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846 reviews
The Between by Tananarive Due
dark
emotional
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
Something strange is happening to Hilton James. He's losing time, experiencing events out of order, and losing his family. His Nana saved him from drowning as a kid, but something has been pursuing him for decades. He shouldn't be here. This story is woven with a hyper realistic racism storyline. I "liked" this. An upwardly mobile family of color, the vibrant Miami setting (ngl, Every time I saw "Biscayne" I would sing some of Mask Off - ocean air, cruuuising Biscaaaayne), the wife being more successful than the husband, a solid marriage without being overly perfect. The dog doesn't die! All the makings of a captivating story. Open ended ending. Did Hilton come out of that?
The Violet Hour: Great Writers at the End by Katie Roiphe
dark
emotional
reflective
medium-paced
4.0
I had this on my TBR for years(?) and finally read it. When I looked at the table is contents, there was only one author I was interested in, Updike. So that's the section I read and it was very poignant and dad and good and interesting and revealing.
Good Morning, Monster by Catherine Gildiner
challenging
dark
emotional
hopeful
reflective
slow-paced
4.0
It's not often I run out the library clock on a book, then re-check it out and keep forging ahead. But this was that book. It was really inspiring hearing about these hero patients.
Cows by Matthew Stokoe
dark
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
0.0
In a sense, I dnf this book. I put it down at 50-55% and did not continue on. In another sense, I did finish it. I reached the end point for me. I've spent years reading fucked up things, watching fucked up things, listening to fucked up things. I wanted to prove to myself I could. I wasn't soft or affected. I was hard and wizened. Fuck all that.
I read some reviews of this book before I quit, wondering if it would turn out to be fruitful or have some kind of 'good' ending. What I read was not encouraging. To paraphrase, "this is a less good Animal Farm". Yeah, I don't need to debase myself like this. It's ok that I'm soft. It's ok that I get disgusted and traumatized reading about a guy fucking a girl while he guides a colonoscopy camera up (really really up) her anal canal far into her intestines while they both listlessly watch the camera footage. It's ok that I don't want to read about 6 guys punching holes in the same cow while it's alive, so they can fuck the cow holes and then murder the cow so it tenses around their dicks before they finally stop its suffering. It's ok I don't want to hear about a sadistic mother feeding her adult son rotten sheep intestines, then him making her eat his literal shit, on a plate, over and over again. And the poor helpless dog.
Wherever this book is going, it's ok that I don't want to go.
From what I did read, I felt it was one dimensional, the detached third person narration of an emotionally delayed (however rightfully so) young man. I wouldn't recommend this to anyone. I paid for it , and don't even want to leave it in a FLL without a content warning on it. I feel like Tender is the Flesh tackles these ideas in less harsh ways while still being visceral.
Some questions I have at this juncture. The biggest question I have is, was the writer in on this? Did the writer do an amazing job at a character study of a depraved man or is the only way a writer could harness this much depravity is if he himself were that depraved man, saying whatever thoughts he thinks. If it's the former, there's some value in this level of repulsion. If it's the latter, I hope to never cross his path in a dark alley.
I do think the animal cruelty question opens an ethical line of questioning. Ok we can all agree THIS is too much, this is beyond the boundaries of what a cow should have to go through. How do we feel (singularly, as a society, or from the author's Australia versus my America) about factory farms? Most of us eat meat, isn't that cruel? Most of us distance ourselves as much as we can from our living breathing food. This book makes the reader look.
Humans are disgusting, even if we're not unfeeling toxic monsters. We do horrible things to animals. And guess what, we do them to each other. Men rape women. People bring guns to schools, malls, concerts, movies. America is a hella racist place to be for a person of color. England colonized a lot of the world. We treat each other horribly. Is this book beyond that? (Resounding yes for me.)
And my final question is, if it's not for me, who is this book for? I think it's for someone who wants to be pushed to their limits. I love a sad book that destroys me. If there's an audience who craves that feeling of being destroyed and levelled by a disgusting work, this is the book for that audience.
