this is like if ottessa moshfegh wrote a brandon taylor book.
and also shakespeare is somehow involved, i guess. i (like many people who dare to call tthis is like if ottessa moshfegh wrote a brandon taylor book.
and also shakespeare is somehow involved, i guess. i (like many people who dare to call themselves bookworms) have not read any of shakespeare's history monarch-y plays, so much of the henriad retelling was lost on me even though i very bravely read the wikipedia.
like moshfegh (more so than melissa broder), it delights in being crass and gross-out without being cheerful about it. i thought it was very good, if a little shallow in places, which is a critique i have of moshfegh and not at all of taylor.
if anything with taylor it's the opposite. please stop being so deep about everything. i'm haunted by a description of an underenjoyed potluck submission i read 3 years ago.
anyway.
my only other real thought about this is that no one on earth could possibly eat as much lamb as these people do. is that how you have to be rich in britain? maybe i'm ok with being a middle class american after all.
anyway again.
bottom line: i read this 2 months ago but it still stands out for me. even if a lot of that is lamb.
------------------- tbr review
if brandon taylor calls it "one of the finest novels I’ve ever read," i'm reading it
(3.5 / thanks to the publisher for the e-arc)...more
i read this the day after juneteenth, but the truth is this little book is a must-read year-round, packing history and memoir abetter late than never!
i read this the day after juneteenth, but the truth is this little book is a must-read year-round, packing history and memoir and analysis into just 148 pages. it holds a contrast within itself — how annette gordon-reed can be a proud texan while remaining aware of the story of racism at its core — and manages to explore it more fully in a short time than some much longer books can claim.
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
now for all the tiktok girls engaging in stolen valor...THIS is peak delulu.
i found part one of this, about a woman who convinces herself and herha ha
now for all the tiktok girls engaging in stolen valor...THIS is peak delulu.
i found part one of this, about a woman who convinces herself and her husband that a man flirting with her means they basically had sex, and thereby she is in love with him and ultimately must leave her marriage, so bizarre and interesting.
chris and sylvere's descent into obsession is really fascinating, and its implications about monogamy and misogyny even more so.
part two, which kind of devolves into unrelated essays, not so much.
bottom line: women should be allowed to be insane, as a treat.
this is probably the most stunning exploration i've encountered of a fact of modern life that haunts me. inundated as we are with horrible news, we kethis is probably the most stunning exploration i've encountered of a fact of modern life that haunts me. inundated as we are with horrible news, we keep it all at a distance, our daily functioning relying on our shutting out that every murder, act of colonization, ongoing genocide is affecting or destroying or ending human lives as complicated and important as our own.
but the chance that a "minor detail" will strike us, as it strikes our protagonist when she encounters the story of the rape and murder of a palestinian woman by israeli soldiers that happened 25 years to the day before her birth, causes it all to collapse.
the connections it draws between our main character and the girl this violence happens to is also a disturbing, timely reminder of that same message. we are separated from those who are suffering only by minor details, in feeling and in chance.
this is a haunting and terrible story, and it's one whose twin in horror is occurring every day before our very eyes.
the least we can do is watch and feel and cry out no.
i love books and food and books about food, and i love laurie colwin.
anyone who can call a terrible dinner one of "the myriad surprises and challengei love books and food and books about food, and i love laurie colwin.
anyone who can call a terrible dinner one of "the myriad surprises and challenges in this this most interesting and amazing of all possible worlds" is someone i'll read everything by.
i enjoyed so much about this book, especially when i was able to look past the profusion of mayonnaise salads and beef teas and general english foods it foisted upon me.
in other words, good writing is timeless...but good recipes are not.
uh, guys...i'm definitely with you and everything...absolutely one of the cool kids, having the popular opinion, agreeing with the mainstream, etc...buh, guys...i'm definitely with you and everything...absolutely one of the cool kids, having the popular opinion, agreeing with the mainstream, etc...but um. just remind me.
why do we not like this book?
the average rating is 3.5. and i totally get it. but for argument's sake, or just for laughs or whatever...explain it to me like i enjoyed it.
as if, for example, this was so funny and weird and magical and emotional.
i will admit that for the first, like, 200 pages, it was an absolute chore to pick up. i dreaded it. i could only make myself do it by sandwiching chapters between chapters of other books i wasn't really enjoying (otherwise there was no way i was returning to it).
matters were made worse by the fact that i was reading an ebook with a tiny font, meaning i had to read 4 normal-sized pages for what counted as 1 page, and by the end my laptop was so overwhelmed it required 10 seconds to turn those pages, and 10 seconds is actually a long time if you think about it in that context, the context being that this book is 637 pages long. so, to me, 2,548 pages.
