I struggled so hard to get through this one. It’s supposed to be the epitome of magical realism and generational epics, but I was entirely unimpressed. The most common theme in the novel is pedophilia, which fortunately isn’t my thing. And I guess the secondary theme was incestual pedophilia. I was going through my sparse […]

I appreciate the premise… kids are cloned for the sole purpose of donating their organs for naturally born humans, and we follow their journey from school to death. I suppose the kids’ origin and purpose is supposed to be a huge twist to the novel, but I had already watched the movie years ago (which […]

I had high hopes for On Chesil Beach since Ian McEwan’s Atonement is among my favorite books. This is definitely not as masterfully memorable as Atonement, which is more high concept, but I’m very impressed at McEwan’s bravery in approaching this subject matter. And the delicacy in which he approached it. Has anyone else ever […]

I love this book. It’s been a few months since I’ve read it, but I just went through all the notes and annotations I made in the novel, and it reminded me why this might be my favorite book I read in 2024.  I didn’t know what I was in for when I picked up […]

The book review is going to be incredibly challenging to write, because I still have little idea exactly how I feel about Giovanni’s Room by James Baldwin. I didn’t know what it was about before starting the novel; I only picked it up because I loved Baldwin’s If Beale Street Could Talk and wanted to […]

At the start of the novel A Man Called Ove, I didn’t think I was going to like it. The beginning scene of Ove yelling at someone in the service industry probably wasn’t the move to get me immediately hooked. I didn’t feel like reading about a grumpy, mean old man, and the writing didn’t […]

While I was reading The Human Stain by Phillip Roth, I felt like I had to talk about it with someone, so I explained the premise to my brother, and my brother said something along the lines of, “How did he write so much—an entire novel—about that?!” Which basically sums up my feelings about this […]

I’m not entirely sure how I feel about Conversations with Friends by Sally Rooney. I like Rooney’s writing and her characters, but I’m not quite aligned with the ethics of this story, which revolves around an extramarital affair. I’m not above reading books about unethical people or situations, but though the characters seem to be […]

I’m a sucker for WW2 novels, so I wolfed down The Nightingale by Kristin Hannah, but it’s definitely not perfect. There were inconsistencies and unrealistic events (like occasionally forgetting to age characters appropriately or having a beautiful meal seasoned with lemon and garnished with fresh herbs in the middle of war-time rationed France). But I […]

I have a lot to criticize about this book, so I should probably start by saying that I did enjoy reading this book, and my general impressions weigh more heavily to the positive rather than the negative, despite the criticisms I enumerate below. But it wasn’t an engrossing novel for me, and it did have […]