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kfalsreads's reviews
286 reviews
The Star-Crossed Sisters of Tuscany by Lori Nelson Spielman
5.0
Read this book!! Just do it! You won’t regret it.
This ended up becoming the surprise favorite of the summer, and quite possibly the year, for me. I really hadn’t expected this rollercoaster of a story with present and past timelines and the emotions it elicited.
I wanted to throw this book half the time and give it a big hug the other half. This book gave me all the feels, including some tears. What an incredible story of family, love, sacrifice, forgiveness, and finding oneself featuring strong female characters.
When I was done reading this I couldn’t help but think of Evelyn Hugo and how this story and the character Poppy found a place in my heart just like Evelyn did.
This ended up becoming the surprise favorite of the summer, and quite possibly the year, for me. I really hadn’t expected this rollercoaster of a story with present and past timelines and the emotions it elicited.
I wanted to throw this book half the time and give it a big hug the other half. This book gave me all the feels, including some tears. What an incredible story of family, love, sacrifice, forgiveness, and finding oneself featuring strong female characters.
When I was done reading this I couldn’t help but think of Evelyn Hugo and how this story and the character Poppy found a place in my heart just like Evelyn did.
Where the Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens
5.0
Meet the book that may have ruined all other books for me. If I gave books stars, this one would have them all!
This book ticked all the boxes for me: its beautiful, lyrical prose transported me to a time and place; featured a strong female protagonist; had an epic love story; taught me something, and found a place in my heart.
During a Q&A at @politicsprose, Delia Owens says she came up with the idea for a novel that would explore how much isolation and loneliness would affect a young girl who was forced to grow up on her own and to weave in a murder mystery that went farther than being a who-dun-it. But at its core, she says, it is an exploration into the raw core of human nature.
While I loved so many things about the book, what impressed me most about Delia’s writing was her ability to incorporate nature and the behaviors of its creatures without dragging down the pace of the story. Instead, these brief observations Kya encountered in the wild gave her and the reader an understanding of the inherent behavior of all beings.
Weaving together the natural world and Kya’s journey through life was all-encompassing. It was a world I found hard to leave. I read this book in four days, and during times I had to go back to reality I found my mind drifting in and out until I could return. Even the next day after finishing it, I continued to mourn the fact that the story was over, going back over moments I had bookmarked, wanting to return.
I think finding out filming for the book is underway and seeing the faces of those who will play the characters added to my reading experience. Having seen Normal People and @daisyedgarjones’s performance, I don’t think they could have cast a better Kya. I can’t wait for this film. I have full faith Reese will do the book justice.
This book ticked all the boxes for me: its beautiful, lyrical prose transported me to a time and place; featured a strong female protagonist; had an epic love story; taught me something, and found a place in my heart.
During a Q&A at @politicsprose, Delia Owens says she came up with the idea for a novel that would explore how much isolation and loneliness would affect a young girl who was forced to grow up on her own and to weave in a murder mystery that went farther than being a who-dun-it. But at its core, she says, it is an exploration into the raw core of human nature.
While I loved so many things about the book, what impressed me most about Delia’s writing was her ability to incorporate nature and the behaviors of its creatures without dragging down the pace of the story. Instead, these brief observations Kya encountered in the wild gave her and the reader an understanding of the inherent behavior of all beings.
Weaving together the natural world and Kya’s journey through life was all-encompassing. It was a world I found hard to leave. I read this book in four days, and during times I had to go back to reality I found my mind drifting in and out until I could return. Even the next day after finishing it, I continued to mourn the fact that the story was over, going back over moments I had bookmarked, wanting to return.
I think finding out filming for the book is underway and seeing the faces of those who will play the characters added to my reading experience. Having seen Normal People and @daisyedgarjones’s performance, I don’t think they could have cast a better Kya. I can’t wait for this film. I have full faith Reese will do the book justice.
Songs in Ursa Major by Emma Brodie
5.0
Wow! This book took me completely by surprise. I was floored by this epic story!