I read some reviews of this book before I quit, wondering if it would turn out to be fruitful or have some kind of 'good' ending. What I read was not encouraging. To paraphrase, "this is a less good Animal Farm". Yeah, I don't need to debase myself like this. It's ok that I'm soft. It's ok that I get disgusted and traumatized reading about a guy fucking a girl while he guides a colonoscopy camera up (really really up) her anal canal far into her intestines while they both listlessly watch the camera footage. It's ok that I don't want to read about 6 guys punching holes in the same cow while it's alive, so they can fuck the cow holes and then murder the cow so it tenses around their dicks before they finally stop its suffering. It's ok I don't want to hear about a sadistic mother feeding her adult son rotten sheep intestines, then him making her eat his literal shit, on a plate, over and over again. And the poor helpless dog.
Wherever this book is going, it's ok that I don't want to go.
From what I did read, I felt it was one dimensional, the detached third person narration of an emotionally delayed (however rightfully so) young man. I wouldn't recommend this to anyone. I paid for it , and don't even want to leave it in a FLL without a content warning on it. I feel like Tender is the Flesh tackles these ideas in less harsh ways while still being visceral.
Some questions I have at this juncture. The biggest question I have is, was the writer in on this? Did the writer do an amazing job at a character study of a depraved man or is the only way a writer could harness this much depravity is if he himself were that depraved man, saying whatever thoughts he thinks. If it's the former, there's some value in this level of repulsion. If it's the latter, I hope to never cross his path in a dark alley.
I do think the animal cruelty question opens an ethical line of questioning. Ok we can all agree THIS is too much, this is beyond the boundaries of what a cow should have to go through. How do we feel (singularly, as a society, or from the author's Australia versus my America) about factory farms? Most of us eat meat, isn't that cruel? Most of us distance ourselves as much as we can from our living breathing food. This book makes the reader look.
Humans are disgusting, even if we're not unfeeling toxic monsters. We do horrible things to animals. And guess what, we do them to each other. Men rape women. People bring guns to schools, malls, concerts, movies. America is a hella racist place to be for a person of color. England colonized a lot of the world. We treat each other horribly. Is this book beyond that? (Resounding yes for me.)
And my final question is, if it's not for me, who is this book for? I think it's for someone who wants to be pushed to their limits. I love a sad book that destroys me. If there's an audience who craves that feeling of being destroyed and levelled by a disgusting work, this is the book for that audience.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Animal cruelty, Animal death, Body horror, Child abuse, Chronic illness, Confinement, Death, Domestic abuse, Emotional abuse, Gore, Physical abuse, Rape, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Sexual violence, Torture, Toxic relationship, Violence, Blood, Excrement, Vomit, Medical content, Cannibalism, Medical trauma, Injury/Injury detail
Eight Men by Paul Gilroy, Richard Wright
dark
emotional
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.0
Are the flaws of the characters a main focus of the book? Um, existing while being black.
I like the way Richard Wright writes. I saw this on a table for Black History Month at the library and picked it up for some short stories. Short doesn't mean vapid though. The stories were fraught with tension. The Flemish innkeeper who is enraged and indignant at the large black man drinking and cavorting with prostitutes in the inn. The boy who wanted a gun so badly it ruined his family. There were some very meaty stories being tackled here. I would read more of his work!
I like the way Richard Wright writes. I saw this on a table for Black History Month at the library and picked it up for some short stories. Short doesn't mean vapid though. The stories were fraught with tension. The Flemish innkeeper who is enraged and indignant at the large black man drinking and cavorting with prostitutes in the inn. The boy who wanted a gun so badly it ruined his family. There were some very meaty stories being tackled here. I would read more of his work!
The Pivot Year by Brianna Wiest
inspiring
reflective
slow-paced
3.0
Daily reflections on how you should be. This was ok.
