welcome back to another example of the fun kind of unpopular opinion. this book has a 3.05 average rating, but i had such a gi support women's wrongs.
welcome back to another example of the fun kind of unpopular opinion. this book has a 3.05 average rating, but i had such a good time.
we follow our protagonist, zuzu, through college and the current day and her unrequited feelings for her hippie bro best friend and her complicated feelings for her girlboss lawyer wife.
i thought it was unflinching and gruesome and honest and readable, especially about desire and attraction and the insidious power of vanity.
bottom line: i won't remember it forever, but i had a good time!
i would be a ghostwriter too, if it meant hanging out with ghosts.
i'm sad to say that to me, in spite of the unbelievable synopsis (gay lapsed mormon i would be a ghostwriter too, if it meant hanging out with ghosts.
i'm sad to say that to me, in spite of the unbelievable synopsis (gay lapsed mormon ghostwrites book for ghost closeted movie star), this book was more annoying than weird.
as were our characters, the snide pretentious author and the boring lame movie star, and their sudden foodgasm-based romance, and the lack of a plot otherwise.
it's only been two times, but i'm nearly ready to call it...
bottom line: samantha allen may be my favorite writer of synopses for books i actually don't like.
i like some installments in this series more than others, but they always make for a quick and enjoyable read, and this famine and cannibalism entry was a) full of surprises and b) no exception.
bottom line: whatever way i feel about these books, they're done in an afternoon. that's not nothing.
(3.5 / thanks to the publisher for the e-arc)...more
from the early pages you can tell this is magic, successful in every way. its setting, a summer-soaked new york, is immersive and atmospheric; its characters, numerous and flawed and lovable to the painful degree that is taylor's signature, are unforgettable; its story is consuming; its dialogue and interiority are brilliant expressions of theme without sacrificing realism or taking the reader out.
this is the great american novel of our generation, both incredibly of our time and somehow timeless. it feels like a balm for the pain and polarization of these particular days, and also the world of friendships and art and success and race that is built here is true of all eras.
i never wanted it to end and i feel a bit lost without it. i knew adding this to my tbr was like signing up for a depressive episode, but this isn't the type i expected.
this is a masterpiece.
bottom line: a book i will return to again and again.
i picked this up for a substack post in which i let you guys choose my reads, having absolutely never heard of it.
i you learn something new every day.
i picked this up for a substack post in which i let you guys choose my reads, having absolutely never heard of it.
i would know if i had, because this is not the kind of title you forget.
i had, therefore, 0 expectations, beyond the fact that once i started and found this to appear to be a book about a fish science guy from the olden days, i knew it had to be more than it appeared. you guys know me better than that.
i was right on that front.
this is at times definitely a book about an old man, but mostly it is about the world we live in, in all its cruelties and hopes. which is my favorite thing for a book to be about.
that mostly made up for the fish stuff.
bottom line: a pleasant surprise in so many ways!...more
in spite of the synopsis, this is not that. but. lately i've been really enjoying books about hard-to-like youndid somebody say the devil wears prada?
in spite of the synopsis, this is not that. but. lately i've been really enjoying books about hard-to-like young women struggling with the societal pressure to settle down into a 9-5 and a relationship. i was blown away by WORRY, and this had traces of the same — unflinching descriptions of banality, clever banter, existential dread.
this is an imperfect book, but i enjoyed reading it in the way itching a mosquito bite is enjoyable.
our whole situation sucks. it's nice to have some relief, even if the awareness may make things worse.
i found this clever and funny and complicated. i never tired of our hard-to-like protagonist's internal monologue or even her string of mistakes — i thought she was relatable and sympathetic, as i found the depiction of being alive and capitalism and the pressure to settle down.
it's a good sign when my only complaint about a short book is wishing it was longer.
this is a spare novel in both writing and page count, and it left it's a good sign when my only complaint about a short book is wishing it was longer.
this is a spare novel in both writing and page count, and it left me wanting MORE. i came to love these characters, or at least care about them, even as they were hurting each other and making life-changing mistakes and giving up and seeming unfeeling while feeling so much.
the two stories it tells, separated by 40 years, carry that as their through-line.
that, and a sobering reminder that things, especially cruelties, that feel very far from us, in time and in distance and in thought, can be troublingly close.
bottom line: timely and substantive and NOT ENOUGH!
this is a complicated book about complicated characters, and my feelings about it are complicated too.
it asks early contender for Best Cover Of 2025.
this is a complicated book about complicated characters, and my feelings about it are complicated too.
it asks a lot about forgiveness and happiness, what a good relationship and a good person and a good life is and are and can be.
