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violentdelights's reviews
56 reviews
Bookshops & Bonedust by Travis Baldree
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Loveable characters? Yes
4.25
I know the Legends & Lattes series isn’t for everyone, but it sure is for me. The way the author manages to write just feels like coziness, warm and inviting and just daring me to devour the whole thing in two days. And so I did, and I loved it.
Tacky: Love Letters to the Worst Culture We Have to Offer by Rax King
medium-paced
2.75
I think I’d like this book slightly more if I knew going into it that it was more memoir than a cultural autopsy on the tacky. As a lover of tack, I was disappointed by the tacky subcultures taking a backseat to stories of the author’s personal life that were often only tangentially related. I of course expected a blend of personal stories and cultural analysis, but many essays seemed quite light on the latter.
While some essays had their strength (particularly I liked the one about Jersey Shore and Diners, Drive-ins, and Dives), mostly I found the stories to eventually morph into countless stories about various men the author that had slept with. No slut-shaming here, but the various stories about relationships (of varying intensities) she had with much older men ranging from when she was as young as a high schooler left a particularly bad taste in my mouth. Unfortunately, I don’t think I’m the author’s target audience for what I’m sure she firmly believes are very juicy stories.
Additional note: I had this book recommended to me. I had never heard of the author nor did I know she was a famous personality until after reading.
While some essays had their strength (particularly I liked the one about Jersey Shore and Diners, Drive-ins, and Dives), mostly I found the stories to eventually morph into countless stories about various men the author that had slept with. No slut-shaming here, but the various stories about relationships (of varying intensities) she had with much older men ranging from when she was as young as a high schooler left a particularly bad taste in my mouth. Unfortunately, I don’t think I’m the author’s target audience for what I’m sure she firmly believes are very juicy stories.
Additional note: I had this book recommended to me. I had never heard of the author nor did I know she was a famous personality until after reading.
Elvis and Me by Priscilla Beaulieu Presley
I have absolutely no idea how to rate this. What a difficult book to read for me. I understand victims of abuse all react differently, but it was hard - especially with the early chapters - to hear about such obvious grooming and predatory behaviour described with such love in her voice was difficult to swallow.
Listening to the audiobook made the experience much more vivid, I think - Priscilla softly giggles and sighs at fond memories, and the fondness in her voice in palpable. However, I could never find myself fully falling for this story she told of Elvis - one of trouble and misery but ultimately a love story - because I couldn’t help but view it through the lens of abuse and manipulation.
Listening to Priscilla describe her relationship to Elvis as both her father and husband, describe herself as someone molded by Elvis into his perfect girl, describe Elvis himself as “a perfect gentleman” for not sleeping with her while a minor but still kissing and caressing her - it was a horrific journey. I wish I could leave this book with the nuanced view of Elvis that she wanted me to have, but it just left me with a bitter taste in my mouth.
Listening to the audiobook made the experience much more vivid, I think - Priscilla softly giggles and sighs at fond memories, and the fondness in her voice in palpable. However, I could never find myself fully falling for this story she told of Elvis - one of trouble and misery but ultimately a love story - because I couldn’t help but view it through the lens of abuse and manipulation.
Listening to Priscilla describe her relationship to Elvis as both her father and husband, describe herself as someone molded by Elvis into his perfect girl, describe Elvis himself as “a perfect gentleman” for not sleeping with her while a minor but still kissing and caressing her - it was a horrific journey. I wish I could leave this book with the nuanced view of Elvis that she wanted me to have, but it just left me with a bitter taste in my mouth.
Confessions of a Prairie Bitch: How I Survived Nellie Oleson and Learned to Love Being Hated by Alison Arngrim
dark
funny
hopeful
fast-paced
4.0
Arngrim manages to expertly blend humour and emotion, relaying a dark childhood with the same voice she uses to narrate a folksy family show. As someone who has never seen or read Little House (or even knew much about it), I still enjoyed this book because of Arngrim’s writing style. Save for a few particularly dark chapters, much of this book is laugh-out-loud funny and tells the story of a young girl all alone who grows up to be a brave woman with a strong support system, all thanks to this Nellie character.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Incest
The Wager: A Tale of Shipwreck, Mutiny and Murder by David Grann
Did not finish book. Stopped at 61%.
Did not finish book. Stopped at 61%.
I kept getting waiting for the book to get interesting, and instead it bogged itself down in too many sailors to remember, too much sailor jargon, and too much boat information. By the time they got stranded, I was already halfway through the book and too emotionally bogged down. I’m sure this book is for someone, but it’s not for me.
Educated by Tara Westover
challenging
dark
hopeful
tense
medium-paced
5.0
I thought this book was going to be a memoir about someone with no education getting a PhD. it was, obviously, but it was so much more than that, and I understood it all too well.
In DBT, we learn about dialectical thinking, which is the ability to hold two or more conflicting truths at the same time. To me, more than an education, this book was about the author learning to hold multiple truths after being gaslighted and told her whole life that there is only one truth, and it is not hers. Her need to document, then, and know with certainty was heartbreakingly familiar, as those who grew up with abusive parents often take comfort in detail, in the written word and other proof that what happened to them actually happened. Her ability in the memoir to admit when she wasn’t sure which version of a story was accurate brought me great joy knowing this, knowing how hard she had struggled (as she herself admits) to get to that point.
Her ability to describe her family as fully fledged people, showing them compassion and empathy when they arguably do not deserve shows a great maturity that speaks to the authors ability to essentially teach herself, which I suppose does tie back to what I originally thought the book was about. Still, to me her ability to extend kindness to her family and remember them in fullness instead of merely their cruelest moments demonstrates that brilliance far more than the self-schooling did.
This book is aspirational. Not all abusers deserve forgiveness, of course, but all abused deserves peace, and the knowledge that loveable moments do not loveable people make. Family is a complicated, constantly bending concept, instead of the rigid one society wants you to believe it is - one is not simply born into a family and that’s it. The status of family is earned. Or maybe it’s not - maybe I don’t know exactly what it is yet.
That’s okay, too. Or at least, so this memoir says.
In DBT, we learn about dialectical thinking, which is the ability to hold two or more conflicting truths at the same time. To me, more than an education, this book was about the author learning to hold multiple truths after being gaslighted and told her whole life that there is only one truth, and it is not hers. Her need to document, then, and know with certainty was heartbreakingly familiar, as those who grew up with abusive parents often take comfort in detail, in the written word and other proof that what happened to them actually happened. Her ability in the memoir to admit when she wasn’t sure which version of a story was accurate brought me great joy knowing this, knowing how hard she had struggled (as she herself admits) to get to that point.
Her ability to describe her family as fully fledged people, showing them compassion and empathy when they arguably do not deserve shows a great maturity that speaks to the authors ability to essentially teach herself, which I suppose does tie back to what I originally thought the book was about. Still, to me her ability to extend kindness to her family and remember them in fullness instead of merely their cruelest moments demonstrates that brilliance far more than the self-schooling did.
This book is aspirational. Not all abusers deserve forgiveness, of course, but all abused deserves peace, and the knowledge that loveable moments do not loveable people make. Family is a complicated, constantly bending concept, instead of the rigid one society wants you to believe it is - one is not simply born into a family and that’s it. The status of family is earned. Or maybe it’s not - maybe I don’t know exactly what it is yet.
That’s okay, too. Or at least, so this memoir says.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Racial slurs
Red, White & Royal Blue by Casey McQuiston
emotional
funny
hopeful
lighthearted
medium-paced
5.0
this book gave me worms.