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broro117's reviews
177 reviews
Small Things Like These by Claire Keegan
4.0
A great Christmastime read that maintains an air of hopefulness while shedding light on a dark part of Irish history (which I'd somehow, shamefully, known nothing about prior to reading this).
I initially wasn't sure how I'd get on with Keegan's writing, but I ended up really enjoying it for reasons I can't describe any better or more succinctly than these couple of blurbs from the back cover:
"Keegan creates scenes with astonishing clarity and lucidity … [She] makes her moments real — and then she makes them matter." — Colm Tóibín
"Every word is the right word in the right place, and the effect is resonant and deeply moving." — Hilary Mantel
As Mantel also says, this book "asks profound questions about complicity, about the hope and difficulty of change, and the complex nature of restitution." Pretty incredible for a small book like this (wink wink) to contain all that and more while still managing a delightful, warm, and Christmassy tone. Looking forward to reading Keegan's other works in the future.
Quotes that spoke to me:
I initially wasn't sure how I'd get on with Keegan's writing, but I ended up really enjoying it for reasons I can't describe any better or more succinctly than these couple of blurbs from the back cover:
"Keegan creates scenes with astonishing clarity and lucidity … [She] makes her moments real — and then she makes them matter." — Colm Tóibín
"Every word is the right word in the right place, and the effect is resonant and deeply moving." — Hilary Mantel
As Mantel also says, this book "asks profound questions about complicity, about the hope and difficulty of change, and the complex nature of restitution." Pretty incredible for a small book like this (wink wink) to contain all that and more while still managing a delightful, warm, and Christmassy tone. Looking forward to reading Keegan's other works in the future.
Quotes that spoke to me:
- Even while he'd been creaming the butter and sugar, his mind was not so much upon the here and now and on this Sunday nearing Christmas with his wife and daughters so much as on tomorrow and who owed what, and how and when he'd deliver what was ordered and what man he'd leave to which task, and how and where he'd collect what was owed — and before tomorrow was coming to an end, he knew his mind would already be working in much the same way, yet again, over the day that was to follow.
- It was easy to understand why women feared men with their physical strength and lust and social powers, but women, with their canny intuitions, were so much deeper: they could predict what was to come long before it came, dream it overnight, and read your mind.
- He caught a hold of himself and concluded that nothing ever did happen again; to each was given days and chances which wouldn't come back around. And wasn't it sweet to be where you were and let it remind you of the past for once, despite the upset, instead of always looking on into the mechanics of the days and the trouble ahead, which might never come.
- When he reached the yard gate and found the padlock seized with frost, he felt the strain of being alive and wished he had stayed in bed, but he made himself carry on.
- It seemed both proper and at the same time deeply unfair that so much of life was left to chance.
- Furlong looked down at the dark shining river whose surface reflected equal parts of the lighted town. So many things had a way of looking finer, when they were not so close.
- Always, Christmas brought out the best and the worst in people.
- Was there any point in being alive without helping one another? Was it possible to carry on along through all the years, the decades, through an entire life, without once being brave enough to go against what was there and yet call yourself a Christian, and face yourself in the mirror?
Holes by Louis Sachar
5.0
Twenty-ish years after first reading this book, it still slaps, y'all.
I've often used Holes as a measuring stick (or a measuring shovel, if you will) for whether or not there's a chance I'll get along with someone. What are their thoughts on the (absolutely perfect) 2003 film adaptation? Did they love it? We're off to a good start. Were they apathetic toward it, or did they just not care for it? Well, that's gonna be tough to come back from. Did they love the movie and read the book? Now we're cooking with gas.
This is quite simply a perfect puzzle of a book. Is the writing style always top-notch? No, it's a little repetitive and stilted at times — but then I don't really expect the writing style in middle grade books to be flawless.
Looking past that, though, I just can't give any fewer than 5 stars for this story. I can't fault it. The way Sachar weaves together storylines from three different time periods is quite possibly more satisfying than anything else I've read or watched to this day.
Also, Kissin' Kate is a total badass. My favorite part of the movie has always been her origin story and watching her rampage all over the Wild West. The tragic ending of her romance with Sam (SAM!!!) was likely one of the very first real "Wow, racism sucks" gut-punches I ever experienced. I remember keenly feeling the injustice of it all as a kid, and no matter how many times I rewatched the movie (which was a lot), I'd still find myself clinging to a Hadestown-esque hope that "maybe it'll turn out this time." Honestly, I don't think it'd be too far-fetched to say that as a kid growing up in a deeply conservative, deeply racist area of rural Ohio, reading the Sam-and-Kate plotline may have been one of the main catalysts for my becoming aware of and working to dismantle my own racism.