it doesn't pretend to know the answers to any of them, which can be discomfiting. a lot about this book makes you think about things you may not want to, and realize things about yourself that can feel at odds with who we'd like to see ourselves as.
but as it offers the wonder of complexity to its cast, it offers it to its readers too. and that is a gift to read.
bottom line: pleasantly layered, like a quadratini.
every year nghi vo writes 2 wacky short gay fantasy books for me specifically.
but i guess not this one.
this claims to be a standalone companion to theevery year nghi vo writes 2 wacky short gay fantasy books for me specifically.
but i guess not this one.
this claims to be a standalone companion to the author's retelling of the great gatsby. it is not standalone. to call it a companion would be more accurate than calling it a book, which it isn't. there is no plot or characterization to speak of — it's like a bloated bonus chapter for a story nobody but me even enjoyed in the first place.
i'm sad to say even i didn't enjoy this one.
it's rare to love a retelling of a book you adore, but i thought the last one embodied gatsby while making it its own. this one isn't gatsby, or 20s, or excess, or even any of the things the last one was.
this reminded me why i love them! it's a fun, fluffy, summery romance with lots of character development and quirky dmy first love: ya contemporaries.
this reminded me why i love them! it's a fun, fluffy, summery romance with lots of character development and quirky dialogue.
at the beginning, i wasn't sure i would like this book. it was an immediate lurch into a high-energy, inconsistency-riddled world of carnival-like birthday parties for rich and famous teenage influencers and strict families of prodigy children run like circuses by doctors with very hyphenated last names.
but then we went off to camp and everything chilled out.
i love seasonally immersive books, whether they be autumnal halloween-y stories or cozy christmassy tales or summery s'mores-y fluffballs like this one.
The hard part about old Hollywood is that it's so interesting in reality that it's hard to improve it in fiction.
Even with magic and monsters.
This doThe hard part about old Hollywood is that it's so interesting in reality that it's hard to improve it in fiction.
Even with magic and monsters.
This does a pretty damn good job, though.
The hard part about Nghi Vo books is that each one should be one of a kind because they are insane-sounding (either mythical made-up fantasy stories that make you cry and are like 13 pages long or old timey retelling type deals that are also sapphic and magic), but they exist in the same universe.
And in this case, if we're talking historical fiction meets queer retelling meets asian american race exploration meets magical realism, The Chosen and The Beautiful is better.
Where that one became more and more compelling, almost eerily, as it went on, and I fell under the enchantment of the characters, with this one I felt a bit of an enduring confusion that never let up, no matter how closely I read or long I waited.
And that was a bummer.
But mysteriousness is not too much of a bad thing, and if that's the trade for magic and Hollywood and girls and monsters, I will take it!
Bottom line: Nghi Vo forever.
------------ currently-reading updates
nghi vo is the real siren queen (could convince me to read anything)
who among us hasn't experienced heartbreak so intense we'd accept a potentially immoral international job offer from the united nations?
this is a verywho among us hasn't experienced heartbreak so intense we'd accept a potentially immoral international job offer from the united nations?
this is a very fun idea for a book, obviously. unfortunately, i didn't find it fun.
this is a humorous take on a surprising subject: our protagonist, nadia, a real hot mess / hoot whose british drunkenness and casual sex in any other bridget jones-like iteration would have charmed me, accepts a job "deradicalizing" a group of women who have been brainwashed into joining isis and are now imprisoned in a foreign camp.
i know. shock value.
i was really excited to read this because it's based on the author's real experiences, which very few people have, but she might as well have made it all up for all the insights we actually glean.
i think the commentary around the UN and other institutions is genuinely funny, and the beginnings of just how out of place nadia is, but as the book wore on and never took itself seriously on these very serious subjects, i got frustrated. this author has real expertise, but she never shows it to us.
nadia is supposed to be working to send these women home, but instead she becomes obsessed with a teen she sees as herself, (view spoiler)[then she gives up and the book ends. (hide spoiler)] in the last pages, we get a strange "where are they now" for the various bureaucrats we've met and no mention of the hundreds of women who are still trapped.
this is objectively funny and well-written, and i would love if this author could use her powers of jokes on anything i can find humorous in the future.
bottom line: i really wanted to like this one, so please don't yell at me.
at one point when i was reading this book, my fiancé asked me what it was about, and i just kind of sat there fcharacter-driven > plot-driven any day.
at one point when i was reading this book, my fiancé asked me what it was about, and i just kind of sat there for a second before venturing "nothing?"
after another second of thought, i added that thus far it was kind of a coming of age story of a boy in britain, trying to determine what his gay and half-burmese identity means to him after a lifetime of learning what it means to others.
in truth, this is a very slow, very character-driven book. it was never very eventful, and i never felt particularly driven to pick it up, but i enjoyed it whenever i did.
