"The sky was the color of a migraine."
I don't know why but I love this line & haven't been able to get it out of my head for days.
pickI laughed so hard. I really recommend the audiobook partly because hearing their commentary together is great, but also because you get some bonus content. It was interesting reading a memoir almost entirely about life as a couple - they pulled off that format well. Only complaint: They did a full section on fighting & how they weren't #CouplesGoals but were a bit vague about wading around in the same shit as everyone else.
bailedNicole Chung's written a VERY specific personal story about the way adoption has impacted her own life and choices but then infuses it with more arching statements like, "adopted children feel.." No. SOME adopted children feel. Nothing like the experience of me or my sister. I couldn't keep reading it, and if you're not an adopted person who has had a very similar emotional experience to the author you're probably going to feel annoyed
so-soA picture in the park from months ago of a book I'd had a bit more hope for. It gets so many Handsmaid's comparisons, but never really packed that suspenseful punch for me and left too much unanswered. Still, I would like to thank #NetGalley for the free copy in exchange for an honest review.
And the literary world weeps. 💔
https://www.npr.org/2019/08/06/542391535/toni-morrison-whose-soaring-novels-were...
Here's one of my biggest questions: why didn't Faber & Faber have a fucking fact checker on Moby's book? Beyond calling Natalie Portman, there are basic dates of events that you can verify with JUST GOOGLE, but no one bothered to 🤦🏻♀️
pickRyle teaches the social construction of gender through a choose your own adventure style. I wasn't just learning about gender, but SPECIFICALLY about being a bisexual white married woman who identifies as "she" living in a disabled body in the United States. I can see it inspiring empathy for others after learning the surprising ways their experiences may be both similar & different. And this is definitely a time we need a little more empathy.
so-soI really wanted to like this more, but it needed a MUCH better editor. So much of it was details that were extraneous & didn't propel anything forward (plot, an understanding of the characters, etc). I even loved the narrator but still found it dragging. And it ended up centering around social justice issue which it then barely commented on - why introduce it at all? That being said, it might be the most original murder mystery I've ever read.
pickHappy belated #InternationalWomensDay! I'm sharing some of my favorite bad-ass female authors, including Lindy West, who (very comically) reminded us all that abortion is normal, it's ok to be fat, & women don't have to be nice to you. ❤️ It should probably be required reading in sociology of gender courses
pickThis book is phenomenal and one of the most insane true stories I've read. Dude straight up conned people for a decade simply by using the name "Rockefeller." Ok, so I know he's a murderer and all, but sometimes I really wish I was cool enough to be a con man. Anyway, happy #SockSunday!
I'd be happy if I spent March reading even 1 of my 2 newest books 🤷🏻♀️
Well this just moved up on my TBR.
FINALLY reached the plot point in this one where I'm like -
... took awhile to get there, though 🤷🏻♀️
pickPros: Spoken word game is on point in the audio. Thomas effortlessly weaves in so much of the everyday experience of Black ppl in the U.S. into all of her stories. And I am so impressed with the way that she can get inside the mind of a teenager.
Cons: This one is far more predictable than THUG. I also didn't connect as well to material in a world which I really know nothing about. And in this one the teenage romance DOES get heavy handed.
Ffs, there's more!? https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/14/books/dan-mallory-woman-window-denzil.html?em...
Everyone's at home reading today & I'm at work like ....
pickIt‘s come to my attention that people don‘t know there is such a comprehensive book about The Wire. The interviews, which build upon one another just as the seasons did, are so insightful that they actually brought me around on season 2. I listened to audio with very talented voice actors who sounded exactly like their real life counterparts, and it was so great I bought a hard copy just to have. Let it enhance your rewatch like it has for me! ❤️
A friend asked what I would like as a belated birthday present. I said a new true crime book would be great. Then ALL OF THESE showed up in my mailbox. #TrueFriendship #TrueCrime
Happy Valentine's Day to this beautiful litsy community! ❤️ #BooksAreForLovers ❤️
It is FINALLY here! #BarnesAndNoble can be pretty slow on the uptake for preorders, but they‘ll always have my heart 📚❤️📚
Sometimes suggesting your library buy an audiobook means you‘re the first one to get it! 🙌
New #Bookmail! 😍
For anyone who‘s been following this case as closely as I have - new doc premiering on HBO!
