I think that most will either love or hate this. I thought it was awesome.

Finally getting around to reading this. Fun Fact: I'm a Quaker!

Short and bittersweet. Highly recommend.

After a ridiculous length of time, I've finally finished it and am off to read something frivolous because this entire book was a well-written series of intriguing blows delivered directly to my feelings gut. I'm overwhelmed, mostly in a good way.

I really enjoyed this; it reads a lot like the better aspects of Bret Easton Ellis and Francesca Lia Block. Definitely not for everyone, though, as the prose is frequently tangled, the story is jumbled, and apparently most of Litsy hates writing in the present tense.

I and the public know
What all schoolchildren learn,
Those to whom evil is done
Do evil in return.

-Auden

A timely meditation on war, terrorism, morality, revenge, and justice.

When you take a bunch of books to sell in an effort to downsize but there are so many good therapy books that you go for trade credit instead and accept that you will never experience a net loss of books short of a natural disaster occurring.

When you're pretty excited about #botm

I loved this one! It was so funny and heartfelt without being saccharine or sentimental. I also think it portrayed adolescent mental health concerns very realistically. 👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻

Posting my #junereads! I've been super busy lately because I'm moving, so it was a pretty light month. A Million June's was my favorite, with Optimists Die First as a close second.

I really liked this one; it was informs without being dry, and I really liked the way Shroder arranged the narratives. My only criticism, as a clinician, is that I wish he'd devoted more space to the experiences of survivors of sexual violence and child abuse, both of which cause PTSD at substantially higher rates than combat. Such cases often involve greater clinical complexity and secondary trauma.

"All the good things in the world shouldn't make up for the best thing we had but lost."

Really good, but grim and brutal. Not entirely sure how I feel about it.

Giving this one a 4/5, because while it was interesting and engaging, the way Klosterman presented some issues (like ❄️?) was pretty cringey ?. As was all the ableist language; the constant use of "idiot/idiotic" didn't sit right with me. ??‍♀️

I'd blame the generation gap but I know too many Xers who know better. So maybe Klosterman is one of those smart, funny dudes you mostly like but still want to whack upside the head when he's ignorant.

I wanted to like this more than I did. It was a decent story, but the execution, especially the pacing, left a lot to be desired. I also wasn't a fan of the abruptness of the ending, though I suppose it was thematically fitting.

The other day, I told my dad that I like reading novellas because it's fun to see how deep a story a writer can unravel in under 200 pages. This one scarred me for life in under 150. I can't say anything else without spoiling it, but yeah. Definitely worth reading.

Weirdly wonderful.

SB++

An annoying narrative voice is always a risky choice, and I didn't feel it. Maybe it's because I'm too easily irked by that, or maybe my job led me to find the character's psychiatric dysfunctions so distracting that I couldn't get into it because I kept trying to nail down a diagnosis. My theory: schizoid personality disorder.

I thought I would like this more than I did. The pace was plodding, the narration was tedious. I never thought a story about divorce and murder could be so banal, yet here we are.

tl;dr: everything is terrible, western hegemony and white people are probably going to cause the apocalypse, and I am once again vindicated in my (leftist) disdain for Democrats' foreign policy. Accessible and a good jumping-off point for anyone looking to see beyond the received narrative of The Way The World Is.

1. Asheville, NC
2. The Virgin Suicides by Jeffrey Eugenides
3. Harry Potter
4. Great Expectations
5. Jessica Jones
6. Veruca Salt
7. Green
8. Literary fiction and non-fiction
9. Various high schools
10. A calico cat named Marceline😻

This was excellent. I'm going to gift it to one of my more philosophically inclined clients and get a hardcover edition for my library.

Reading with cats is frequently difficult.

My Friday night is LIT...sy. Liking this one a lot so far!

TFW you make it halfway through a book but it takes forever and it's due back at the library but you really want to finish it soooooo....Chapter 14. Will resume later.

This was hilarious and awesome and wonderful. I know Lockwood is primarily a poet, but I really hope she writes a novel or two one day. Definitely read this one!

I loved the story and the way all the pieces came together at the end.

When your workout clothes and reading material have an eerie synchronicity. Really loved this one, though I've had Gasoline (Halsey) stuck in my head for hours thanks to it. Favorite quote: "Everyone gets a major in evil just by being alive."

May #tbr! Some repeats from April because I wound up not reading as much as I thought I would. Anyway! Really excited about these.

Really excited about my May box! #botm

#readathon totals:

-9 completed books
-1 half-finished book
- 1,839 pages
-many snacks
-0 chores

The History of White People is the only one I didn't finish. There were a few others that I didn't get to, but overall, it was a great success!

I really enjoyed this; Morrison's novels are always so emotional and enlightening. Probably the last book for this #readathon.

Weird but good. A nice, short read.

Really weird, but also really good! Another #readathon book!

Very good, overall. Liked the disjointed format, did not like the ending.

#readathon hour 7. Loving this one so far!

#readathon lunch and my favorite book so far! Loved the unconventional formatting and raw emotion. Read this, y'all. Seriously.

#readathon book 2. This was AMAZING! Hilarious and brilliant. Definitely buying a copy for my library.

Also in the vein of my other commentaries on classical works: everyone in Ancient Greece was an asshole, which explains a lot about Western Civilization. Just saying.

first #readathon finish! Very atmospheric and enjoyable. Loved the ending.

So good. So very good. I'm not usually a fan of the interconnected short stories thing, but it worked well in the context of depicting civil unrest and its aftermath over the course of two decades. I'm kinda surprised the rating on here is so low!

I am SO EXCITED about the #readathon tomorrow! I chose lots of short books this year. I got majorly bogged down last time and wound up not finishing because of it. Short books for short attention spans. #adhd

It took me an ungodly amount of time to slog my way through this, and it wasn't worth it at all. Way too psychoanalytic for my taste and sorely lacking in evidence beyond the anecdotal. It's not the 19th century anymore.

Not even past the introduction and this book is already kicking ass and taking names. "These are problems that can't and won't be solved by marketplace feminism." #feminism

The atmosphere in this book is amazing and wonderful.

I am full of mimosas and FEELINGS. This book left me gutted, but in a mostly good way.

So much this, and a big part of why I don't participate in online discussions much these days. I just don't have the time, energy, or desire to spend on convincing random internet men that their opinions are not equivalent to my formal education or professional experience.

I'm glad I behaved so reasonably at the library today...🙄 Really looking forward to these, though!

I never knew that dry writing could render such an interesting topic so unbelievably boring. I was so excited to read this, but it turned into an interminable slog and I wound up skimming the last several chapters. Meh. At least I learned a few things.

Happy Friday, y'all!