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
Have decided to use the one moment of earnestness I'm allotted per year on this to say: I read for moments like this! Yes, I'm critical, yes, my most common rating is a 3 by a country mile, yes, I bring suffering to the timelines of us all:
But I'm willing to bet that when I want to give a five star - when a book is PERFECT and makes me FEEL and I love the CHARACTERS and it SURPRISES me...
Well, I bet my five stars feel better than your five stars.
This is like if Emily Henry wrote young adult paranormal horror, which is the greatest compliment I can give...any young adult paranormal horror.
It's funny, the banter is A+, the friendships are fantastic, there's some sweet little sapphic friends to lovers action, and it is so goddamn spooky I could perish.
What a dream.
Bottom line: I'm going to live forever!!!!!!!!
--------------- pre-review
what the hell? what the actual living screaming f*ck?
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 shy away from earnestness. Genuine expressions of emotion upset me. The last time I had to have a serious and I am not, in theory, a cheesy person.
I shy away from earnestness. Genuine expressions of emotion upset me. The last time I had to have a serious and feelings-based conversation I did everything to prepare for a hermit-esque lifestyle of solitude in the mountains somewhere short of buying a plane ticket (ultimately I recalled that I don't much care for nature).
But all of that changes when I really, truly love a book.
In my head, and to the most trusted people in my life, there is an upper echelon of books I refer to as "the books of my heart." Of the 1,246 books I have marked as read on Goodreads, only 89 are true five stars, and the books of my heart (I really can't believe how corny of a name that is, like how did that come from me, a rock person with Christmas-reject coal for a heart) are a careful selection of even that.
In short: beautifully written and unique books that mostly take place inside brains, with traces of magic and humor and love.
So this book, a horror-ish novel intensely driven by its narrator's mind that would, if written by a lesser author, be little more than a vessel for its twist, may seem an unlikely choice for that lot.
But it makes sense to me.
Bottom line: I can't think about this book too hard without wanting to read it againagainagain.
--------------- pre-review
my skin is crawling and i want to scream and i think this might be a 5 star read.
review to come / at least 4.5 but who are we kidding
--------------- currently-reading updates
i read the first 20 pages of this last night before i went to sleep and got so scared i had to switch to a romance novel.
i will be reading exclusively in daylight from now on....more
Sometimes the reason everyone calls a book One Of The Best Books Of The Year is because it is.
Everyone gives it a five star rating because it's five sSometimes the reason everyone calls a book One Of The Best Books Of The Year is because it is.
Everyone gives it a five star rating because it's five star level. Everyone calls it buzzed-about because it's buzz-worthy. Everyone calls it the best of the genre in recent memory because that's obvious. (Celebrity memoir...not as competitive, but still.)
You'd think that'd always be the case, and you'd be wrong, but it doesn't matter because only this book does.
And on this book...the general populace is correct on all counts.
This is a searing, unique, gorgeously devastating, sometimes funny book that made me very hungry and very sad.
It made me want to listen to more Japanese Breakfast music and also regret the time she did a free show at my college and I had to miss it because I was taking a three-hour night class with no absences permitted.
I hope she keeps writing. But next time I will be prepared with a food-delivery app open and a big ass box of tissues.
Bottom line: I love a pleasant surprise. No comment on the fact that when everyone loves a book and I do too, that counts as a surprise.
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
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
Ling Ma served us a whole meal. A feast. A buffet. A week’s worth of Thanksgiving dinners made up of gorgeously subtle metaphor and allegory and motifLing Ma served us a whole meal. A feast. A buffet. A week’s worth of Thanksgiving dinners made up of gorgeously subtle metaphor and allegory and motif, if you will.
And I will personally be stuffing myself my dear boy.
This is the kind of book that makes me wish I was still a student and I was assigned this book in an English class, and could spend a week's worth of hour-long lectures deep in discussion with 20 other people (but reasonably only four who had actually read it).
It's the kind of book I could have reread immediately after reading for the first time, and then a million times after that.
It's the kind of book that makes you think about that terrible movie with Bradley Cooper where he takes the pill that opens his brain up to full functioning, because that's the only way I can reasonably imagine being able to fully appreciate this.
