Sarah Addison Allen’s Lost Lake doesn’t quite contain the magical wonder that so defines her other books for me. It’s a perfectly serviceable romance, but despite the presence of a talking alligator and a teenage ghost, didn’t quite do it for me. “Eby wanted to say so much to her. She wanted to say that waking up is the most important part of grieving, that so many women in their family failed to do it, and she was proud of Kate for fighting her way back. But Eby […]
No wonder they changed it up for a sitcom
I had never read Eddie Huang’s Fresh Off the Boat, nor had I watched the show, but I’d heard that Huang had reacted very poorly to the adaptation of his memoir for TV. Apparently they cleaned it up a lot for TV, and after reading it, I can totally see why. Huang’s experience growing up in Orlando was pretty rough — he was beat up at school and at home, he lashed out by drinking, doing drugs and stealing, his language is atrocious, etc. Still, beneath that angry, unhappy […]
Don’t Panic
I have read this book so many times. I’ve also listened to the audiobook quite a bit — when I was in middle school, I duped myself a copy from the library, and used to listen to it at night and fall asleep to it. As a result, I have massive amounts of it memorized, although I tend to remember some bits more than others (probably the parts at the beginnings of each tape). I haven’t listened to it or re-read it in a while though, so […]
Another winner from Liane Moriarty
While What Alice Forgot was not quite as compelling as the first book I read by Liane Moriarty — Big Little Lies — but the writing was excellent and Moriarty does a good job of teasing the reader, up until the end, with the mystery of “Gina”, and what caused the falling out between Alice and Nick. “Early love is exciting and exhilarating. It’s light and bubbly. Anyone can love like that. But after three children, after a separation and a near-divorce, after you’ve hurt each other and […]
The American Dreamer
I have read a lot of celebrity memoirs lately. Craig Ferguson’s American on Purpose differs in two big ways. First of all, it’s a straight up autobiography — starts with his childhood, hits all the highs (and lows) of his career, sums up with where he is now (well, 2008). Second difference? While I’ve read a lot of about the sad childhoods of now-famous people (bullied for being tall/smart/dumb/raised by hippies/a bedwetter, etc), this is the first one I felt genuinely bad for. Ferguson “bad childhood” consisted largely […]
Pro Tip: Avoid Places Called “The Devil’s Hand”
Well, to go from the warm sweetness of the Waverly family in Bascom, NC to the weird and fucked up world of West Hall, Vermont was quite a shock. But The Winter People was probably one of the best horror stories that I’ve read in a while, and I pretty much devoured it in an afternoon. The cover compares it to the world of Stephen King, but to me, it had much more of a Tana French/Sophie Hannah kind of feel — you don’t know who to […]
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