LaShel

The Dear Prudence column is one of my guilty pleasures, but this book was mostly just posts I've read before (and not even the most infamous or salacious ones) with minimal commentary and without the benefit of reader comments (which is always a fun trove of entertainment when it comes online advice columns). I did enjoy the chapter about the author navigating his own difficult family situation but otherwise there wasn't much here for me.

I checked this out because it seemed appropriate for October and I'd heard good things about the author. This was an entertaining and quick read propelled forward by a light sense of dread/suspense and the fun imagery (disco-obsessed vampires with an amazing house and even better wardrobes). The main characters were mostly unlikeable but I appreciated the way the book played with its theme - what makes someone a monster? And to what extent can we recognize the darkness in ourselves?

These short stories are unsettling, as promised, but in a vaguely nauseating body horror kind of way and not in a clever Edgar Allen Poe sort of way. There's a bit of a feminist bent but also most the women just want to have sex and have babies which feels so reductive. And the writing was perfectly fine but not particularly for me.

I absolutely loved reading this book - the writing is beautiful and the descriptions of the meals the author shared with her mother left my stomach rumbling. There were a few passages where I rolled my eyes a bit at the blind spots in the author's perspective (such as when she was talking about her trips to Paris or the concerns of her dissertation advisors) and some bits seemed a little embellished but overall I was ready to proclaim this one of the most beautiful books I had read this year. I tore through it in less than a day and it left me aching with emotion over mental illness, family relationships, generational trauma, colonialism and racism, and the human experience.

And then I saw the reviews and tweets from other members of the author's family. I don't mind at all that the book is not wholly accurate - historical truth has never been something I've demanded of my entertainment. But I am very troubled by the amount of harm that the writing and publication of this book is said to have caused. For that reason, I can't give it the high rating I was planning.

I love Laura Vanderkam's books - the advice is well-written, inspiring, and refreshingly concrete. This wasn't quite as revolutionary for me as 168 Hours but I would still definitely recommend it to anyone feeling overwhelmed by the blurry, busy, "where did the day/week/month/year go?" reality of modern life.

Can't stop re-reading this, and I bought copies for a bunch of my friends. I haven't come across poetry I love this much in more than a decade. Transformative.

Handy tips, some more novel than others. The Donald Trump references have not aged well.

The spells were cute but there were so. many. typos. It rendered at least several of the spells unsuable because they way they were written was unintelligible.

Neat premise, but the writing was hard to follow (may have been because of the translation), the characters were not well developed, and the plot didn't hold my interest... There was a lot of unnecessarily keeping the reader in the dark about facts the characters knew just for the sake of “mystery,” which I hated. But, again, the premise was fun, and the ending was actually pretty good considering.

I wish I would have realized that this book was a Wiccan cookbook, not a hedgewitch/cottagewitch resource. Some interesting information but lots of detailed, heavily denominational sabat rituals.

This book stressed. me. out. Not just because of the (vaguely familiar) pressure-cooker work environment it described, but because every decision the main character made was wholly bewildering. The fact that I could relate to her circumstances made it even more frustrating that I couldn't relate to her, at all.

I'd never heard of Akilah Hughes but I liked this book more than most comedian memoirs - it has a lot of heart and beautifully captures what it is like to be a middle-Millenial (including this gem: “I absolutely do remember a time before the internet but I don't think I ever felt truly myself before the internet.”)

A really slow read. There are some beautiful passages, and it made me desperately miss Italy! On the other hand, the endless descriptions of the churches and dinners start to blur into each other and the snootiness was quickly tiresome. Also, this book would have really benefitted from some photographs and/or maps.

The basic concept is great (circles of female friends are so important) but the kind of circle she explains how to put together (with regimented meetings focused on a single topic at a time, usually one with lots of navel gazing and new age spiritual speak) is not one that appeals to me or that carries the sort of bliss that I treasure most in my interpersonal interactions.

A delightful romp through the afterlife, exploring some of the absurdities of religious doctrine (and dicta) taken literally. I laughed out loud several times. It's verrry irreverent but I personally didn't find it offensive (ymmv, of course) - and I say that as someone who winces through some of the “jokes” in Book of Mormon: The Musical.

While the author painstakingly footnotes his sources, a lot of the jokes build off of a basic familiarity with Mormon teachings - I don't know that it would be as fun of a read for someone with little or no exposure to the LDS faith. Also, like other comedic fiction (the works of Terry Pratchett and Douglas Adams come to mind) the book's plot and character development are secondary to the humorous escapades.

I enjoyed this debut work and look forward to seeing more from the author.

Turns out at least half of the weeds in my backyard are edible - it's fun to think about not just foraging, but specifically targeting invasive species. That said, this book was short and didn't have much depth.

The story is cute, but the writing is very scattered and disjointed. I had such a hard time following some parts that I'm not sure if the other things I disliked about it actually “happened” or not so I'll leave it at that.

I enjoyed the atmosphere of this book (there is something magic about New Orleans). That said, the characters were thin and essentially indistinguishable from each other in terms of voice, personality, etc., and the plot somehow managed to be boring even when talking about magic, voodoo, etc. I also hated the ending, which resolved almost nothing - this is one of those books that apparently must be consumed as part of an entire series.

Really clever; a bit of a love poem to the English language. That said, the characters are fairly indistinguishable and just there to move along the device.

Halfway between a poetry collection and a novel, this books perfectly captures so many of the thrills and challenges of adolescence. I just wish it had existed when I was 15.

I hate when I (either intentionally or subconsciously) resist reading a very popular bestseller for years only to discover when I finally crack the cover that everyone was right and it's absolutely incredible.

This book was fine. The constant pop culture references were pretty distracting and won't age well. The characters were very well drawn, even enchanting, and I loved the imagry of the house. That being said, the plot itself was just okay. I felt a bit of whiplash being thrust back and forth from “it's magic!” and “there's no such thing as magic” often several times a page. I also couldn't relate to the main character's anxiousness (and I say this as someone who takes medication everyday for my own anxiety) and I felt like the book glorified senseless thrill seeking over actual courage.

The author withholds a lot of information from the reader (information the pov character knows) so you have to “figure out” what's going on. Not a fan. But great world building and a decent plot.

This novel is bleak. I did not enjoy reading this book and I hated every single character. And I wouldn't really recommend it, given how heavy and ugly the story is. But it also resonated and felt deeply true in that way that way that only fiction can. I'm having a hard time sorting out my feelings about my life from my feelings about the book and the one to five star rating system just doesn't really translate for me here.

This book assumes all families look the same - I think there are three sentences in the entire book acknowledging not all adults have children (but these are great habits to get in place before the babies come) and one sentence acknowledging that some women might have female partners or live with roommates or by themselves instead of with a husband. I don't remember seeing any sentences acknowledging the existence of single moms, divorced moms, couples who don't combine their finances, etc. This book might be helpful to the target audience, but it definitely won't work for everyone who “has too much to do” and the heteronormativity made this an exhausting read.