The Kiss Quotient by Helen Hoang

The Kiss Quotient by Helen Hoang
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

This was cute. The “romance” aspect didn’t move me emotionally but surprisingly was more on the smutty side of romance books.

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Unstoppable by Bill Nye

Unstoppable: Harnessing Science to Change the World by Bill Nye
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Had a very good start with larger climate and policy issues but then turned into a book about urban planning, and then fixing your house to be energy efficient. I got so bored with all the specific engineering.

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The Japanese Lover by Isabel Allende

The Japanese Lover by Isabel Allende
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This novel could have been titled, "Everyone Has Secrets," as it appears to be more about that than "The Japanese Lover," who, by the way, to my mind, is American. This was very readable, and I was always glad to return to the story, and the characters were interesting. I didn't precisely become attached to the characters the way I do with some characters (I even get attached to unlikable characters sometimes). I would recommend this book in general.

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Maybe in Another Life by Taylor Jenkins Reid

Maybe in Another Life by Taylor Jenkins Reid
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I think based on a lot of the quotes people liked about this book, they missed the point that the book makes that nothing is fated (unless every potential outcome is simultaneously fated per physics).

It was interesting and fun, and I fell in love with some of the characters. The plot was not especially original (Sliding Doors), but it was still an ambitious undertaking. Despite a complicated plot, the author kept things like the characters internally consistent, which I appreciate.

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Monsters: A Love Story by Liz Kay

Monsters: A Love Story by Liz Kay
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

While on the surface we seem to be focused on a slowly developing relationship, there's a lot of darkness under the surface of this book. It's not all darkness, and I enjoyed spending 2-3 years in the lives of the characters because it really gives time for all the friendships and relationships to develop naturally. However, the characters are deeply flawed and realistic and reveal their good and bad characteristics as you get to know them. The bad personality traits are pretty serious though and there’s a dark controlling undercurrent tugging at the romance in the book.

Also, there's an Escher-esk quality to it because the themes of the fictional epic poem are the themes of the real novel, Monsters. The main character Stacey is a poet and she has an epic poem that is being developed into a movie. The epic poem is about feminism, control, and mythological power, and the things that are happening during the development of the movie are decidedly not feminist, all the while the characters are fighting for creative and romantic control.

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Landline by Rainbow Rowell

Landline by Rainbow Rowell
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I started reading Rainbow Rowell because she's from Nebraska. This is my second book by her, and I think it's fair to say I'm an official fan now. Something about the way she writes just makes me want to keep reading until I've completely finished the story. There's also something very cinematographic about her novels and I would be excited to see these novels on the big screen.

This one is a fantasy genre marriage romance. I challenge you to find another book that intersects all those genres. I do wish Georgi McCool had done something extra clever with her supernatural opportunity, but oh well.

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The Pastures of Heaven by John Steinbeck

The Pastures of Heaven by John Steinbeck
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Steinbeck is often such a bummer and this was no exception but something about these little sad vignettes was so enjoyable. This is my favorite Steinbeck novel so far. I’d love to reread it sometime and map out the townspeople as I go (especially Burt’s involvement in all the stories).

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VALIS by Philip K. Dick

VALIS by Philip K. Dick
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

The main characters in this book are Philip K. Dick in the first person and his alter-ego Horselover Far in the third person. At first, the play with this split perspective was the thing that interested me most. Then I was interested in his messy but informed religious banter. Then the narrative became more engrossed in Horselover Fat's mental illness... and finally... out of nowhere, the whole book became a science fiction book. Deeply weird.

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The White Album by Joan Didion

The White Album by Joan Didion
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Definitely all over the place. Some infinitely more interesting than others. Strange to read one essay about Black Panther arrests without any meaningful context, and then read about water treatment in California.

I especially liked Didion's essays, "The Women's Movement," "Georgia O'Keeffe," "In Bed," and "On the Morning After the Sixties."

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Slouching Towards Bethlehem by Joan Didion

Slouching Towards Bethlehem by Joan Didion
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This is a great weekend read. Didion's writing is so good it's not fair to everyone else. How did she write this well in her early 30s?

The collection is mostly essays about California in the 60s, Didion really puts you there, even if, like me, you've barely ever been to California. What she failed to explain to me is why people live in a state that is so clearly hostile to humans and human settlement. Besides the earthquakes-- which she barely mentions, there are the mudslides, fires, deadly rivers, snakes, desert everywhere, and an entire essay is dedicated to the maleficent Santa Ana winds. She does dedicate an entire essay to why living in New York City when you are no longer young is crazy, with no special reasons except her own depression and cold weather. I am not the biggest fan of New York City either, but the ground in New York rarely tries to eat people alive.

