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msmichaela's Reviews (546)
adventurous
reflective
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
Beautifully written—including the words that King leaves you to ponder. I found this really absorbing.
emotional
informative
sad
medium-paced
Fairly wrenching memoir about parenting a teen girl with anorexia. I appreciated the mix of personal narrative and reporting. Will be returning to this book.
dark
mysterious
medium-paced
Diverse cast of characters:
No
A mediocre page turner with a truly inexplicable epilogue.
Content Warnings
Moderate: Fatphobia
adventurous
dark
tense
fast-paced
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
Semi-apocalyptic page turner. This is definitely not my usual genre, but it's incredibly well written and also creepy as hell.
Loved this honest, insightful memoir -- not least because Dederer's tale of a yoga-practicing working mom hits awfully close to home.
Donoghue does an amazing job of creating a believable 5-year-old narrator. Second half of the book isn't what I expected, but I found it incredibly compelling.
So far, so very good... though the compelling drama is definitely interfering with my ability to put the damn book down and go to sleep at night.
So far, so very good... though the compelling drama is definitely interfering with my ability to put the damn book down and go to sleep at night.
A remarkable work of journalism. I don't typically read science writing, but Skloot weaves the science in around the personal story of the Lacks family absolutely seamlessly. Highly recommended.
A dark, compelling portrait of the hardscrabble existences of three brothers, who scratch out a living on an upstate New York farm until one of them dies. Clinch's writing is evocative and precise, though I'm still puzzling over the complex structure, which is built upon the varying perspectives and voices of several characters. Another one that kept me up later than I'd intended.
I'm a longtime reader of Ahern's blog, and have to say that her writing lost something in the translation to book form. I grew weary of her frequent complaints about Popular Foods of the Seventies, and thought much of her advice about what to eat (whole foods, local if possible, sustainable whenever you can) has been said better elsewhere. That said, people who are brand-new to eating gluten-free likely would find this book incredibly useful.
Michael Lewis' account of his years on the bond trading floor at Salomon Brothers in the late 1980s is fascinating, both for the portrait it paints of the culture on Wall Street and for its very prescient look at the creation of mortgage-backed bonds -- the securities that played a major role in the financial crisis of 2008-2009. However, Liar's Poker is also astonishingly dull at times, requiring the reader to remember the names and roles of far too many interchangeable Salomon executives. (Perhaps non-Kindle versions include a character list?) Still, worth a read if you're remotely interested in high finance.