The first part of the book was pretty straight forward and I enjoyed it. But around 100 pages in, the story really started to sing for me, and the rest of the book had me completely hooked. I was in awe of Emma’s writing which was poetic and deeply moving. I can’t wait to read more from her!
Jane’s character is strong but vulnerable, complicated, and raw as is her relationship with Jesse, “based on the real-life love affair and mutual muse-hood of Joni Mitchell and James Taylor” (LA Times review). I absolutely adored her courage and strength to stay true to herself and her art throughout the book. I loved her connection with her family as well as her partnership with Willie, her rep.
This is a beautiful albeit heavy read with big themes and some noteworthy trigger warnings (DM me if you’re curious). I’m not sure if the epilogue of sorts was the kind of ending I wanted for this one. It left me a bit disappointed and longing for more in between. I heard this is going to be a film (a Village Roadshow production) and I’m definitely going to be keeping my eye out for it!
I highly recommend this one!!
The first part of the book was pretty straight forward and I enjoyed it. But around 100 pages in, the story really started to sing for me, and the rest of the book had me completely hooked. I was in awe of Emma’s writing which was poetic and deeply moving. I can’t wait to read more from her!
Jane’s character is strong but vulnerable, complicated, and raw as is her relationship with Jesse, “based on the real-life love affair and mutual muse-hood of Joni Mitchell and James Taylor” (LA Times review). I absolutely adored her courage and strength to stay true to herself and her art throughout the book. I loved her connection with her family as well as her partnership with Willie, her rep.
This is a beautiful albeit heavy read with big themes and some noteworthy trigger warnings (DM me if you’re curious). I’m not sure if the epilogue of sorts was the kind of ending I wanted for this one. It left me a bit disappointed and longing for more in between. I heard this is going to be a film (a Village Roadshow production) and I’m definitely going to be keeping my eye out for it!
I highly recommend this one!!
Rock Paper Scissors by Alice Feeney
3.0
This was a #bookstamademedoit and unfortunately it just didn’t do it for me.
There were things I liked about it (the setting, the anniversary letters, the multiple POVs), but I just didn’t connect with the characters or their relationship.
The big twist that everyone talks about was really good, but then there were even more twists that had my head spinning by the end of it.
There were things I liked about it (the setting, the anniversary letters, the multiple POVs), but I just didn’t connect with the characters or their relationship.
The big twist that everyone talks about was really good, but then there were even more twists that had my head spinning by the end of it.
Ghosts by Dolly Alderton
4.0
I have many thoughts and feelings about this one, so I’ll try to keep it short with just the highlights.
Beautiful World, Where Are You by Sally Rooney
3.0
Oh, Sally Rooney!
You know when you’re working out, and you just want to give up but you push through, and afterward, you get that adrenaline rush because you’ve overcome something difficult?
That’s how I felt after reading this book, lol.
This was my first Sally Rooney book and I can absolutely see why she isn’t for everybody. This was a #bookstamademedoit and it proved to be a Herculean task for me. But I’m glad I did it.
I loved the Hulu/BBC show Normal People—which I just watched again—and while I felt I had a sense of Sally’s style, I was a bit unprepared for actually reading her work. She definitely has a unique structure, tone, and flow to her writing that takes some getting used to.
Beautiful World, Where Are You follows the complex relationship of four people—Alice, Eileen, Simon, and Felix—who are still young, but life is catching up with them. They desire each other, they delude each other, they get together, they break apart. They have sex, they worry about sex, they worry about their friendships and the world they live in.
The POV alternates between the storylines of Alice and Felix and Eileen and Simon, and in between we read emails between best friends Alice and Eileen as they pontificate about life, love, religion, politics, beauty, etc. These email chapters were the hardest for me to get through. Oh, and the fact there were no quotations was a bit annoying.
