Sarah

Agatha Christie's classic mystery novels never disappoint! I didn't like this one as much as “And Then There Were None,” because this one seemed more far-fetched and less plausible to me, but nevertheless, the twist ending was still executed very well. I certainly never would have predicted this outcome, and it was very creative, but felt a little too implausible for me. Overall, though, it was entertaining and clever, and I definitely want to read more of Agatha Christie's books.

“But I don't want comfort. I want God, I want poetry, I want real danger, I want freedom, I want goodness, I want sin.”

A lot smarter than I remembered. Lots of great intellectual references that were beyond my sixth grade mind's understanding but I certainly appreciated them now.

Well, that was extremely disappointing.
I had to read Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass for a class recently, so I figured it was the perfect time to finally read this book I had bought a while ago on a whim. I've loved Alice in Wonderland since I was very little, it has always been one of my all-time favorites. So, of course, I was excited to see that Gregory Maguire had done what he did for the Wizard of Oz with Alice in Wonderland. But this was nothing at all like Wicked and was not good. This was trying so hard to capture the quirky weirdness of Alice in Wonderland, and it failed spectacularly. While the idea of developing the story of a character Alice briefly named as a friend from home was definitely a cool one, it did not live up to its potential. It was so boring to see a rational and logical girl like Ada come into Wonderland and make sense of the world she saw. I felt that it was completely missing the point and the tone of Alice in Wonderland and I honestly expected so much more from someone like Gregory Maguire. Also, it felt like nothing happened at all. The plot was pretty much nonexistent and flat, and nothing changed at all. I spent the entirety of the novel waiting and waiting for it to pick up and become interesting, but it never did. However, I did appreciate certain passages throughout, as Maguire is usually a decent writer and I highlighted a few lines here and there that were really thought-provoking and interesting. But otherwise, this book was not what it should have or could have been, and I'm really disappointed in it.

I read this years ago when I was in elementary school. I remember being forced to read it and and I hate reading sad books so I put up a fight. It was sad. I bawled my eyes out. Don't remember why. I saw this randomly on goodreads just now and it brought back a ton of memories so I totally don't remember what happened but I remember it was sad and I cried and how sad it was.

“The problem with gender is that it was prescribes how we should be rather than recognizing how we are. Imagine how much happier we would be, how much freer to be our true individual selves, if we didn't have the weight of gender expectations.”

I can't in good conscience give this 5 stars because holy cow, Alan Moore cannot women. This book would have been F L A W L E S S if it weren't for his lackluster writing of the what, two women in the whole book.

I wish I could give this a million stars. It felt like a cool mix of Phantom of the Opera and 1984 and I just absolutely loved it.

I always struggle with choosing what to read next, so I realized this might be a logical choice. I found this book to be a bit too repetitive for me but I also had already heard of or read about 90% of the research in this book so I guess I shouldn't be too surprised about that. I'd definitely recommend it to anyone who is not as familiar with psychological research because there are a ton of good insights here.

This is the first manga I've read yet that I actually got into and completely loved. It was so unique and so genuinely different from any horror I've read before. This is exactly the horror that I've been looking for and I never expected to find it in a manga, but hey, I'll take what I can get. On to the next volume!

“Do you know why books such as this are so important? Because they have quality. And what does the word quality mean? To me it means texture. This book has pores. It has features. This book can go under the microscope. You'd find life under the glass, streaming past in infinite profusion. The more pores, the more truthfully recorded details of life per square inch you can get on a sheet of paper, the more ‘literary' you are. That's my definition, anyway. Telling detail. Fresh detail. The good writers touch life often.”

I can't believe in all the English classes I've taken over the course of my high school and college careers that I've never had to read this book. In a way, I'm almost glad that I didn't, because I feel like I wouldn't have appreciated this book enough in high school. But now that I've finally allowed myself to pursue a degree in English Literature and stop pretending science is all that matters, this book meant so much more to me than it ever would have before. Bradbury wonderfully illustrated the importance of books and reading in an extraordinarily unique way, and it worked really well. I think from now on when anyone questions why I would major in something like English Literature, I'll point them to this book. It really highlighted for me why it's okay to not be focusing on a career in science and medicine like the majority of my friends are doing; books are incredibly important too and should not be taken for granted.

