Tag: book review

Such a Fun Age by Kiley Reid | Book Review

Siobhan

★★★★☆
July 3rd

I’m so glad that I got to read this book when I did from the library, because this book has blown up in popularity recently, and is very difficult to get now!

Such a Fun Age follows Emira, an African American woman in her early twenties who is asked late one night to take the young girl she babysits, Briar, to the local grocery store to distract her from a family crisis. When she’s at the grocery store, a security guard accuses Emira of kidnapping Briar, causing a long series of events.

I was really expecting this book to be about a lot of drama following the incident in the grocery store. I was expecting a large presence of the media, a bigger tie into the Black Lives Matter movement in terms of protesting, and maybe some examples of the white parents trying to fix things and overstepping their boundaries.

I wasn’t expecting this book to be what it was: an African American women to just want to go about her life without drawing attention to herself, or to try and fix everything in the world. There’s a great quote in this book where she tells another character “I don’t need you to be mad that it happened. I need you to be mad that it just like… happens.”

This book is a lot about allyship, specifically performative allyship. Emira’s boss Alix continuously mismanages and missteps with her actions, and it was sometimes really tough to read. She has a white savior mentality and continuously tries to get close to Emira in very creepy ways to make herself seem like the good guy. Throughout the book we see her tendency to try and re-write history to try and make herself seem like the victim, and how it’s easier for her to continue to believe something she knows is a lie.

This book felt extremely grounded in reality, and I loved how well the fallout of the situation was portrayed. I loved the dynamic that Emira had with her friends, and how much she loved Briar, the little girl that she was babysitting. Emira was an incredibly bright, smart and brilliantly written character who was looking to better herself, get a stable job, have a decent apartment, and be happy.

I highly recommend the audiobook for this. It made the reading experience incredible and added significantly to my enjoyment of the book. I’m so impressed with Kiley Reid’s debut and I can’t wait to see what she comes out with in the future.

When They Call You a Terrorist: A Black Lives Matter Memoir by Patrisse Khan-Cullors & Asha Bandele | Book Review

Siobhan


July 2nd

I don’t feel entirely comfortable reviewing the technical aspects of memoirs. It’s not my place to comment on how someone else expressed their life experience. Here’s what I will say:

I cannot begin to imagine the level of suffering that she endured, and I wish that no one ever had to endure that. But she did, and she’s incredible.

I listened to the audiobook for this memoir because it was read by the author, which I always like. The words flow so much more naturally when they’re read by the person who crafted them. I have never been as affected by an audiobook, and by a listening experience as I was with this. I hope everyone gets the chance to listen or read this book. I have a lot to keep learning, work to do on integrating more varied voices into my reading lists, and working on what I can do to support those around me.

The Guest List by Lucy Foley | Book Review

Siobhan

★★☆☆☆
July 1st – 2nd

We all know that I love a good thriller. I like mysteries with compelling characters, a well-put together plot, and an interesting setting. I like when the reader has all of the pieces in front of them and they aren’t reliant on external information to solve what’s going on. I also love gothic settings. I love the isolation and distance. This had a lot of those elements and I was so excited to read it, but the execution was not for me.

This review will have spoilers.

To start, I think this book had too many perspectives. We were following multiple characters getting ready for a wedding on an island off the coast of Ireland. The bride, the maid of honor, the best man, the plus one, and the wedding planner. Five perspectives is way too many in most settings, but definitely a thriller.

Clocking in at just over 300 pages, trying to fill in the backstory of five separate people with all of their personality feels like a tremendous task, and as a result, I really think the writing of this one suffered. I was not a fan of how much the characters were telling me about themselves, but with so little time to explain anything, I don’t know that there really was an alternative other than making it significantly longer.

In addition to the five character perspectives which take place starting the day before the wedding, the book adds a sixth element where it jumps to the present. These pieces in the present I found to do absolutely nothing. I believe the intention was to add tension, but they were so infrequent and had cliffhangers so insignificant that it took away from the plot and general pacing of the book. One of the cliffhangers was what was in a character’s hand, and 50 or so pages later we find out that it was a flashlight. This was exceptionally frustrating to me, because it felt like an attempt at tension for the sake of tension.

The entire book takes place on the island, which I really enjoyed, and there was one or two characters that really stood out as being interesting. If the whole book was from the perspective of the plus one, I think I really would have liked it. She was a flawed character who was recognizing holes in her marriage and difficulties she was having with it. She was the only one who saw growth as a character, and she did her best to help other characters grow.

