agreatgabsby's reviews
83 reviews

The Unreal and the Real: The Selected Short Stories of Ursula K. Le Guin by Ursula K. Le Guin

adventurous emotional hopeful mysterious reflective slow-paced

4.0

A truly unique storyteller. Not a lot of writing gets me thinking quite like Ursula Le Guin’s does. 

Strong Female Character by Fern Brady

4.25

Painfully relatable when it comes to her childhood experiences and thought processes. This is to me what Everything I Know About Love by Dolly Alderton is to supposedly everyone else. 

I Do (I Think): Conversations About Modern Marriage by Allison Raskin

3.75

A great read full of resources about marriage, divorce, and how to build a stronger partnership with your significant other.

Strangers to Ourselves: Unsettled Minds and the Stories That Make Us by Rachel Aviv

4.5

An incredibly human look into the experience of mental illness, written with the utmost empathy for its subjects. Brought up a lot of questions for me about what is reasonable human reaction to the world around us and how our experiences shape our minds. 

Animal Farm by George Orwell

5.0

I can’t think of a book that is more important for all Americans to read right now, as soon as possible. It’s a perfect satire that emphasizes the importance of education and political activism within your own community. Both passivity and blind trust lead to your own disenfranchisement. And it’s packaged in a short, accessibly written way, which makes sense since Orwell saw it as a sort of fairy tale. 

The Six: The Untold Story of America's First Women Astronauts by Loren Grush

2.75

Was it particularly well written? No. Did I learn some things? Yes. Did I get the origin of the 100 tampons comedy bit? Also yes. 

The Deadline: Essays by Jill Lepore

3.75

Really solid collection of essays about recent US history and politics. I liked how well Lepore contextualizes events and roots them in earlier history. I definitely gained a better understanding of current events. 

I Who Have Never Known Men by Jacqueline Harpman

5.0

This book is a masterpiece of philosophy and sociology. It has an incredible about to say about humanity and I think everyone should read it. It should definitely be read in schools, most certainly in philosophy classes. Incredible. 

One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

dark hopeful informative sad medium-paced

4.0

The first 50 pages are a bit slow but by the end, you can’t help but empathize deeply with Ivan. It of course gets points for historical significance but it also has lines that sparkle, like “They bloomed like a couple of poppies.” about two prisoners who came alive greeting each other. It was a pleasant surprise about an extremely unpleasant setting, that centers hope and resilience. 

The Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion

2.0

I was very curious about Didion because of her recent resurgence in popularity, so I decided to give this a listen in it’s audiobook form.  What I found was a shallow meditation on grief that dances around meaning instead of delving into an honest and vulnerable introspective. I suppose that is in line with her concept of “magical thinking.” I couldn’t help but contrast this with Crying in H Mart, which was such a moving and relatable memoir about grief that rung true and honest to me. Makes me think that the recent obsession with Didion is more about aspirational aesthetics than anything else. I would never recommend this to someone experiencing grief. Maybe her fiction is better, I’ll have to still give it a try.