Michelle

Matteo and Rufus spend their last day on earth together, and encourage each other to get past their fears. They also fall in love. If they'd had a lifetime, perhaps they wouldn't have stayed together, but in that day and moment all they could do was celebrate their time together, and believe in who they could have been together. They deserved to revel in being young and in love, and connected to someone else so deeply. This made me think about the stuff I put off ... and I'm not a youngin' any more. Matteo failed to live his life out of fear he would die, and learned too late that you die no matter what, and so you need to live while you can. I liked the other POVs – some of the people were connected to Matteo and Rufus in ways they would never realize, and the way the author revealed those connections was moving. Did I sob? No. I saw the title, and believed it, so I was prepared. But I was moved, and I did cry a little, and I think I'll take the message to heart. Now, [b:More Happy Than Not 19542841 More Happy Than Not Adam Silvera https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1437759419s/19542841.jpg 27669922] made me ugly cry.

I really loved this story so much I was able to really overlook plot holes and details that involved a massive suspension of disbelief. Other reviewers have covered in more depth the absurdity of two people designing and operating a vast virtual world as a part-time thing. And that in a virtual world with hundreds of thousands of people, the main character has an uncanny knack of interacting with people who she will interact with in the virtual world, or vice versa. And in an area with an indame amount of people, always spot essentially a needle in a haystack. There's more, but it's not where I want to dwell. My recommendation asks that you very willingly suspend your disbelief.

I love these characters, and I love the Slay world – both the VR world of Slay, and the “real world” the story is set so much more than the Oasis of Ready Player One. Imagine a book where it's taken for granted women can be fierce gamers, and developers, with no not like other girls BS, tokenism, or fetishization. Because clearly Ernest Cline couldn't, and didn't, imagine this world. Ugh. And Brittney Morris was much more respectful to the LGBQIA+ community. I want to go there while knowing I have no business there.

I think Britney Morris also raised some interesting issues and discussions, and flawlessly portrayed white person privilege. People who are targeted, imo, deserve safe places, and shouldn't have to defend this idea.

I wish we had had more of Kiera post her identity being revealed. I kinda hope we encounter her again.

There's one plot point I don't feel is my place to discuss, and so please see Own Voices reviewers regarding the reveal of the “villain” and all the implications. I read it, took it in, but I don't find it appropriate to weigh in, certainly not as to the implications. I will say, implications aside, the identity falls under the need for a willing suspension of belief.

Rebekah Weatherspoon is a feel good author for me, and this series was my happy place. Set on a ranch filled with friends, family, dogs, and horses, it features relatable heroes and heroines. These characters are not without struggles, or representations seem rarely in romance, or novels in general. 

Jesse is demi, and largely sexually inexperienced. Lily-Grace has vitiligo, and is coming off a bad relationship. At first they're adversarial, and she kidnaps his dog for a few minutes. As one does, but they're a great match. 

I won this book in a Goodreads Giveaway, but my opinions are my own. Stop me, ladies, if you've heard this before...A man meets a woman briefly, and feels entitled to her love. A man meets a woman briefly, projects on her a personality that is nothing like she is in actuality, and then gets angry when he finds out she is her own person, with thoughts, ambitions, and dreams of her own.. A man meets a woman and doesn't take no for an answer. A woman expresses concern over the behavior of a man to another man, and the man she confides in doesn't take her seriously. The Doll Factory is about the way when capture women, mold them to their fantasies and desires, assumes of them some fantasy, expects of them not to be fully fleshed out humans. It's set in the Victorian era, and makes me think of [b:The Five: The Untold Lives of the Women Killed by Jack the Ripper 37570548 The Five The Untold Lives of the Women Killed by Jack the Ripper Hallie Rubenhold https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1519263139l/37570548.SY75.jpg 59148767]. Those real women have also been objectified, simplified, and discarded. They too felt the constraints of polite society, and limited choices. Highly recommended. It was fun to look of the artwork mentioned throughout the book, and I could have kept going and researching, easily Googled and Wiki'd for weeks.I do have to mention there's a lot of animal cruelty in the book, which is a tough thing for me, but I believed it served a purpose, and I did skim the a few paragraphs.

You think I'd learn. Another Riley Sager premise I love, another execution that disappoints me. Listened to the audiobook with my husband, both of us struggled with the last 10%. If you do like this author, you will probably enjoy this.

 Terrific history of Duluth, MN and neighboring areas, and a history of the author's family and the stories close to her heart. I'll never look at the Point of Rocks the same way again.

