Terri

I enjoyed this, but I felt bad for Zenobia. She's framed as the villain, foiling Ethan and Mattie's love for one another and being a complaining burden. But she's Ethan's wife - he proposed to her simply because he was lonely, not because he loved her - she's trapped in a loveless marriage, poor, and ill with no one who seems to genuinely care for her. If you ask me it felt like a horror story on her part.

I admit that the descriptions of Ethan's feelings for Mattie were romantic, but they were marred by the fact that he was a married man, and his wife's only crime was that he didn't love her.

This is a cute, lighthearted read. The book is comprised of brief biographies of famous men throughout history and their beloved cats, interspersed with equally cute illustrations.

As with all of Jackson's work, I really enjoyed this. It has the same disorienting, unsettling quality that her other stories have, which makes the plot feel like a half-nightmare. I wouldn't shelve it as horror necessarily, it leans more towards gothic in my opinion. Would definitely recommend.

I loved this book. I read it not knowing what it was about and was pleasantly surprised. It's not a quick read, and it's definitely something that I savored. I found myself immersed in the world that Eco had created and was genuinely surprised by the twist at the end. Would definitely recommend and would definitely re-read. A new favorite.

Likely the definitive source of information on the Barometz, aka the Vegetable Lamb of Tartary. The first half of the book dives into the origins of the legend, along with possible explanations for it and various mentions of it throughout history.

The second half of the book covers the history of cotton - the origin of the myth - and I found it to be less relevant to the research I'm doing, so I wasn't as interested.

There is also a detailed Appendix containing quotes, sources, and brief biographies.

This is an excellent anthology of work from the Decadents and their predecessors. It's split into sections based on theme (Artifice, Intoxication, Spirituality, and Death) and contains a mix of poetry, short stories and excerpts from novels, and essay style writing from a wide range of authors. I'd recommend this to anyone interested in the Decadent movement, or literature in general. Definitely something worth re-reading and exploring in depth.

This is a brief, calm memoir with a sense of humor and many nuggets of wisdom. Regardless of your pursuits, this is a good read. You don't have to be a runner or a writer to get something out of this. Would recommend.

This is honestly one of the best - if not the best - collection of short stories that I've ever read. Every story felt like a feverish dream, the kind you wake up from feeling unsettled without knowing exactly why. My favorites were Beautiful Stranger; The Bus; Louisa, Please Come Home, The Summer People; and The Rock - though every story was impressive in its own right.

This was a very cute romance. Personally I'm not a fan of the sex scenes, so I just skipped over them, but everything else was great. The romance was cute, the characters were likeable, and it was generally just a nice fun read. Would definitely recommend, and if you're not into the sex parts it's easy to skip over them because they're condensed to one chapter.

This is a brief, easy read. Much of it reads as court gossip; it's definitely not an insider look at how Lebrun honed her craft as the focus is more on the relationships she formed and the events she lived through. She recollects her youth (briefly), the beginnings of her career and marriage, and the interactions and relationships she formed with French, Russian, and English aristocracy and royalty during her celebrated career.

I felt that the translation was well done, I can't speak for how accurate it was but it never felt stuffy and it maintained my interest.

I would recommend this to anyone interested in Lebrun's work or French history in general.

I almost didn't finish this but I wanted to know what all the fuss was about regarding the ending. Honestly the ending wasn't so much shocking as it was pulled out of nowhere and it felt as though it was tossed in haphazardly. I sped-read through most of it because there was too much fluff, and too many red-herrings.

Once again, Shirley Jackson proves to be the master of unsettling atmospheres. From the beginning there's an aura of anxiety, reminiscent of a Lynch film - where everything is realistic but something is not quite right.

There were too many characters to keep track of, all with similar names, but I think that was intentional. Much of what went on seemed intended to create confusion and unease, and it was successful.

Would recommend, and looking forward to reading more of Jackon's work.

Despite being a brief read, I spent a little longer reading this than I would've mainly because it was so well-written and every paragraph held nuggets of wisdom. At this point, a lot of what Franklin wrote and said has become well-known, but I still found bits and pieces that were unfamiliar to me.

I'd recommend this to anyone interested in personal growth, or history in general. It's an easy, approachable read.

That being said, I would be mindful of the context in which it was written as there are many areas of the text that don't age well.

Read this completely by chance from a library ebook recommendation and very glad I did. The writing style is playful, easy to become immersed in - which I was, from the beginning - and every character is vibrant and well defined.

My only qualm was that I found Fanny more interesting than Linda, and wished that the story centered more around her.

Would recommend, and would re-read.

I found a few of the essays irrelevant to my tastes, but for the most part I enjoyed these essays. Wilde: Paradox and Aphorism, On Style, and How I Write were my favorites. I may return to these in the future once I've read more of the texts that are referenced.

A very brief read, comprised mainly of what are now very well-known quotes. “Early to bed and early to rise, makes a man healthy, wealthy, and wise”, etc.

I received a free digital ARC from the publisher via Netgalley in exchange for an honest and unbiased review

This is a strong collection of essays. It took me a while to make my way through them, but there were only a handful that I skipped (mainly because the subject matter just didn't interest me).

The essays are arranged chronologically and touch upon various topics, including politics, sociology, food, art, pop culture, and literature.

