Ghost
Heads in Beds is a generally entertaining read about how Tomsky got stuck in the hospitality industry (how many of us unintentionally end up pigeon holed in industries they never intentionally picked?) and how tipping makes the world go round in the hospitality industry. It also made a good point about the importance and value of unions. I wasn't super keen on the part where the author spent an entirely uncalled for amount of words speculating about a beloved customer being a sex worker which I found rather childish but otherwise it was a good palate cleanser type of read.
No star rating because I don't rate memoirs.
I need to stop reading this author over my lunch, his stuff is not particularly graphic or gross (compared to other stuff I read at least) and yet the moment I sit down with food, I'll read something foul.
I really enjoyed The Vegetarians (that progression, that ending, chef's kiss) and Physical Media (horror comedy about a smart TV). The imagery was generally pretty solid. The first 5 stories in the collection were all really strong and would recommend this collection even if it was just for these.
There's also a couple of stories I didn't particularly like such as the one where the child main character read more like a teenager than like the 6 year old he was supposed to be (which was too bad because the idea behind the story was really cool) and the 2 stories that were more on the bizzarro side (though for these 2 I think it was more because I wasn't in the right headspace to enjoy them).
I enjoyed this book well enough until the reveal the 9 years old child with ADHD and impulse control problems was also somehow a psychopathic mastermind with incredible acting skills and she acted in concert with an evil nurse desperate for her dad's attention, I find that kind of trope super tedious and I would have probably liked it better if more of it had been left implied rather than outright told.
I've been sitting with this book for a couple of days now because quite frankly I'm not sure I get it. I liked the main character well enough and her general sense of unease as well as the way Levy captured the Covid/”post-Covid” weirdness so but I can't help but feel like I missed something.
The writing style was pleasant and there's probably a lot about the imagery that I could sit with and pick apart so points for that (in other words, if you were the kid who enjoyed thinking about why the curtains were blue, you'll like this one).
Concussion was a pretty engaging biography containing a lot of charming anecdotes about Dr Omalu contrasting too many tragic stories of football players whose lives were cut short or whose quality of life was greatly reduced through sports injuries.
It made a great case for why the research about a problem shouldn't be left to people who have a vested interest in the problem going unaddressed or outright denied (or to people cherry picked by aforementioned people).
Well, I shouldn't have finished reading this while eating lunch, it very damn near ruined my appetite. I'm not sure if that constitutes a 1 star or a 5 star endorsement of this story given the genre? Seriously though, it's not just a gross out fest, there's only one super gross scene.
I liked the main character and his discomfort with being perceived, that was very relatable to me personally.
The cover immediately spoke to me, after all I do have a tattoo of a Skelanimal fox so undead fox? Sign me up, no need to read the blurb I'm already sold. That being said, it represents the book very well so if you like that vibe you'll probably like the book too.
The world building was very effective and honestly I want more in that world. The writing style was most pleasant and I thought that Silva managed to inject moments of humor in the story in a most effective way to make the story even more potent, she's definitely an author I'll look forward to reading more of.
Do you need to be emotionally punched in the gut? If so, read this. The grief here is messy and laced with bone deep anger and it just radiates off the page.
This book is part of what I like to call the cozy feminism genre. It's not a bracing call to the barricades that asks you to completely reconsider the world we live in but it's a validation of (some of) our experiences and an honest look at the absurdity of diet culture (and how it morphed into the more pervasive wellness culture) and how we fall for it.
DeRuiter shares her experience of being a woman with an online presence in a way that I found quite refreshing and very validating.
My reading experience was akin to sitting with a friend, it's not necessarily going to change your life but it's going to make you feel seen and somewhat sane for a moment.
There are a lot of eminently quotable lines in there and great quips about Florida (who doesn't love dunking on Florida these days?).
There's a bit about how in Quebec people eat the sacred host wafers that didn't quite meet the standard as a snack and I would like to add that we don't just eat retailles d'hosties we also eat the wafers that would have made it, it's like a whole thing here, we like our guilt that much (I can say that I'm technically still a Catholic with all the guilt that comes with it).
No rating because I do not rate memoirs but I really enjoyed my time with this book.
I've often credited this book for being the work that made me realize that I do like body horror a lot as long as it's in the context of the body doing/becoming the horror not the horror being visited upon the body via torture. So, I figured maybe I should reread it and see if it stood the test of time since I was very easily impressed back when I first read it.
The body horror held up as did the general plot, but the banter and how insufferable the characters were not so much. I understand Perry is supposed to be a hard to love but somehow sympathetic figure but with most of the other characters being in the same vein and with the inappropriate edginess that passed for witticism at the time (yes the late 2000s were an era of unrelenting cringiness) it just got tedious at some point.
This author came to my attention because she was asked to leave Politics and Pen event for speaking about the situation in Gaza, her calm and to the point responses as she was escorted out made me feel that she was the kind of voice I needed to be paying attention to.
Goodreads lists this book as Young Adult, I'm not sure that when I was in that age range (12-18), I would have been able to appreciate the exercise in nuance that this book has to offer, but I certainly would have appreciated the realism of a certain situation (spoiler: it's about the way a rape victim is treated when she comes forward) which was bleak but honest. I think I'll be thinking about this book for a good long while.
This one was way too long (717 pages long according to my Kindle but it felt way longer) and the whole gang aspect just kept becoming cringier and cringier as the situation in town kept becoming more and more dire.
I probably would have liked this book a lot more if we had followed less stereotypes - err characters.
A character having the internal monologue about expecting (like all New Yorker women) that if she was to ever get raped it would be the classier (her word not mine) brand of rape AKA as date rape and that she would at least get a meal and drinks first while someone is actively trying to rape her... Excuse me my good sir but WTF? Seriously that would have been ground for immediate DNF if I hadn't already been more than 500 pages in (I came for the cover and stayed for the sunk cost, I guess). That character's internal monologue was so annoying and cringe worthy it really didn't help my quickly fading interest after that point. By the time the ending came around I really no longer cared about any of it and just wanted it to be over.
The first story in this collection (The Finkelstein 5) was really powerful and visceral. There were a couple of stories that suffered from the same problem I had with Chain Gang All Star, they were more universe exploration than story, which is just not my thing. There's a story with ghosts (?) of aborted fetuses talking which was really uncomfortable but not in a good way.
There's no questioning that Adjei-Brenyah is very skilled at creating universes and giving characters their unique voices but ultimately I just think his storytelling style isn't really for me.
At first I felt like others have done what Rashad set out to do with this book more convincingly but after sitting with it for a while I realized that ultimately I don't think it's a quite fair assesment. Here's the thing, the others I've seen doing similar things focused on adults or teenagers and their coming of age. Here we have an adultified teenager who doesn't let us forget that she is in fact still a child, one that didn't actually get to be a child, she's immature and fumbling around because she is a kid. Rashad invites us to sit with our judgement of Solenne's actions many times by reminding us that she's basically a kid. It's not just a what-if story, it's an invitation to look at your expectations of black girls.
It was also a surprisingly quick read for a 300 pages long book,
This collection of essays is very memoir adjacent so I'm not going to give it a star rating, not because it's not good, it is, but because I do not rate memoirs.
That being said, it was a really enjoyable read Raboteau comes across as a very down to earth and sweet person and she made me love the people she spoke about. Is this book going to help you if you struggle with climate anxiety, probably not. Is it going to make you feel less alone in that? Yes, absolutely.