I bought the book at Zenith Books in Duluth and on the way there I found myself wondering about the various neighborhoods. I had no idea that the book that was recommended to me when I asked for a book by an Indigenous author would answer those questions. 

I live in Northern MN and had no idea there was a residential school in a neighboring town. I'll be searching put more info.

I think I'd love a novel by the author.

I listened to the audiobook version, and the narrator did a great job! If you do the audiobook, I recommend downloading a Kindle sample of the book because there are tons of characters to keep track of but the book has a list of them all in the beginning. I consulted it a lot! I really liked this. I was worried because of Owen King not getting great reviews on his novel, [b:Double Feature 15802120 Double Feature Owen King https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1468706055s/15802120.jpg 21525516]. But the Kings made a good team, and rewrote one another to blur the lines of who wrote what. I also like when Stephen writes with his other son, Joe Hill! Wonder what would happen if all three of them worked on a book. Anyhow, while this is the story of all the women falling asleep, there are a lot of strong female characters, and they are never silenced in the narrative. The story begins when “Aurora” is across the globe from the Appalachian town where the story is set, a few women never fall asleep, and we also visit where the women “go” while asleep. Sleeping Beauties explores women who've come from lives of abuse, and who've turn to violence, drugs, and/or crime as a result. The sheriff is a woman, as is the prison warden, the prison being one of the main locations. We also spend time with the warden's daughter, an up and coming reporter. And then there's Eve Black who is at the center of everything.I think the Kings channel women very well, and very progressively for the most part. I think there were a few too many mentions that seemed to refer to women as the ones who do laundry and iron, and it would have been nice since we had a number of good guy men to have met one that had some domestic skills. Also, I feel that at moments the book put womanhood in general too much on a pedestal, which constrains women in another (well-intentioned) way. I'm happy to have Eve Black be the most goddessesque character, than you very much. We get to explore the world (Our Place) where the women go, and I will not describe it too much in order to avoid spoilers. What I found interesting is the portrayal of the women as mostly missing the men, but how for some of the profoundly abused this was the first freedom, the first sense of safety, the first opportunity to build their own lives, they'd ever been allowed. In an extremely poignant plot twist, we discover that the actions of the men in the real world – main world? – could still reach the women in Our Place if their sleeping bodies are tampered with or destroyed. Perhaps in the strongest social commentary of the novel, the sleeping women are only dangerous if the cocoon they're in are tampered with, and then they become feral until the threat is destroyed. So you have these women who are very literally doing nothing to no one, and a portion of men decide they must be destroyed because they'll fight back if you, you know, try and rape them. Ugh. The last third before it really got to the ending lagged a bit for me. As mentioned, the book never stopped representing the women, but at one point there's a battle between a couple different factions of men, and I really struggled to care beyond how the results would change the outcome for the women. I understood that this outcome was based on the men proving they could “do better” – be less warlike, more intellectual, and cede control to the mysterious Eve. But I still would have preferred to hang out a little more in the portion of the book with the sleeping chicks. One of the recurring characters is a fox. I loved the fox. I also had to smile because the first time I encountered the word “vulpine” was in [b:Rose Madder 10619 Rose Madder Stephen King https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1375870513s/10619.jpg 833191], a Stephen King novel, which also featured (less fortunate) foxes. The fox in Sleeping Beauties, like the human men, is asked to consider another way of living.

I like her, like her voice – her singing voice, too, but not what I meant. She's funny. And apparently really short.

Rebekah Weatherspoon is a feel good author for me, and this series was my happy place. Set on a ranch filled with friends, family, dogs, and horses, it features relatable heroes and heroines. These characters are not without struggles, or representations seem rarely in romance, or novels in general. 

Jesse is demi, and largely sexually inexperienced. Lily-Grace has vitiligo, and is coming off a bad relationship. At first they're adversarial, and she kidnaps his dog for a few minutes. As one does, but they're a great match. 