A lot of the complaints I saw from other reviewers talked about how predictable it was, and while I agree, that’s not typically a problem I have with thrillers. I tend to enjoy the ride more than the ending, but in this case I did not enjoy the ride. With each of these characters we come to find out how they’re all connected to the groom, be it from a past relationship, a childhood friendship with a dark secret, or connected to people who were hurt by him.

I really hated most of the side male characters who were part of the wedding party (with the exception of the best man). They had a very tribal attitude that I sometimes found hard to read through. I do think that was the point of these characters though, so I believe that was a successful bit of writing, and when combined with the plus one character, it was the best part of the book.

From what I’ve seen of Lucy Foley’s other book The Hunting Party, people have similar complaints. I’d like to see for myself if I’d like it, but as of right now I don’t think that their writing is for me, which is disappointing.

Upright Women Wanted by Sarah Gailey | Book Review

Siobhan

★★★★☆
June 17th – 21st

Upright Women Wanted is the second short book I sought out when trying to get myself back into reading this summer. The book clocks in at 176 pages, and has a lot of LGBTQ+ representation.

Sometime in the future (we’re not sure how far in the future), the United States as we know it doesn’t exist, and seems to have gone backwards in terms of what is and isn’t available. Only approved documents can be read, and it’s the job of the Librarians to bring them along. We follow our main character, Esther, who’s a stowaway in a Librarian’s cart, trying to escape an unwanted marriage and outrun the painful memories she has of her best friend’s death.

Through this we meet the group of Librarians she’s traveling with, who at first do not trust her, and learn to accept her into their group.

The book is extremely short, and it’s tough not to give anything away in a review, so from here down there will be spoilers:

I loved the representation that the Librarians gave, showing Esther that there’s all different types of relationships (and people) than the ones in the approved materials she’s been given her whole life. The Librarians themselves do more than bring approved materials from town to town, and help people who need to escape for being hated for who they are, similar to Esther.

I found Cye’s character to be the best part of the book, and loved the way they were described. I believe this was one of the first non-binary characters I’ve read in a book, and definitely one where that was brought to the surface in a conversation as directly as it was.

A lot was packed into this small book, and it did a really great job of throwing the reader into the world and taking them along for the ride. However, balancing world-building in books like this is extremely difficult, and I did find myself wishing that there was just a bit more in terms of the futuristic aspect of the book. I could see more books set in this world being really successful, and talking about other aspects of the culture that’s been created.

Sarah Gailey has written several other books that I’m interested, and Magic for Liars has definitely been added to my TBR for later this year.

This is How You Lose the Time War by Amal El-Mohtar & Max Gladstone | Book Review

Siobhan

★★★★☆
June 15th – 17th

This is a dual-perspective epistolary novella (buzzwords, yay!) about two agents fighting on opposite sides of a war through time and space. The reader is brought in at the beginning of their correspondence, where they leave letters for each other through time and space.

The writing in this is absolutely gorgeous, with Max Gladstone writing the character of Red, and Amal El-Mohtar writing Blue. The two are locked in this battle of outplaying each other and trying to circumvent the moves that each are making.

The war itself is an elaborate game of chess played across different timelines and different eras, and is something that the reader isn’t given much information on, but given that it isn’t the main focus, it doesn’t distract too much.

The core relationship between Blue and Red is what’s important, and what’s at the center of this book. I guess that this would constitute an “enemies to lovers” type relationship, however they’re never really individual enemies as much as they are on opposing sides of a war. Its more Romeo and Juliet, but without all of the tragedies.

I did want more of the war concept, but not in this book. I’d love a spinoff discussing the point of the war, the intentions, and what’s happening on each side, but I like being left with this small (and I mean really small. 209 pages small) piece of a war through time and space.

This book is weird, it’s interesting, it’s extremely floral and lyrical and I really enjoyed it. I had been in a reading slump for about two months when I picked this book up, and I’m so glad that I read it, since it kickstarted me back into reading and remembering that great stories are out there.

The ABC Murders by Agatha Christie | Book Review

Siobhan

★★★☆☆
April 8th – 11th

This book was just okay to me, which is less than I was expecting. As the second Agatha Christie book I’ve read, I was hoping that I would love this one just as much as Murder on the Orient Express. Sadly, that was not the case.

