andtheIToldYouSos – Page 31 – Cannonball Read 17

Being a teenager is hard enough without the threat of total annihilation looming on the horizon.

I Hope You Get This Message by Farah Naz Rishi

April 27, 2020 by andtheIToldYouSos 3 Comments

Jesse, Cate, and Adeem are all just trying to survive- even before they catch wind of an alien planet’s message to earth: you will all be destroyed in seven days. Our main trio holds a treasure trove of teen torments between them: absent parents, the desire to be loved, the inability to accept care, the need to be anywhere other than where they are. Everyone is attempting to find someone who does not necessarily want to be found, and I was worried that we’d being […]

I take an odd sort of comfort in knowing that things in America have been just as bad, if not worse, than they are right now.

Shakespeare in a Divided America by James Shapiro

April 26, 2020 by andtheIToldYouSos Leave a Comment

The 2016 election: we will eventually be far away from that time, but while we wait to heal we will continue to publish works – everything from tweets to films- about how it shaped our current situation. In 2017, the Delacorte Theater staged a production of Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar in Central Park . Shakespeare had been done live in Central Park for years. Julius Caesar had been performed steadily around the world since it debuted in 1599. Caesar has taken on many depictions throughout the […]

“Fools love to declare that they don’t suffer fools.”

The Flamethrowers by Rachel Kushner

April 24, 2020 by andtheIToldYouSos Leave a Comment

Repulsive, decadent, and entitled people populate these pages and you know what? I do not care! I loved it! I loved it for all of the things that it tries to be, all of the things that it mercilessly tears apart, and all of the things that it will not and cannot be. This is a lightning rod for artists, revolutionaries, trust-fund princes, and girls next door. While this book takes place mostly in the 70s, I felt like I had been a part of […]

“I’m no expert, but I remember reading somewhere, every time you retrieve a memory, that act of retrieval, it corrupts the memory a little bit. Maybe changes it a little.”

The Glass Hotel by Emily St. John Mandel

April 21, 2020 by andtheIToldYouSos 6 Comments

This book is highly readable. While it may appear that I am damning with faint praise, that is not my intention. This book is readable because, despite being filled with topics and characters that do not automatically appeal to me, I was interested and invested from page one. Had this book not been written by Emily St. John Mandel I probably would have glanced at the dust jacket and gone on my merry way, but since it was written by her I knew that I […]

this woman’s work

If Walls Could Talk: An Intimate History of the Home by Lucy Worsley

April 20, 2020 by andtheIToldYouSos Leave a Comment

Bill Bryson’s delightful At Home: A Short History of Private Life came first, but Lucy Worsley’s If Walls Could Talk separates itself from the predecessor by being, well, more intimate! I promise this will be a review of If the Walls Could Talk, but if you are ever in need of a peaceful “sleep read” then I highly recommend plugging into the audio adaptation of Bryson’s book- it is seriously soothing. The biggest difference between At Home and If Walls Could Talk is the female perspective. Bryson’s book was framed around […]

“The moral of that story, I think, is that being poor will kill you.”

Her Body and Other Parties by Carmen Maria Machado

April 19, 2020 by andtheIToldYouSos Leave a Comment

It happened again. I excitedly picked up a book at the store, rushed it home, then let it sit in a pile for a few months. When I finally opened it days ago I was shocked (and not shocked at all simultaneously, really) that it was an oddly appropriate collection for today’s frightening world. The first page of the book is a quote from poet Elisabeth Hewer, and it lays the roadwork for the furious march within: “god should have made girls lethal when he […]

Zirza on A Gothic Classic for a ReasonIt's one of those wish-you-could-read-it-again-for-the-first-time books. I loved it.
Emmalita on “It came to something when you found yourself hoping that the footsteps you heard were ghosts.”I loved the ending! I don’t think it’s been out long enough to talk about why though.
Dixie on Track Her Down by Melinda LeighI am just starting Track Her Down and I have read them all in order till now and thought I...
Roland of Gilead on How can you give us the gift of a crazy character named Rando Thoughtful and then just as suddenly take that gift away? We need to talk, Uncle Stevie.I came across this randomly years after it was written because I was searching "Random Thoughtful. But I have the...
Emmalita on “Only you, Em, would refer to heartbreak as a distraction. I think I would have a more sympathetic response if I asked to marry a bookcase.”Oh my goodness, Gallifrey was beautiful. I’m sure her mittens were gloriously murdery.

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