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lawl3sswr3n's reviews
292 reviews
P.S. I Still Love You by Jenny Han
4.0
I think it was a great secondary novel to this trilogy. I really enjoyed the personal growth and exploration that Laura Jean exemplified in this novel. I connected with her on a lot more of a personal level as she was developing into more adult-ish decisions. I was a bit disappointed with her decision in the end, but that doesn't take away from the character development and writing that occurred in this novel. The plot moved at a decent pace and I didn't have a hard time finishing the novel in only a few short days.
Overall, the book was a solid middle novel of the trilogy.
Overall, the book was a solid middle novel of the trilogy.
New Enlarged Anthology of Robert Frost's Poems by Robert Frost
4.0
This collection took me some time to read, because I started slowly digesting a lot of Frost's works. I utilized this text as sort of a road map, in that I hope to improve my own poetry so I've been working on studying some of the greats. This collection was a lot at times, and sometimes I needed to put the book down. The annotations and notes were not always helpful, but overall the collection of poetry is a classic that I enjoyed thoroughly.
The Murmur of Bees by Sofía Segovia
5.0
This was once of the most impactful books I have read this year, thus far. The book starts out telling the story of a close-knit agricultural-farming family. The story takes place during the Spanish Influenza and the Mexican Revolution of the early 1900s. The Morales family is stunned when Nana Reja (the matriarch of the family) returns after declared missing from her front porch rocking chair. She returns with an extraordinary infant wrapped in cloth, finding this child abandoned under the bridge. The child was born with a cleft lip, and in the gap emerges bees. The family decides to adopt the child – everywhere the child goes his swarm of bees follows. The family raises this boy as their own, naming him Simonopio. This beautifully written novel tells the story of how important the small things are, reminds us to be grateful for what we have, and teaches readers that there is always a reasoning behind everything.
This story was beautiful. The way it was written, the language, the historical aspects, the characters, the plot, the setting… Everything… Beautiful. Very rarely do I give novels a 5/5. But this one earned every single point. This novel wrote about the influenza, and the effects of the illness hit very close to home while the world is in the midst of a pandemic. I didn’t know I needed to read this novel, but after having finished it, I very much realize how much I needed a work of art like this in my life. I’ll be hanging on to the lessons, the beauty, and the simplicity of this novel for a long time.
This story was beautiful. The way it was written, the language, the historical aspects, the characters, the plot, the setting… Everything… Beautiful. Very rarely do I give novels a 5/5. But this one earned every single point. This novel wrote about the influenza, and the effects of the illness hit very close to home while the world is in the midst of a pandemic. I didn’t know I needed to read this novel, but after having finished it, I very much realize how much I needed a work of art like this in my life. I’ll be hanging on to the lessons, the beauty, and the simplicity of this novel for a long time.
The Knockout Queen by Rufi Thorpe
2.0
I so badly wanted to love this book. I really wanted to love everything about it. But I didn’t… And I couldn’t… I started reading and loved the MC. I loved him and his life, I loved his rawness and realness and his ability to self-analyze – even if he wasn’t able to share it with anyone else.
Michael, a not-yet-come-out shy, hidden-in-the-shadows kind of guy unexpectedly becomes friends with the star school athlete – Bunny, a voracious volleyball player. They are neighbors for years, and after sneaking into her backyard to smoke, Michael is approached by Bunny and unsuccessfully evades an excursion to Chinese food with her and her father. They are friends from there on out. Their friendship and love for one another binds them in ways that face literal life and death, and the friends are faced with differing but similar disasters that unfold, enabling both to act and make choices based on their rooted friendship and personal foundational beliefs.
Like I said, the characters were amazing. The never-ending chapters of MC internal dialogue and thought was too much. I think there should be a balance between plot development and progression and the internal dialogue. This dialogue was just too thick sometimes, and I found myself skipping ahead and wading through pages and pages the wordiness to get to the action again. Beyond that, I also have an issue with the author turning and facing the fourth wall and breaking it if it’s out of character or does not serve any particular purpose. I think if done correctly, the fourth wall should be broken as a tool to bring attention to the writing and the plot. But here it was done multiple times, shattering my reading experience. The writing wasn’t great, either. Some parts were clunky and hard to read through – over analyzed and over written.
I would have loved to see more of the day-to-day interactions between the two friends – more of their dynamic. I felt I knew they but didn’t, which was a little confusing. I felt I knew them, but I didn’t. Like the aunt you’ve met once at a wedding when you were six and then didn’t hear from or about until your twenties. I would recommend this to anyone that wants just a breezy, fun read that doesn’t analyze as much as I do. With my brain, sometimes reading can be challenging, but if you’re brain doesn’t get too involved this might be more enjoyable.
Michael, a not-yet-come-out shy, hidden-in-the-shadows kind of guy unexpectedly becomes friends with the star school athlete – Bunny, a voracious volleyball player. They are neighbors for years, and after sneaking into her backyard to smoke, Michael is approached by Bunny and unsuccessfully evades an excursion to Chinese food with her and her father. They are friends from there on out. Their friendship and love for one another binds them in ways that face literal life and death, and the friends are faced with differing but similar disasters that unfold, enabling both to act and make choices based on their rooted friendship and personal foundational beliefs.
Like I said, the characters were amazing. The never-ending chapters of MC internal dialogue and thought was too much. I think there should be a balance between plot development and progression and the internal dialogue. This dialogue was just too thick sometimes, and I found myself skipping ahead and wading through pages and pages the wordiness to get to the action again. Beyond that, I also have an issue with the author turning and facing the fourth wall and breaking it if it’s out of character or does not serve any particular purpose. I think if done correctly, the fourth wall should be broken as a tool to bring attention to the writing and the plot. But here it was done multiple times, shattering my reading experience. The writing wasn’t great, either. Some parts were clunky and hard to read through – over analyzed and over written.
I would have loved to see more of the day-to-day interactions between the two friends – more of their dynamic. I felt I knew they but didn’t, which was a little confusing. I felt I knew them, but I didn’t. Like the aunt you’ve met once at a wedding when you were six and then didn’t hear from or about until your twenties. I would recommend this to anyone that wants just a breezy, fun read that doesn’t analyze as much as I do. With my brain, sometimes reading can be challenging, but if you’re brain doesn’t get too involved this might be more enjoyable.