avieherman's reviews
104 reviews

The writing quality was was you’d expect, not stellar and with little levity, but solid and with a strong voice. 

It was a fascinating look behind the curtain and a nuanced telling of a complex family dynamic. 

It didn’t go completely in depth on the family issues and at times there was more “telling” than “showing”, but it still felt very candid and real and I appreciated the line Duggar walked between sharing her truth and maintaining her boundaries. I also appreciate that this book was published in the midst of ongoing family conflict/attempting resolution. I wonder how the book was received, how this informed the ending and how it would differ if it were written in another 5 years/how the dynamic will continue to evolve.

The writing felt a little stuffy and there wasn’t a ton of forward momentum. 

The author painted a strong picture which made the loss of Chawton resonate, but the book felt longer than it had to be. I only kept reading because I wanted to see how she lost Chawton, tried to leave her past behind and then came back to her heritage — an expectation that was set in then intro and then met. The final chapters were the most Jane-Austen-centric, which was what I wanted from the book, but it felt like it turned into a promotion for the author’s charitable organization — notably, the publisher seems to be the author’s own company. 

It was an interesting read, but a bit slow and would have benefited from a stronger narrative arch.

Enjoyable and enlightening. I skipped the chapter on her suicide attempt. I appreciated her candour and insight. 

I loved the thread of the Hero's Journey throughout this entertaining and thought-provoking essay collection.

I loved this book at the time and filled it with sticky notes, but I don't remember a single thing about it, aside from that. 

This and Book Lovers are my top Emily Henry books. I liked that it was subversive and meta. Light, not literary, but still thoughtful and well-written.

 It ends as expected and wrapped up a little too quickly to be super satisfying.

The meta aspects about the process of writing and the ideas of romance vs literary fiction and happy endings vs not were amazing and I liked the characters. I wasn’t as delighted by the witty banter as I was with Book Lovers. There were times I could tell I was supposed to be witty, but it fell a little flat for me.

Overall I really enjoyed it. 

I rarely read male writers, but I quite enjoyed this book. 

I liked the idea of the structure, where the story is revealed in snippets, with shifting perspectives through a limited 3rd person narrator, mixed with police interview transcripts. It was kind of effective thematically, but I felt that it stunted the pace of the story and made the book feel like it was much longer than it was. I almost would have preferred keeping it from the police POV and having the reader uncover the story at the same time as the police and also, I'm not sure that would have worked either. 

I enjoyed the writing, it was refreshing to read such strong writing, I haven't read good, contemporary literary fiction in a while. 

I liked the themes, especially this idea of how slippery language and symbols can be -- I loved the scenes where two characters were having essentially two different conversations or when they kept missing the point, turning the very idea of communication on its head. 

I liked the twists at the end and how (spoiler-ish) everything wrapped up so neatly at the end. It's so nice to read literary fiction that handles dark subject matter and yet, wraps up so optimistically.

I loved the symbolism behind the picture of the monkey, frog and elk and how no one could properly interpret it. And I loved the thing with Zara's letter -- we can hold the answer the whole time, but might need someone else's help to see it.

This book made me feel how fucked and wonderful the world can be.