One of my good friends recommended this book to me saying she loved it, so I went into this with high expectations. This book was not good at all. The main character is this whiny, vapid teenager who is supposedly this amazing, renowned assassin but throughout the book that was barely apparent. She cared more about her pretty dresses and choosing between the two boys in her life. The characterization is terrible – there was barely any information about Chaol, he was just kind of there throughout the story and all of a sudden he becomes a love interest. This book was a waste of my time, and I do not recommend this to anyone who wants to actually read something good and entertaining.

It's been a while since I've read such a clever mystery. The meta-ness of it all was excellent and very well done! I do remember enjoying House of Silk and this book lives up to how I'd expect someone hand-picked by Conan Doyle's estate to write.

Oh, Wilkie Collins, I have spent a great deal of time on your works these last few months. Listening to The Woman in White was a very long endeavor (24 hours!) but it was great entertainment on my daily commute. It certainly could be slow at times and the plot might have gotten a little too sensationalistic for my tastes, but I love it still. Even though Marian Holcombe deserved WAY better. Just saying.

I think this could have been way better as a fleshed out book so that the romance had more time to believably develop. But I liked the premise!

A wonderfully creepy and well-written ghost story. I love the ambiguity of this book; there are so many different ways to read it and think about it that it's impossible to know for sure what the truth is. I love how it was essentially impossible to tell if the governess was innocent or completely guilty. Is she insane? Or is she right? I love the reading that the governess was insane because it's so fascinating to see her point of view of this descent into madness. I really loved how tense and creepy the atmosphere of this book was, it just was a little boring at times. It was fascinating though to see how the governess was actually pretty creepy throughout even though she was the narrator and made things seem normal and that she was sane.

I like to think I can handle reading just about anything but man oh man, the end of this book made me so nauseated. I had obviously heard things about Jonestown before - the “Kool-aid” joke being the crux of them. This book, while a slow, meticulous slog through the the mundane beginnings of Jonestown, is a thorough introduction to the group and their story. Guinn did a masterful job of in-depth research and somehow maintaining distance from this story with a horrific end. It was hard to reconcile the group at beginning of this book to the group at the end - how did things go so wrong and how did Jones become so unhinged? I appreciated Guinn's ability to stay removed and give us a full picture of the ups and downs of Jones and Peoples' Temple prior to the ubiquitous final tragedy. Objectivity with a case surrounding a tragedy of such tremendous proportions must have been difficult. I'm left dumbfounded and intrigued by the psychology of Jones in his years.

I really tried to give this book a chance. I got nearly halfway through and it still wasn't getting any better. The characters were awful and not well-developed at all. Maybe it was just the kindle version or something but there were many errors and annoying problems throughout. Sidney Grice is one of the worst Sherlock Holmes wannabes I've seen yet.

I've always refused to read any non-canon Sherlock Holmes stuff since I first read the originals. All of them seemed to focus on Moriarity anyways, and that was kind of annoying since he wasn't actually that prevalent in the stories. Anyways, I saw that this one was endorsed by Conan Doyle's family, so I gave it a shot. I was pleasantly surprised! Horowitz did a pretty good job with following Conan Doyle's style, and it felt like I was reading another Sherlock Holmes story. Overall, I think it was really well done, my only issue was that it felt like the plot was dragging at times, so it felt a little boring here and there. I'm glad I finally convinced myself to read this though, and I can't wait to read the sequel next.

I loved the Selection series even though it's the type of thing I wouldn't normally read. They were fun, light-hearted books and I enjoyed America even though she could be a bit annoying. Overall, it was a really good series. This book was disappointing in comparison. I found it difficult to deal with Eadlyn and she seemed like a brat throughout but was totally oblivious to that. It was an interesting idea to move on to the next generation of the royal family, but Eadlyn just was too annoying for me to enjoy it all that much. I did enjoy the feminist aspects of it though; I thought they were well done and I was so happy that it was included.

