If the book had been told from Lucy Grey's POV, it might have been better. Not knowing every terrible thought Snow has would be a plus, and would make his actions shocking and far more interesting.

Another idea would have been to start the book with Snow's parents' deaths when he was much younger. Maybe that could have built that empathy connection.

Overall this was spectacularly average. Would not recommend.

It‘s delightful when my favorite show is randomly mentioned in the book I‘m reading. #LOST (I 🩷 time travel stuff.)

Happy #Independentbookstoreday 📚

Would have done 3.5 starts if GR would allow it.... While the personal aspects of the author's experiences and the minutiae of security guard life at the NYC Met were nicely explored, the discussions of the art itself were sometimes a tad overwritten. Still, I'm visiting the Met this summer for the first time, and I'll be thinking of this book while I'm there.

Once upon a time, Chloe Brown died. #firstlinefriday

At #30 (even though I'm skipping some), these are starting to feel repetitive. Mary Anne took three entire chapters just to explain to the reader who everyone is, what their function is in the club, and key things that have happened to every character all along the series. If someone is picking up a book at #30 in a series and they are confused as to what's going on, that is on them. We don't need all the exposition.

I read this bc I am going to NYC for the first time this year, and the Dakota/Strawberry Fields is high on my list of places to check out.

I loved reading about the design/building of the Dakota and how barren the area around the building was at that time. Little historical touches like Nellie Bly's investigation of Blackwell's Island and the arrival of the Statue of Liberty helped to fill things out. I enjoyed the story from the 1980s as well.

My April Feminist Book Club box came early! Happy National Poetry Month! 🌹

If you are a Beatles/Paul McCartney fan--and I do mean "FAN," not "casual listener, I enjoy their music sometimes"--and if you are seriously intrigued by sentences such as "On Monday, October 23, 1972, Live and Let Die was mastered at EMI Studios and given the matrix number 7YCE.21722," this book is for you! And me.

What I did NOT like: There are no captions on any of the photos, so sometimes I had no idea who was in the pic or what was going on

After I got used to the quirks of Mantel's writing along with the fact that every other person in the book is either named Thomas or Mary, I was way more into this book than I ever thought I'd be. Especially considering that it's history, and I already knew what was going to happen. "Omg, will Anne Boleyn become queen?? What is going to happen to Thomas More??" I'm excited to read the second one in the trilogy.

This book is not about John Laroche, the "thief" in the title. He shows up a few times. But he is by no means the focus. Orlean goes to Florida, meets a lot of quirky orchid-obsessed collectors, learns about shady real estate deals and the exploitation of native people, and absolutely does not EVER, not one single time, EVER see a ghost orchid. Not one. Sorry if that's a spoiler, but I would have liked to have known this going in.

I don‘t know how to review this fever dream. I read it in one go, couldn‘t put it down. Five million stars.

Provocative & captivating, I could not put it down. Tsai is a welcome breath of fresh air for me...this book entertained me while forcing me to crowbar my brain open a little. The science was also convincing to me as a layperson. One caveat: If you haven't read Frankenstein, read that one first. I don't think you'll get as much out of it otherwise.

Angie Thomas is so incredible. She has a way of making her teen characters so relatable & deep—even for this middle-aged person. (And how great are her adult characters?) A solid ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ read for this extraordinary book.

This is a solid 3.5-star read for me. It was...good. An absorbing, enjoyable insulated neighborhood domestic thriller. It kept me turning the pages and wanting to know what was going to happen. I did not like the first-person flashbacks; I thought that was messy and unnecessary. I would read more by this author.

Book 2 in the middle-grade Finding Langston series. While it is easy to dislike Lymon in book 1, this installment forces us to ask the question: Why does Lymon bully Langston the way he does? What made Lymon so mean? These novels are compelling and have such complicated depth of feeling...the perfect examples to show people when they ask me why I bother reading middle-grade.

When I was a kid (a long time ago, actually Ramona is only around six years older than I am), I had a few of the Ramona books. And although I read them over and over, and loved them, and sort of vaguely knew there were more in the series, I never sought out the rest of them. I'm fixing that oversight now, filling in the gaps in my Ramona reading. These books are classics. Cleary has a way of bringing back exactly what a 1970s childhood was like.

My Black History Month stack. Let‘s see how many of these I get through.

Super strong short story collection. Bizarre, surreal, horror-dark fantasy-feminist satire. Every story is ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️…hard to do!

New book day!

This book confused me. I think it was supposed to be funny, but instead I found it mean-spirited and tone-deaf. I wanted more of 2015 Rae reflecting on her younger self with some growth, but there is none of that.

Stormy night=reading night ☔️📖

Jessi is my favorite BSC character, and I enjoyed the Swan Lake audition storyline (it spoke to my 5th grade ballet-obsessed past self), but the child actor storyline was pretty weak. I did appreciate how they both came together at the end and there was character growth for Jessi.