???The thing is,??? Rosina says, ???people don???t want to hear something that???ll make their lives more difficult, even if it???s the truth. People hate having to change the way they see things. So instead of admitting the world is ugly, they shit on the messenger for telling them about it.???The Nowhere Girls is similar in many ways to [b:Moxie 33163378 Moxie Jennifer Mathieu https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1494950979s/33163378.jpg 46824140], and if you like one, you'll most likely enjoy the other one. I would recommend both of these books. Moxie is a little bit lighter than The Nowhere Girls, but both deal with feminism, rape culture, and the messages we send to girls about their worth. In addition, The Nowhere Girls has even more LGBT representations and one of the main characters (Erin) is living with Asperger's syndrome. The book also shows the best and the worst of people who identify as Christian. The principal in the story is also one of the villains, but she's interesting in, while never being sympathetic, portraying how some women end up as enemies to other women because of their own treatment by, well, the patriarchy. She believes she has to side with the men, with power, in order to hold on to her own power, never seeming to realize that if you have to be a tool for the oppression of other women or else you'll lose your power that you're deluded as to how much control you have. She is worn down by the fight to get where she is and willing to wear down others. I have to say I love stories where girls and women join together to support one another and find their strength. Also, holding the good guys to a higher standard in how they behave and in what they defend. ???There wasn???t any proof,??? he says, his voice rising defensively. ???That???s what everyone said. They said that girl was lying.??? ???That girl has a name.??? Grace tries to kill him with her eyes. When nothing happens, she turns around and storms away. ???Wait, Grace,??? he says. She stops walking but keeps her back to him. ???You don???t understand. You weren???t here. Everything was crazy after Lucy said all that stuff. Everyone at school, the whole town was, like, falling apart.??? ???Yeah???? she says. ???The town was falling apart???? She turns her head and looks him in the eyes. ???How do you think she felt????

This really worked for me, particularly the stand-in for Harley Quinn. We know the tropes that make women expendable in comics, in fiction, and perhaps in life. These stories give these women their voices, compassion, the respect of seeing them as more than an appendage, or an incentive to Be a Better Man.

Also, Grimdark is the best substitute for the name Batman!

I liked the ending the best, no spoilers, where these forgotten and tossed aside women in the most inclusive way invited in another women into their circle.

Every time Jane killed someone, I heard that song from Chicago in my head ... they had it comin'!

Loved the homages to Jane Eyre, and the language used felt like a good match to Charlotte Bronte's style.

If I have a nitpick, it's that Jane Steele might acknowledge there are similarities in her story to that of Jane Eyre, but doesn't acknowledge the bonkers nature of the coincidences – Thornfield Hall for Jane Eyre, Mr. Thornfield for Jane Steele.

And the middle lagged a bit, but I forgive because I accept this is me being an impatient modern reader, since the pacing was a nice match to the original.

This was a near perfect read for me, and I want to gobble up more by this author.

Sweet story about supportive friends, true love, and not giving in to bullies. Great for people of all ages, and their bunnies.

This was a terrific read. Interesting, touching, and compelling. I believe it will do a lot of good in reminding us all of the repercussions for letting politic discourse cross a line, because all that anger has to go somewhere. Gabrielle Giffords has made a remarkable recovery, in great part due to her own tenacity and a terrific support system. The other part of the equation is that government employees get superior and affordable health care and this couple are aware of their good fortune in this, and that so many people with brain injuries hit a ceiling because they're without the same advantages.

The chapters merge and connect stories of their courtship and earlier lives with her recovery. How the woman she was before the accident, the man he was, allowed them to remain a team. Although, she did become quite angry with him on one occasion.

I wish this admirable couple all the best and I pray for Gabrielle Giffords's continued improvement.

Terrific read. Told in free verse – I think, not up on poetry terms – and the story really flows. The language is lovely. The heart is apparent. I would say you forget the poetry, but that's not it. The poetry feels natural, and keeps the story moving, gets to the core of what the author seeks to get across.

“It's not like I came to the City saying, “Oh, I can't wait to find a woman whose only joy in life is sucking out my bodily fluids.' Okay, well maybe I did, but I didn't mean this.”

This is not my first experience with Christopher Moore. I loved A Dirty Job, and wrote up a review on it, but it never posted and I never rewrote it. Loved Lamb: The Gospel According to Biff, Christ's Childhood Pal. I read part of Fool as part of a self-designed plan to really understand King Lear from different angles – the play, different performances, the Moore book – then I cleaned and now I can't find anything.

Anyhow...

Moore has a very definite outlook and it's pretty funny. People who read him are always talking about him as a great humor writer, but his strength is writing about how humor battles sadness, copes with tragedy, keeps people going. The moments when the books are just serious are pretty rare, but his topics even in his funniest books are deeper than they seem.