Jason, you were right about this one 😊

Creepy and cool! I saw some really interesting Cthulhu art on tumblr and I had to read this story. Really cool concept and I definitely need to read more of Lovecraft's stories.

I enjoyed the mystery in the original trilogy of these books. But now that that's gone, all we're left with is the unavoidable CRINGE of Stevie being all #notlikeothergirls. This series has always bugged me for that reason, because every single book, Stevie has to be all “my parents wish I wore dresses but instead I like murder teehee” and it's so. annoying. And the reveal at the end of this book... no. Just, no. There are twists that are smart and plotted well in advance that, upon rereading, you find hints to and could theoretically solve yourself if you had been paying attention. But this is one of those twists that almost feels like cheating because it came from left field and was completely unpredictable. I kind of hate it when an author has the murderer be someone that you hadn't even met until 4 seconds earlier. It only works if you know the murderer is one of the set few characters you've essentially been told to guess between. Anyway, no, just no.

“I wanted to tell her that if only something were wrong with my body it would be fine, I would rather have anything wrong with my body than something wrong with my head”
I think I practically highlighted and marked up the entire book. Plath was so spot on in her depictions of life with depression and how much it affects you that I could not put this book down. I never had to read this in high school, and I'm almost glad I didn't because I didn't really experience major depression until I was in college, and I don't think I would have appreciated this enough. Plath's descriptions of living in a “bell jar” really resonated with me and I thought it was a very accurate way to try to describe depression. Depression is a very hard thing to understand unless you've experienced it yourself. It's kind of taboo to even admit to experiencing depression because then you risk being seen as whiny and someone who just wants pity and attention from everyone. That's how I used to see it before experiencing it myself. Until you go through it personally, it's hard not to dismiss it as something silly and someone being desperate for attention. And that's just in the current day and age! Plath's experiences back in the 50s and 60s must have been so much worse. Her own mother didn't really understand at all either:
“I knew my baby wasn't like that. Like those awful people. Those awful dead people at that hospital.” She paused. “I knew you'd decide to be all right again.”
It's heartbreaking to see how misunderstood depression was back then. My parents were a major source of support to me when I was struggling and I can't imagine not being able to rely on them because they thought I was “choosing” to be sick. Having no one to empathize with her and truly understand how she was feeling must have been so horrible and I really can't imagine how awful it must have felt. However, Plath chronicling her experiences through her novel has hopefully helped to shed light on the true nature of depression. It's not a choice, it's an awful illness that can have a severe impact on your life, and Plath did an amazing job of representing this in her novel. Everyone should read this book so they can truly get a glimpse into what it's really like to have depression and how misunderstood it really is.
“The trouble was, I hated the idea of serving men in any way.”
Also very worthy of mention is Plath's discussion of sexism and gender issues. Plath was rightly frustrated with the standards of her time that limited her freedom and enabled men to get away with doing so much more than women. I really appreciated Plath's frank discussion of how stupid it was that men were able to get away with so much more and how she decided she wasn't going to get married just because she was supposed to. Plath's way of describing things really shed light on how ridiculous the double standards of her time really were. I loved how she called BS on the norms of her time, saying things like,”I couldn't stand the idea of a woman having to have a single pure life and a man being able to have a double life, one pure and one not.” She was so amazing for calling attention to these issues, especially back when it was far less acceptable to do so, and I really appreciate her honesty and frankness. Even today, it's still sort of applicable, and it's just very refreshing to read a classic novel that doesn't shy away from these issues and instead highlights how stupid they really are.

I still have so many issues with Celaena Sardothien. She's just too cheesy for me to take seriously and I wish she felt more realistic. But the world of these stories and the background characters are all very good and entertaining. I love the world building in this series and I keep reading just for that. I just wish Celaena was better.