The Changeling by Victor Lavalle
Read as part of CBR13bingo: myth I made it a point to know as little about this book going in. I knew that it was a fantasy set in a mythical New York City that involved a family. That was it. And I think that’s the best way to read this book. There is something horrifying that happens in the first third (or does it?) that made it difficult to read but Victor LaValle’s writing style is easy enough to fall in and out of. […]
A Room with a View by E.M. Forster
When thinking about my White Whale pick for Bingo this year I was coming up short. Then the Go Fug Yourself Book Club on Goodreads voted to read A Room with a View for October and I found my whale. Many classics are heavy reads, but I found A Room with a View to be refreshingly light on the whole with some lively characters. It’s an accessible story, funny, biting, poignant, wistful, romantic. It’s a study of (mostly) good people, who love one another as […]
These Toxic Things by Rachel Howzell Hall
I LOVED THIS BOOK!!!!!!!! I’m using this book as my “Shelfie” – so here’s the picture of the ebook in my Kindle account. (Not nearly as exciting as a physical copy…) For anyone who has read any of my reviews, it’s probably apparent that I love mystery novels. However, I haven’t read many where the main character is a young black woman who is determined to solve a mystery. Generally, in fact, it’s white women. Middle to upper middle class white women. Which is a […]
Beautiful World, Where are You by Sally Rooney
CBR13 BINGO: Reader’s Choice (in the New Series Square) BINGO! Book Club Square to Machinery Square I don’t think that I have ever had this much of a love/hate reaction to a book. Truly. Everything that I loved about Rooney’s Normal People is here. All of the awkwardness and raw emotion. Everything that I really didn’t like about Conversations with Friends is here too. All of the self indulgent naval gazing histrionics. Ugh. The plot is not complex even if the characters think that they are. The entire story revolves around four […]
The Comfort Book by Matt Haig
CBR BINGO: Self Care Square I’m not a big reader of “self help” books. Not to say that I couldn’t benefit from one. I’m Gen X and I think we tend to lean a little hard on self reliance with a dash of the “pull yourself up by your bootstraps” mentality. That isn’t necessarily healthy, so I thought I would try to tackle this square and broader my horizons a little bit. (Reason #5,674 on my why I love CBR Bingo list) I loved The Midnight Library and […]
The Glass Hotel by Emily St. John Mandel
In one word: Unexpected Cannonball Read Bingo: Rep I was a huuuuuge fan of Emily St. John Mandel’s “Station Eleven” (I mean, weren’t we all?). It was truly perfection, a triumph in storytelling in my favorite genre of post-apocalyptic literature. And so, I was equal parts excited and nervous to read her new book. Would I be disappointed? I talked to a few people before I read it and they all echoed the same exact thing: this book is NOTHING like the other book, and […]
