howifeelaboutbooks's reviews
1799 reviews

A Killing Cold by Kate Alice Marshall

adventurous dark emotional mysterious tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.0

 A friend loaned me her copy of this book. It kept me turning pages but the lost childhood/amnesia aspect kept me from getting too involved in the story. It all seemed flighty and dreamlike so I wasn’t invested. I finished it in less than a day though, so there’s something to say about compelling books. 

Good Dirt by Charmaine Wilkerson

dark emotional informative reflective sad tense slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

I LOVED Black Cake and still love Wilkerson’s writing style, but this story didn’t pull me in the same way. I definitely fell for Old Mo and loved the history of the slaves creating pottery and working to escape and make their own way in life. But I thought the potential with Ebby recovering from Henry’s idiocy fell a bit flat; it seemed glossed over compared to everything else happening to her. Which might have been the point… but I didn’t feel as connected with these characters as I did with those in Black Cake. I’ll still read anything else this author writes, though.

What Have You Done? by Shari Lapena

dark emotional mysterious tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

3.0

I usually like Lapena’s books because they’re quick, engrossing reads, and to be fair, this one was too. The only disappointing thing was I felt like the murderer was SO obvious the entire time. That was a bummer because the three main suspects had great reasons to be accused but I could never get caught up in the suspense of their questioning because I knew it was this other character the whole time. Now... SPOILERS!

I knew Evan was the murderer because his point of view was shared through journal entries. All the other characters were told in third person point of view, with the exception of Diana. (Don’t get me started on the Lovely Bones ripoff of her narrative style, either.) So if the victim has a unique point of view and so does one other character, it seems like a neon flashing arrow pointing at that other person as the murderer. Plus, he’s a wRiTeR yet his entries are SO bland I wanted to skip them completely. I knew he was lying and making up stories. I feel like someone writing lies in a journal is a pretty common trope, especially in YA, and this book honestly could have been YA (not an insult at all, I love YA!). Overall, I think there was a way Lapena could have included him in the third person narration without making him seem like a suspect so the twist would have worked better.

Beyond Evan’s boring journal entries, I felt like Paula and her daughter were added in for no good reason. I kept expecting them to take on larger roles but they just added a bit of fluff to the story, and I think it would have been tighter and more suspenseful without them watering it down. I kept forgetting about Paula, Taylor, and whatever Paula’s husband was named… Martin? Then there were several other couples and their kids mentioned a few times in passing and I always had to stop and think of the name and try to remember who was who. I get that she’s trying to build out the population of this small town, but it was confusing to have all these minor characters sharing first and last names in the book and only showing up a few times.

On that note… this was the weirdest small town! It was close knit and crime free yet had a Home Depot for Diana’s work… while her mom had to drive towns over to work at a hospital? A lot of those details didn’t ring true for me. I also felt like the text from Diana’s phone, days after her death, was so random. I would think the cops would focus on tracing that but it seems completely forgotten. It seems like it was just a way for Riley to find Diana’s phone in Evan’s room, but she could have noticed it even without the text on her mind, so the text was a strange thread to try to weave in, in my opinion.

Gatsby: The Cultural History of the Great American Novel by Bob Batchelor

informative slow-paced

3.0

This book was published in 2014 (by Rowman & Littlefield, I have to shamelessly announce because they also published my first book), so a lot of it focuses on The Great Gatsby 2013 movie, which is... not my favorite, but I'll address the movie specifically later.

But this book isn't about the movie - it puts Gatsby in context throughout history, academia, and more. It starts by covering Fitzgerald's life and the process of writing this classic, and then covers eras as the book went in and out of popularity. Batchelor relates the book to the American Dream in different iterations, dives into the romantic aspect, and addresses greed.

Like the novel itself, this is a book I could come back to time and time again and find something new. I already maxed out the library holds (on my card and my son's!) just to spend enough time with it for an initial read. It could be a textbook for a course studying the cultural context of Gatsby... and you know I'd take that class! 

The Messy Lives of Book People by Phaedra Patrick

adventurous emotional hopeful inspiring slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

3.0

 I randomly found this on the Libby app and gave it a try. It was really slow going at first, but I’m glad I stuck with it. I love the story and the way Essie and Liv’s lives are twisted together. Definitely teared up at the end, and I have already borrowed more by the author. 

The Lost Letter by Jillian Cantor

adventurous challenging dark emotional hopeful informative inspiring mysterious reflective sad medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

5.0

 Each time I read a new (to me) Cantor book, I think oh my gosh, THIS is my favorite by her. But this time, I think I really mean it. This story was so well-rounded, so delightful to read despite the harsh (and too realistic, especially currently) subject matter. The way the stories twist together was just chef’s kiss! 

The Code for Love and Heartbreak by Jillian Cantor

emotional hopeful lighthearted relaxing medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

 This book is really different from Cantor’s adult novels - at least the ones I’ve read, which have been twists on historical events or classic fiction novels. But she can definitely write YA. I loved the story here, along with Emma’s character (and not just because she makes homemade mochas the same way I do!). I read it in about a day because I couldn’t put it down. 

The Hours Count by Jillian Cantor

dark emotional informative mysterious sad tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.0

 I’m devouring all of Cantor’s work because I love her twists on historical events. I didn’t know much at all about the Rosenbergs but this story grabbed me and made me research them. It’s wild reading this now, about things that happened in the 50s, while looking around at the mess we’re in now. Talk about history repeating itself in ways but us not learning a damn thing… 

James by Percival Everett

adventurous dark emotional funny hopeful mysterious reflective medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

5.0

  I think I read The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and Adventures of Huckleberry Finn as a kid - probably adapted versions. And maybe parts of them in grad school when I took a class on Mark Twain and humor. And of course I saw Tom and Huck when I was young because JTT was my biggest crush. But I don’t really remember much of the story and kind of liked going into this blind. The book blew me away. I loved James and everything he got into, and how he got out of it. I love Everett’s writing style, too, and want to read more from him. 

An Art Lover's Guide to Paris and Murder by Dianne Freeman

adventurous emotional funny mysterious medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.5

 This book was so fun! Frances and George finally get to go to France... but not for the wedding trip they expected. I loved getting more of George's family involved and thought the case and its surrounding drama was probably the best yet in this series. I can't wait for the next installment since this book will most likely change a lot of what happens in the future.