Good Material by Dolly Alderton
emotional
funny
sad
medium-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
Someone asked me if I liked this book. I loved this book. It was heartbreaking and sad and hilarious all at the same time.
Quotes:
“Because people don’t break up with people who they’ve had absolutely no prior problems with just so they can be single. No one likes being single that much.” “I’d like to be single,” Jane replies. “I think most women would. It’s men who don’t know how to do it."
this other time zone of a young family.
“Why didn’t you talk about Jen tonight?” he asks. “I don’t do that kind of soul-baring stuff on stage,” I reply. “That’s not my sort of comedy.” “Yeah, I know that, but I’m wondering whether this could be your chance to create your opus. Venture away from all that”— he puts on a miscellaneous Midlands accent—“ ‘Have you noticed this funny thing about sausage rolls?’ sort of vibe.” “I don’t do that vibe.” “Didn’t you make a joke about sausage rolls tonight? I thought you did.” “I think what you’re referring to is the bit about a panini, not a sausage roll. About how the tomato in it is always weirdly hotter than any other ingredient. That always gets the biggest laugh from the audience.” “People really are morons.” “Thanks.”
“I’ve got a whole weekend planned.” He shrugs defensively. “Oh yeah, like what?” “Like…tomorrow. When we’re hung-over. I’ve checked if the local KFC delivers on Uber Eats.” “And?” I demand. “They do.”
How could I have let myself believe, even for a second, that single thirty-something life would be an endless buffet of opportunities, when I know it is, at best, small plates.
“When men and women break up, men hate everything about their ex-girlfriend for three months, and then they miss her, and then they think they love her, and that’s when they text her.
even though Jen is no longer in my physical life—the room inside my mind that has been occupied by her for the last four years still exists. I want to convert it into a home gym or a meditation room or get in a new tenant, but I can’t.
“And no one is going to be with you because of the label in your waistband.”
“Pleased to have realized early on in my life that you can trust nobody. Rely on nobody. When someone tells you something, don’t believe them. When something is given to you as a fact, ask yourself whether it really is a fact. Everybody is out for themselves in this life. Everyone. And that’s how it should be. I should be out for myself,” he says, pointing at himself, his voice low and hushed now. “And you should be out for yourself.” He points to me. “And we all should be out for ourselves.” He gestures around the pub.
I needed an answer more than anything that night. I needed to know whether she’d had a realization that I hadn’t and, if so, I wanted to know how to get it. When I woke up the next day, I realized the feeling I was experiencing was not anger or jealousy or bitterness—it was grief. I had no one left. They’d all gone. Of course, they hadn’t really gone, they were still my friends and I still loved them. But huge parts of them had disappeared and there was nothing they could do to change that. Unless I joined them in their spaces, on their schedules
I once heard a theory about the first relationship that occurs after a big relationship ends. It’s called the 90/10 rule. The theory goes: whatever the crucial 10 per cent is that was missing from your partner who was otherwise totally right for you is the thing you look for in the following person. That missing 10 per cent becomes such a fixation that, when you do find someone who has it, you ignore the fact they don’t have the other 90 per cent that the previous partner had.
Which is how I ended up on Andy’s Spotify page, discovering that he’d made a Spotify playlist titled “S” and that one of the songs on that playlist was “Cigarettes and Coffee” by Otis Redding. A song that soundtracked nearly four years of our relationship, repurposed for a twenty-three-year-old who he’d met a handful of weeks ago. That was when I really started going mad. I couldn’t stop imagining how they were together: whether he made her weekly mixes like he did for me at the beginning; whether he kissed her armpit the first morning he woke up with her. Was the way Andy loved me actually nothing to do with me, and instead just the Andy Experience a woman gets when he chooses her?
---
My short summary, if Fleabag was a book, this is it. Every Dolly Alderton book I've read (check my profile), I've given 5 stars. I love the way she writes, is it a British thing? You can be so flippant and witty and wry, and then be so heartbroken and sad the next page.
