Diary of a Wimpy Kid by Jeff Kinney

Diary of a Wimpy Kid by Jeff Kinney
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Laugh out loud funny in parts but the “wimpy kid” is such a little jerk.

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Trick Mirror by Jia Tolentino

Trick Mirror: Reflections on Self-Delusion by Jia Tolentino
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Well-researched and pretty well-written as you’re carried along sentence by sentence, but I felt like most of the essays left me wondering what her point was. A few days after reading it I only remember the general topics of each essay.

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Fleishman Is in Trouble by Taffy Brodesser-Akner

Fleishman Is in Trouble by Taffy Brodesser-Akner
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Generally enjoyed both the chatty feminist writing and the empathic story with a little twist. It felt a little unbalanced because there seems quite a lot of the first part and not enough of the third (?) part to fully develop the character.

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Where the Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens

Where the Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Scenery, mystery plot, abuse, neglect, love story, civil rights. There was a lot going on. It was an enjoyable read overall, but it wasn't especially deep.

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The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold

The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I enjoyed this book even though it was sad because it's fundamentally a very hopeful book: a fantasy about the rules of life after death and a fantasy about the rules of life on earth. There were some insightful lines about grief. Overall, it dragged on beyond the point where it was creating value, and the main character is an underdeveloped everygirl.

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Light on Snow by Anita Shreve

Light on Snow by Anita Shreve
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

It's not a great plot and a little stressful, but an okay winter read if you don't mind genre fiction full of tragedy.

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The Nightingale by Kristin Hannah

The Nightingale by Kristin Hannah
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

30 pages in: This isn't literary, so I couldn't enjoy it in that particular way.

250ish pages in: I enjoy genre fiction, but as genre fiction, it wasn't sufficiently enjoyable. I don't even grasp the concept of painful genre fiction really. The characters were insufficiently developed for me to care about very deeply, which is surprising considering how long this book was. Likewise, important relationships like Vianne and Rachel weren't sufficiently developed even though they're important lifelong friends. Isabelle falls in love with a guy she barely knows and I couldn't care less. Okay so maybe it's like an action book? With action and nothing else?

About 300 pages in: But the thing that bothered me the most was the concept of the "Nazi with the heart of gold." We're not even talking about Hitler youth, we're talking about a grown man who seems fully cognizant of the Nazi plans. Who does in fact personally send Jewish people off to concentration camps. But he "doesn't like it" so somehow that's okay? But Vianne still thinks he's a really nice guy. Maybe that sort of thing seemed cute in 2015 before the 2016 election? Well, it wasn't, and F that. Evil nonsense like that is why the planet is burning right now. I get that people that are initially good can be corralled into doing evil things. That's part of the horror of the Third Reich! However, once a person gets to a certain point and doesn't turn back in any way-- let's not pretend that person is "good" anymore. If an active Nazi - no matter how he got to that point- isn't evil, then evil has no meaning.

301 pages in: Oh no, seriously, there's another 140 pages to go? Then the really bad stuff happens... I have other complaints about this section that I will skip because they're spoilers.

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How Dare the Sun Rise by Sandra Uwiringiyimana

How Dare the Sun Rise: Memoirs of a War Child by Sandra Uwiringiyimana
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

A powerful and moving memoir about Uwiringiyimana's experiences in the Congo, a Burundi refugee camp, and finally New York. Her story is important and she's a very relatable writer.

The horrifying thing is that the ethnic cleansing in the Congo has barely slowed down. In January of 2019: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-46896159. In general, all the news from The DR of Congo is bad: https://www.bbc.com/news/topics/cvenzmgylgwt/democratic-republic-of-congo.

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Inside of a Dog by Alexandra Horowitz

Inside of a Dog: What Dogs See, Smell, and Know by Alexandra Horowitz
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Not as much interesting information as I was hoping for as a dog owner. Lots of filler. Although it was interesting that the biology and psychology of dogs wasn't just a big analogy to wolves. Dog kisses might not be just dog kisses either but the dogs looking for a little extra treat (regurgitated food- yuck!). The book might have been better with tighter editing.

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Real Friends by Shannon Hale

Real Friends by Shannon Hale
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

After my 8-year-old son read this I saw that it had good reviews from adults so I read it too. I could really relate to some of Shannon Hale's childhood experiences and I think this is a wonderful book about how difficult it is to be a kid and to form friendships as a kid. I think especially as adults, we romanticize elementary school as the simple time when making friends is easy before popularity because a roadblock but it's true that elementary school often means that children are completely indelicate about forming or breaking off friendships. It's also a reminder that these breaks can be extremely painful.

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Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil by John Berendt

Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil by John Berendt
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This was such a different reading experience. It's true crime but I was a few pages in before I realized it was nonfiction because it read like a really fun fiction book. I've been to Savannah and I love it-and unlike some reviews, I didn't necessarily think it evoked the Savannah the place, but rather the behind-the-scenes culture and society in Savannah. And ooh the characters! Amazing. Chablis! I'm so sad that she passed away in 2016. She was an American icon.

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The Battle of the Labyrinth by Rick Riordan

The Battle of the Labyrinth by Rick Riordan
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Cute and entertaining, but meandering like the other Percy Jackson books. They just go from adventure to adventure without any kind of bigger point. I started reading these to fill the Harry Potter-size hole in my heart, but I just don't love these like I love the Harry Potter series. I should probably quit them.

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The Color Purple by Alice Walker

The Color Purple by Alice Walker
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I was shocked by how wonderful this book is because I'd actually read it before as a teenager and I didn't remember it being this phenomenal. I think as a teen, I was so mired down in the horror and sadness of the beginning that that's what stood out for me the most. Plus, having no life or significant literary reading experience, I failed to get most of the brilliance of the book. But what a beautiful perfect book. Amazing characters, amazing sentences, amazing everything. Favorite favorite.

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Ask Again, Yes by Mary Beth Keane

Ask Again, Yes by Mary Beth Keane
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

An interesting and complicated story about two families living next door to each other. One home has a mentally-ill mother and alcoholic father and these issues in the one family ultimately affect both families. Both families also have one person each who born in Ireland which was mostly irrelevant but gave the book an interesting flavor. It's well-written and I became invested in all the characters.

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