msmichaela's reviews
477 reviews

Fat Talk: Parenting in the Age of Diet Culture by Virginia Sole-Smith

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5.0

Super important read about the e insidious diet culture that hurts us and our kids 
The Final Revival of Opal & Nev by Dawnie Walton

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4.0

I’m not a fan of oral histories, but it’s turns out that a fictional oral history with lots of asides from the narrator/ostensible author is very much up my alley. This novel grew on me—it’s worth sticking with it despite the slow start. 
Transforming a College: The Story of a Little-Known College's Strategic Climb to National Distinction by George Keller

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3.5

Super fascinating as the parent of an incoming freshman at Elon, but underwhelming otherwise. Lots of unacknowledged repetition—this tiny book could have been even shorter.  
Paved Paradise: How Parking Explains the World by Henry Grabar

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Did not finish book.
Repetitive and kind of obvious, which is a bummer. 
Come & Get It by Kiley Reid

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3.0

Meh. Such a comedown after SUCH A FUN AGE. Characterization was muddled and the plot took a solid third of the novel to crank into gear. 
Wreck the Halls by Tessa Bailey

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2.5

The premise is absolutely absurd—this novel apparently happens in a world in which zero children of celebrities exist other than Beat and Melody. (The names… good god.) 

The writing is incredibly uneven—solid in some places and absolutely cringey in others. The last line of the novel reads like a middle school essay— “and in conclusion, [cliche cliche cliche].”
Age of Vice by Deepti Kapoor

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3.75

Took me a while to get into this but I’m glad I stuck with it. That said, the crossing and double-crossing gets hard to follow, especially in the last 100 pages. And there are some structural devices, including changes in narrative style, that make no sense at all. Will I watch the inevitable TV series? Mayyyybe, if only to figure out exactly what happened.