eventually that changed a bit, as i realized i had spent weeks in the occasional company of david win and i was soon going to never do that again. that's something i love about long books: even if you don't notice, they grow on you, a sort of fondness built on extended company. i drew the last 50 pages out over a day.
good timing, too, as i tuned in fully just in time for the book to stick the landing on the growing moral failings of society lurking in the background. i think this is among the best inclusions of the pandemic i've seen in lit fic.
this book has everything: speculative aspects, childhood trauma, murder, estrangement, forbidden romance, a robot sibling.
it also has multiple perspecthis book has everything: speculative aspects, childhood trauma, murder, estrangement, forbidden romance, a robot sibling.
it also has multiple perspectives, which i'm a recorded hater of. there are simply very few books in which several POVs are necessary, and also varied, and also equally strong. this did not meet all 3 of those standards.
there was a lot going on, which was both its greatest strength and its biggest weakness.
overall, i thought this was crazy and interesting.
bottom line: maybe we will live in a world of silicone robots soon, but after this i pray not.
(3.5 / thanks to the publisher for the e-arc)...more
it seems like this one might. don't get me wrong: i'm glad that books in this series keep on coming. butevery series i like should just go on forever.
it seems like this one might. don't get me wrong: i'm glad that books in this series keep on coming. but it seems like we might be running out of ideas.
this installment follows nadya, a russian orphan who loves turtles and talking about figurative mothers. (this sums up most of her personality.) she also was born with one arm, and when she's adopted and taken to colorado (a fate worse than death, so i sympathize), her parents fit her with a prosthetic that she hates because it isn't her.
i can't say whether that is good representation, but it felt nuanced and unique and interesting to me. until she steps through a door that takes her to a land of turtles (like i said: most of her personality) and is given a magic arm by the river, which she loves.
then it seems like it's undoing some of the good representation. but what do i know.
i do know that i did not like the pacing here (view spoiler)[and i really f*cking hated the ending (hide spoiler)].
bottom line: in the 3 months that have passed since i read this book, i am mostly left with a residual shock that so much of it was exclusively about turtles.
the devil herself is in this book and she's a prematurely gray violinist.
possibly it is not the fault of charlotte, one of our two dual-pov second chathe devil herself is in this book and she's a prematurely gray violinist.
possibly it is not the fault of charlotte, one of our two dual-pov second chance romantics, that she sucks so hard. perhaps she has a life-threatening allergy to asking her alleged best friend a single question about her life. maybe she lost all of her non-hair-related characteristics in a tragic accident. there's a chance she was put through a now-debunked invasive psychological experiment that left her heart a la the grinch's at the beginning of the movie. she could have a genetic lineage made up solely of people who ride in sleds and yell at huskies to mush mixed with assistant managers who run fast-casual bowl restaurants like the navy.
but unless the answer is "all of the above, as related in a lengthy and disturbing prequel i somehow missed," she is just the worst without good reason.
she does have A reason, and that reason is the irritatingly named and alarmingly traitless brighton, her ex girlfriend who left her at the altar. sounds bad. but still not really checking all my boxes re: having a personality so bad i fear it's contagious.
this book was painful to get through. i didn't root for these two monsters to get together — far from it. i was hoping one of their wintertime activity fails or hangovers would have a more lasting impact so i could ride out a few pages of silence (or, god forbid, other characters), but no dice. just a who's who of tropes thrown at the wall to see what sticks. fake dating, enemies to lovers, second chance, miscommunication, forced proximity, friends to lovers, rescue romance: i'm sorry. all of you deserved better.
AND SO DID I.
all i wanted was some christmas cheer and instead i nearly lost everything. and by everything i mean "my mind for like 300 pages."
bottom line: to each their own. this book is not my own.
(thanks to the publisher for the e-arc)
------------------------- tbr review
it's actually never too early to begin christmastime...more
i will keep reading lit fic about weird lesbians finding themselves as long as emily austin keeps writing it.
so no surprise this is my first five stari will keep reading lit fic about weird lesbians finding themselves as long as emily austin keeps writing it.
so no surprise this is my first five star of the year! even better, it got my personal gold seal of approval: making me cry on an airplane.
i just think we're so lucky to have emily austin's wacky goofy funny cynical cutting loving brilliant brain helping us to navigate these unprecedented times. this book helped me make sense of so much in my own worldview: how i can love others and believe people are good, even while i am horrified to see the timeline we appear to be on.
being surrounded by strangers with so much love in my heart in this book that also manages to be funny...it was a treat beyond words.
bottom line: the book i needed when i needed it.
(thank you to the publisher for the copy!!!)...more
