF MIDDLEMARCH MARCH. the ides, even. it is also now BOOK V: THE DEAD HAND, a badass title that only grows more badass because of the aforementioned foreshadowing. nothing is more badass than foreshadowing. I CAN'T BELIEVE THIS. ROSAMOND IS SUDDENLY LIVING WITH AND MARRIED TO AND ACQUAINTED WITH THE FAMILY OF LYDGATE. WHAT THE HELL KIND OF PACING IS THIS. NARY A SINGLE WEDDING SCENE IN THIS DAMN BOOK IN WHICH 3 WEDDINGS HAVE TAKEN PLACE AMONG MAJOR CHARACTERS. casaubon and lydgate can be exiled from this book, as far as i'm concerned, for their respective crimes of being a butthole and being boring.
DAY 16: CHAPTERS 46-48 it's the best time of the day! will ladislaw, a pro-union pro-democracy king. also the first recorded instance of a floor person. this is also such a perfect example of the Every Good Heterosexual Romance Involves The Man Liking The Woman Way More. i'm once again having a blast. I JUST GASPED AT THE END OF THIS CHAPTER. OH LA VACHE.
DAY 17: CHAPTERS 49-51 i love this book so much (reading it earlier in the day than usual for i can't wait reasons) but it is SO FRUSTRATING SOMETIMES. when a once-major character has a baby I DON'T WANT TO FIND OUT THROUGH A PASSING LINE OF DIALOGUE. jeez. tangled webs here in middlemarch.
DAY 18: CHAPTERS 52-54 ugh! i like the vicar better for mary than dumb old fred vincy. sure, he's 5th in my character rankings, but i rank, like, the mad hatter pretty highly too. doesn't mean i'd wanna marry the guy. was just thinking "ah, don't know if i have a long bulstrode section in me..." and then after two paragraphs this book straight up says "enough." i'm in love aaaaand onto book 6: THE WIDOW AND THE WIFE. ok. three months have suddenly just passed without will and dodo even glimpsing each other, meanwhile if i go like 10 days without seeing someone i'm dating i assume we're ghosting each other. how times have changed. goddamn i am yearning! this book is so f*ckin' good.
DAY 19: CHAPTERS 55-57 okay. so i missed a day. in my defense i was drunk for like 90% of the friday to saturday block of this week, for reasons of "It Was 70 Degrees And St Patrick's Day Weekend And I Am Young And Hot." aaaand i missed another day. i read one chapter but i was very hungover and had also drunkenly bought basketball tickets so time was limited. 8 chapter day it is!!! some fun mary and fred action happening. maybe i will have time to turn Team Fred before the end of this.
DAY 20: CHAPTERS 58-60 immediately this set started out by saying lydgate hates his cousin because his haircut is lame. maybe i'll do a 180 on lydgate, too, because that f*ckin rules. oh my god and it says the same cousin isn't actually hot but girls think he is because of his mustache. i love that this million year old book has the same opinions as the average tiktoker. oh my god and: “If he got his head broken, I might look at it with interest, not before.” PLEASE this project is really testing my roman numeral reading ability.
DAY 21: CHAPTERS 61-63 oh man. drama alert. oh god. chapter 61: drama. chapter 62: yearning. onto BOOK 7: TWO TEMPTATIONS. ugh. i was trying so hard to like lydgate but him being an asshole immediately on the heels of a perfect dodo / will chapter is too much to bear.
DAY 22: CHAPTERS 64-66 read over 100 pages of this yesterday. now i feel invincible going in for what will surely be, like, 22. rosamond is a complete and utter b*tch and i love it.
DAY 23: CHAPTERS 67-69 hehe. this was like...all bulstrode. rude.
DAY 24: CHAPTERS 70-72 ugh. more bulstrode. at least he's doing crimes. and i guess we have to kill the time somehow until will and dodo can see each other again. onto book eight: SUNSET AND SUNRISE. it's giving ethan hawke. “And, of course, men know best about everything, except what women know better.” so true bestie
DAY 25: CHAPTERS 73-75 oh thank god, will ladislaw is coming back. i can't deal with all this bulstrode and lydgate action, even if i do keep getting the opportunity to see rosy be an absolutely divine asshole because of it.
DAY 26: CHAPTERS 76-78 this set of chapters is so dramatic that i just explained the entire plot of this 900 page book to my sister just to try to indicate the massive yearning angsty payoff of dodo and will seeing each other again under unintended circumstances. i am having so much fun it's hard to stop!!!
DAY 27: CHAPTERS 79-81 I AM GOING THROUGH IT, EMOTIONALLY SPEAKING.
DAY 28: CHAPTERS 82-84 AAAAAAAAAHHHH!!!! honestly in my heart of hearts i find this kinda anticlimactic but still. AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHH!!!! actually i take it back. it's nice just the way it is.
