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jessdekkerreads's reviews
575 reviews

Soldier Sailor by Claire Kilroy

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3.0

Not for me. I respect the way the author showed us the nitty gritty, downright tough early days of motherhood, but I have read so many books that have done the same thing and this one didn’t offer up anything new. It became repetitive as well, just watching the constant resentment against her husband, against men in general, which is realistic sure, but it felt like it was just on a constant loop. Idk. 
The Hearing Test by Eliza Barry Callahan

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Did not finish book. Stopped at 44%.
I think this book is too smart for me…..
Splinters: A Memoir by Leslie Jamison

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5.0

I have a hard time answering the question “what’s your favorite book?” - it seems impossible to me, but now, 30 pages away from finishing this book, Splinters by Leslie Jamison, I know I can definitively say this is my favorite nonfiction book. I’ve underlined almost every page, I’ve read passages out loud to my four month old daughter, I’ve reread lines over and over, I’ve carried it with me everywhere I go, and I don’t want it to end. 

It’s Jamison’s memoir, about the grief that came at the end of her marriage, about her intense love for her newborn daughter, about how as a woman you splinter yourself and try to be so many things to so many different people. 

Jamison’s prose is so evocative that I often have to remind myself I’m not reading a novel. 

In my eyes, as a mother to two young girls, this memoir is perfect to me. Absolutely perfect. 

Thank you so much @littlebrown for this ARC.
The Adult by Bronwyn Fischer

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3.0

A coming of age story; discovering what it is to yearn. What it is to long for another. That first queer sexual awakening moment. But also, the complications of an affair, the lies. 

there is such promise in Fischer’s writing style. I can tell she’s written poetry before. Her sentences were so delectable, I underlined many. But the story itself, I felt it lacked the emotion I was hoping for. The desire and love these characters had for each other, whether it be the familial, platonic or the romantic, I wanted more feeling. I’ll absolutely be following this author’s future books, and read anything she may write. 

Feels like: drinking beer in a crowded bar; cold biting air on your cheeks; that first longing for another;  the endless chewing of a caramel; the stillness of that first big snowfall; observing campus life around you; goosebumps and butterflies after that first light touch of possibility;