freddie's reviews
295 reviews

What I like about this is that it doesn't try to be pretentious or literary and relies on simple language to maximize the emotional punch. The book is full of superb and dreamy imagery.

Drama drama! The Sound and the Fury is what happens when members of a family just think about themselves and hold on way too tightly to certain values. It's a lovely read!

Nice writing on mental illness, self-harm, trauma, and abuse. Unfortunately, it feels a little bit too bloated with less relevant background information - and that takes away a bit of the emotional punch and leaves me a bit physically tired.

For the most part the book has done a decent job of keeping my interest afloat and I thought perhaps the best I'd give it would be a 4-star rating. Then came the ending and I had to gasp dramatically (I gasped inside of course - I was reading this at the office). This book makes you feel uncomfortable with the settings and annoyed / infuriated with its characters. It shows the violence during the time of Partition in the history of India / Pakistan. The story details how people act when faced with uncertainty, fear, and helplessness - which is pretty much what I look for in a war fiction.

This novel has a distinct voice - it makes the experience so immersive yet special. This is a story about Janie who has to go through two awful marriages before finding true love, but I just love how Janie as a person grows in this book and despite everything (shitty) that happens in the story, this book comes across as inspiring and beautiful.

A decent 3.5/5-star read. Zohra is a young woman from the countryside who works as a housekeeper at a pension called Miramar in 1960s Alexandria, Egypt. During her time working there, five men lodge at the pension, including some douchy, thirsty young men. Drama ensues, naturally. This book has so much testosterone, I can't even...! It's frustrating to read about many of the male characters in this book because they each carry, to varied degrees, some patriarchal ideas on what Zohra should be or do, but I suppose that discomfort is kinda the point.

Reading this book was an incredible experience! I intentionally read this book slowly (1 chapter per day; there are 38 chapters altogether) and I felt very much immersed in the story. There is so much heart in this book and character motivations are very well-explored. The novel is a nice domestic fiction with strong social commentary (particularly concerning class differences and struggles) and psychological fiction angles.

There are so many horrible and screwed-up things in this book, I feel so uncomfortable. Pecola has so much internalized self-loathing and she is still a child! Safe to say, this is not a cozy read.

Audiobook!

The story moves at a nice pace and is cozy. It reads like a nice weekend TV movie. I did struggle with the form of the novel, but it was likely because I was not used to it, and I became more comfortable with it as I progressed.

An anthology-style collection of urban fantasy short stories held together by an interstitial narrative about a crow that brings stories (that we read) in exchange for pizzas. I love the metafictional feel that the pizza narrative frame gives, although I would've liked to have a little more development with the interstitial pizza story. The tone of the individual stories appears to go towards the direction of black comedy injected with some cosmic horror / irony - which I like.

Thanks to the author for giving me a free copy of the book!