DNFing at 72pgs. Our main character walking around NYC thinking about his life is not doing it for me.

I enjoyed the parts of this book that were more memoir-ish, with Lewis discussing his job at Salomon Bros. The chapters actually outlining bond sales and other Wall Street stuff were pretty dry.

I enjoyed the parts of this book that were more memoir-ish, with Lewis discussing his job at Salomon Bros. The chapters actually outlining bond sales and other Wall Street stuff were pretty dry.

I bought this comic way back in 2018 when it was sold to raise funds for hurricane-decimated Puerto Rico. And I just now read it. So for charity, I give it a million stars. But viewing it as simply a comic collection...it is uneven, as any collection from various contributors is bound to be. But I learned so much about Puerto Rico's history, of which I knew almost nothing. Tbh, I didn't even know where PR was on a map. I had to google it. 🤦‍♀️

A beautiful genre-busting historical fiction/fantasy/alternate universe story. What would the world look like if a lot of women sometimes just...turned into dragons? There is a lot of darkness in this book, but also so much joy. It is absurd and remarkably poignant, and I loved it.

This is the 1816 novella that the classic Christmas ballet is based on. There are significant differences between the story and the ballet, not the least of which the main character is not Clara, but Maria. Clara is merely one of Maria's dolls. This story is weird and dark in that special way only early 19th-century German kid lit has. Also, how old is Maria supposed to be? So confusing.

Cute picture book of the day #LibraryWork

Thank you, Rachel! I love your shop and the blind books I‘ve ordered! 😘 #TheBookishCouple

I love Feminist Book Club subscription box delivery day! This month‘s theme is Joy. ☺️

Well...this was a book that I read. It was a fast and easy read, or I may not have finished it. Gross sexualized violence against women. Parker is an unlikeable sociopath. But this is a classic pulp crime series, and I'm hoping it gets better? Maybe?

DNFing at 78%. I was hoping I would finally get into the groove and see clearly exactly what the author was trying to say. But this is the most horrifying story of casual cruelty and graphic violence (for both humans and animals) I have ever read, and I‘m not interested in continuing. Plot is minimal. Zero sympathetic characters. (I also have zero idea why this ended up on my TBR. 🤷‍♀️.

Does anyone know if there‘s a way to delete someone‘s comment on your post? For the first time ever on Litsy, I have someone saying something not-so-nice on one of my posts. ☹️

So this was kinda weird I guess. A sexy lady zombie, a sexy lady ghost, multiple sexy lady vampires. Oh and also boys are in it. I think this might be the kind of thing that gets better the more you read and the more you get attached to the characters. And maybe after the discovery of exactly what happened to Gwen and how she became a zombie. I'll pick up the second one at some point.

In the beginning of this book, I wasn't sure how relevant it would be. The first chapter is dense with stats and I just wasn't sure if those numbers were at all applicable in 2022. But when I hit the second chapter, I realized that very little has changed for women in America. The section on abortion rights was particularly bizarre to read, realizing that American women in 1991 had MORE reproductive rights than we currently do. It's so depressing.

Sweet personal stories and essays by Australian writers about the books that formed their writing lives.

Starting this one. #morningreads

I think this book of romance short stories would be perfect for a hardcore romance fan. I like romance, but not any more or less than any other genre, and by the halfway point of this book, I was feeling some romance fatigue. But the stories are retellings of myths, many of which I had never heard of, so that was pretty cool. The author is skilled and her banter is great. And most of the stories have happy endings.

I bought a pulpy paperback style edition of this book at a used bookstore, and I was excited for some cheesy pulpy style murder mystery 1950s action. Alas. Even with the cult bad guys and crazed reefer addicts and the creepy mountain mansion, there are really very few spinsters actually in jeopardy, and the book is entirely boring. If it had been any longer, I wouldn't have finished it.

Although this pop neuroscience book is fast-paced and entertaining, it's too reductive and generalizing. I had to side-eye Eagleman's statement that all men are sexually attracted to women with giant pupils. Many men aren't attracted to women at all, no matter how sexy AF her magnificently enormous pupils are. And I reject his statement that free will does not exist.

Morning read

Bought this one in a used-book store in Chico, CA because the title cracked me up. 1961 paperback mystery, New Zealander author, pubbed in 1954. It‘s the 17th in a series, which I usually don‘t start with (oops!), but I‘m doing it.

I was hoping this would have more humor and winks at the reader, something like Pride & Prejudice & Zombies. But nope. It's just a straight horror retelling of Oliver Twist. Ho hum.

Cute picture book of the day

Excited for book club tonight. It‘s our first in-person meeting in…I don‘t even know how long! 📚

#cutepicturebookoftheday

#cutepicturebookoftheday

My new staff pick