Essays included:

- James Agee, The Nation: Democratic Vistas (1945)
- Reinhold Niebuhr, Humor and Faith (1946)
- George F. Kennan, The Sources of Soviet Conduct (1947)
- Edmund Wilson, Paul Rosenfeld: Three Phases (1947)
- Walter Lippmann, The Dilemma of Liberal Democracy (1947)
- Robert Warshow, The Gangster as Tragic Hero (1948)
- Harold Rosenberg, The Herd of Independent Minds (1948)
- Robert K. Merton, The Self-Fulfilling Prophecy (1948)
- Leslie Fiedler, Come Back To the Raft Ag'in, Huck Honey! (1948)
- James Baldwin, Stranger in the Village (1953)
- Mary McCarthy, Artists in Uniform (1953)
- Irving Howe, This Age of Conformity (1954)
- E. B. White, Sootfall and Fallout (1956)
- Vladimir Nabokov, On a Book Entitled Lolita (1956)
- Saul Bellow, The University as Villain (1957)
- Lionel Trilling, The Last Lover (1958)
- A. J. Liebling, A Good Appetite (1959)
- Seymour Krim, Making It! (1959)
- Elizabeth Hardwick, Boston (1959)
- Flannery O'Connor, Some Aspects of the Grotesque in Southern Fiction (1960)
- John Updike, Hub Fans Bid Kid Adieu (1960)
- Randall Jarrell, A Sad Heart at the Supermarket (1960)
- Clement Greenberg, Modernist Painting, (1961)
- Rachel Carson, The Obligation to Endure (1962)
- Norman Mailer, An Evening With Jackie Kennedy (1962)
- Martin Luther King, Jr., Letter from Birmingham Jail (1963)
- Philip Roth, Writing About Jews (1963)
- Susan Sontag, Notes on “Camp” (1964)
- Richard Hofstadter, The Paranoid Style in American Politics (1964)
- Paul Goodman, The Universal Trap (1964)
- Tom Wolfe, The Girl of the Year (1964)
- Edwin Denby, Dancers, Buildings and People in the Streets (1965)
- N. Scott Momaday, The Way to Rainy Mountain (1969)
- Gore Vidal, The Twenty-Ninth Republican Convention (1969)
- Albert Murray, The Blues Idiom and the Mainstream (1970)
- Loren Eiseley, One Night's Dying (1970)
- Edward Hoagland, Home is Two Places (1970)
- Joan Didion, On The Morning After The Sixties (1970)

I had no idea what to expect when I started this book, but was pleasantly surprised. While at first Botchan seems comically and frustratingly cantankerous, his honest nature eventually won me over. It's a brief read, but it has a great sense of humor and a satisfying ending.

I received a free digital ARC from the publisher via Netgalley in exchange for an honest and unbiased review

There's a potential for coziness in this book, and something almost comforting about the repetition in Mortimer's diary entries. However, I was very close to not finishing this book. If I hadn't been reading it for Netgalley, I would have set it aside a few chapters in.

The narration style is verbose, the main character - Mortimer - is bland, pretentious, and unlikeable, and the supporting characters equally so. All of this would be easy to overlook or accept if there were a plot, yet nothing of note happens. I'm all for books where there's no real plot, where the atmosphere of the book is the whole experience, but this wasn't one of those.

That being said, it's likely that I was just not the target audience for this book.

This is a well-written and very cute romance, I just could've done without the detailed descriptions of balls etc.

I had heard amazing things about this book, which is probably why it fell short for me. I found Noemí to be unlikeable and lacking in basic common sense (which seems to be a pattern in mystery/horror/thriller novels lately), and I found myself skimming through the second half of the book as I had already picked up on the twist early on.

It took me a while to get into the flow of this book, the majority of it reads like the self-important ramblings of someone recalling a story you didn't ask them for - but that's the point. By the end of it, however, I was intrigued and I don't regret reading it. The story was well-crafted, and I felt satisfied with the ending.Not as good as [b:Never Let Me Go 6334 Never Let Me Go Kazuo Ishiguro https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1353048590l/6334.SY75.jpg 1499998] in my opinion, but still worthy of a read.

Nosy main character utterly lacking in common sense and a “twist” so predictable and cartoonish that it was almost insulting. Finished this only because it was a quick read (i.e easy to skim)Won't be reading any more by Riley Sager, [b:Home Before Dark 50833559 Home Before Dark Riley Sager https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1571683410l/50833559.SX50_SY75.jpg 73695354] wasn't as bad as this one but it still felt like a waste of time. Word of advice: maybe trusting a random stranger just because he's hot and rich isn't the wisest idea????

Much like the second in the series, Ripley's Game lacks the mystery and charm that [b:The Talented Mr. Ripley 2247142 The Talented Mr. Ripley (Ripley, #1) Patricia Highsmith https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1634841836l/2247142.SX50.jpg 1817520] had, and therefore the magic. Tom Ripley has been reduced to an almost cartoonish side character in this story, and gets dangerously close to becoming unlikable. The story took a while to build up steam, but if approached as an independent mystery/thriller and not a true Ripley story, it was enjoyable in its own right. I'd recommend it to anyone who wants an easy thriller read.

[b:The Talented Mr. Ripley 2247142 The Talented Mr. Ripley (Ripley, #1) Patricia Highsmith https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1634841836l/2247142.SX50.jpg 1817520] is one of my favorite books, and I was doubtful that anything could top it (or compare to it) when starting the second in the series. Ripley Under Ground is a high quality thriller in its own right, but compared to the original it falls short. After getting to know the character of Tom Ripley, the series of events that takes place in Ripley Under Ground feels less realistic for the character.Still, I enjoyed it, and Highsmith does an amazing job of describing the aesthetically rich life of Ripley and his peers. It was good enough for me to feel confident in continuing the rest of the series.