specificwonderland's reviews
846 reviews

The Trees: A Novel by Percival Everett

informative mysterious tense medium-paced

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

3.5

What a talent for inventing names of characters!

The Fourth Quarter of Your Life: Embracing What Matters Most by Matthew Kelly, Matthew Kelly, Matthew Kelly

reflective fast-paced

4.5

Gonna take off half a star for the preachiness. I heard about this in a finance group and I'm so glad I was able to to read this. It goes really fast but asks a lot of sobering questions:
Words you are waiting to hear from people in your life, words you need to speak to people in your life. What was your biggest loss in your 20s? What's a major event that you witnessed?(9/11) 

He posits the 4 q of life: 0-20, 21-40, 41-60, 61-80 and makes you plainly asses where you're at, how you're living, if that is aligned with your goals and hopes for your one wicked life. I really enjoyed this! 

The Wager: A Tale of Shipwreck, Mutiny and Murder by David Grann

adventurous informative tense slow-paced

3.0

I liked the plot of the novel, where we follow essentially the arc of the Wager from England around Cape Horn, to its demise and beyond. What I didn't like was the deep character study of all these historical figures. I think there's a "good enough" sketch you can give the reader of a character and when you develop a character too much, it's exhausting. I felt fatigued with this book, not because of the plot points but because of how the characters kept getting overcooked and dried out. I would've been fine knowing Cheap was the captain, he used a silver cane and was basically out for himself. At every scene with him, I felt like I was being hit over the head with this character study, and not just Cheap, all the characters. Maybe I'm not that much of a stickler for history, or I prefer more plot driven nonfiction. 

I love reading about shipwrecks, and this one stood apart because of the mutiny aspect, and how we explored each character's psyche. Ad nauseum in my humble opinion. I read this book for read harder 2024, read a book and see the author speak. I saw David Grann 25Jan2024 at Arlene Schnitzer hall in Portland. He spent 30m talking about the Osage and 30m talking about this book. 

His advice to would-be writers was, there's no trick. You have to sit down and write. He used to tell people all these stories he was going to write, at cocktail parties. He stopped sharing his ideas and started writing them in earnest. Both books follow a theme of disinformation and the Truth. I think the next prompt I'll do is the media literacy one, as a gentle segue from here to there! 

Wandering Souls by Cecile Pin

challenging dark emotional inspiring sad 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

5.0

The elusive 5 star! I saw this on IG as a book that was described to be like Kuang. I enjoyed both Yellowface and Babel so I requested this from the library. Honestly it reminded me more of Ocean Vuong! The emotions were so powerful, and the characters were so well-described and shaded. Kuang is a great writer too but I'd describe her more as plot writing, and this was more character writing. 

This book was powerful. It made me cry and made me laugh. I'm so hard on and judgey of my parents and seeing a young girl parentified to her brothers gave me a lot of sympathy for the struggling parents. The author did a great job of showing the light and dark of a 'parent' wanting better for her kids, but also resenting everything she missed out to be their parent. 

Paradise Rot by Jenny Hval

dark mysterious tense fast-paced

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

3.0

5 stars for atmosphere, 2 stars for plot. Overall I liked the plot and writing. Fast paced and foreboding. Open to interpretation at the end? 

Milk Fed by Melissa Broder

dark emotional sad tense 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

4.0

I saw this on IG in a grouping of some kind of weird book collection. The other book I remember being in the collection was Earthlings. Sooooooooo this was not *anything* like Earthlings (well MC is female), which makes me wonder what these books were supposed to have in common. I tried to find the reel I saw but most of what I saw for Milk Fed in collections was "20-30 something millennial loneliness" and "likeable mc figuring it out" which is a lot more apt. It was a breeze of a book, I think this might even fall into the Beach Reads After Dark category with a slight edge to it. It wasn't weird so much as sensual. 

So we meet Rachel near the rock bottom of her ED. She has a horrible relationship with her toxic mother and seeks validation and nurturing from all the wrong places. She's bi and possibly questioning her female identity, or at the least, is interested in power dynamics of men and women. 

Every day she gets fat free, sugar free froyo at lunch which is how she meets Miriam. Miriam (and her therapist) help Rachel crawl back to life. It's steamy, and I honestly expected ABF to come up but it didn't. I was braced for much weirder. 

That said, it really does fit into the other two mentioned niches. Other books I found in this niche were from Miranda July ❣️ & Dolly Alderton ❣️. I also saw Eleanor Oliphant, Cleopatra and Frankenstein, and Pizza Girl lumped into the same niche. Yeah, if you liked any of those you'd probably like this. 

What I loved about this book and the passages I highlighted were mainly about were the complicated feelings about your mom. 

“My daughter is only eleven,” she said. “But I only hope that she can one day have your success.” “Let’s not get carried away,” I said. “It’s a blog.” It seemed strange that mothers like Dr. Mahjoub existed in the world—mothers who supported their daughters. I felt jealous of her daughter, that she got to have a mother like that. I told Dr. Mahjoub I hadn’t expected fanfare from my mother. But I’d thought she would at least be a little bit proud. “You were going to the hardware store for milk again,” said Dr. Mahjoub
--
“So I’ve been a terrible mother,” said my mother. “I guess I’ve done nothing right.”
--
I could feel her opening an emotional spreadsheet that began with the womb.
--
as though my mother and I were friends, great friends, as though I were one of those daughters who said, Oh yeah, my mother is my best friend. Those women were upsetting. Mothers who doted on their baby daughters also killed me.
--
My mother had never known me either, though it wasn’t because I hadn’t given her a chance. I’d given her a lot of chances. What was saddest was that she didn’t seem to want to know me, not as I was on the inside. I wasn’t even sure if she could grasp that I had an inside, that I was real. Sometimes it seemed impossible that she had ever given birth to me at all. Other times, it made perfect sense that I had lived inside her for so long. It explained why she could only see me as an extension of herself.
--
I wondered whether there was a deadline for when a person had to finally stop blaming her mother for her own thoughts.

Another passages that killed me: 
She did it in the softest possible way—like a ghost haunting a place

The Opposite of Spoiled: Raising Kids Who Are Grounded, Generous, and Smart about Money by

fast-paced

3.0

I can't say I was introduced to new ideas in this book but I don't think that makes it a bad book. I found myself sliiiiightly triggered by these mythical parents who give their kids a set allowance, and teach their kids about money. Can't blame that on the book/author. I think this book is for someone who has money to give, and who has a hard time saying no to their kids. This gives you a framework for how to install good financial habits in your kids. 

Yellowface by R.F. Kuang

mysterious tense medium-paced

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

4.0

This book kept me guessing. I read Babel earlier this year and I really like the style of the author's writing. I'd read more of her work. I preferred that setting (timeless fantastic Oxford) to this setting (current DC area inundated with social media and the publishing industry). But the thing they both have in common is the depth of the character's Asian history.  

Where this novel shined (shone?) for me was the intense female rage, her overt racism,  and entitlement to be a successful author by any means necessary. She had so many opportunities to set the record straight and never did. It gave me Roxy Hart vibes. It's weird watching someone else's social media addiction spiral too. It's familiar (it could happen) but also unrelatable (dear God, that would never happen to me). 

While I read of Juniper's deep depression, I pictured a despaired yet numb Otessa Moshfegh in her year of rest and relaxation. I wondered a few times during this book if Moshfegh and Kuang are anything more than contemporaries. I enjoy their styles very much. 

Murder in the Family by Cara Hunter

adventurous challenging mysterious tense medium-paced

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

3.0

Too many characters and potential suspects

Drowning by T.J. Newman

adventurous emotional tense fast-paced

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

4.0