The plot of this one was very simple, without a large twist act the end to tie it together. After Hercule Poirot receives a strange letter telling him of a murder that will take place in Andover. Though it’s initially brushed off as nothing, a body is found soon after with an ABC train guide next to it.

This launches the investigation, and Poirot is once again on the case. Compared to Murder on the Orient Express, this book felt very tame and the mystery felt pretty small (even though it had triple the murder). I tend to like mysteries that happen in an enclosed environment with limited possibilities.

My biggest complaint about Agatha Christie books is that it feels like the reader needs outside knowledge to be able to solve the mystery. This is likely a product of the time that I’m now reading it in (I had no clue what an ABC train guide was), but I think it takes away from my internal desire to “solve” the mystery, because I’m not given the tools to do so.

That being said, I’m likely going to continue to read Agatha Christie novels, and see if I can find one that tops Murder on the Orient Express for me.

-Siobhan

Nimona by Noelle Stevenson | Book Review

Siobhan

★★★★☆
April 1st – 3rd

Nimona is a graphic novel by Noelle Stevenson, which I read for the Magical Readathon (it was my Transfiguration prompt choice!) This book was absolutely adorable, with fun characters, a captivating plot, and really good stylized artwork.

We follow Nimona, a shapeshifter with a mysterious past who becomes the sidekick of Lord Ballister Blackheart, a villain with a vendetta against Sir Ambrosius Goldenloin. The dynamics between Nimona and Blackheart were great, and took on a father/daughter or mentor/mentee quality fairly early on. I liked the relationship between Goldenloin and Blackheart as well, though I wished it was further expanded on whether their relationship was strictly friendship or something more.

Nimona herself was a bit of a mystery as well. The reader is given some clue into her backstory, but it’s unclear (at least it was to me) later if she was telling the truth or if there was something more. Maybe this is something that I missed, but the ambiguity of her past took away from her relationship with Blackheart for me.

I also thought this story would focus more on her, and less on Blackheart, though I ended up being glad that it didn’t. Nimona as a character was somewhat one-dimensional, and didn’t seem to learn or change by the end. In contrast, both Blackheart and Goldenloin did grow and change, and learn more about each other.

The two have an enemies to friends (or something more?) dynamic which is really well played, showing their transition from best friends to enemies and back, which became more of the plot than I was initially expecting.

Overall, this was good. I may check out Noelle Stevenson’s series, Lumberjanes in the future.

-Siobhan

The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up by Marie Kondo | Book Review

Siobhan

★★★☆☆
March 28th – 31st

Third, and finally in my trifecta of non-fiction was The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up: The Japanese Art of Decluttering and Organizing. It was spring when I read this, and having been stuck at home for a month at this point, I decided to engage in some spring cleaning. I watched Marie Kondo’s show of the same name on Netflix last year, and I really enjoyed seeing her method in action. I’d heard good things about her book, and wanted to give it a try.

I did listen to the audiobook for this, and I wish that I had read it physically. There were a lot of descriptions of how to fold and how to organize which I felt would work better in a physical book than over audio. I don’t know if it was because of the audiobook, but this book was just okay for me. I enjoy Marie Kondo, and liked when her personality came out in the book, but the advice itself I found to be slightly unrealistic and not entirely practical.

She speaks a lot about only keeping things that bring you joy. We all know this. There have been countless memes about this. But one thing that I didn’t feel like was touched on was things which you don’t necessarily like, but which you need. I don’t necessarily love having cleaning products in my house, but I need them in order to stay clean.

The biggest example of this for me was her section on getting rid of books. Every book that I own currently doesn’t necessarily bring me joy, but I own them for a reason. Marie Kondo doesn’t seem to see the value in collection, something which I really enjoy. As an example from my life, I own a lot of enamel pins. I really like them, and though I try and limit how many I purchase, I still own a lot of them. I can’t see myself getting rid of them, because though each individual one doesn’t bring me joy, the collection as a whole does. With my books, I definitely go through and will get rid of some that I know I’m never going to read on occasion, but I like owning books that I’ve physically read, even if I don’t have plans to go back and reread them. To me the representation of the time that they were read in is worth keeping them.

The most impractical aspect of her book was the time that everything takes. In several sections, she calls out other cleaning and tidying advice for taking place over the course of several days or a routine which has you tidy a little bit every day. She says that this is unrealistic and talks about how doing it all at once is much better.

