Sarah
Just the story of a trip to Paris. Food, homesickness, shopping, art. Not very exciting but also relatable in that I think I'd be a similar traveler. Also, just learned what foie gras is and now I'm sad.
Completely mind-blowing and eye-opening. I've recently become interested in the idea that hey maybe the modern psychiatry industry isn't some perfect and wholesome thing that we're led to believe it is. No, there are clear issues and plenty of pseudoscience being sold as real science. This book was shocking at first but actually made a lot of sense. Of course, we think we're the best and we know what's right, but do we really? This makes me reconsider everything I've been taught as “fact” within my psych major, as so much of it really can't be proven at all and has been manipulated by someone or other who has a vested interest in benefiting from the industry.
I think I read too much YA Fantasy in a row to really enjoy this one as much as I should have. It took me a while to get into, but overall I still thought it was very good! Usually I give 5 star ratings to books that I consider to be my favorites, and this one didn't feel like that. I liked the concept, the whole Red vs. Silver thing was different enough and led to very palpable and realistic class tension. I also surprisingly liked the protagonist, Mare Barrow. She felt more realistic than some of protagonists of past YA books that I've read. She was unique without meaning to be, she was very average aside from her unique trait. Her naivety was a bit much, even I could see that twist coming, but I enjoyed how little she actually seemed to care about the love triangle that other YA novels tend to focus on. Overall, I enjoyed this book a lot after I finally got into it, and I'm looking forward to the next book in the series!
So disappointed in most of these stories. The Power Girl ones weren't great and the art in some of the later stories weren't great either. But I love Harley and I love her in these stories.
“It's taken me years to accept what you told me back then, that you were there for me that night. Not as a vigilante swinging to the rescue, but as an ideal, an inspiration. A voice I heard in darkness, commanding me to stand up. The same voice that tells us when we get beaten down, we can accept being a victim or choose to be the hero of our own stories. And we make that choice by standing up.”
A wonderfully told memoir by someone who was such a huge part of the Batman universe and ended up being profoundly affected by him in his real life. It was touching to see how Batman and characters like the Joker helped him on his road to recovery and showed him how to get back up and get through life again.
Quite an interesting take on vampires, that's for sure! When Twilight first came out, vampires were everywhere, and it was so overdone and so tired. I started hating vampire stuff because it had become so cliche. But this, this is good. This was really different and unique and I liked it so much more than I thought I would! Thank you, Scott Snyder and Stephen King, for making me not hate vampires anymore. Can't wait to read more of this series!
Loved how it tied back to the first volume but it was subtle and I almost missed it completely!
Suuuper intriguing premise, I mean, I love Batman, I love Victorian era stuff, so ya can't go wrong! It was fine, the first issue about Jack the Ripper was better than the second about the fair. Now to watch the movie!
Okay. The first half of this book was fine; I liked it well enough. But by the end I was saying “Ohhh myyyy godddd can this please end?” The chapter on gambling was ridiculous; the “habit of gambling” is not something that's uncontrollable. This book gives too many opportunities to make excuses for our actions and “habits.” Oops, I have a gambling problem, well, it's a habit so it's not my fault! NO. So annoying in so many ways. I could not wait to finish this book and return it to the library where I will ignore it forever hereafter.
Art? Nice. Plot? Meh. But maybe the toxic relationship thing hit too close to home. Either way, felt very jumbled and confusing but I appreciated what it was trying to do.
The art was so amazing I was practically drooling while reading. I'm always a sucker for a witchy title like “Grimoire Noir” and knew I'd love this when I spotted it.
Ooooomg I'm finally done with the Twin Peaks revival and honestly, I coulda done without. Like, we didn't need this at all. I'm just glad that this book helped elucidate some of what happened. But it can't give me back the 18 hours I spent watching it
I don't even know where to begin. Listening to this book has brought me so much joy and I loved every second of it. Elton John's life has been truly, ridiculously remarkable and his ability to write about all of it so honestly and hilariously never got old in the 12 hours it took to finish. I think this is the epitome of how celebrities should write their autobiographies, even if they didn't, y'know, have the queen mother round for tea or name Lady Gaga their child's godmother. If you want to have the most fun time learning about the craziest but most amazing artist's life, then this is more than perfect for you.
Holy cow, this is one of the most amazing books I've read in a long time. Do yourself a favor and listen to the audiobook version!!!
I just love everything Jenny Lawson has ever written. That's all. She's the absolute best!
This was so fun to listen to on my commute! Lawson had me laughing my head off throughout my drives.
“We would bury ourselves in books until flesh and paper became one and ink and blood at last ran together.”
I read this book for a book club at my school, and I have to admit that when I first picked it up, it sounded pretty strange. I wasn't sure if I'd like it or not because it might be just too weird and out there. While it definitely was not a normal book, it wasn't at all strange in a bad way. It reminded me a lot of The Night Circus in how there were multiple stories of past and present woven together to form this larger tale, and I really loved it. Each character was so unique and well-developed and had amazing personalities that made them stand out. I also loved that the main character was a librarian and bibliophile. I highlighted so many quotes about books throughout like the one above that I found really wonderful. This book was beautiful and well-written; it was strange but in the best way possible. How often do you read books about a curse on a family of circus “mermaids” that jumps back and forth between the family's present generation and their great-great grandparents? It would be difficult to explain this book to anyone simply, especially without making it sound too strange, but I can say that it is a remarkable book that is definitely worth reading.
I saw that this book had a lot of mixed reviews before I started it, so I was a bit skeptical when I checked it out from the library... and then a little over 24 hours later, I finally finished it because I couldn't put it down. I loved everything about this book. The concept was awesome, romance wasn't all that prevalent, and it essentially combined all my favorite genres into one book. It was part sci-fi, part historical fiction, part fantasy, and it worked surprisingly well. While some of the twists were easy to see coming, I didn't really mind it because it worked anyways and still turned out to be a great story. The only thing I didn't love was the ending because it felt too open for me. Overall though, it was a great read, and I'm glad that I gave it a chance!
I love the variety of perspectives included here. I think it's great they included the voices of people who had wanted children and who didn't, who hated children and who loved them, and men as well as women. This is a topic much derided and given little attention. It was so comforting to read these voices and know I'm not alone or bizarre in my way of thinking.
This book is MIND-BLOWING. Holy cow, I'm still reeling from the perfection of this mystery. This is an incredible book!
I never usually read this type of book. I'm never a fan of realistic fiction, I prefer fantasy so that I can ignore the awful reality that is the real world we live in. But this was an excellent book, and very powerful. I found it a bit confusing with how the timeline jumped around and wasn't necessarily a fan of that. But Romy's story was important and uncomfortable and painful. I felt like this was a realistic depiction of someone's experience of such a horrible trauma, and it was very enlightening. More people should read this so that they can really understand how horrific and wrong rape is. Overall, this was not something I would ever choose to read normally, but I'm glad I did finally read it.