Flood in dealing with his girlfriend being a vampire reads a lot of books, most of them fiction, although he's sure that Stoker or Rice must have known a real vampire or two. The Vampire Lestat is mentioned often and that book and this one don't seem all that similar. However, TVL was largely about loneliness, of losing loved ones and everything falling to ruin around you – at least that's what I got from it when I was sixteen ::grin:: – and this becomes one of Jodie's sources of angst too. She loves Tommy (Flood), but she can't share with him the way the world is for her now, because there are no words for it. Tommy wants to share his world with her too, but there never seems to be time, and there are so many barriers. Only Moore makes you laugh when he's sharing this in a way that Rice never does, at least not intentionally. :)

I read Moore and am torn between laughter and queasiness, because some pretty grim events happen but the quips don't stop. I guess I'd like to see what he'd be like with 30% of the humor dialed back, just out of curiosity, but I think that says something about the way I handle the things Moore tackles with humor. A book as a Rorschach.

Moore's best characters are lovable, er, rear holes. Good people saying weirdly inappropriate things and occasionally being pretty dumb in strangely realistic ways. See Flood's plan to stick Jodie in a freezer and how that all worked out – but it makes a strange bit of dumb sense and anyone spending time around other people or even with an understanding of self can see how most of the crazy choices happen. I think that's one of the author's strengths – the acknowledgment that fairly smart people do crazy things as opposed to intelligent people in books usually benefiting from the calm mind of the author as God. No, Moore's characters are just allowed to make bad decisions or not think things through. I always get the impression Moore likes people – maybe not big crowds of them, but the individual quirks.

Anyhow, all of this is a disjointed way of saying Moore is a writer that readers gush about and recommend for a reason. I've started the sequel, You Suck but one of my preorders showed up and is taking precedence. Besides, good authors are the ones you want to savor. :)

Life is not unlike cinema. Each scene has its own music, and the music is created for the scene, woven to it in ways we do not understand. No matter how much we may love the melody of a bygone day or imagine the song of a future one, we must dance within the music of today, or we will always be out of step, stumbling around in something that doesn???t suit the moment.

Overall, I loved the primary story line, and I was fascinated by the non-fiction aspect inside of the fiction – that there was a time when children were taken in large numbers away from their birth families and sold to rich adopters, and that much of this was public knowledge. I was drawn in to the story of the Foss family, although they were fictional, and wanted to read their story and discover what happened next.

What proved to be less successful for me was the modern day story line, with a wealthy, privileged woman finding out the truth her grandmother had been hiding. Although this meshed with the story I cared about, I really had less of a passion for what felt more like a romance novel that barely brushed against the plot I cared about.

I have no issue with romance novels, having reading literally thousands, but it wasn't the book I wanted to read at that moment. Avery's wealthy family and the people who swirled around them were also unappealing – shallow people concerned about reputation and comfort. We are told Avery's parents are good people, but little of that is shown.

And I get the irony there – that I didn't care much about this aspect while saying there should have been more of it so that I could grow to care. But this book is simply too short to do right by all the characters and plot lines.

I am asked to care about Avery, and I do, just not as much as I do the Foss family, but the things I've been asked to be concerned about are then settled off the page. To say much more would be a spoiler, but 20 more pages given to the modern story line to add some depth and tie up a few loose ends would have probably done a world of good for my enjoyment. I certainly would have enjoyed even more time on the timeline I really enjoyed.

I do want to thank the author for making me aware of a fascinating and tragic detail of American history.

Anyhow, I borrowed this from the library through my Kindle, and had a pretty long wait. I just looked, and my library system had 8 copies of the ebook to lend, and SEVEN people waiting per copy. This is a really popular read, and so many people do love the story in it's entirety, so my issues don't add up to much. I will return my copy in a minute, and the next person will receive an email to tell her (am assuming it will be a her) that the book she's been looking forward to is ready.

Happy reading!

I really expected to love this book. I loved the concept.

I believe a group of marginalized women could get together, and in admitting their sexual beings with desires and fantasies, start a journey toward liberation.

The problem is that it wasn't presented as a journey. The women shared the stories without hesitation and then everything was good.

Two women don't care for each other much, and then they do. One of these women has an issue with the nature of the class ... and then she doesn't.

A couple is not close, and then they have a night of better sex, and their marriage is fixed.

I had trouble finding satisfaction in the book, because there always seemed to be a needed step or scene missing in order for any plot line to resonate or for me to feel like the various resolutions were earned.

We're told how dangerous it is for these women to share their stories, but that never comes to fruition. The danger in the book is over something else entirely, only joined with this main plot by a general misogynistic umbrella.

I noticed multiple editorial errors such as missing words.

The biggest issue is that a contradictory information about a necklace worn by a character. She says the necklace belonged to a female friend who died, and was given to her by the friend's mother, and since that day (that her friend died and her friend's mother gave her the necklace) she has worn it every day.