Just brilliant. Brilliant from top to bottom. Definitely one of my top recommendations for any young reader (or for readers of any age, for that matter).
I've often used Holes as a measuring stick (or a measuring shovel, if you will) for whether or not there's a chance I'll get along with someone. What are their thoughts on the (absolutely perfect) 2003 film adaptation? Did they love it? We're off to a good start. Were they apathetic toward it, or did they just not care for it? Well, that's gonna be tough to come back from. Did they love the movie and read the book? Now we're cooking with gas.
This is quite simply a perfect puzzle of a book. Is the writing style always top-notch? No, it's a little repetitive and stilted at times — but then I don't really expect the writing style in middle grade books to be flawless.
Looking past that, though, I just can't give any fewer than 5 stars for this story. I can't fault it. The way Sachar weaves together storylines from three different time periods is quite possibly more satisfying than anything else I've read or watched to this day.
Also, Kissin' Kate is a total badass. My favorite part of the movie has always been her origin story and watching her rampage all over the Wild West. The tragic ending of her romance with Sam (SAM!!!) was likely one of the very first real "Wow, racism sucks" gut-punches I ever experienced. I remember keenly feeling the injustice of it all as a kid, and no matter how many times I rewatched the movie (which was a lot), I'd still find myself clinging to a Hadestown-esque hope that "maybe it'll turn out this time." Honestly, I don't think it'd be too far-fetched to say that as a kid growing up in a deeply conservative, deeply racist area of rural Ohio, reading the Sam-and-Kate plotline may have been one of the main catalysts for my becoming aware of and working to dismantle my own racism.
Just brilliant. Brilliant from top to bottom. Definitely one of my top recommendations for any young reader (or for readers of any age, for that matter).
My Evil Mother by Margaret Atwood
Essentially a gender-swapped Big Fish with witches. Works well as a way to pass the time on an October plane ride, which is how I read it.
The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman
4.0
Please write more spooky children's books, Neil Gaiman.
(I read this for the first time many years ago, very soon after it was published. This time, I read it out loud with my dog and another loved one. It's a perfect Halloween read. Next up, Coraline.)
(I read this for the first time many years ago, very soon after it was published. This time, I read it out loud with my dog and another loved one. It's a perfect Halloween read. Next up, Coraline.)
Games and Rituals by Katherine Heiny
2.0
The blurb for this collection says it contains "11 glittering stories of love in all its forms," but I'm pretty sure it meant to say "stories of infidelity in all its forms."
As someone who's still healing from having been cheated on, I'm very tired of cheating being used as a plot point — and it's way, way overused here. I'm talking nearly every single story. It's like Katherine Heiny couldn't possibly think of any other big dramatic thing that could happen in someone's love life. It's like she had a big red button labeled "CHEAT" beside her while she was writing and she slammed her fist down on it like 27 times while writing these stories.
One story was so triggering for me and my personal experience with betrayal that it made me feel sick to my stomach and I had to actively regulate my emotions afterward. And what's worse, many of these stories read as though they're glorifying the affairs to an extent. It seems like Heiny is asking her readers to feel charitable for these selfish assholes, but I didn't feel an ounce of charity toward any of them because why would I??
Also, this book could have easily been titled Men Are Scum. There are maybe two decent men to be found among all these stories. The rest are straight-up terrible, skeezy, predatory dirtbags. They're all either cheating on their spouses or preying on teenage girls. If I'm not mistaken, the last story tries to make us feel some amount of sympathy toward a guy in his late 30s who married a girl fresh out of high school who also worked in his store as a high schooler??? Don't think I will, thanks.
And on that note, there are several instances of much older men taking advantage of teenage girls that are all just quickly glossed over. Like in 11 stories/218 pages, this happens four or five times. Weird choice.
A lot of the female characters are encoded with a lot of "not like other girls" BS, particularly the mistresses, while the wives are depicted as frumpy, nagging shrews. Again, weird choice by a woman writer. Don't we have plenty (read: way too fucking much) of that from male authors?
Aside from all that, I'm just not sure many of these stories had anything much to say, and they were full of some of the most bizarre, nonsensical similes/metaphors I've ever read.
Giving it two stars because I somewhat enjoyed parts of "Chicken-Flavored and Lemon-Scented," "CobRa," and "Pandemic Behavior," and the ending of "Bridesmaid, Revisited" was probably the strongest in the collection.
As someone who's still healing from having been cheated on, I'm very tired of cheating being used as a plot point — and it's way, way overused here. I'm talking nearly every single story. It's like Katherine Heiny couldn't possibly think of any other big dramatic thing that could happen in someone's love life. It's like she had a big red button labeled "CHEAT" beside her while she was writing and she slammed her fist down on it like 27 times while writing these stories.
