plannedandplanted's reviews
117 reviews

One Last Stop by Casey McQuiston

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emotional hopeful inspiring lighthearted mysterious 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? Yes

4.0

Thick: And Other Essays by Tressie McMillan Cottom

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challenging emotional informative inspiring reflective tense medium-paced

4.5

Like most essay collections, there are some that stand out more than others. Here are the few that I think will stick with me:

- Dying to be Competent. It’s depressing how unsurprising any of this story was for me, yet my jaw still dropped at the sheer incompetency and disregard black women are treated with by the medical system.

- Black Is Over (Or, Special
black). I really loved the discussion here on what it means to be Black, and how there are different facets (Black individuals in America with lineage there and no link to slavery, non-American black folks etc). And how Black Black Americans are still treated more poorly and have less opportunities than many “Special
blacks” in America.

- Black Girlhood Interrupted. So fucking sad. Made me wanna scream and rage and wrap every little black girl in my arms.

If I’m being honest, some parts of some of the other essays were kind of confusing to me. A little bit too complex for my brain to follow, but most of the other points I understood were still important. Those 3 alone were enough to give it 4.5

The Stone Sky by N.K. Jemisin

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adventurous dark tense medium-paced

The Art of Memoir by Mary Karr

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informative reflective medium-paced

3.5

Here’s the thing. This book actually does have a lot of good information about how the author writes memoirs, and her analysis of why other memoirists’ works are so compelling.

But so much of the book just felt like… posturing? “Look how many authors and titles I know, and look how good my analysis of their work is!” Like it legit felt like certain sections were straight out of an essay I would have written in college for one of my Lit courses.

I needed less “here’s why this work is so good and why I think the author wrote it this way” and more “here’s how they likely got to that point.” The parts where Karr explains her own process and then uses examples from other memoirs to back that up were super engaging, helpful, and practical. The rest was like slogging through a literary sandpit

A Pho Love Story by Loan Le

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hopeful lighthearted mysterious 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

3.25

A modern day re-telling of Romeo and Juliet, if Romeo and Juliet were children of Vietnamese immigrants who grew up in pho restaurants

So stinking cute!! le really captures the woes of high school so we’ll. The food descriptions had my mouth watering. I love that there was a lot of Vietnamese written into the dialogue like it would be spoken in a bilingual house - and that it’s not always directly translated for you so you have to infer meaning. I bet this is a fun listen on audio for those of us not very familiar with Vietnamese language! I also like that there’s quite a bit of Vietnamese culture and history referenced through this story too.

Content Warnings