kat2's reviews
25 reviews

This Will Only Hurt a Little by Busy Philipps

emotional funny hopeful lighthearted reflective fast-paced

5.0

This is a fun-to-read, page-turner of a memoir. Candid, funny, upbeat, illuminating. Philipps writes about some disturbing events in her life in a way I really like. She hasn’t figured it all out but she’ll tell us what she knows so far. Love the insider view of a woman in Hollywood.

Live Your Life: My Story of Loving and Losing Nick Cordero by Amanda Kloots

dark emotional hopeful inspiring tense fast-paced

3.75

A friend recommended this book, and when I started reading I thought, This isn’t terrifically well written. It isn’t especially original or reflective. But then I couldn’t stop reading. The writing is workmanlike: it gets the job done. And the job is to tell the harrowing true story of Amanda Kloots and her husband Nick Cordero in the early days of Covid. It’s a great, jolting, descriptive inhabiting of 2020: masks, gloves, Lysol, travel restrictions, no vaccine, no visiting loved ones in the hospital. Nick got Covid then. Amanda is a relentlessly positive person who shares her story daily via social media, includes everyone in her life, and knows how to ask for help and receive it with gratitude. Aside from being positive, these are not my skills, and her story was an inspiring page-turner that had me sobbing by the end. Sobbing. Supposedly this is healthy. 😭🤗

Almost There by Nuala O'Faolain

emotional funny inspiring reflective medium-paced

4.5

This memoir has such smart and candid insights about writing, midlife romance, money, and finding your way in the world as a woman. I love how honest, intimate, and undefensive the narrative tone is—the book is good company, and I’m going to type up several quotes from it for teaching writing plus thinking about my own work.

Chenneville: A Novel of Murder, Loss, and Vengeance by Paulette Jiles

adventurous dark emotional informative inspiring tense medium-paced

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

5.0

I’m hooked on Paulette Jiles’s novels about Texas at the close of the Civil War. Cormac McCarthy’s The Road, but set in 1865? There is some resemblance as our main character sets forth on a vengeful quest—but this story has more uplift and love. I didn’t want to finish it, because what will I read next? Gorgeous writing, compelling characters, fascinating context of the unsettled territory (Missouri and Illinois en route to TX) after a devastating war has taken its toll.

The Men and the Girls by Joanna Trollope

emotional reflective medium-paced

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

4.5

I found this on my mother’s bookshelf, always a great source. This novel is so well written, with compelling characters whose relationships evolve surprisingly, authentically—with humor, grace, and empathy in the narrative point of view. Absorbing and well worth my time.

Bad Summer People by Emma Rosenblum

relaxing fast-paced

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

4.0

This is an entertaining beach book for when your brain needs a vacation and you’d like to read about rich people getting themselves in trouble. It’s very relaxing to read about their over-the-top lifestyle and not be one of them!

The Summer Place by Jennifer Weiner

emotional funny lighthearted relaxing fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated

4.5

I love beach books—but they have to be well written, and smart about characters, as this novel is. Fun to read, a page-turner with many engaging, nuanced characters and a Cape Cod setting. Practically a mini-vacation.

All That You Leave Behind: A Memoir by Erin Lee Carr

emotional hopeful inspiring reflective sad medium-paced

4.0

This memoir about the loss of the writer’s father is a candid, evocative portrait of grief. That resonated with me. And so did the story of Carr finding her way in the world of work, which is inspiring to anyone navigating a transitional time. Carr’s father was a journalist who mentored her with tons of spot-on, memorable, loving, and funny advice. (Their relationship was loving, and also fraught and complicated.) Formally, I enjoyed the inclusion of emails, photos, and lists (what I learned, what I read while writing this book). A very enjoyable book to read, and a strong model of memoir.

The Color Of Lightning by Paulette Jiles

adventurous dark emotional informative 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? No

5.0

A beautifully written page-turner, this novel tells the stories of people in Texas just after the Civil War: settlers escaping chaos and slavery in Kentucky, Indians whose hunting grounds are being repossessed, and Quakers creating reservations and schools to contain and control Indians. Jiles writes about a fascinating, turbulent time in our history, with care to show multiple perspectives, and characters I cared about. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Sexual assault, Violence, and Blood

The Immortality Key: The Secret History of the Religion with No Name by Brian C. Muraresku

informative medium-paced

4.0

This book brings together a wealth of multidisciplinary research connected to the use of psychedelics in religious ritual, from prehistory to the present. For me, the hypothesis that psychedelic experience is at the heart of all religion was interesting, as well as the focus on women as priestesses forced out of the early Christian church and branded witches. The prose is “caffeinated,” as John McPhee would put it, and stuffed with cliches, but I read all the way through to learn more.