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ellieb_reads's Reviews (186)
This book is technically divided in two halves with different authors, but I would say the content falls into three categories:
1. A memoir of comedian Ian Karmel’s life as a fat person, his childhood experiences with bullying, pop culture’s deeply engrained anti-fatness, and how his weight intersected with his comedy, love life, and mental health. This part was 5 stars. I loved it. It was funny and heartbreaking.
2. An academic exploration by Dr. Alisa Karmel of anti-fatness, mental health, the potential impact of parents, and the bad science behind many diets. This part was also 5 stars. I learned a lot from the section on the impact of anti-fat bias on children.
3. Ian’s weight loss story and advice and Alisa’s weight loss story and advice. These chapters (multiple from each author) were 1 star. The abrupt left turn from meaningful exploration of anti-fatness to “if you don’t lose weight you’ll DIE and here’s how I did it and you should too” was jarring and I almost felt tricked into a book about diet advice. What a bummer.
I’m averaging these ratings to 3.5, but if the third category is triggering for you, I might steer clear.
1. A memoir of comedian Ian Karmel’s life as a fat person, his childhood experiences with bullying, pop culture’s deeply engrained anti-fatness, and how his weight intersected with his comedy, love life, and mental health. This part was 5 stars. I loved it. It was funny and heartbreaking.
2. An academic exploration by Dr. Alisa Karmel of anti-fatness, mental health, the potential impact of parents, and the bad science behind many diets. This part was also 5 stars. I learned a lot from the section on the impact of anti-fat bias on children.
3. Ian’s weight loss story and advice and Alisa’s weight loss story and advice. These chapters (multiple from each author) were 1 star. The abrupt left turn from meaningful exploration of anti-fatness to “if you don’t lose weight you’ll DIE and here’s how I did it and you should too” was jarring and I almost felt tricked into a book about diet advice. What a bummer.
I’m averaging these ratings to 3.5, but if the third category is triggering for you, I might steer clear.
dark
mysterious
tense
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Ummm…what? This had a creative initial concept (long lost twins, successful influencer twin dies, her less glamorous twin takes over her life), and it was okay till about halfway through. Then it goes totally off the rails and morphs into something very different and ridiculous and weird. I understand it was a satire, but it didn’t stick the landing with any real social commentary and just seemed insane. Every single character was deeply unlikeable, and there was no real growth or development for any of them. The ending oddly tries to return from the unhinged chaos in the last third of the book to somewhere in reality, but it feels disjointed and confusing. I’m going with 2.5 because it wasn’t lazy or predictable like my other 2 star thrillers this year, but I can’t say I recommend it.
lighthearted
mysterious
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
I’m really striking out on thrillers this year, yikes! This was a quick and easy read, which was good because I was quite bored. The writing was very basic—repetitive, frequently cringey and cheesy, and struggling to evoke any suspense and tension. Only one of the main characters was interesting to me, and I was totally disinterested in the video game subplot. I liked the Mackinac Island setting and I can see what the author was going for with the Agatha Christie comparison. But this was a just dud (sorry).
I have to start rating nonfiction because I need to give this the 1 star it deserves. I also may have to start reading descriptions of books more thoroughly before I start reading because this is another one where I was expecting something much different and likely would not have read it if I’d known what it was. This is not a history or sociological investigation of MLMs. It’s a memoir of a woman who made a lot of money in one and then left. She doesn’t take real accountability for how she harmed people in the process, and it’s obvious she believes herself to be the sympathetic hero here. She attempts to reckon with the white supremacy in MLMs, but it’s surface-level with no acknowledgment of her role in it. And then the book concludes with the author pitching her paid coaching services/subscription-based network for moms in need of a sober community?! Incredibly tone deaf, and a huge red flag that she didn’t learn the empathy she should have. I really regret paying for the audiobook and wish I hadn’t financially supported this person.
dark
emotional
mysterious
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Honestly I’m speechless. I already know this will be one of the best books I read this year, maybe one of the best I’ve read ever? This book is stunning, and the imagery McConaghy uses is so gorgeously written that I got shivers reading her descriptions of the isolated arctic landscape. The characters are well-developed and feel very real, despite being in a totally unique setting that makes them unlike anyone I actually know. There’s mystery and romance and grief, and all of them are equally gripping. The commentary on climate change is a gut punch, and the ending was beautifully done. Heartbreaking and so, so, so good.
emotional
funny
hopeful
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
A solid EmHen with a few nitpicks.
- Our love interest is repeatedly described as a crazy tall dude. Frequent use of words like “hulking” and “massive,” can’t sit at a table comfortably because he’s basically Andre the Giant. Then she tells us he’s 6’ 2”…..girl.
- The Margaret mystery storyline took up a lot of pages but didn’t give a lot of oomph for me. I liked where it ended up, but I was a little bored getting there.
- The romance felt less believable than in some of her other books. Honestly, I might’ve enjoyed this more if it wasn’t a romance at all and we’d just focused in on the Margaret saga.
I really liked the storyline with Alice’s mom, and I was surprised by a couple of the twists! And even if I wasn’t sold on the couple, I do love the way Henry writes banter and spice. I gave this a more generous review at book club, but as I’ve thought more about it, it’s good but not omg so great.
I love Viola Davis, and I loved listening to her tell her story. So much of the book is really heartbreaking, huge trigger warning for all kinds of trauma. I was particularly fascinated by her examination of colorism and the way she experiences the world as a dark-skinned Black woman. But I do think this needed a stronger edit. There was a lot of repetition within and across chapters, and the pacing felt uneven. I wanted to hear more about her journey as an actor, but that part of her life didn’t seem to be afforded the same detail and space as her childhood. Maybe that’s intentional and she’ll do a sequel of sorts after a couple more decades of incredible work—I’ll be the first on the waitlist if so!
emotional
hopeful
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
This was difficult to rate. The first 150 pages were such a snoozefest that I wasn’t finding myself very eager to pick it back up. But I’d heard good things, and ultimately I’m not mad I finished it. The second half is more enjoyable, though I still found the pace a bit slow up until the last quarter of the book. The four main characters were sweet and interesting, and I was invested in their stories and wanted more from them. We spent a lot of the book alluding to their “secrets,” which ended up being entirely predictable. I was eager to read this because the premise had so much potential, but it fell a little flat.
dark
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
This didn’t hit how I wanted it to. The biggest problem for me were the main character’s initial decisions. (This is on the book jacket, not a spoiler). She arrives at her student’s home to find the parents dead and a woman locked in a closet, and her instinct is to assume she’ll be blamed and go on the run with closet woman. Why?! There’s no backstory that explains this bananas choice, and it just seemed so unbelievable that I couldn’t totally enjoy everything that came after. And the rest of the story is actually quite interesting, a slow burn “Thelma and Louise but make it gay” thriller with a few twisty surprises. The writing was pretty good as well. But I couldn’t get past the beginning premise, and ultimately ended the book feeling very meh about it.
Cook tells the stories of 5 people who find themselves down the rabbit hole of QAnon and the resulting destruction of their families and relationships. Each person finds their way to QAnon differently, and their stories are told in a way that seems clearly meant to elicit empathy, while at the same time not shying away from calling out the harm they’re doing. The storytelling is incredibly compelling. But I think I was missing some broader patterns/stats to contextualize them. And I would have liked a more academic interrogation of how things like QAnon start and what they spin off or trickle down to (i.e. people who aren’t full “pizzagate” but do buy into medical misinformation).