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unabridgedchick's reviews
1395 reviews
Life in the Garden by Penelope Lively
lighthearted
reflective
slow-paced
1.0
Such a disappointing read (listen in my case, but the audiobook reader wasn't the issue here). I love Lively's novels but found this book so ... meh in the better places and disappointingly (lazily) xenophobic (by Lively's own admission) and colonialist. She cheers for the US-based pioneers who imported their gardening mores without acknowledging either the harm of importing plants nor the very real use of the land by indigenous and Native peoples already in the US. Later, she acknowledges that the rural wildlife have more right to be in her garden since she is the interloper, which is nice but also ... apply that to people? She extols the 'universal' regard for English gardens before briefly admitting Japanese gardens are well known -- then she makes a throwaway pronouncement that 'those' gardens aren't 'real' gardens. Her observations on non-British gardeners was ... I didn't notice anything overtly racist but her focus on whether someone was British descent or not when working with her or at their allotment felt icky.
Content Warnings
Minor: Xenophobia and Colonisation
Intercepted by Alexa Martin
lighthearted
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.0
Freshwater by Akwaeke Emezi
challenging
dark
emotional
sad
tense
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
The Kaiju Preservation Society by John Scalzi
adventurous
funny
lighthearted
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
4.0
The Last Hero by Linden A. Lewis
adventurous
dark
emotional
inspiring
reflective
sad
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
Offshore by Penelope Fitzgerald
emotional
reflective
sad
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
1.0
A truly agonizing read. My second Fitzgerald, with The Blue Flower being the first. (Loathed it, too.) Despite my affection for vague, artsy, rambling books, Fitzgerald's narrative style just doesn't hit me right. Reading her gives me the same frustration I get watching a John Sayles film: being dropped into the middle of things and leaving without resolution doesn't give me anything but a headache.
Picked this up only because of Read Harder 2022 (an award winning book from the year you were born); this seemed the best of a bunch of meh options (Dreamsnake, The Year of the French, Gloriana, and The Great Gilly Hopkins).
This took me nearly a month to read but I still feel like I was missing whole swathes of story.Did Nenna and Richard sleep together? Did Maurice and Edward die? Did Martha and Heinrich sleep together? And then in between puzzling whether shit happened, we observed meaningless stuff, like boats sinking and truant kids being rude to adults, a slice of 1970s London -- an era I don't enjoy anyway. My takeaway of boat life is that it's damp and grimy and does a number on your marriage. Or maybe people need to consider their spouse before buying a boathouse? Anyway, this book is stupid/too fancy for me.
Picked this up only because of Read Harder 2022 (an award winning book from the year you were born); this seemed the best of a bunch of meh options (Dreamsnake, The Year of the French, Gloriana, and The Great Gilly Hopkins).
This took me nearly a month to read but I still feel like I was missing whole swathes of story.
Matrix by Lauren Groff
emotional
informative
inspiring
reflective
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
I love stories about nuns and forgotten women of history, so a Lauren Groff novel about Marie de France seemed a no brainer. And it was great -- totally captivating -- but such an extended fancy I'm baffled why Groff picked Marie de France to be the figure at the heart of the story.
As a novel about medieval, 12th century monastic life for women, it's brilliant. Groff's narrative style -- a kind of wooden, present-tense, third person that ends up suiting the story, with the rigidity and distance from us in time -- paints vibrantly what life at this once blessed-or-bewitched convent would be like. How a smart, ambitious woman might make lemonade out of lemons. But to imagine it would be how the historical Marie de France -- a figure so unknown to us that scholars can't agree who it might be -- ended up living her life felt a bit like a bait and switch. Marie de France's poetry figures in quite early in the story, and then disappears completely; the rich story that unfolds could genuinely have figured for anyone especially since it articulates the history of a royal abbey we never learn the name of, an abbey that grows to mythic grandeur that it too can't be truly historical.
Still, I liked this book, especially when I stopped trying to search for a poet and lyricist in the pages. I adore novels of nuns and convents, of mystics and abbesses, and this joined the list of those books. An easy read, mostly, with passages tangled and rich with images.
As a novel about medieval, 12th century monastic life for women, it's brilliant. Groff's narrative style -- a kind of wooden, present-tense, third person that ends up suiting the story, with the rigidity and distance from us in time -- paints vibrantly what life at this once blessed-or-bewitched convent would be like. How a smart, ambitious woman might make lemonade out of lemons. But to imagine it would be how the historical Marie de France -- a figure so unknown to us that scholars can't agree who it might be -- ended up living her life felt a bit like a bait and switch. Marie de France's poetry figures in quite early in the story, and then disappears completely; the rich story that unfolds could genuinely have figured for anyone especially since it articulates the history of a royal abbey we never learn the name of, an abbey that grows to mythic grandeur that it too can't be truly historical.
Still, I liked this book, especially when I stopped trying to search for a poet and lyricist in the pages. I adore novels of nuns and convents, of mystics and abbesses, and this joined the list of those books. An easy read, mostly, with passages tangled and rich with images.
Content Warnings
Minor: Animal death and Sexual assault
It Will End Like This by Kyra Leigh
dark
sad
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
I was grumpy this morning so picked this up -- and ended up inhaling it in a few hours. I'm horrifascinated by Lizzie Borden, despite my typical aversion to true crime, and I love retellings and imaginings of how things might have unfolded.
This one, a contemporary thriller set in Falls River, MA, echoes the Borden murders late in the story; the majority of the story details the fallout of a tragedy and its impact on a family. A family that has to deal with dishonesty that stretches further than anyone wants to admit. In that, it's a solid story of grief and denial and being a teenager under extraordinary emotional circumstances; even without the Borden homage, I was stressed about how things would shake out.
Oh, the end. I had some ideas about how it would go but I was still shook by some of what happened -- for whatever reason, I was most betrayed byStephen, even though he featured so little in the story. The cruelty of it, I think.
Read this when it's cold and gray outside so the world matches the mood.
This one, a contemporary thriller set in Falls River, MA, echoes the Borden murders late in the story; the majority of the story details the fallout of a tragedy and its impact on a family. A family that has to deal with dishonesty that stretches further than anyone wants to admit. In that, it's a solid story of grief and denial and being a teenager under extraordinary emotional circumstances; even without the Borden homage, I was stressed about how things would shake out.
Oh, the end. I had some ideas about how it would go but I was still shook by some of what happened -- for whatever reason, I was most betrayed by
Read this when it's cold and gray outside so the world matches the mood.
Sewing Happiness: A Year of Simple Projects for Living Well by Sanae Ishida
informative
inspiring
reflective
relaxing
medium-paced
4.0