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ellieb_reads's Reviews (186)
This was a really interesting and thoroughly-researched history of the rise of reality TV. The chapters on The Bachelor and Survivor were 10/10, with tons of great little nuggets (Survivor’s connection to The Office, for example!). The chapter on The Apprentice was hard to listen to, but really well done. The first chapters on very early formats were a bit of a slog, but after finishing the book I found I appreciated their foundation a little more. I wanted more from this, though. There were sooo many areas of reality TV that Nussbaum didn’t cover (would’ve loved a chapter on TLC shows). But the biggest missing piece here was a deeper analysis of the impact. We explore how reality TV has changed, but not how reality TV has changed *us*, and I think that exploration could’ve made this a 5 star book.
emotional
funny
hopeful
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
My first Abby Jimenez! Opens with an AITA Reddit post? I’m sold. This was a cute (albeit predictable) premise with some interesting layers and emotionally complicated characters. I appreciated the book’s handling of mental health through Emma’s changing understanding of her trauma, and Maddy is the fierce friend everyone needs. Some of it was cheesy and Justin is too kind/hot/funny/smart to be believable as a real human, but I don’t really care. I did think that the peak of the conflict felt too rushed and the epilogue was a little too perfectly wrapped up. But it was a fun and sweet summer read, and I’ll check out more from the author next time I need a new rom-com!
emotional
sad
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
There was a lot I liked here. The beginning of Lillian and Ryan’s love story was really sweet. Lillian’s friendship with Shauna and Jet’s friendship with Kendi felt so warm and real. The passages about grief throughout the book were stunning. I appreciated the way the story handled alcoholism and generational trauma. But the pacing of the book was a little off to me. Really big events happened in a really casual way, while more mundane happenings got multiple pages of prose. There were a lot of huge plot points, but it felt like Damoff was determined to make this a character-driven novel, and that resulted in a pace that was always either too slow or too fast. But still, this was pretty good (and very very sad), and I was invested in the characters from start to finish.
adventurous
emotional
inspiring
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
I AM UNWELL. I loved this so much. It was sweet and smart and heartbreaking. Joan’s relationship with her niece was such a lovely subplot, and I was ready to tear pages out of the book over her piece of trash sister. At first, all the space terminology was a little overwhelming and I thought I might not get into it, but it really grew on me. I would’ve happily read a non-romance about the first women at NASA! But the romance storyline certainly did not disappoint, and everything really knit together beautifully. The subtitle of the book is very fitting. This is a few different love stories in one, and I truly enjoyed them all.
love Samantha Irby. This was a perfect listen for a day spent hiding from the humidity and trying to distract myself from *gestures wildly* all this. 4.5 stars instead of 5 because I didn’t love it quite as much as Wow, No Thank You, which I read last winter, but still so clever, unfiltered, and laugh-out-loud funny.
emotional
tense
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
I had to stare at the wall in silence for a good 20 minutes after finishing this one. It’s a very fast-paced novel, covering one day in the immediate aftermath of a massive earthquake, with flashbacks in alternating chapters. I really liked learning the narrator’s backstory, even if it did make her a little less likable in some ways. These chapters were also a welcome reprieve from the nail-biting tension of Annie’s painful trek across the city. There were so many other interesting layers here: the grief of losing a parent, the anxiety of becoming a first-time mom, the lack of safety women feel in the world. The emotions were real and raw, and the writing was fantastic. I’m shook (get it?).
dark
emotional
mysterious
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
I confess that I did not read any reviews and did not look at the back of the book, so the vampire “reveal” was a big surprise for me, and I was not mad about it. The aesthetic of this book is immaculate. Dark themes, sapphic romances, and paragraphs that read more like poetry (repetitive sentence structure, line breaks, etc.). It’s really internal—for a book that clocks in at over 500 pages, the plot is actually pretty sparse. And this is why it’s not a full 5 stars for me. We spent so much time on one character that by the time all three intersected, there were less than 50 pages left. I definitely could’ve done without Alice’s backstory if it had given more time to the final showdown! I just wanted a little more, even though I did totally celebrate out loud at the conclusion. I don’t think this will be for everyone, but I loved it and will continue to be first in line for V.E. Schwab novels.
emotional
mysterious
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
This was a really interesting fictional take on a real slice of literature history, I think the first time I’ve ever read anything quite like it. The story focuses on Agatha Christie’s disappearance after her husband Archie leaves her for his mistress—fictionalized here as Nan O’Dea instead of the real-life Nancy Neele. Nan is the narrator, which is sometimes…odd. In addition to narrating her own plot line and internal thoughts, she also supplies Agatha’s, still in the first person. This got a little confusing, and Nan is also a classic unreliable narrator. I think I might’ve enjoyed this more as a split POV between both women. That said, I still enjoyed this, particularly Nan’s Ireland storyline. I could’ve read an entire book about just that! I enjoyed the surprise reveal (I won’t give away more), and I thought the ending was done right, though very bittersweet.
emotional
sad
fast-paced
This was really good, but not the “blown away immediately 5 stars hall of fame” for me that reviews led me to expect. I think it got a little overhyped, but it was still pretty great. The writing was excellent and the characters were well-developed and complicated (like seriously, our girl Beth is FLAWED). This kept me hooked and heartbroken, and the level of emotion in the story was pretty incredible. But it was too short! So much of the plot didn’t get the deeper exploration needed to understand the choices the characters were making. Particularly in the “Before” timeline, it seemed like we just got a surface-level summary of what happened, and that made it hard to buy into the love story in the later timeline. There was a lot to like in the plot, but I felt like we sped through it. I also might’ve preferred this one in chronological order instead of the flipping back and forth. But all told, this was a heavy hitter and I’ll happily (despite openly crying at the hair salon finishing this) read this author again.
emotional
reflective
sad
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
The author’s acknowledgments say it took 10 years to write this book, and boy, I felt it. There are no details missed, no feelings unexplored, and no punches pulled. The book is thoroughly a character study, moving sometimes agonizingly slowly. I was pretty bored for about 50 pages around two-thirds of the way through, but then we reach the peak of the conflict and it pulled me back in just enough. The narrator Genevieve is not very likable, and I empathized with her only sometimes, which I’m sure is intentional. I did find this exploration of sisterhood interesting, but I couldn’t relate to it that much, and the ending left me really sad and kind of unsatisfied. But the writing is stunning, and I’ll definitely read more from Jemimah Wei in the future!