One story was so triggering for me and my personal experience with betrayal that it made me feel sick to my stomach and I had to actively regulate my emotions afterward. And what's worse, many of these stories read as though they're glorifying the affairs to an extent. It seems like Heiny is asking her readers to feel charitable for these selfish assholes, but I didn't feel an ounce of charity toward any of them because why would I??
Also, this book could have easily been titled Men Are Scum. There are maybe two decent men to be found among all these stories. The rest are straight-up terrible, skeezy, predatory dirtbags. They're all either cheating on their spouses or preying on teenage girls. If I'm not mistaken, the last story tries to make us feel some amount of sympathy toward a guy in his late 30s who married a girl fresh out of high school who also worked in his store as a high schooler??? Don't think I will, thanks.
And on that note, there are several instances of much older men taking advantage of teenage girls that are all just quickly glossed over. Like in 11 stories/218 pages, this happens four or five times. Weird choice.
A lot of the female characters are encoded with a lot of "not like other girls" BS, particularly the mistresses, while the wives are depicted as frumpy, nagging shrews. Again, weird choice by a woman writer. Don't we have plenty (read: way too fucking much) of that from male authors?
Aside from all that, I'm just not sure many of these stories had anything much to say, and they were full of some of the most bizarre, nonsensical similes/metaphors I've ever read.
Giving it two stars because I somewhat enjoyed parts of "Chicken-Flavored and Lemon-Scented," "CobRa," and "Pandemic Behavior," and the ending of "Bridesmaid, Revisited" was probably the strongest in the collection.
I Want to Be Where the Normal People Are by Rachel Bloom
I really appreciate Rachel Bloom's work — Crazy Ex-Girlfriend was a comfort show for me a couple years ago when I was feeling very lonely and isolated in a new city. And this was an entertaining read, but through no fault of the book itself, I think I'm always going to remember the circumstances in which I listened to it more than the content.
In May of this year, my grandma was in a really horrifying, hugely traumatic accident while out for a morning walk. Upon hearing the news, I immediately booked the last remaining seat on a flight back home for that evening, hoping against hope that she'd still be alive by the time I landed in Ohio.
Miraculously, she was. And for the next week and a half, my family members and I were constantly rotating in and out of the ICU. That week and a half was a bizarre mix of absolute terror and renewed love for the people in my life. I felt a closer kinship with my extended family members than I'd ever felt before, and I felt incredibly grateful for my best friends, who offered me respite from the hospital.
And of course, there was my grandma: At first I was scared to death to even see her, and seeing her for the first time was certainly a shock. But after that, I didn't want to leave her side. She looked so scared and small and vulnerable, and once she was able to start "communicating" a little bit, my family and I were really the only ones who could understand her.
After nine days that felt like a blur of windowless waiting rooms, fluorescent lights and the ceaseless noise of beeping ICU machines, I left Ohio to drive to a wedding in Pennsylvania, and so the bizarre mix of emotions only continued to get more bizarre.
And for much of the six-hour drive there, I listened to this audiobook. So again, in assessing its merit, I don't think I can judge it on its actual content so much as on what it offered me at that time. It gave me a break. For hours, I stared out at I-70 and really breathed for what felt like the first time in nine days while allowing myself to relax and even laugh a little. And I needed that.
Now I didn't finish the audiobook on that drive. Since then, my life has been consumed with working, unpacking my house, taking another trip back home, ending my long-term relationship, therapy, the death of a family pet, and just... trying not to drown. I haven't had a spare second to finish this book (or any book) until this past week, so here I am.
So yeah, I know Rachel Bloom put a lot of effort into writing this book and I found it enjoyable to listen to, so I apologize to her that the book itself has been forever eclipsed in my mind by where I was and what I was doing when I was listening to (the majority of) it. I hope I'll be able to clear the mental space to make my next book review about the actual book in question.
2023 has been wild, y'all.
*Listened to audiobook
In May of this year, my grandma was in a really horrifying, hugely traumatic accident while out for a morning walk. Upon hearing the news, I immediately booked the last remaining seat on a flight back home for that evening, hoping against hope that she'd still be alive by the time I landed in Ohio.
Miraculously, she was. And for the next week and a half, my family members and I were constantly rotating in and out of the ICU. That week and a half was a bizarre mix of absolute terror and renewed love for the people in my life. I felt a closer kinship with my extended family members than I'd ever felt before, and I felt incredibly grateful for my best friends, who offered me respite from the hospital.