Spoiler alert: In real life, she moves back to New York. Is there an essay about that?

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South and West: From a Notebook by Joan Didion

South and West: From a Notebook by Joan Didion
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I get it. She writes beautifully. Her random jottings in a notebook are better than what most people will ever write in their lives even with edits. And I did enjoy meandering through the racist South of the 1970s. But seriously, what was that California/ Patty Hearst mess at the end?

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Everything, Everything by Nicola Yoon

Everything, Everything by Nicola Yoon
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Very quick enjoyable read. Even though I knew what would happen, it was beautifully written. A very modern and unique story.

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Dodgers by Bill Beverly

Dodgers by Bill Beverly
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This was well-written and solid. It dragged a little in places and at times it felt like too much of a guy's book (if that even makes sense?). The character of Ty did not make a lot of sense to me. There were also some plot points that didn't make sense to me. But overall, I was satisfied with it when I finished reading it.

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Exit West by Mohsin Hamid

Exit West by Mohsin Hamid
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This has everything: moral conscience, adventure, family, romance, feminism, politics, and religion. It's literary fiction and it has an element of fantasy. Some of it reads like a poetry. Worth reading.

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Wild by Cheryl Strayed

Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail by Cheryl Strayed
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I feel like this is the part where I have to defend why I liked this so much. But no. It was a very enjoyable book. It was bad ass. It was feminist. I might even read it again one day. I liked the journey itself, I liked her writing, I liked the people she met, I liked all of it.

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Blue Nights by Joan Didion

Blue Nights by Joan Didion
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I haven't read The Year of Magical Thinking yet, so maybe my view of this book is a bit incomplete. There are beautiful, sad, and disturbing parts but overall the disjointed nature of the book ruined my enjoyment of it. She also repeated certain phrases over and over again. I appreciate the poetic value of that. However, she overused the method so much that, particularly in it such a short book, it felt like a word count stretch, rather than something that added value to the narrative.

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Cold Feet by Amy FitzHenry

Cold Feet by Amy FitzHenry
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

It was a well-written and really touching story about family, and about what family means when you don't have a lot of biological relatives. I'm very much in that position myself, and it's true that close friends are your family, but it 's rarely on an equal basis because they have their own families. I found the ending particularly touching and insightful regarding good relationships, friendships, and marriage.

A lot of the others commented that the character is too cold at the beginning but I really don't think she is. She's supposed to be a little removed from all the emotions she's feeling at the beginning. That's part of the point of what the character is going through.

Also, I really liked the little legal explanations. They were brief and very accurate, and I like the idea of the character seeing things in terms of her own profession and interests.

Kind of have a crush on the Dusty character now. Haha.

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The Lost Hero by Rick Riordan

The Lost Hero by Rick Riordan
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

The first fourth and third fourth went slowly for me, but I appreciated the resolution and the world that had been created mostly by that resolution.

Jason is a bit less developed than Percy, probably because he has memory loss. Piper is pretty well developed and Leo a little bit less so. I read this a long time after I read the first three Percy books and I was struggling to remember everyone at camp, though it wasn't strictly necessary. I also enjoyed the survey of mythological people as the heroes traveled from city to city in the US.

I'll probably read the next one in this series, though I'm not in a huge hurry to do so.

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Island of the Blue Dolphins by Scott O'Dell

Island of the Blue Dolphins by Scott O'Dell
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

The beginning of the book is super tragic, and the rest of the book is meandering and pleasant. As a child, I didn't know that this was based on a true story. (Except the ending was significantly less happy on account of Native American's lack of immunity to western disease.) Though particularly beautiful in its exploration of the girl's relationship with animals, a lot of her probable feelings were left completely out of the story. It's as if all her grief and emotions were muted or completely extinguished by the author.

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The Buddha in the Attic by Julie Otsuka

The Buddha in the Attic by Julie Otsuka
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Strange in that it's written in the first person plural point of view so no individual story is fully developed, but it is still powerful and moving. It's the story of a group of Japanese immigrant women and the most heart-breaking parts for me revolve around the children. After the Japanese are sent to the relocation camps the story changes perspective to the apathetic Americans left behind. The sin of apathy is laid bare.

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