I thought about bailing on this book multiple times until around Chapter 13 when the relationships started to take shape and piqued my interest enough to stick around. The characters were generally unlikeable and frustrating, but in the end they actually made some progress.
Would I recommend a Sally Rooney book to someone? Not at this point, because her style is so…different. But I haven’t given up on her yet and plan to give her backlist a go before determining if this was a one-off or she’s just not for me.
You know when you’re working out, and you just want to give up but you push through, and afterward, you get that adrenaline rush because you’ve overcome something difficult?
That’s how I felt after reading this book, lol.
This was my first Sally Rooney book and I can absolutely see why she isn’t for everybody. This was a #bookstamademedoit and it proved to be a Herculean task for me. But I’m glad I did it.
I loved the Hulu/BBC show Normal People—which I just watched again—and while I felt I had a sense of Sally’s style, I was a bit unprepared for actually reading her work. She definitely has a unique structure, tone, and flow to her writing that takes some getting used to.
Beautiful World, Where Are You follows the complex relationship of four people—Alice, Eileen, Simon, and Felix—who are still young, but life is catching up with them. They desire each other, they delude each other, they get together, they break apart. They have sex, they worry about sex, they worry about their friendships and the world they live in.
The POV alternates between the storylines of Alice and Felix and Eileen and Simon, and in between we read emails between best friends Alice and Eileen as they pontificate about life, love, religion, politics, beauty, etc. These email chapters were the hardest for me to get through. Oh, and the fact there were no quotations was a bit annoying.
I thought about bailing on this book multiple times until around Chapter 13 when the relationships started to take shape and piqued my interest enough to stick around. The characters were generally unlikeable and frustrating, but in the end they actually made some progress.
Would I recommend a Sally Rooney book to someone? Not at this point, because her style is so…different. But I haven’t given up on her yet and plan to give her backlist a go before determining if this was a one-off or she’s just not for me.
The Heart Principle by Helen Hoang
5.0
This book took me completely by surprise to become one of my top reads of the year.
The more I read, the clearer it becomes what sets a book apart for me—by the end I feel an ache in my chest like my heart just grew a size to make room for that particular story and characters. This was one of those books for me.
Written as part-fiction, part-memoir, Helen Hoang takes us on Anna’s journey of finding love—but more importantly, finding mental health clarity after an autism diagnosis, confidence and self-love. This is a very heavy read, but an extremely important one. I learned so much about her particular day-to-day challenges, masking, and autistic burnout. This also covers family dynamics in Asian culture and the physical, mental and emotional tolls of caring for a sick parent at home.
The wonderful light in this story was her relationship with Quan, who now joins Tate from Where the Crawdads Sing as my top romance BFs. Their romance was so beautiful. I loved the compassion and devotion Quan had for her, the ways in which he helped her discover herself, and you could really feel their chemistry. Helen is the Queen of the Kiss as far as I’m concerned!
The more I read, the clearer it becomes what sets a book apart for me—by the end I feel an ache in my chest like my heart just grew a size to make room for that particular story and characters. This was one of those books for me.
Written as part-fiction, part-memoir, Helen Hoang takes us on Anna’s journey of finding love—but more importantly, finding mental health clarity after an autism diagnosis, confidence and self-love. This is a very heavy read, but an extremely important one. I learned so much about her particular day-to-day challenges, masking, and autistic burnout. This also covers family dynamics in Asian culture and the physical, mental and emotional tolls of caring for a sick parent at home.
The wonderful light in this story was her relationship with Quan, who now joins Tate from Where the Crawdads Sing as my top romance BFs. Their romance was so beautiful. I loved the compassion and devotion Quan had for her, the ways in which he helped her discover herself, and you could really feel their chemistry. Helen is the Queen of the Kiss as far as I’m concerned!
Once There Were Wolves by Charlotte McConaghy
5.0
This is one of those books that feels odd to say I loved because of how heavy some of the themes are in it, so I’ll just say Once There Were Wolves has become one of my top reads of all time.