Home Feed
Home
Search
Search
Add Review, Blurb, Quote
Add
Activity
Activity
Profile
Profile
#immigrant
blurb
lilpumpkin2.0
post image

May 11, 2025 Happy Mother's Day to all the hardworking fearless strong compassionate mothers out there who do EVERYTHING for their kids. Today I am starting this TBR. I sort of started it but never finished it so I am re-reading it again.

blurb
BkClubCare
Blue Ruin: A novel | Hari Kunzru
post image

Celebrating Indie Bookstore Day: purchased Blue Ruin for this year‘s Tournament of Favorites and they gave me the Supersonic. Posing in front of a pretty mural across the street from my next stop (which isn‘t open yet! 🤨) #ibd #indiebookstoreday

review
BaBaBaBillyAndTheBooks
Blue Ruin: A novel | Hari Kunzru
post image
Mehso-so

Part of why everyone here annoys me, I think, is no one appears to have real responsibilities, even as COVID hits. Rob and Alice have a daughter they ignore, Jay‘s life has mostly been wading through an art scene while being high, and the art anyone does finally do feels pretentious and light. They have disappeared into their art, a major theme. People return when they connect with others, and mostly everyone here is too selfish to do that.

review
kwmg40
Someone Like Us | Dinaw Mengestu
post image
Mehso-so

I liked learning more about the Ethiopian immigration experience but otherwise the sprawling, disconnected narrative and bland main character put this near the bottom of my #ToB25 list.

review
ImperfectCJ
Someone Like Us | Dinaw Mengestu
post image
Pickpick

This novel covers a lot of ground: grief, family dynamics, generational trauma, illness, addiction, income inequality, immigration, racism. I appreciate the writing and the characters, but like others, I found following the story to be a challenge. The format and timeline feel true to life and therefore a little unsettling to me. I wonder if I go to fiction because a tidy narrative helps life seem more manageable. (This isn't a tidy narrative.)

ImperfectCJ Another #tob25 shortlist title. 4mo
56 likes1 comment
review
CarolynM
Someone Like Us | Dinaw Mengestu
post image
Mehso-so

I‘m not at all sure that I understood this book at all. My take away is that African immigrants to the USA (and their children) have a strong sense of dislocation and not belonging and they are always on edge, waiting to be arrested. I kept waiting for a story beyond this. If it existed, I lost it in the constantly shifting timelines.

squirrelbrain I felt like I just didn‘t ‘get‘ this either. 🤷‍♀️ 4mo
CarolynM @squirrelbrain It definitely created an atmosphere. I kept looking for a story, or some revelations about the characters, that I never found. 4mo
75 likes2 comments
review
cariashley
Someone Like Us | Dinaw Mengestu
post image
Pickpick

Liked but didn‘t love this one. The protagonist‘s relationship with Samuel was really well written as were the real/not real elements. The way his relationship with his wife and son was described felt a little shallow and unfinished to me, I couldn‘t quite get a hold on it. Definitely a unique story overall and I‘m glad I read it. #tob25

Now on to beach reads!

55 likes1 stack add
review
Bookwormjillk
Someone Like Us | Dinaw Mengestu
post image
Pickpick

This was my most anticipated #TOB2025 title. I live in a city in Virginia with a large Ethiopian population so I thought I would learn more about my new neighbors. Haha no. That‘s not at all what this was. This was a fever dream that jumped all over the place and I‘m not even sure what happened to be honest. I‘m not mad. Just confused. Still a pick, but don‘t ask me any questions 😂

TrishB Great review 👍🏻 4mo
squirrelbrain Ha! Perfect review! 4mo
CarolynM I‘m reading this at the moment. Not sure what to make of it yet, but your review gives me hope🙂 4mo
Bookwormjillk @CarolynM you just kind of need to go with it. 4mo
67 likes4 comments
review
BkClubCare
Someone Like Us | Dinaw Mengestu
post image
Mehso-so

This was a book that absolutely did not grab my attention, I sensed an unreliable narrator who does things that make no sense; I went into it thinking it might be a devastating immigrant story, but once I put it down and then a few days go by, and then when I do open it back up with low motivation and hit a snag (drawn curtains are closed! Not open), WHAT DO I Do? I find many of my friends loved it. #sigh A case of “it‘s me, not the book.”

47 likes2 comments
review
Jas16
Someone Like Us | Dinaw Mengestu
post image
Mehso-so

There are lines and moments that this book that made me want to love it but overall this #tob25 title left me cold. An incredibly unreliable narrator reflects on his upbringing by his immigrant Ethiopian mother and her life long friend who may be his father . There is a lot about the immigrant experience that was well conveyed but everything else was too much of a jumble to make me care. This wouldn‘t have made my shortlist.