Here‘s an idea: let‘s stop giving our cash and clicks to entitled white male fools, & instead give it to authors who are equally incredible & talented. They probably deserve our money more, write better, and best of all: they aren‘t entitled white male fools. 🤦🏻♀️ https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2019/02/11/a-suspense-novelists-trail-of-dece...
New full review on the blog: https://freereadandwrite.wordpress.com/2019/02/03/the-personal-beyond-metoo-any-...
pickA gender-reversed look at sexual assault, which allows the reader to hear the intense weight of the experiences. Excellent take on how the media has contributed to us downplaying these issues for women over so much time. Read my full review on how this audiobook goes beyond #MeToo to the personal: https://freereadandwrite.wordpress.com/2019/02/03/the-personal-beyond-metoo-any-... (trigger warning: this book is brutal)
I read 25 pages of two separate ARCs today but just couldn‘t get into either. Ultimately came back to reading this one, which I never want to put down because it is beautiful & full of art & truth & heartbreak.
New #BookMail for the first time in a long time AND some roses from my husband as my health has been having a rough go of it! ❤️ I am both so excited to read this & terrified of the first page, which describes the real life events upon which the fictional story was based.
pick#BooksTBT- “What happened to me could happen to anybody.” I used to say I don‘t like character studies, but now I think I think I‘ve just been reading the wrong kind. The prose here flowed without feeling too poetic. While there are 3 primary human characters in the book, there is also a character study spotlight on our broken criminal justice system. As much a comment on our current paradigm as on this particular, average family.
pickTurns out I missed the final #24in48 challenge by juuuuust a smidge, but I still love this #SockSunday photo of one of my favorite books. Every time I‘ve asked anyone for a recommendation of a similar book, the response has always been the same. “There isn‘t anything like it.”
“My mother said it was like a cassette tape you could never rewind. But it was hard to remember you couldn‘t rewind it when you were listening to it. And so you‘d forget and fall into the music and listen and then, without even knowing it, the tape would suddenly end.” #24in48 — today, just trying to love this quote & drink my ginger tea for inflammation & forget that chronic pain has reared its ugly head again.
pick#24in48 Hour 18 #WNDB challenge: Kamau is local to The Bay & I have been watching him do stand up & live discussions for years (you can catch his specials on Showtime & Netflix). This book is part memoir & part questioning where we all fit in society with all of our differences. Hilarious and moving, I can‘t recommend this book enough. (I also like that this pic makes it look like he‘s giving my book flowers the side eye 😂)
Yes, two sock photos in a row because why not! All I‘m doing is laying around in socks and comfy clothes. Bad pain days are the best days to join #24in48 & read in your pajamas. So excited for this #TrueCrime book I was recently gifted
#BookFBF : I had a very #BookishChristmas, with my husband gifting me both #HowLongTilBlackFutureMonth & a #Litographs Beatles tee ❤️ If you haven‘t already, you can check out my review of N.K. Jemisin‘s #BrokenEarthTrilogy: https://freereadandwrite.wordpress.com/
Anyone have a #BookBlog that could use a little more love, or just know of one you think is awesome? Come one, come all - get me links to your blog so I can spotlight you in my new #TuesdaySlumpSpotlight!
I wanted to share my #BookishWedding bouquet final product with you all! Made from pages of Station Eleven - the only book my husband and I both love equally and thus had two copies of in the house ❤️📚❤️ (photo by Lisha Wang Photography)
pickMy first official #BookReview since 2016 is up! A look at art activism via #TheFifthSeason by #NKJemisin, with just a touch of comparison to the film #Blindspotting. 📚 Read it here: https://freereadandwrite.wordpress.com/
Sunday mornings are for tea, new patio furniture, & reading Harry Potter out loud with your husband. #WeAreGross
I am so excited about this book & couldn‘t resist buying it when I saw the cover! 😍
From the authors note. I wish I could post all of it for you but #NoSpoilers on this one. I am in love with this book, and I think she accomplished exactly what she intended here.
Anyone watching this? It‘s my least favorite Flynn novel (too predictable) but I‘m obsessed with this cast. Reviews seem to either be scathing or glowing, nothing in between.
The quote that encompasses my feelings on this book in comparison with the arrest that followed: “Nevertheless, when critics talk privacy, the terms of use of the businesses & the 4th amendment, they evoke the classic statement by Ian Malcolm as played by Jeff Goldblum in Jurassic Park - your scientists were so preoccupied with whether or not they could, they didn‘t stop to think if they should.”
