steph

This is a really beautiful, enlightening reference and resource guide on birds. It contains stunning illustrations. The inclusion of folktales, symbolic meanings, and more history and lore on birds is a nice and unique touch.

This would be a great coffee table book to flip through with family, or a gift for that bird-lover that has every guide you can already think of.

“The Serviceberry” is an expansion on some of the threads woven into “Braiding Sweetgrass,” and truly a can't miss piece. This is a look at how the gift economy can exist within the confines of capitalism and a scarcity economy, and it's really remarkable to think through it all with Kimmerer's attention to natural detail

When I have more time to commit to a review, I'll come back to this. For now I'll just say: don't skip this one.

Thank you to the publisher and Netgalley for giving me an early look at “The Serviceberry.”

A few years ago, I read one book by Sarah Gailey and then made it my mission to read every one of their books I could get my hands on. I think Sarah Pinsker might be the next author I do that with...

I really liked Haunt Sweet Home. I agree with some of the reviews that wouldn't put it necessarily in the horror genre, but I also think it's a nice development of what horror could be for those folks who don't love gore or murder. This is a nice little ghost story, featuring ghosts real and pretend, personal and professional. Mara is a character haunted by so much, especially her own choices and her role in her family.

I wanted so much more of this story and these characters! It wraps up nicely, but I wanted to hear the rest of it. Who was in the library??? Tell me more, Sarah Pinsker!

Thanks to the publishes and Netgalley for allowing me to read Haunt Sweet Home early!;

ARC provided through NetGalley.

Being a West Virginian, I love when Mothman gets to take center stage, and a new generation can learn to love my favorite little cryptid. This was a cute little story about organic farmer Mothman. It was everything I love in a picture book – precious, easy to read, and fun.

As a longtime fan of Sy Montgomery and someone with a growing interest in birds, I was thrilled to receive an ARC of What the Chicken Knows courtesy of NetGalley and Atria.

Childhood memories of playing with my grandmother's fluffy chicks in the shed after school came flooding back as I began reading. However, those feathered friends had faded into a distant memory, replaced by a more traditional, American view of adult chickens. Roosters, in particular, instilled a healthy dose of fear in me.

Montgomery, with her signature blend of heartwarming anecdotes and scientific insights, transforms our understanding of these common farmyard birds. She dismantles stereotypes, revealing the intelligence, complexity, and even bravery hidden beneath feathers.

This charming and informative book is packed with fascinating facts about chickens, leaving me with a newfound respect for these often-overlooked creatures.

Dark sense of humor? Check.
Violence? Check.
Warfare? Check.
Horny protagonist? Double check!

When's the next one?!

One sentence review:
The real friends are the birds we met along the way.

I want to start writing book reviews in one sentence, as concisely as possible, to emphasize my primary impression of the book... So here it is:

So much more sex than I was expecting.

Do you want to cry? Because the first and last stories will make you cry.

Did this book really happen, or was it a COVID fever dream I had once?

I really liked this book! I tore through it in a matter of days.
So why 3 stars?

I'm subtracting 2 stars for the completely unnecessary rpe that happens in this book. By the time it happens, we know that [SPOILER] is a bad person. Why do we need a rpe to further show how terrible they are? Totally unnecessary.

That said, it was a quick read, and I enjoyed the overall plot. Just could've done without that sexual violence bit.

First – I'm deducting one star for only one reason:
The phrase “word word word THIS WAR” occurs waaayyy too often. Maybe it's because I reads half of this book in one sitting, but I really didn't like that.
“We can win this war.”
“We've lost this war.”
“We can still win this war.”
I swear, all three of these occur in one chapter. Okay, maybe two of them, but it was too often. I understand why it's in the book so often, but it also just annoyed me.

This is going to seem a little off topic, but I promise it's related.

Season 3 of Buffy is one the best seasons of that show. The writing is solid, the big bad is funny and also terrifying, and the characters are finally fully realized. But it's also the season that people are annoyed by most of the characters – they're melodramatic, unsure of themselves, and there's the whole Willow and Xander smooching thing too that seems out of character for them both. But it's because they're teenagers. Teenagers are, in fact, melodramatic, unsure of themselves, and there's often a messy romantic dynamic or two to contend with.

I pretty much feel like that's the best way to describe this book. I think that there's a bigger story going on, but it's still teenagers finding themselves and being teenagers. For adult readers, this might be really annoying. I found it pretty interesting.

One question: What happened to Nailah?

“There is a Quichua riddle: El que me nombra, me rompe. Whatever names me, breaks me. The solution, your course, is “silence.” But the truth is, anyone who knows your name can break you in two.”