Quotes:
“Because people don’t break up with people who they’ve had absolutely no prior problems with just so they can be single. No one likes being single that much.” “I’d like to be single,” Jane replies. “I think most women would. It’s men who don’t know how to do it."
this other time zone of a young family.
“Why didn’t you talk about Jen tonight?” he asks. “I don’t do that kind of soul-baring stuff on stage,” I reply. “That’s not my sort of comedy.” “Yeah, I know that, but I’m wondering whether this could be your chance to create your opus. Venture away from all that”— he puts on a miscellaneous Midlands accent—“ ‘Have you noticed this funny thing about sausage rolls?’ sort of vibe.” “I don’t do that vibe.” “Didn’t you make a joke about sausage rolls tonight? I thought you did.” “I think what you’re referring to is the bit about a panini, not a sausage roll. About how the tomato in it is always weirdly hotter than any other ingredient. That always gets the biggest laugh from the audience.” “People really are morons.” “Thanks.”
“I’ve got a whole weekend planned.” He shrugs defensively. “Oh yeah, like what?” “Like…tomorrow. When we’re hung-over. I’ve checked if the local KFC delivers on Uber Eats.” “And?” I demand. “They do.”
How could I have let myself believe, even for a second, that single thirty-something life would be an endless buffet of opportunities, when I know it is, at best, small plates.
“When men and women break up, men hate everything about their ex-girlfriend for three months, and then they miss her, and then they think they love her, and that’s when they text her.
even though Jen is no longer in my physical life—the room inside my mind that has been occupied by her for the last four years still exists. I want to convert it into a home gym or a meditation room or get in a new tenant, but I can’t.
“And no one is going to be with you because of the label in your waistband.”
“Pleased to have realized early on in my life that you can trust nobody. Rely on nobody. When someone tells you something, don’t believe them. When something is given to you as a fact, ask yourself whether it really is a fact. Everybody is out for themselves in this life. Everyone. And that’s how it should be. I should be out for myself,” he says, pointing at himself, his voice low and hushed now. “And you should be out for yourself.” He points to me. “And we all should be out for ourselves.” He gestures around the pub.
I needed an answer more than anything that night. I needed to know whether she’d had a realization that I hadn’t and, if so, I wanted to know how to get it. When I woke up the next day, I realized the feeling I was experiencing was not anger or jealousy or bitterness—it was grief. I had no one left. They’d all gone. Of course, they hadn’t really gone, they were still my friends and I still loved them. But huge parts of them had disappeared and there was nothing they could do to change that. Unless I joined them in their spaces, on their schedules
I once heard a theory about the first relationship that occurs after a big relationship ends. It’s called the 90/10 rule. The theory goes: whatever the crucial 10 per cent is that was missing from your partner who was otherwise totally right for you is the thing you look for in the following person. That missing 10 per cent becomes such a fixation that, when you do find someone who has it, you ignore the fact they don’t have the other 90 per cent that the previous partner had.
Which is how I ended up on Andy’s Spotify page, discovering that he’d made a Spotify playlist titled “S” and that one of the songs on that playlist was “Cigarettes and Coffee” by Otis Redding. A song that soundtracked nearly four years of our relationship, repurposed for a twenty-three-year-old who he’d met a handful of weeks ago. That was when I really started going mad. I couldn’t stop imagining how they were together: whether he made her weekly mixes like he did for me at the beginning; whether he kissed her armpit the first morning he woke up with her. Was the way Andy loved me actually nothing to do with me, and instead just the Andy Experience a woman gets when he chooses her?
---
My short summary, if Fleabag was a book, this is it. Every Dolly Alderton book I've read (check my profile), I've given 5 stars. I love the way she writes, is it a British thing? You can be so flippant and witty and wry, and then be so heartbroken and sad the next page.
The Leaving by Tara Altebrando
adventurous
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
3.75
Loved the storytelling/writing devices, felt meh about the plot/resolution/explanation. Characters weren't as faceted as I'd like but they are teenagers.