I definitely do not have the time for this type of approach. With the combination of work stress and life stress, it would be extremely difficult for me to dedicate an entire day (or several, if we’re being honest) to the level of tidying that Marie Kondo recommends. This is something that I felt was missing from both her show and her book, was an explanation for how people merged this approach into their daily lives without needing to take a week of vacation to get everything started.

I do like the order that Marie Kondo has you tackle the items to get rid of, and I think that her explanations for why to get rid of things, and how to know if something is worth getting rid of is extremely valid and well thought out.

If I was able to dedicate the time to this type of method, I could see it being beneficial to help pair down the amount of stuff that people have. I was also really surprised to hear about the amount of things that people had in her examples. Descriptions of overflowing closets were absolutely crazy to me. I know that they’re mostly there for shock factor, but I can’t imagine dealing with that type of stress on a daily basis.

Overall this was a fairly mediocre read. I’m glad I read it, but I don’t know that I’d recommend it or ever read it again.

-Siobhan

10% Happier by Dan Harris | Book Review

Siobhan

★★★★☆
March 26th – 27th

Second in my little grouping of non-fiction was 10% Happier: How I Tamed the Voice in My Head, Reduce Stress Without Losing My Edge, and Found Self-Help That Actually Works, which I think wins the title for the longest title I’ll be reading all year.

I’m luckily enough to work for a company which provides the Ten Percent app, owned by Dan Harris, for their employees. Meditation was something that I found beneficial when extremely stressed, and let’s face it, we’ve all been extremely stressed out the past few months. Scribd had the audiobook, narrated by Dan Harris, so I decided to redownload the Ten Percent app, and give this book a listen.

I was expecting the book to be a lot more “preachy” about meditation, but it felt very grounded. It read more like a memoir about Dan Harris’s life, his struggle with mental health and addiction even at the peak of his career, and how meditation helped him with that.

I really liked how candid he was in a lot of the book: how he valued science and the medical benefits of meditation. One of the people he specifically mentions in the book, Sam Harris, is a fairly prominent atheist, and one who also practices meditation. It was interesting to see the separation of spirituality or religion from meditation, and focus more on the psychological and medical benefits.

Some of my favorite parts of the book were his descriptions of a ten day meditation retreat he went on, something I don’t think I could ever do. He describes his struggle, his euphoria, and then back to his struggle with trying to bring his brain back to focusing on just his body over and over again. I can barely get my brain to do that for ten minutes, let alone ten days.

The title itself, and the description of where it came from was one of my other favorite parts of the book. The idea that meditation, for Dan Harris, and also for me, isn’t about being one with yourself or expelling thoughts to think about nothing. At first it’s about forgiveness, and being kind to yourself. Not berating yourself for slipping up or having your mind wander, but instead guiding it back to focus on the breath, or what you’re trying to focus on. Meditation doesn’t solve your problems. It doesn’t get you a promotion, or more money, or a new life overnight, but it can give you the tools to be a little bit happier.

I will say that this book did convince me to give meditation a more serious attempt, and to try and incorporate even 10 minutes a day into my routine. So far I’ve found that the days that I don’t want to meditate at all are the days I need to the most, and we’ll see if it makes me 10% happier.

-Siobhan

The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck by Mark Manson

Siobhan

★★★☆☆
March 19th – 26th

As we all know, 2020 has been bananas. I’ve had this book on my shelf since it came out, and following an ankle injury that pulled me out of work for several weeks, as well as the following quarantine I was in, I was looking for titles to help me reduce anxiety. This was the first of those titles. This book is about what you should be worried about, what you should care about, and what you should desire to change.

I found it an interesting, although short read. My favorite part of the book was the anecdotes that Manson inserted, mostly about the ones from other cultures and history. It made the book feel so much more grounded, and it didn’t at all read like a stereotypical “self-help” book. That being said, my enjoyment of the book mostly stopped there.

Manson’s description of himself as a perfect husband (who doesn’t tell their wife that they look terrible if they try something new?) whose relationship is built on “honesty”. He describes a series of his relationship conquests, and most of it is extremely unnecessary, and then talks about how settling down with his wife made those relationships seem even more frivolous. Even most of the swearing and all of his profanity is built mostly for shock factor, and had no real substance to it.

A lot of this felt like interesting aspects of religion taken out of context and then shoved into a set of conservative values about pulling yourself out and just getting things done, and those were the parts that I wasn’t a fan of.

I likely won’t be reading Manson’s other book, because he’s definitely not for me.

-Siobhan