I listened to this while painting a room, and I'm glad I was slightly occupied while hearing someone mirror my own experiences in absolutely beautiful prose. It is heartbreaking, it is honest, it is clever, and it is perfect.

And it is more relatable than I wish it had cause to be.

Having never actually read a romance novel, I wasn't sure what to expect. It was a quick, easy read with some solid romancing going on. 3 stars just because I don't think romance is really for me, but I'm glad I read this.

I wanted to read this book since I shelved it at the library. The cover really draws you in, so well done to the designer.

I borrowed the audibook and quickly checked out the ebook so I could alternate listening and reading. I kept wanting to find out what happened, and I'm not disappointed in the result.

I don't want to spoil the book for anyone, but I will say that we meet Queenie when she's at her lowest point, and then things go even lower. Queenie, to me, was instantly relatable in the way she sought validation from men, distanced herself from her family and friends who would support her, and fought any, much needed, help. This is a story of heartbreak, mental illness, and recovery. And it isn't pretty. The self-destructive behaviors Queenie exhibits are so parallel to my own that I cringed with memories while reading this.

While not for everyone, and potentially triggering for a lot of people, I think anyone who had a hot mess period and a lot of damaged relationships will see a lot of themselves in Queenie, but thankfully her story doesn't end there.

A+ Idea
D- Execution

The premise of this book is really compelling. The first third of the book is really compelling. Evaluating the political, personal, environmental, and religious consequences of curing aging is a really solid idea. Unfortunately, the book quickly devolves into tragedy porn. I read each chapter with this reaction: “Oh, look, someone else dies/something bad happens/the world is gonna end. Great.” So... not super exciting when all the book is ends up being bad stuff happening to one person over and over again (“Hope: A Tragedy” this ain't).

I won't get too far into it... but there's also the problem of the main love interest being there only to be snuffed out to give the main character A Purpose. That's tired. I'm tired.

Not a great book.

Based on some of the reviews I've read, it seems people were disappointed that this wasn't another Full a Frontal Feminism. It's supposed to say something about the movement and feminism... But that would defeat the purpose of Sex Object: A Memoir. It is a memoir, or “is a collection of memories that an individual writes about moments or events, both public or private, that took place in the subject's life.” And, as a memoir, it's powerful. It's honest. It's a real work that helps you understand who Jessica Valenti was, and how she grew into the person she is today. She highlights what's important to her. She tells stories that are, at times, terrifying.

So, as a memoir, I loved it. It's one of the best I've read in the last few years.

Review posted to Bookshelf Bombshells at http://bookshelfbombshells.com/review-more-curious-by-sean-wilsey/

In this collection of essays, Sean Wilsey travels across the United States, recounting stories from Marfa, Texas, to post 9/11 New York City, over to San Francisco, and back again to Marfa. Covering a wide range of topics, More Curious has something written with such style and humor as to entertain anyone. As the McSweeney's Store points out, “These essays—originally published in Vanity Fair, GQ, McSweeney's, and elsewhere—comprise nearly fifteen years of Wilsey's most vital work on the glory and the misery, the beauty and absurdity of contemporary America.”

I have to admit, I had this collection of essays pegged all wrong. Halfway through the first essay, “The Republic of Marfa,” I felt like I was undertaking the long, arduous process of driving across country myself... without any music or books on tape to keep me company. I won't lie, I was bored. After getting out of Marfa, however, this book opened up in a way that kept me entertained and wanting to read more.

Between the essay on skateboarding, “Using So Little,” and the essay on being an American World Cup fan, “The World I Want to Live In,” I was able to find enough gas in my tank to keep driving through to the end of More Curious. In fact, it was “Using So Little” that made me feel like I had completely misjudged More Curious. When Sean Wilsey decides to start writing about what he is most passionate about, in this case his time spent skateboarding and his love of Thrasher magazine, he gives it his all. “Using So Little” is one of the best written pieces in the whole collection; I recommend reading it even if you don't have any interest in the rest of More Curious.

“Some of Them Can Read” is a surprising short and delightful tale about being an expectant father and rats (um, yes, rodent rats) that had me laughing so hard that I dropped the book on my face in bed. Sadly, “Some of Them Can Read” was the only essay that got much of a reaction out of me at all.

While I enjoyed Sean Wilsey's tales of traveling across the country at 45 miles per hour in an old truck with his dog and friend Michael in “Travels with Death,” this collection of essays never felt purpose driven. As a reader, I felt like I, too, was rambling down side roads at 45, aimlessly trying to get somewhere but with no real care as to how quickly it would end. If you like clever and well-written, Sean Wilsey's essays would be a nice grab-it-and-go read for you. This reader, however, needs to be going 70 on the interstate.