The Strange Library by Haruki Murakami
adventurous
mysterious
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.5
I tried to hack the mainframe and decode this book (ie: googling "ending explained") and I'm no closer than I was before I did this. But I think this is a gift, because it's too easy sometimes to just accept someone else's interpretation of what a book means, rather than thinking about it yourself and coming up with your own interpretation. I hesitated with this book for fear of being "wrong". But it's my interpretation, so buckle up and let's see what we can uncover together.
The MC goes to the library because he has an idea that just pops into his head one day: how did they collect taxes during the Ottoman empire? I loved this curiosity and inquisitiveness and the follow-through to actually go to the library and ask for materials to answer his burning question. However, we see his flaws, the guy is a total pushover. He's like 10, but still. He get shepherded through the library, in a totally passive way, into the basement where he's pushed into staying to read ('ok but just for 30 minutes'), into a jail cell with 3 books about his requested topic. He can go free when he memorizes the books. While in jail, he meets a few characters: the old man who is keeping him captive. We learn he likes to eat brains and they taste better when they're full of information. He also meets The Sheep Man, a man who wears a sheep outfit. The Sheep Man is kind of slow, but friendly enough, and very afraid of the old man. The old man threatens to submerge The Sheep Man in a jar of 10,000 caterpillars. ::Shudder:: The boy and the Sheep Man scheme on leaving the library. In the meantime, in his solitary confinement, he's visited by a very thin frail girl (paraphrasing here but 'her wrists were so delicate they seemed like they'd break') who speaks to him in telepathy and is very compassionate. The boy drifts in and out of reality and consciousness and we're not sure who to believe here. The Sheep Man says there's no girl he's ever seen, but then he later acknowledges her. The boy also disocciates(?) and his mind wanders to the point where he thinks he's one of the tax collectors of the Ottoman Empire, at home with his 3 wives, eating oranges. Woven through this current story, we learn the boy was bitten by a big black dog with a jeweled collar and this makes his mom overprotective and overly worried about him. He lives a gentle life with his mother and loves his bird, a starling.
Eventually, on the new moon, the boy and The Sheep Man abscond through the labyrinth of the library and behind the last door is the old man, with a giant black dog. The black dog has a starling in his eyes, and the starling keeps growing until it's the size of a bull, and pins the old man against a wall. The Sheep Man and the boy escape and run to a park, where the boy falls asleep. When he wakes up, The Sheep Man is gone, and he's alone. We might think he made the whole thing up, but he lost his shoes in the basement of the library. He never wants to go back, or to talk to anyone about the incident, or to file a report against the old man. He goes home, and his bird is gone, and his mother doesn't even ask where he'd been for days. Finally, we get a post-script about his mom passing away of a mysterious illness. The end.
Examining the facts: he should have stood up for himself and never gotten locked into the library. He gave the old man way too much respect and passivity for someone who didn't have his best interests at heart. Despite being in a harrowing situation, he found connection with the frail girl, The Sheep Man, and his hope for his bird. We think he actually experienced this because of his missing shoes. If none of this happened, where did his shoes go? And when he finally makes it home, his mom receives him blandly, then dies. The boy had a very active imagination -- he had a very realistic view into Ibn Armut Hasir's life, was he a spacy little kid imaginging all this, or did the library have some magical power that cast a spell on him to be able to vividly experience this?
My lingering questions: I found this book on a list of ergodic literature and I feel like there should be meaning in the illustrations, like they reveal something. They do supplement the text, when they talk about the dog, they show pictures of a dog's eye. But there's no new arc that comes into focus when I think about all the images at the story's conclusion.
For me, this was ok, nothing incredible. However, this is how I usually feel about Murakami (1Q84, Windup Bird Chronicles, Kafka on the Shore). They leave me confused without a clear ending but ambivalent. This book falls into the same bucket.