The themes in this, man, the f*cking themes: The immigrant parent’s journey versus Candace’s pregnant journey in a new world. The fevered mindlessly going through tasks versus the pre-pandemic office workers doing the same. The idea of a “colony” and what that means. So, so many more.
I need to reread this immediately, is what I'm saying.
Bottom line: I want to eat this with a spoon.
--------------- book club update
reading this pandemic novel during a pandemic for a) the self-destructive vibes and b) the book club. in that order
do you remember those weird toys from childhood that were like little heart-shaped doodads with cartoon characters on them, and when you soaked them in water they turned into branded dish towels?
this book made me feel like one of those. but in reverse.
review to come / at least 4.5 stars but maybe 5
--------------- currently-reading updates
taking a mental health test by reading a post-apocalyptic book in which the apocalypse was a pandemic featuring a virus that first appears like a cold
--------------- tbr review
my face when i hear the words "anti-capitalist dystopian literary fiction": ...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.
in case you missed the first one, here's the description: i have decided to become a genius.
to accomplish this, i'm going to work my way through the collected stories of various authors, reading + reviewing 1 story every day until i get bored / lose every single follower / am struck down by a vengeful deity.
and yes, i chose this one due in no small part to miss phoebe bridgers.
DAY 1: THE HUSBAND STITCH this is truly one of the raddest pieces of writing i have ever read. i don't even know what to say. lovely writing, gorgeous allusions, wonderful style, brilliant structure, fantastic ending, genius title. a pitch-perfect retelling. i can't even deal. rating: 5
DAY 2: INVENTORY a story about sexual encounters during a pandemic quarantine is hitting a bit too close to home for me right now. rating: 3.75
DAY 3: MOTHERS you know that feeling when you start a short story and you're working at full attention to figure out where you are and who you're with and what's going on because you'll only have a few pages to both know and appreciate it? that feeling stuck around until the very last with this one. in a good way. rating: 4.5
DAY 4: ESPECIALLY HEINOUS hey so Carmen Maria Machado is f*cking amazing. this is brilliant. rating: 5
DAY 5: REAL WOMEN HAVE BODIES i keep waiting for a dud of a story and it just...won't come. genius end to end. rating: 4.5
DAY 6: EIGHT BITES okay ouch, carmen!!!!! this is starting to hurt!!!! rating: 4.5
DAY 7: THE RESIDENT so maybe this one actually scared me!!! what about it???? rating: 4.5
DAY 8: DIFFICULT AT PARTIES not my favorite. actually probably my least favorite. rating: 3.5
OVERALL this is a brilliant work by a brilliant author, and it's greater than the sum of its parts. i didn't miss a single day (despite having work and holidays and cross-country flights in that time), and not only that, but i looked forward to my time with this every day.
Give me a book I hate and I’ll write a full-on thesis on it. Prime example: Just yesterday I spent one huI do not know how to write five star reviews.
Give me a book I hate and I’ll write a full-on thesis on it. Prime example: Just yesterday I spent one human hour on a seven-page one star rant review. And honestly? Time well spent.
But when it comes to something I truly love? I’m illiterate. Can’t read. Can’t write. Call me Jared, 19. What am I doing on this book site? Couldn’t tell you.
I WANT to scream about this from the rooftops. I want each and every one of you to read it, because it is utterly one of a kind and it’s gripping from page one and the characters are fantastic and the writing is witty and beautiful and it is…
I tried to trick myself into stating all the ways in which it is amazing, but as always I got overwhelmed and ran out of words to describe it. (The one scenario in known human existence that can get me to shut up for even one second.)
Anytime I write a five star review, I struggle to render perfection onto the page, and I just make myself want to reread.
Damn...I really, really want to reread.
Bottom line: Don’t take my insufficient words for it!!! But read this book immediately.
The writing is lovely. The characters are charming and real. The stories give an immersive look at the as-yet-otherwise-unknown-to-me experience of a Scandinavian summer that feels totally new, and simultaneously gives a look at a childhood summer that is so familiar and comfortable and nostalgic.
It's a dream. That's all.
Bottom line: I don't intend to let another summer go by without me reading this book during it.
------------ pre-review
saw this one coming from a mile away.
review to come / 5 stars
------------ currently-reading updates
have you ever picked up a book and instantly known it was exactly what you needed it to be?
