Hillary
I went through phases while reading this where I didn't feel super engaged / into the story. The writing is very poetic and pretty and I think Ocean's story is historically underrepresented and unique and this book absolutely deserves the praise and attention it has been getting. Still, I didn't love it.
I read this in the course of 24 hours, mostly on a plane. It was perfect for that, super easy and engaging enough. The story itself is kind of flat/predictable and the interview response format is novel but just ok. I could see why people really liked this but I just liked it, didn't love it.
I absolutely loved the first section of this book. It was a little harder to get through the middle section and don't really know how the author could have better wound the stories together. Overall, very well written, very purposeful and absolutely worth reading but not a quick read.
I bought this a little over a year ago in a bookshop where somehow every customer/employee had already read it. This led to a deep dive internet intro to Zola and the Rougon Macquart series. I ended up reading a couple other Zola books before getting to this one and really liked them. Overall, I liked Nana but not as much as I liked Germinale and L'assommoir. I think it also may have been overhyped in my head from the bookshop intro. Still good, still liked it, just didn't love it.
There were moments where I thought this book was beautiful and made so much sense, but for some reason it's hard for me to stay focused on Heti's thought process. Absolutely worth reading, but not urgent.
When I first started reading Manhattan Beach, it took me back to my obsession with historical fiction when I was in middle school. But, throughout the story there were all these nagging details that kept me from being completely swept away into a different world. Instead of looking up at the end and wondering how Egan had crafted the story in the way she did (like I did when I finished Goon Squad), there were a few things that I found annoying: Egan uses the word “skein” four times throughout the book, I didn't care for the father's side story at all, and many descriptions felt clunky and over the top. Egan is still Egan, the prose is mostly very good, the story is pretty tight. I was just hoping for another five-star book.
Pretty solid set of short stories. Oddly, I found I had a strong preference for the stories he published in the '80s/'90s over his more recent stories.
I absolutely loved this. It's rare that a book makes me smile or laugh as much as this one did. The characters are well-crafted and the storyline moves quickly. By far one of the best books I've read this year.
Challenging to read and definitely dated in some of the references, but generally sound advice.
Even though there is something annoying about Sally Rooney's books (I think it reminds me of something someone who doesn't read would love / think is the epitome of art), I get sucked in and like her characters and think she does a good job developing plot lines. I preferred Normal People to this one, but this was a great quick quarantine read.
I am a huge fan of George Saunders and was pretty disappointed by this book. The entire thing consists of a series of quotes and the story itself is pretty mediocre. I was surprised by how highly rated it is on Goodreads.
This was great - definitely thought-provoking re: human nature, society, etc. while still being digestible. I picked this for book club and was initially worried it was too dense but really enjoyed it.
A very cool premise and I learned a lot about Ghanaian culture. Overall, I never got entirely sucked in. I liked it but not much beyond that.
I hadn't been particularly impressed with this series during books one and two, but really enjoyed the third book and felt this final portion of the story did a great job of tying together everything we had previously learned about the characters.
DNF. I don't know what the fuss is about, the writing is pretty mediocre and it's a lot of navel gazing around race, etc that isn't particularly insightful?
I feel like part of why this book is having a moment is people looking for the “next” All Fours? It would be a great plane book...
I read this because it beat A Tale for the Time Being for the Man Booker in 2013 and so I wanted to see what all the fuss was about. This is a long (800+) but relatively quick-moving read about a gold-mining community in New Zealand in the 1800s. Like a mystery, characters are slowly introduced and exposed, and a blurry image of what's going on clarifies throughout. Overall, I liked this but would have shelved it early on if it wasn't a book club assignment. I felt there are better things to read and the opportunity cost of reading something so long wasn't worth it for me.
I had high hopes for this book. It was my best friend in high school's favorite and I had only heard positive things. The plot was pretty disjointed (having read other Hesse, I shouldn't have been surprised by this), but it was still pretty engaging. I think my main issue was I wanted to learn more about plotting from this book and realized very early on that is not where its strengths lie. Still a good read.
I loved this. The weaving of storylines between a girl in Japan and a character who seems to be a factionalized version of the author totally worked for me. I was uncertain how Ozeki could build on the momentum she had to come up with a satisfying ending, but the introduction of quantum physics really worked for me. This book had everything I wanted and was a perfect quarantine read.