shelterfromreality's reviews
50 reviews

The Little Book of Hygge: Danish Secrets to Happy Living by Meik Wiking

informative inspiring lighthearted reflective relaxing fast-paced

3.75

It’s an interesting dive into danish culture and happiness science. I didn’t expect the amount of lists and recipes that it encompassed but I didn’t dislike them per se, it just made the book a bit more anecdotal and eventually very repetitive. But overall a very fun read and great for reflecting on your own habits and path to happiness!!! 

Everything I Know About Love by Dolly Alderton

adventurous emotional funny hopeful inspiring lighthearted reflective relaxing medium-paced

4.0

This was a truly enjoyable read. I wasn’t sure what to expect of this book but in the end it’s just a very relatable piece of literature, there’s very little importance in the names of the people because in the end they’re all conveying a feeling or participating in some anecdote, which isn’t inherently bad. I think this book is not as self aware as it shows and that the word feminist is used way too often and devoid of meaning.
 
I like the little recipes and the invitations to the events, she’s really good at evoking these different feelings through specific images or like metaphors, it’s truly interesting.

This book reminds me of The Details, in the sense that it touches on girlhood and the role that other people have in creating your personality, specially towards the end, when she has a more mature view on it but where The Details focuses on the little things, this book only tries to evoke a general feeling, relatability. 

Small Things Like These by Claire Keegan

challenging informative reflective relaxing tense fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.5

I think this excels with so little, there isn’t much plot or interactions, or even time to develop feelings and thoughts that the main character has, but still, this book is all about conveying exactly what Furlong is feeling, it’s the type of book that reminds you that every experience is unique to you and 5 billion other people at the same time. It was just a pleasure to read and I appreciated learning about the Laundry situation, I had never heard of that and it was an interesting way to portray it.

The Details by Ia Genberg

emotional funny inspiring lighthearted reflective relaxing sad slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.5

A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith

adventurous emotional funny hopeful inspiring reflective slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

5.0

What every coming of age story should strive to be.

This book really caught me by surprise, I wasn't expecting to love it so much, the week before I started reading it, a youtuber I follow recommended it and the following week it got recommended to me again by the app I use for audiobooks at a time when I needed one the most so it felt like fate. 

Francie Nolan is just an all-around very relatable character, her curiosity and the way she describes the world which is actually just Betty Smith's good writing technically, but still, Francie has this strong voice to her in a way that I don't believe a book written by Betty Smith from Nellie's perspective would be as compelling. 

This is such an amazing book because because Francie is an amazing main character, it is lovely to watch her grow, struggle, survive, love, feel pain, and specially the way she goes through a lot of things before she has the right words for them and that is just magical in a book, when you can see through the eyes of a child again. She reminds me of iconic characters like Anne from Anne with an "E", also a little girl who went through a lot but always had such an imaginative eye.

The book really shines for me though in the last parts, where she has more agency while navigationg her relationships with her brother, mother and other characters in the book, you can see her struggle because her universe was as big as the universe of the book, not much happened to her that the reader isn't aware and she had very little social life, and that's where I related a lot to Francie, she never lost her curiosity and developed a beautiful courage to ask the right questions besides having a couple of hardships along the way.

Some of my favorite parts include the part where she's reading her diary entries and we get to the part where her mom asks her to erase the word "drunk" and add the word sick, a lot of the scenes with her father singing and specially the last one, I thought that was so powerful as a device for the story. The scene where she gets drunk on the view was so endearing and the part where se and Katie fight about her going to school is so powerful to me. And last but not least the conversation about the Lee that she has with her mom, the way they confide and talk not as daughter to mother but as women is so telling that we are reaching the end of the book and that she has actually come of age. Bonus scene: Her going through her diary agan before moving out of the house was also a lovely addition as if she was quite literally closing this chapter of her life as we close the book ourselves

Overall just a lovely book, I can't think of a reason to not give it 5 stars except that I believe the pace is a bit slower than what I'm used to at times but that's really a me problem.

Au bonheur de lire: Les plaisirs de la lecture by Daniel Pennac, Nathalie Sarraute, Marcel Proust

informative inspiring lighthearted reflective medium-paced

3.0

I have to give it 3 stars because it was a bit disappointing to me. I picked it up with a different expectation and it was just a book with excepts from other books but some of them weren’t even that interesting or abruptly ended ? It was a bit confusing.

However, for the stories I did connect with it was a very pleasant experience and I even highlighted some quotes. That’s the thing right, no matter how average this reading experience was, just being a book about books makes it worth it 🫶

Disclaimer: I have a B1-B2 level French level so I believe that might explain why I misunderstood the whole point of the book and didn’t connect as much with some of the stories, I do intend to come back to some of the interesting ones independently to dive deeper into the reflections and truly study the language.

Pachinko by Min Jin Lee

challenging dark emotional informative inspiring reflective sad tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

The Statistical Probability of Love at First Sight by Jennifer E. Smith

emotional funny inspiring lighthearted reflective fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

Jorge Amado e José Saramago. Com o mar por meio: uma amizade em cartas by Jorge Amado

emotional funny informative inspiring lighthearted reflective relaxing sad fast-paced

5.0

Letters to a Young Poet by Rainer Maria Rilke

inspiring reflective relaxing fast-paced

4.0

It’s an interesting book filled with reflections about life, love, relationships and everything else. I appreciated it, especially because they are letters so it sounds very personal. Quick and interesting read 🥰