i now understand sisyphus completely.
but at some point, my feelings did a 180. even when i was reading books i liked, or listening to enjoyable audiobooks, or picking up my most anticipated read of the year, or even - gasp - watching tiktoks...i kind of always low level wanted to be reading this.
it's that good.
it's very one of a kind: three kids die and come back, and there's a death-like figurehead and a magical music teacher and a cursed splinter and a moon woman and a haunting carousel and a child named carousel. there's an unforgettable unrealistic town. there's a series of weird annoying romances. there are twists and laughs and tragedies, and all of them made me actually feel something, which - to those of you who know my whole thing - is not nothing. (see: my cold dark chunk of christmas coal of a heart.)
when i got past the rock-pushing task of the page count and the brain-murdering task of the first third, i had a really good time.
that's not nothing, either.
bottom line: i'm having the fun kind of unpopular opinion again.
4.5
------------------------- tbr review
me at a horror movie: :) me at a haunted house: :) me at a long book: AHHHHHHHHHH
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
groundbreaking feminist literary classics is like my family.
i expected more of an Anarchist Feminist vibe from this one, and instead what i got was kigroundbreaking feminist literary classics is like my family.
i expected more of an Anarchist Feminist vibe from this one, and instead what i got was kind of a grown-up version of the kind of island of the blue dolphins / boxcar children type kiddie survivalist classics i used to buy three for a dollar from my library booksale with, like, quarters i'd scrounged up from couch cushions.
who knows where kids acquire money, is what i'm saying.
that was a fun ride in and of itself, minus the fact that it had the kind of devastating ending that should make it infamous everywhere around the world. i'm not even of the opinion that animals in books are all that great, or that their deaths are the most upsetting of any character type.
until now, i guess.
sorry for the spoiler? but i'm actually sparing you unexpected suffering. so never mind. you're welcome. welcome to my version of does the dog die dot com.
anyway. in addition to all that, this is a pretty striking exploration of the role of humans in the world, and it made me wish all of us were dead except for maybe one lady who can help the cows and pet cats.
that's my new political perspective. also i'm calling not it.
this book is the most surreal and the most gory, and at the same time its dystopian world is so lifelike, so painful to read because it so coh my god.
this book is the most surreal and the most gory, and at the same time its dystopian world is so lifelike, so painful to read because it so closely mirrors the one we live in. one of injustice, one of violence. one of innocent people locked up and one of people who do bad and change. a world where punishments are not intended to reform, but to ignore.
reading about the criminal justice system in america is opening yourself to an injustice you will ever un-know.
i so appreciate that her stories were published and we get to read from an incredible voice, even if she was gone far may diane oliver rest in peace.
i so appreciate that her stories were published and we get to read from an incredible voice, even if she was gone far too soon. these stories brilliantly explore race in america, and capture a searing image of a bygone era that is not in the distant past.
bottom line: i'm grateful these stories are finally being shared.
it's a spoiler, but (view spoiler)[fox girls (hide spoiler)] are so in right now! this is the third new release i'vi hope this series goes on forever.
it's a spoiler, but (view spoiler)[fox girls (hide spoiler)] are so in right now! this is the third new release i've read about them this year, and i'm not mad. they're cool as hell.
this didn't feel at all like an installment of this series, which is normally slow, storytelling-centered, and thematically meaningful.
this was a fun creepy mystery with a plot twist. not what i expected, but again, good with me.
i do think this fell apart towards the end, having bit off more than its barely 100 pages could chew, but who can blame it.
i don't think we needed all of these characters, and i was annoyed by the traces of romance, but if you have the opportunity to cram upsetting taxidermy, crumbling old castles, scary girls, fatal flaws, mysterious teapots, talking birds, booby trap planning, messy libraries, murder-based secrets, manually turning a mansion haunted, estranged adult sons who are biters, and bad seafood in one book, you take it no matter the cost.
and the cost is not that steep.
bottom line: this book has everything. except the right page count.
(3.5 / thanks to the publisher for the e-arc)...more
this book is like a smile prescription. one that like...anyone can take. almost no side effects. simple language. lots of repetitithis is always true.
this book is like a smile prescription. one that like...anyone can take. almost no side effects. simple language. lots of repetition. makes you feel like any problem can be solved by a strange librarian unendingly described by her weight and 1-2 books.
anyway. in spite of that, it's pretty charming.
i find that a lot of book club fiction is actually just a book that starts off sad and ends with hope: a new job, a new potential date, whatever.
this is like 5 of those in one, with 5 different characters entering the library and coming out with books that inspire them. it's very simplistic, sometimes overly so, but is just so cheerful. i enjoyed it.
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.
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