Two things: 1) This is deserving of the one-of-the-great-classics-of-the-20th-century title. 2) Every book should be large print.
To elaborate on both:
ThTwo things: 1) This is deserving of the one-of-the-great-classics-of-the-20th-century title. 2) Every book should be large print.
To elaborate on both:
This is a beautifully written, brilliantly characterized, and consuming read. I tend to hate historical fiction, but when it's done like this I love it completely.
Equally significantly, I accidentally bought the large-print version of this book, and now I want to do that forever.
Those are my two PSAs.
Bottom line: Read this book, and give large print editions the respect they deserve.
-------------- pre-review
i should have paid more attention the first time. or any attention at all, rather.
review to come
-------------- currently-reading updates
i read this in school and do not remember a single thing about it.
realizing i may have only pretended to read this in school....more
Okay, I do also want to say that this is such a beautiful and painful representation of how white America has stolen the stories of Black people. As the reader of this story is able to learn the story of these bloodlines over the course of 300 years, constructing a narrative from ancestry to the present, so must the reader be aware of how this history has been kept from the very people who are living it. No character in this story is able to have the breadth of knowledge that any reader does, and that is not only because of the slave trade but because of the school-to-prison pipeline, because of the war on drugs, because of the racism that is present in our society to this day.
If you are able to read this book without awareness of your accountability in that process, read it again.
Also, I can mention that even though we rarely follow one character for more than 20 or so pages, nearly all of them manage to be full and real and unforgettable. (@ authors who manage to write 300 pages about one character who I still can’t be bothered to care about - you are ON NOTICE.)
And lastly, I will write the four nonsense stream of thought sentences I jotted down upon finishing this: “This is just so gorgeous” “The first 5 star I’ve given in months” “You will never ever read a book like this ever” “What a gift”
Bottom line: Required reading.
--------------- pre-review “Originally, he'd wanted to focus his work on the convict leasing system that had stolen years off of his great-grandpa H's life, but the deeper into the research he got, the bigger the project got. How could he talk about Great-Grandpa H's story without also talking about his grandma Willie and the millions of other black people who had migrated north, fleeing Jim Crow? And if he mentioned the Great Migration, he'd have to talk about the cities that took that flock in. He'd have to talk about Harlem, And how could he talk about Harlem without mentioning his father's heroin addiction - the stints in prison, the criminal record? And if he was going to talk about heroin in Harlem in the '60s, wouldn't he also have to talk about crack everywhere in the '80s? And if he wrote about crack, he'd inevitably be writing, to, about the "war on drugs." And if he started talking about the war on drugs, he'd be talking about how nearly half of the black men he grew up with were on their way either into or out of what had become the harshest prison system in the world. And if he talked about why friends from his hood were doing five-year bids for possession of marijuana when nearly all the white people he'd gone to college with smoked it openly every day, he'd get so angry that he'd slam the research book on the table of the beautiful but deadly silent Lane Reading Room of Green Library of Stanford University. And if he slammed the book down, then everyone in the room would stare and all they would see would be his skin and his anger, and they'd think they knew something about him, and it would be the same something that had justified putting his great-grandpa H in prison, only it would be different too, less obvious than it once was.”
review to come / 5 stars
--------------- currently-reading updates
150,000 ratings with an average of 4.43..........
if i don't like this book i'm canceling myself.
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i am spending this month reading books by Black authors. please join me!
The best things in the world are as follows: - when you perfectly toast a bagel. I mean we all know how easy it is to underdo that bad boy so it’s stilThe best things in the world are as follows: - when you perfectly toast a bagel. I mean we all know how easy it is to underdo that bad boy so it’s still a weird squishy bread circle or even more likely, burn that baby till it’s glorified charcoal but when you really find that sweet spot...(chef’s kiss) - baking cookies and then eating them while they’re still warm, and then you eat a whole tray because if you made them they don’t count as caloric - genuine, believable enemies to lovers where you really feel them fall in love and also it’s funny and also everything is perfect.
Aka this book.
Because I am extremely picky about books and am disappointed by most of what I read, I like to do this very adorable and charming thing where when I like one thing, I assume I will like everything that is similar to it.