And of course, there was my grandma: At first I was scared to death to even see her, and seeing her for the first time was certainly a shock. But after that, I didn't want to leave her side. She looked so scared and small and vulnerable, and once she was able to start "communicating" a little bit, my family and I were really the only ones who could understand her.
After nine days that felt like a blur of windowless waiting rooms, fluorescent lights and the ceaseless noise of beeping ICU machines, I left Ohio to drive to a wedding in Pennsylvania, and so the bizarre mix of emotions only continued to get more bizarre.
And for much of the six-hour drive there, I listened to this audiobook. So again, in assessing its merit, I don't think I can judge it on its actual content so much as on what it offered me at that time. It gave me a break. For hours, I stared out at I-70 and really breathed for what felt like the first time in nine days while allowing myself to relax and even laugh a little. And I needed that.
Now I didn't finish the audiobook on that drive. Since then, my life has been consumed with working, unpacking my house, taking another trip back home, ending my long-term relationship, therapy, the death of a family pet, and just... trying not to drown. I haven't had a spare second to finish this book (or any book) until this past week, so here I am.
So yeah, I know Rachel Bloom put a lot of effort into writing this book and I found it enjoyable to listen to, so I apologize to her that the book itself has been forever eclipsed in my mind by where I was and what I was doing when I was listening to (the majority of) it. I hope I'll be able to clear the mental space to make my next book review about the actual book in question.
2023 has been wild, y'all.
*Listened to audiobook
I'm Glad My Mom Died by Jennette McCurdy
*Listened to audiobook
I tried desperately to understand and know my mother... at the expense of ever really knowing myself.
This memoir is an impressive blend of very difficult to read and very difficult to put down.
I finished this way faster than I've finished any book in a long time, but not because it was fun and simple. It wasn't. It was hard and sometimes even brought up painful personal memories. Hearing her voice—the voice of this woman I used to watch on iCarly as a tween—crack as she recounted her trauma was heartbreaking. But I wanted so badly to get to the part of the story where Jennette finds a path toward peace that I couldn't stop reading. Maybe I needed the reassurance that such a path exists in my own life.
Within these pages are a number of things I could intimately relate to. Like Jennette, I have a complicated relationship with a dysfunctional mother who refuses to admit she has any problems, making it entirely (and unfairly) my responsibility to do the work of healing. Like Jennette, intense religion played a part in the loss of my first real love. Like Jennette, I've cycled through various forms of disordered eating for much of my life, which can be traced back to critical comments about my diet and body made by my mother throughout my upbringing. Like Deb, my mom even used to pull me in on some of her fad diets, including one that had me eating ice as a "snack" in the evenings so I could use the action of chewing to try and trick my body into feeling like it was eating more than it was.
There were so many moments when I thought, "God, how could it get any worse? How did she hold on to her will to live through all of this?" But that's the point. After 20 years of sacrificing her identity and wants and needs for her mother, her eating disorder, her directors, her agents, her boyfriends, etc., Jennette still managed to hold on to enough of herself to rebuild and find a way forward. That's where the hope lies. I'm so impressed and inspired by her ability to get to where she is now, and I wish her continued peace, healing and happiness. And yeah, I'm glad her mom died too.
P.S. When Mother's Day rolls around and all the "YOU OWE EVERYTHING TO YOUR MOTHER" "BOW DOWN AND WORSHIP THE WOMAN WHO GAVE YOU LIFE" commercials inevitably begin to air, can everyone please try to remember this book and the fact that lots of moms are more like Debra McCurdy than June Cleaver? Can we please cut that shit out? It's exhausting.
A couple quotes I noted because they sound like things I could have written:
This memoir is an impressive blend of very difficult to read and very difficult to put down.
I finished this way faster than I've finished any book in a long time, but not because it was fun and simple. It wasn't. It was hard and sometimes even brought up painful personal memories. Hearing her voice—the voice of this woman I used to watch on iCarly as a tween—crack as she recounted her trauma was heartbreaking. But I wanted so badly to get to the part of the story where Jennette finds a path toward peace that I couldn't stop reading. Maybe I needed the reassurance that such a path exists in my own life.
Within these pages are a number of things I could intimately relate to. Like Jennette, I have a complicated relationship with a dysfunctional mother who refuses to admit she has any problems, making it entirely (and unfairly) my responsibility to do the work of healing. Like Jennette, intense religion played a part in the loss of my first real love. Like Jennette, I've cycled through various forms of disordered eating for much of my life, which can be traced back to critical comments about my diet and body made by my mother throughout my upbringing. Like Deb, my mom even used to pull me in on some of her fad diets, including one that had me eating ice as a "snack" in the evenings so I could use the action of chewing to try and trick my body into feeling like it was eating more than it was.
