somanybookstoread's reviews
584 reviews

Seven Days in June by Tia Williams

lighthearted fast-paced

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

3.0

Raunchy romance is not my genre, but I was on a work trip, stuck in a hotel with no car. 🤣 I can’t adequately rate this book’s merit because I just don’t read this stuff. It was certainly light and easy to read, but didn’t make me think. 

The Engaged Spiritual Life: A Buddhist Approach to Transforming Ourselves and the World by Donald Rothberg

informative inspiring reflective medium-paced

5.0

This is an important and accessible work that calls practitioners of mindfulness to take the focus and awareness they cultivate into the world. The books is filled with wisdom, invites reflection, and suggests ways we can impact those with whom we are in relationships, our communities, and the world. 

The God of the Woods by Liz Moore

dark mysterious fast-paced

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

3.5

I'll give this one 3.5 stars. The plot largely held my interest, but I didn't find the writing to be very engaging. Plus, for a book that is almost 500 pages, some loose ends weren't tied up. 

The Sympathizer by Viet Thanh Nguyen

challenging dark emotional informative sad slow-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

4.0

This was a tough but rewarding and ultimately memorable read. The prose was smart, specific, and at times fun. This helped move me through some really difficult to digest subject matter and created a delicate and necessary balance. I am thoroughly impressed by the novel, and I can see how it would be awarded the Pulitzer. That said, at times the plot was so disjointed that I was frustrated by the extreme challenge of staying caught up with the ultimately important nuances in the character relationships. This is a book I should read again, but it was intense and I'm not sure I will. I do plan to check out the sequel, though. 

If Cats Disappeared From The World by Genki Kawamura

dark lighthearted reflective fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? N/A
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

3.25

Sweet with a bit of depth. Reminded me of Mitch Albom’s Tuesdays with Morrie or The 5 people you meet in Heaven, but with cats. I couldn’t live without them either. 

A Man Called Ove by Fredrik Backman

dark emotional hopeful reflective 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

4.25

I appreciated the themes of community and purpose as much as the lovable and cantankerous protagonist. 

Where the Forest Meets the Stars by Glendy Vanderah

emotional hopeful lighthearted fast-paced

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

3.5

Although this book isn’t at all literary, it evoked strong emotion. I picked this up figuring it would be light, since the last two novels I read were anything but. Aliens and birding felt right. This was a quirky, interesting novel that moved quickly and had strong character development. I enjoyed it. I think it would make a strong screenplay. For a debut novel especially, I am impressed. 

The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store by James McBride

dark emotional reflective sad medium-paced

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

3.5

If I read it again, I’m sure I’d give it 4 stars. There are some passages I’ll preserve here so I don’t lose them when I hand this book off to its next home. I appreciated the sense of place, in an area with which I have some familiarity. I appreciated the tension about race and what it meant for Blacks, Jews, and Whites to coexist in 1930s Pottstown, Pennsylvania. Where this book didn’t wow me was in the character development. There were a lot of characters, and they weren’t developed well-enough for me to really appreciate them fully (with one or two exceptions). I suspect that if I read this book again, already familiar with the plot and the characters, I would get a lot more out of it. If I had to write a paper on this book, that’s what I would do. But I don’t and there are too many books waiting for me to read them. 

Those passages I want to take with me: 

“…The Negroes of Chicken Hill loved Chona. They saw her not as a neighbor but as an artery to freedom, for the recollection of Chona's telltale limp as she and her childhood friend, a tall, gorgeous, silent soul named Bernice Davis, walked down the pitted mud roads of the Hill to school each morning was stamped in their collective memory. It was proof of the American possibility of equality: we all can get along no matter what, look at those two. Chona, for her part, saw them not as Negroes but as neighbors with infinitely interesting lives…” (p. 31)

“…His cakes were catastrophes. They looked like finger paintings done by a six-year-old, with dripping icing and ragged edges.” (P. 65)

“…I didn’t know there were so many Spanish people around here," he murmured. Mario smiled. "To you, they're Spanish. To me, they’re Puerto Rican, Dominican, Panamanian, Cuban, Ecuadorian, Mexican, African Afro-Cubano. A lot of different things. A lot of different sounds mixed together. That's America, mijo. You got to know your people, Moske.” (P. 162)

“…When he emerged from prison and met Addie, who dipped her hand into the pool of injury and hurt that was his heart and drained it of every evil and refilled it with love and purpose, he became sure of it. She cleansed him. And he'd lose it all now. He didn't want to lose it, but he knew it was gone.” (P. 354)

Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver

challenging dark emotional reflective sad tense medium-paced

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

4.75

I suspect I will always remember reading this book from bed, where I was confined due to hip surgery a week prior. Like the protagonist himself, I was brought down by a faulty leg. I even had a bottle for oxycodone to help with the pain, which I looked at critically (and rarely allowed myself to touch) as I devoured this book. These parallels added another element of engagement. 

To say that this book was hard to read would be a severe understatement. Kingsolver pulls you in — in much too close for comfort — to the fucked up lives of her characters and keeps you there for 550 pages, with almost no relief from the pain, suffering, addiction, and predictable fate of her drug-ridden cast of characters. The writing is raw and graphic, told from the perspective of a narrator who is both precocious and naive. Through Demon Copperhead, Kingsolver tells the story of a place as much as she tells the story of a slice of the population that many are quick to judge but not to understand.

Part gorgeous literature, part social commentary, part expose, Demon Copperhead is worthy of the masterpiece label people are attaching to it. The work is complex, bold, and expertly-crafted. It will stay with me for a very long time. 

Why not the full 5 stars? I needed to catch my breath sometimes. I needed just the littlest bit of relief to prevent me from starting to feel numb. 

Classic Krakauer: After the Fall, Mark Foo's Last Ride and Other Essays from the Vault by Jon Krakauer

adventurous informative inspiring medium-paced

4.25

Krakauer is a master. His style is uniquely his own, a blend of skilled journalism and literary technique. I am thankful this collection of his early — vintage — work exists. To read Krakauer of the 1980s and 1990s is to see his rawest work. His passion for his subject matter is poignant, and he never fails to make his reader curious to learn more about the people and phenomena that hold his interest. I will continue to read anything he writes.