The MC goes to the library because he has an idea that just pops into his head one day: how did they collect taxes during the Ottoman empire? I loved this curiosity and inquisitiveness and the follow-through to actually go to the library and ask for materials to answer his burning question. However, we see his flaws, the guy is a total pushover. He's like 10, but still. He get shepherded through the library, in a totally passive way, into the basement where he's pushed into staying to read ('ok but just for 30 minutes'), into a jail cell with 3 books about his requested topic. He can go free when he memorizes the books. While in jail, he meets a few characters: the old man who is keeping him captive. We learn he likes to eat brains and they taste better when they're full of information. He also meets The Sheep Man, a man who wears a sheep outfit. The Sheep Man is kind of slow, but friendly enough, and very afraid of the old man. The old man threatens to submerge The Sheep Man in a jar of 10,000 caterpillars. ::Shudder:: The boy and the Sheep Man scheme on leaving the library. In the meantime, in his solitary confinement, he's visited by a very thin frail girl (paraphrasing here but 'her wrists were so delicate they seemed like they'd break') who speaks to him in telepathy and is very compassionate. The boy drifts in and out of reality and consciousness and we're not sure who to believe here. The Sheep Man says there's no girl he's ever seen, but then he later acknowledges her. The boy also disocciates(?) and his mind wanders to the point where he thinks he's one of the tax collectors of the Ottoman Empire, at home with his 3 wives, eating oranges. Woven through this current story, we learn the boy was bitten by a big black dog with a jeweled collar and this makes his mom overprotective and overly worried about him. He lives a gentle life with his mother and loves his bird, a starling.
Eventually, on the new moon, the boy and The Sheep Man abscond through the labyrinth of the library and behind the last door is the old man, with a giant black dog. The black dog has a starling in his eyes, and the starling keeps growing until it's the size of a bull, and pins the old man against a wall. The Sheep Man and the boy escape and run to a park, where the boy falls asleep. When he wakes up, The Sheep Man is gone, and he's alone. We might think he made the whole thing up, but he lost his shoes in the basement of the library. He never wants to go back, or to talk to anyone about the incident, or to file a report against the old man. He goes home, and his bird is gone, and his mother doesn't even ask where he'd been for days. Finally, we get a post-script about his mom passing away of a mysterious illness. The end.
Examining the facts: he should have stood up for himself and never gotten locked into the library. He gave the old man way too much respect and passivity for someone who didn't have his best interests at heart. Despite being in a harrowing situation, he found connection with the frail girl, The Sheep Man, and his hope for his bird. We think he actually experienced this because of his missing shoes. If none of this happened, where did his shoes go? And when he finally makes it home, his mom receives him blandly, then dies. The boy had a very active imagination -- he had a very realistic view into Ibn Armut Hasir's life, was he a spacy little kid imaginging all this, or did the library have some magical power that cast a spell on him to be able to vividly experience this?
My lingering questions: I found this book on a list of ergodic literature and I feel like there should be meaning in the illustrations, like they reveal something. They do supplement the text, when they talk about the dog, they show pictures of a dog's eye. But there's no new arc that comes into focus when I think about all the images at the story's conclusion.
For me, this was ok, nothing incredible. However, this is how I usually feel about Murakami (1Q84, Windup Bird Chronicles, Kafka on the Shore). They leave me confused without a clear ending but ambivalent. This book falls into the same bucket.
I Feel Bad About My Neck by Nora Ephron
lighthearted
fast-paced
2.5
If you can sidestep the "boomercore", this was an ok read. It was hard to get into her being miffed about her rent controlled, 8 room apartment asking her to pay more because either her rent was too low or she made more than $250,000/yr. She went on for awhile about things that were more relevant in Rosie O'Donnell's time, like 9/11 and Monica Lewinsky. But, as a light breeze on the topic of women aging, this was ok. I wouldn't recommend it but I'm okay with having read it. I don't think I'd read anymoee Nora Ephron.