Reviewed at Bookshelf Bombshells. :)
http://bookshelfbombshells.com/review-odds-against-tomorrow-by-nathaniel-rich/

Reviewed at (now defunct) Bookshelf Bombshells.
Good thing I'm a digital hoarder.
——

Painted Cities is a collection of short stories about growing up in Pilsen, a south side barrio in Chicago. Getting into it, I was a little worried that Painted Cities would be a variety of different stories about the same thing and that it wouldn't hold my interest. In a way, I was right, since Alexai Galaviz-Budziszewski writes almost solely about growing up in a dangerous barrio populated by gang members, but I was completely captivated by this collection.

Galaviz-Budziszewski's short stories are written in a way that transported me to that time and place. I've never been to the south side of Chicago, and I have no idea what it looks like, but the descriptions of Pilsen gave me a solid mental picture of the neighborhood. In the second story, “1817 S. May,” the narrator explains what his childhood summer days were like—panning for gold at the May Street curb with his sister, which caught on with other kids, and the battles in the neighborhood over which street could get the highest water dome from a fire hydrant. “1817 S. May” begins as a relatively happy exercise in nostalgia but culminates in tragedy. The stories in Painted Cities explain how nonsensical childhood adventures, such as panning for gold in Chicago gutters, can be interrupted with the hardships of these characters' daily lives.

Each story seems so grounded in reality—tales of house fires, drive-by shootings, cousins lost, pubescent misadventures—that I almost skipped over the beautiful magic that is the story “God's Country.” As I finished “God's Country,” I realized that I'd read an entire story about a teenager Spoilerwith the ability to bring the dead back to life without even thinking about it. The writing blended together so well that I hadn't even considered that there wasn't a person in Pilsen with the Spoilerability to bring back dead pigeons. “God's Country” was a nice reminder, to me at least, that good fiction can make you believe anything.

Borrow It: This was a well-written, well-organized, and good collection of short stories, but it lacked something that made me want to finish it quickly. Each story feels complete on its own, so it would be easy to put Painted Cities down and come back to it later.

I think I hate this book.
But then I think that I don't hate this book.
And then I get confused.

I didn't like Cheryl Strayed. I had, and still don't really have, any sympathy for her as a person. Everything that happened to her, aside from her mothers death, was her own fault.

I also think that I'm just not Cheryl. I don't tend to like women like Cheryl – women who are constantly evaluating the men that they're standing near, women who are constantly thinking about sex. That's not me, so I don't understand it.

And still, even though I don't like Cheryl, and can't sympathize with her, I thought this was a pretty solid account of what it's like to undertake a big adventure, expecting that you know what it will be like, and being so horribly wrong. Her descriptions were on point – I felt her blisters, i knew her exhaustion.

This review isn't very helpful. Mostly I'm trying to sort out my own feelings, because I still can't really pinpoint how I feel about this book.

This was, singularly, the most frustrating book I've ever read.

I never write reviews, so I'm just going to list the confusing, frustrating, and annoying aspects of this book.

1. The main character, Ben, does nothing but whine. Everything that happens to him happens around him, not because of him.
2. All of the other characters are as two dimensional as they come. There's the friend that Ben is in love with, Lindsy, who is the Free Spirit. Alison the Lawyer. Chuck the Doctor. and Jack the Actor. Oh, and Jeremy the Child. That's about as interesting as they get.
3. Anything I say about the plot is going to be negative. It had promise, really. But then... THEN! Everything that happens is resolved in the last 70 pages – no consequences, no fall out. Just tied up in a neat little box.
4. For a book that wants to portray how it feels to be nearing 30, it does a poor job of showing that life is not neat and doesn't get wrapped up in the last 70 pages.
5. While I didn't like any of the above aspects of Plan B, it did has brief moments of intense emotional insight. How could someone not appreciate Ben's depressing musings on being close to 30? While all he does is whine, he does it in a profound way.
6. That said, I still hated Ben.

Two stars for a good attempt and some strong emotional reflection. That's about it.

I have to admit, I was a little let down with the Part Three, but not at all let down with the ending. Part Three felt rushed, and I wonder if the author had this ending planned the whole time, and she just want's sure how to get there...

All that said, this is one beautifully written book. Even though I wanted the end to have the same pace as the first two parts, I was still in love with how beautiful it was. There's something to be said for a writer who can make slitting a swan's throat something of beauty.

DNF @ like 5%.

I really like this book, the prose style is interesting, and the stories are lovely and relatable, but I need a break from reminders that human actions are killing everything, sometimes on purpose. I plan on coming back to this, just can't take it right now.