Just a few pages later she says:

I didn???t have an ounce of sympathy for him. At his funeral, I wore Gulshan???s necklace for the first time. People stared but they said nothing. They all knew.???

This is not the author's fault. Things change in between drafts, and it's hard to keep track. That's why there are editors. Still, moments like that took me out of the book.

I hope to read more by this author.

I love this series!I can't say that Confection – that's the name, right? – was my favorite world, but that was interesting in and of itself, because it taught me about myself, my basic make up. As much as this world bothered me is how much I loved The Moors, the world in [b:Down Among the Sticks and Bones 31450908 Down Among the Sticks and Bones (Wayward Children, #2) Seanan McGuire https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1473685781s/31450908.jpg 47411892]. Seanan McGuire does a tremendous job with diverse characters, and this time the point of view character was Cora, a girl made to feel self-c0nscious about her weight in our world, but had discovered a world and returned from a world where she felt at home as a mermaid. I get the feeling the author has tremendous compassion for all of her characters, and that she's rooting for them to make their way back to their homes. I love that. I don't think they ARE all guaranteed to make it back, sometimes things things are out of an author's hands – :) – but she wants it for them. If there was anything that bugged me, it's that we got so little time with a character from the first book who we meet again in this book. She was there for the book, and yet sort of not there, and without spoilers, that was a bummer. Since – no spoilers! – she couldn't talk for most of the story, the people who knew her could have told stories about her. Just a thought.

At 3%

Your features are delicate, Lynet, like a bird???s. You shouldn???t be climbing trees, Lynet, not when your hands and feet are so soft and delicate. Emilia had died, he said, because her body had been too delicate for childbirth. Being delicate had killed her mother, and yet he was so eager to bestow the quality on her.

Everything Lynet knew about her mother, she had learned from Nicholas. She was fragile, he said. She spoke in whispers and murmurs. She was sweet and gentle. Like you, like you, he said, but Lynet had never felt fragile, though she looked it. If her father had never truly recognized his daughter, then had he remembered his wife wrong as well? What if everything he???d ever told her about her mother was only how he???d seen her, not how she truly was?

There would be no other chances, no other roles but the ones that had been set for them from the beginning???the bitter, aging queen and the sweet young princess poised to take everything from her.

Mina gave her a sad smile. ???You???ll see too, one day. Once you grow older, someone else will be waiting to take your place, someone younger and prettier than you. I knew that day was approaching for me. I knew even when you were still a child. So why am I so surprised to learn that I???m being thrown aside? Why am I always so surprised????

Coming-of-age story about the nature of love, finding a healthy relationship, and traveling with giant Big Boy statues while bonding with your sisters.

I had an insanely good time with this book. I love Kristin Chenoweth's bubbly sense of humor. There wasn't a lot of gossip – maybe a tantalizing bit here and there – but the book still kept my interest.

A quick, entertaining read!

Sometimes the language was too modern. Sometimes the tone shifted too much and felt a little 50 Shades, which I theoretically have no issue with except tone shifts are jarring. The action is slow to build, and then Blammo.

But I have to confess I gobbled this up. Part of me really wants to call this 3 stars because of my various issues, but there was tons of good as well. So, 4 stars.

I find these books so deeply flawed, and yet I'm entertained. I had to take away a star for what I feel was a cop out. I think Feyre and Gang are too fortunate too much of the time, which lowers the stakes. I care about them, and so I don't want bad things to happen, but that doesn't mean they shouldn't still happen. Joss Whedon once said that he doesn't give the viewers what they want, he gives them what they need.

What I'm saying is that I hated like hell that Amren died, and cried, but I felt the death was "fair." That raised the stakes. Only Maas "took back" the death, making me feel cheated over the reversal of something that made me sad. She did the same with Rhys, but I get why that one didn't stick. Next time, I'll be slower to cry or care.

I also think the relationship with Rhysand is too perfect. Mates or no, they need to argue. He will tell her she makes her own choices (even when her choices are really dumb) and then be angry at someone else for choices that are a whole lot smarter (and no more risky) than those of his mate. Within paragraphs of one another.

I enjoyed this one, with it's understandable focus on the stem cell issue, as well as an update on how Michael J. Fox is doing.

It shames me that I keep working toward an optimistic nature, only to find myself kinda falling back toward negativity, while people who have it a lot rougher persevere and inspire.

The author is a class act and I share in his hope that PD will be cured in the next few years.