DAY 29: CHAPTERS 85-87 folks, we are nearing the end and i have to say...I DON'T WANNA. don't cry because it's over, smile because it happened, or whatever, i guess, ugh. also now realizing it's been about a hundred years since we last heard from fred and mary. we're down to the last seconds, george eliot! thereeee they are. all the star crossed dodo-and-will stuff is lovely, but this is so good too: "I don’t think either of us could spare the other, or like any one else better, however much we might admire them. It would make too great a difference to us—like seeing all the old places altered, and changing the name for everything." and it's over. i didn't know it was finishing today!!! i'm going to cry.
OVERALL this is a funny, wry, smart, witty, political, historically significant, educating, romantic, beautifully written, basically perfect book. it is worth each and every one of its 880 pages and i would have kept reading far more! rating: 5
------------------- tbr review
am very into pretending i want to read super-long books lately...more
There is an old cliché that goes, "Laughter is the best medicine."
In a literal sense, this is wrong, because the best medicine is a combination of ibuThere is an old cliché that goes, "Laughter is the best medicine."
In a literal sense, this is wrong, because the best medicine is a combination of ibuprofen, junk food, and complaining. There is no illness that this all-star lineup cannot solve.
And in a figurative sense, it is also wrong, because while I am a huge laughter stan the actual best medicine is a book getting into your hands right when you are best equipped to appreciate it.
In other words, I am sorry to everyone in the comments who agreed with my original three-star review, because it turns out this book is actually perfect.
I read this book for essentially no reason, in 2019, when the world was okay (not awesome but not on fire) and I was young and innocent and my favorite genre was still, somehow, against all odds, YA contemporary.
Why, I do not know. Seems a recipe for disaster.
Now, three years later, this book has returned to my mind due to the fact that it sounds so up my alley the universe may have prescribed it to me. Character-driven, almost-boring, beautifully written literary fiction about complicated (read: annoying) women is all I want to read.
So I picked this one up.
And holy Moses. (Is that an expression?) This one hit me hard.
Every year I build a favorites shelf of every new-to-me read I five star in that year. I never add rereads, even if they're newly five stars, because it's so specific to that year in my head.
This one got added to favorites-2022 (and thus broke the rules I made up) so fast it broke the sound barrier. Sorry to dogs and fireworks appreciators for startling you and getting your hopes up, respectively.
This was just so exactly what I needed.
I don't know that I've ever annotated more, or savored a book more slowly, or felt so seen and still learned things. This book is riddled with underlines, and I read it in a matter of pages per day, and I never wanted it to end. It made me feel so normal and so seen and so okay.
And it gets better. Because for some reason there's a sequel???
Just when this couldn't be any more perfect for me right now, it turns out the universe decided to give me more. I picked this up for a reread completely arbitrarily only to learn it's getting a sequel 6 years after publication, right after I five starred it.
Everything is perfect.
Or actually everything is pretty bad, but the universe is being really nice to me about it.
Bottom line: I don't know what to say about this, really. It's beautifully written, it's incredibly real, it is the ibuprofen/junk food/complaining of books, for my broken brain.
--------------- original three-star review
Sometimes, I finish a book and I don’t know how I feel about it.
This happens a lot of times, in fact. And I have two main strategies for dealing with it. In one, I rate it approximately, confidently say review to come, wait four months (I’m in the midst of a major backlog, okay, I’m not any more a fan of it than you are. In fact I’m probably way less of a fan, because it spares you from having to experience my reviews - a definitively good thing - while it only makes me aware of the fact that I have, like, 100 pages of review-writing ahead of me. And it’s the kind where I can’t remember the book. A true nightmare), then maybe change the rating and post the review.
That’s the good method. (Hard as it may be to believe. The standards are low.)
The bad method, and the one I employed here, is not even rating it. Not even giving it a temporary rating. Just...leaving it in weird review purgatory.
Out of pure laziness and an inability to employ my critical thinking skills.
This was a strange book to read, and, true to form, it’s a strange book to review.
This is one of those slightly radical literary fiction reads with a unique way of looking at the world and a unique style to match that always end up changing my internal monologue for 7-10 business days.
The main reason I don’t read literary fiction (beyond the fact that I spend most of my time reading and trashing YA contemporary) is that, whether I like it or not, I basically live inside it while I’m reading it and for days after.
That’s debilitating.
For this book, which is sad and intense and basically unsatisfying as a rule, that was nothing short of consistently mildly to severely unpleasant.
But I don’t think it’s a bad book, necessarily. I think the writer is very good, and I was fairly consumed by this start to finish. (Obviously.)
It’s just...at the end, I was left feeling a bit, well, awful. And I couldn’t figure out what the point of it was - me feeling that way, or the book, or any of it.
Not a promising way to feel about a book.
Bottom line: I still don’t know any of the answers to any of these questions, so...three stars.
---------------
well now i'm all melancholy.
review to come / rating also to come
---------------
it is with great sadness and regret that i must inform you...
this book stole the working title of my autobiography...more
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