Whew, July was such a busy month and August is going to be even busier. And then classes start again! There are some really great things about being a 37 year old in college, but some terrible things too. Like, the fact that I work full time and have a house to keep up and […]
Category Archives: netgalley
Wahoo, I did it! Exciting times – I completed the 24in48 reading marathon I posted about last week! Usually when I do a marathon I try to stick to short books. This year, since I’m doing the subscription box project, I didn’t get to pick my books. So, for example, The Nix was 737 pages – […]
Lucia, the protagonist of Jesse Ball’s How to Set a Fire and Why, is such a lovely, complicated, aggravating, but ultimately endearing misfit of a teenager. She’s grieving, she’s lonely, she’s scared, she’s way more adult than she should be – but she’s still a kid at heart. Ball does an admirable job with the complications […]
I don’t know if I’ve ever wanted to like a book more than I wanted to like Chronicle of a Last Summer: A Novel of Egypt by Yasmine El Rashidi but god damn did I not love this book. First of all, this is a novel that spans many decades and discusses several different Egyptian revolutions. The […]
I’m not generally a huge fan of “psychological thrillers” because, in my experience, the twists and turns tend to be pretty obvious from pretty far off. That was not the case with We Could Be Beautiful. Sure, it was pretty clear pretty early that the fiance of Catherine West, the rich, spoiled protagonist, had something seriously […]
Reading Before the Fall was a whole lot of fun! The story begins with a plane crash over an ocean and the dramatic story of a man, Scott, who survives said crash. While he’s bobbing around in the water trying to figure out what to do, he hears a sound. It’s J.J., just four-years-old, the son […]
Egads. How does a person review a book as complicated and awful and compelling and just . . . gross as Loner: A Novel by Teddy Wayne? I was about 1/3 of the way through it and I just had to read reviews to find out if the author was aware of how fucking vile the protagonist […]
Wow, Anne Tyler, what happened to you? Vinegar Girl is the fourth book I’ve read by this Pulitzer Prize-winning author and god damn was it not up to snuff. Not that I’ve loved all of her other books. I only gave two stars to Breathing Lessons, the book she won the Pulitzer for, though The Accidental Tourist earned five from […]
Holy bananas, did I love Dear Fang, With Love by Rufi Thorpe. This book deals with so many big, big things in such compassionate, realistic, and emotionally devastating ways. It was a surprisingly engaging and addictive read considering the harsh subject matter it dealt with. On the surface, the story was of a girl and her […]
Guys. Guys! Listen, guys: The Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead is going to win all the awards. I have not read a book this fucking good and powerful and chilling in . . . well, I imagine it was about 1998 when I read Night by Elie Wiesel, which I thought about often while reading this god damn […]
Things I'm Glad Are Things 