There were so many moments when I thought, "God, how could it get any worse? How did she hold on to her will to live through all of this?" But that's the point. After 20 years of sacrificing her identity and wants and needs for her mother, her eating disorder, her directors, her agents, her boyfriends, etc., Jennette still managed to hold on to enough of herself to rebuild and find a way forward. That's where the hope lies. I'm so impressed and inspired by her ability to get to where she is now, and I wish her continued peace, healing and happiness. And yeah, I'm glad her mom died too.
P.S. When Mother's Day rolls around and all the "YOU OWE EVERYTHING TO YOUR MOTHER" "BOW DOWN AND WORSHIP THE WOMAN WHO GAVE YOU LIFE" commercials inevitably begin to air, can everyone please try to remember this book and the fact that lots of moms are more like Debra McCurdy than June Cleaver? Can we please cut that shit out? It's exhausting.
A couple quotes I noted because they sound like things I could have written:
- I want to do good work. I want to do work I'm proud of. This matters to me on a deep, inherent level. I want to make a difference, or at least feel like I'm making a difference through my work. Without that feeling, that connection, the work feels pointless and vapid. I feel pointless and vapid.
- Why do we romanticize the dead? Why can't we be honest about them? Especially moms. They're the most romanticized of anyone. Moms are saints. Angels by merely existing. NO ONE could possibly understand what it's like to be a mom. Men will never understand. Women with no children will never understand. No one but moms know the hardship of motherhood, and we non-moms must heap nothing but praise upon moms because we lowly, pitiful non-moms are mere peasants compared to the goddesses we call mothers.
*Listened to audiobook
Working on a Song: The Lyrics of Hadestown by Anaïs Mitchell
5.0
Every once in a great while you come across a piece of art that connects with your soul and resonates through your bones in a way that makes you want to stay alive, to continue bearing witness to art like that. Hadestown is one such example.
I've seen Hadestown twice on stage, and both times it's left me in full-body sobs—partially because it's a tragedy and partially because it's so beautiful it almost breaks me. This insight into Mitchell's songwriting process and the show's evolution throughout its many iterations just allowed me to appreciate it on yet another level.
I've seen Hadestown twice on stage, and both times it's left me in full-body sobs—partially because it's a tragedy and partially because it's so beautiful it almost breaks me. This insight into Mitchell's songwriting process and the show's evolution throughout its many iterations just allowed me to appreciate it on yet another level.
Our Wives Under The Sea by Julia Armfield
2.5
I'm very intrigued by water and stories that feature water as a central component, but this just never clicked into place for me. The lush prose was a little too lush while also trying too hard to be edgy and gritty. I never felt a connection to Leah or Miri; their relationship and they as individuals felt cold and removed. The fact that their voices were nearly identical didn't help the matter.
Leah's chapters were very brief while Miri's were overlong, and this should have been the other way around. All of Miri's chapters felt like they were saying the same thing over and over again, and I was far more interested in what happened on the submarine voyage than in Miri talking about her late mother in vague terms ad nauseam or getting coffee with a "friend" she doesn't even like for the 15th time.
The horror elements were by far the most interesting part, and I wish this book had fully committed to being a horror novel.
I agree with other reviewers that it almost certainly would have worked better as a short story. Some more snippets from other reviews that I wholeheartedly agree with: "lack of substance," "prioritizes language over characters or story," "structural haziness," "screams MFA."
*Listened to audiobook
Leah's chapters were very brief while Miri's were overlong, and this should have been the other way around. All of Miri's chapters felt like they were saying the same thing over and over again, and I was far more interested in what happened on the submarine voyage than in Miri talking about her late mother in vague terms ad nauseam or getting coffee with a "friend" she doesn't even like for the 15th time.
The horror elements were by far the most interesting part, and I wish this book had fully committed to being a horror novel.
I agree with other reviewers that it almost certainly would have worked better as a short story. Some more snippets from other reviews that I wholeheartedly agree with: "lack of substance," "prioritizes language over characters or story," "structural haziness," "screams MFA."
*Listened to audiobook
Shit, Actually: The Definitive, 100% Objective Guide to Modern Cinema by Lindy West
2.0
Meh. I wanted something mindlessly entertaining to listen to, but I wasn't particularly entertained. I'm not sure "retyping the Wiki plot summaries of various 90s/00s movies but with more all-caps, elongated vowels and snarky humor" should've been a book. There's also the occasional liberal talking point, all of which I'm already familiar and in agreement with, so nothing original or enlightening to be gleaned there either.
*Listened to audiobook
*Listened to audiobook