I very much enjoyed The Hating Game (possibly to an extent in which I compared myself both to a jack o’lantern and a gif from Disney’s Tangled in my review, I don’t know, who’s to say), and so I assumed I would like every rom-com. Especially ones that were actually funny.
Especially-especially of the enemies to lovers.
And, like the new Star Wars movie and orange-flavored Skittles and every other disappointing thing, that was not to be.
But finally, FINALLY, my suffering has been rewarded.
Because...dare I say it…
This book is better than The Hating Game.
I KNOW.
Look at us. Hey! Look at us. Who would’ve thought?
Not me.
This is The Hating Game in terms of tropes and plot and the overall yay-falling-in-love feeling it gives off, but with better characters. And more humor.
GOD. This is so funny it doesn’t make sense. Since when are books funny? When was the last time I truly laughed at a book and I wasn’t laughing out of all the anger and hatred in my cold dark soul?
Not sure. Well before this, I’ll tell you that.
But it wasn’t just a barrel of laughs my friends. It also made my heart hurt, but in the good emotional way where you’re like, oh my god...fools...just love each other...kiss already...except also don’t because the drama and conflict and miscommunication and will-they-won’t-they (they will) is the fun part.
Basically what I’m saying is: I don’t know how to love anything without being obsessed with it, and I already want to read this eleven more times.
Bottom line: I didn’t play Animal Crossing for this! ANIMAL CROSSING!!!
-------------- project 5 star update
welcome back to PROJECT 5 STAR, a project in which i revisit all the books i've ever given five stars, mostly out of cynicism and masochism, but in this case just as an excuse to reread the most perfect romance novel of all time.
simply rereading this so i can write a kickass review and not because i've been searching for a reason
-------------- pre-review
please don't tell anyone i burst into tears at the gushy part of this book. it'll ruin my bad-boy image.
review to come / POSSIBLY FIVE STARS
-------------- tbr review
just saw this quote from this book: “I’m a miserable cynic (a newer development) and a dreamy romantic (always have been), and it’s such a terrible combination that I don’t know how to tolerate myself” and instantly started reading it because girl if that ain't me...more
I read 200+ books a year. This month, I’ve read almost a book a day. When I’m reading that much, it can just be becauSometimes, a book just hits you.
I read 200+ books a year. This month, I’ve read almost a book a day. When I’m reading that much, it can just be because the stars aligned and gave me an insane amount of free time and I chose to spend it all on Bettering Myself Through Literature, but more often, it’s because I’m trying to escape from my snoozefest daily life and my annoying brain.
Currently, it’s the latter.
When I read that much, it can put the stories at a distance. Or really I want to immerse myself so much that I remove myself from the equation altogether and it’s all story, no impact on me.
But sometimes you get a good book at the perfect time and it cuts all that away, whether you want it to or not.
(I did not.)
This book is so, well, gorgeous. The writing and the story, the characters, the setting - none of it gives you a moment’s mercy. It’s unrelenting in its pain and its reality and its loveliness. I kept thinking this was a memoir, because fiction that feels like this is so rare, an incredible feat.
For the last 25% of this book, I kept thinking it had to be over at the next page, or the next - every sentence felt like another paper cut, every paragraph break a scrape, chapter endings f*cking road rash. It was unbearable. I had tears in my eyes through a third of it and I pride myself on being the coolest and least emotional person alive.
Jeez louise.
Bottom line: A book so good it makes me talk like an elderly person.
------------ pre-review
oh, worth the wait.
review to come / 5 stars easily, obviously, painfully
------------ currently-reading updates
i saw this for the first time in a bookstore two years ago and have wanted to read it ever since.
And once I am there, I will stay there for a very long time.
When I found this book, it was in the literary fiction section of a bookstore basement, where the used books were kept in winding rows.
Another thing about me: I keep a wish-list of books I mean to buy. When I want to buy one that isn’t on that list, I achieve a Bare Minimum Requirement of reading a few pages and seeing if I feel ordained to keep going. (I almost always do.)
So in this bookstore basement, on a Thursday night around 9:30 or 10 pm (yes, I know this is late. The coolest bookstores are open late), I found a chair in a corner under an unseemly pipe, plunked myself down, and started reading.
Over the next hour, a series of quirky college students had loud and performative first dates in a cycle so coordinated it was as if they scheduled it. First two girls yelled about how one of them had seen Panic! at the Disco at a rural gas station. Then a boy and a girl did an intentionally adorable thing where they pointed out the title of a book and tried to guess the plot (this was the girl’s idea, and the boy’s interest was never more than half-hearted). Then two older women shouted across the shelves about where the children’s section was before learning the answer: right f*cking in front of them.
That last one may not have been a date, but I promise it was equally annoying.
Through it all, I sat and read this book.
It wasn’t even a comfy chair, or a particularly pleasant room. It was just that good of a book.
My favorite TED talk (which is a very low bar) has been Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s “The Danger of a Single Story” since I watched it in a gender class a few years ago. In it, Adichie explains the pervasiveness of stereotypes and bigotry when only one story about a certain group is being told - she uses the story of Africa being a continent of poverty without technology, the only one told in America, as an example.
After I watched that talk in that class, and after I got home and watched it again, I should have gone right out and bought everything she’d ever written. But I didn’t. What a dummy.
This book is divine.
It is so, so beautifully written. I care about each and every character in a way that hurts my heart. It’s nearly 600 pages long, and character-driven to the point that there’s essentially no plot other than the daily progression of our protagonists’ lives, but if it were twice as long as I wouldn’t have minded.
It’s just that good.
I feel like it expanded my whole brain.
Everyone should get to have that feeling.
Bottom line: Everyone should read this book.
------------ pre-review
i missed reading this the second i finished it.
review to come / 5 stars
------------ currently-reading updates
could someone please inform the work i'm supposed to be doing that i won't be doing it due to suddenly being unable to put this down? k thanks
------------ tbr review
the best way to stay on track on your reading challenge is to read three books at once and also one of those books is 600 pages long...more
not to sound like i believe myself to the center of the universe, but...i am and i do and this book was probably written for me.
i, like our protagonisnot to sound like i believe myself to the center of the universe, but...i am and i do and this book was probably written for me.
i, like our protagonist, am a 24-year-old blonde with exactly one toxic but adoring friend who daydreams about the idea of sleeping away a week / month / year and waking up refreshed and renewed and in a slightly different, shinier life.
in college, the aforementioned singular friend and i lived through finals and midterms and forty-hour workweeks combined with internships and full-time course-loads by fantasizing about comas. just a few weeks or so, no brain damage, modern-day snow whites escaping capitalism or the patriarchy or what have you.
all of this is to say that the only thing that separates me from this protagonist is the first two decades of the millennium and the wherewithal to get it done.
life is painful and exhausting and gross. life is stained crate & barrel couches and intolerable people with trust funds who can't tolerate themselves and caffeine addictions upheld by sh*tty coffee. life needs pills to get you through it and pills to get you out of it.
but life is also the in-betweens: waking up from blackouts (proverbial or literal) to full-body enjoy a slice of pizza standing in front of your fridge. feeling the sun on your skin at the end of winter. sitting in a park and watching people be happy. calling friends.
and life is knowing that the worst part of it all could be just around the corner, on the very last page. but the best part could come a few after.
and maybe the bad parts are actually the in-betweens of the happy ones.
that isn't what this book is about, but it's a fun side effect.
bottom line: this book is good.
reread update: want to note that a) i don't think that you're supposed to like this protagonist, god help me, and b) raising this to a 5, because this is not a perfect book (that ending...shudder) but it's close to it for me!
-------------- 2nd reread
depressive episode reading
-------------- reread pre-review
i have almost no new insight.
still review & rating to come
-------------- reread update
doing the Bravest thing i can imagine: rereading this less than 3 weeks after i read it for the first time just so i can buddy read with lily (and also hopefully figure out a rating)
-------------- pre-review
how could i possibly be expected to sum up this book with a number between 1 and 5?
review & rating to come
-------------- tbr review
secretly i hope every book i pick up will turn out to be the kind of depressing, nasty, female-authored literary fiction populated by unlikable young women and Something to Say about the soullessness of late-stage capitalism that changes my internal monologue for 10-14 days and sears disturbing images into my brain.
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