This is a literary fiction rom com with literary fiction MC problems that are too dark for an actual rom com and IOne run on line baby feeding review:
This is a literary fiction rom com with literary fiction MC problems that are too dark for an actual rom com and I absolutely never would have known this was the same writer who penned Euphoria which is sort of impressive on her part and disappointing for me because I loved Euphoria- there were certain passages I highlighted that stood out with that magic but it wasn’t the whole tapestry like in that book- relatable for a certain set of people I know, long past relatable for me (I have been married a decade and have never been attracted to these sorts of guys)- so meh!- I’ll probably hold on to a couple of quotes and forget the rest.
I read this thinking it would be an antidote for all the Trollope I’m plowing through right now and bOne (run on) line baby feeding reviews continue!:
I read this thinking it would be an antidote for all the Trollope I’m plowing through right now and boy it sure was- the atmospheric, hazy prose, the wandering in and out of memory structure, the visceral, fleshy, gritty in your face-ness of it all- but I think perhaps the Trollope ruined it for me because I found myself utterly not susceptible to and did not believe in the Jonas thing at all from a romantic perspective (literally heard myself say “What utter nonsense!” in my head) although the binding secret thing makes sense but I believe the first reaction to it more than I do the seven years later, twenty, thirty years later one- anyway, good prose, good pacing (I finished this in three days), could not attach to the romantic main plot....more
I quite enjoyed this one! Definitely the most engaging mystery I’ve read in awhile. I appreciated that I thought I had it easily figured out at least I quite enjoyed this one! Definitely the most engaging mystery I’ve read in awhile. I appreciated that I thought I had it easily figured out at least twice, and he knew it, and it was not either of those things. I appreciated how this was as much a discussion of great genre books as it was a story itself. I liked that just before I was going to make a reference myself to what I thought the story was (Roger Ackroyd), he did it himself and changed up the game. I know some people don’t like withheld information and think that’s cheating, but I didn’t mind it in this case. I thought the payoff was worth it, as you figure out it really was the thing you thought it was all along- sort of. With reservations. I also liked the previous Swanson I read earlier this year. That one was far less memorable than the plot of this one though. I think this conceit will stick with me for awhile. Read the whole thing on a lazy Sunday. Recommended for your similar escapist needs....more
I enjoyed thus far far less than I did the poker book. Part of it was that some of the research shared was identical (hot hand fallacy, probability ofI enjoyed thus far far less than I did the poker book. Part of it was that some of the research shared was identical (hot hand fallacy, probability of a coin flip, a few others), part of it was that I’d heard several of these con stories before (Glafira Rosales’ con is a Netflix documentary I’d already watched, for instance). I also found a lot of these studies no more insightful than your typical detective show about why con men are successful. It was good to see there was science behind it, I guess, but a lot of this is common sense and the premise of many stories I’ve already read. And so the story element of this was not successful- which, she she herself points out, is how most people emotionally respond to things- a good yarn. The yarns didn’t get me. (Whereas the poker one definitely did.) I also don’t know how this book is useful, in the end. A lot of the conclusions she comes to are based on the fact that people are social animals who largely trust each other. We’re built to trust each other. We have to- there’s no way to have a society without it. Con men play on that trust. And like.. we can’t start treating everyone like they are possible con men. And the other conclusion she comes to is that education and money do not protect you from falling for con men. Again, okay, but that’s just advising a healthy skepticism I think most of us know we should have already. Trust, but verify, etc.
Maybe the only useful takeaway from this is that people who are playing to your desire to feel special, who pop out of nowhere and appeal to your vanity, who offer you an association with special things even, should be checked into. We’re all more vulnerable in the vanity than we want to admit to being. And we should watch out for that....more
This book was terrible from top to bottom. I’m sorry to just be that bald-faced blunt about it, but that’s how I feel. And it is a shame because I reaThis book was terrible from top to bottom. I’m sorry to just be that bald-faced blunt about it, but that’s how I feel. And it is a shame because I really really liked All the Missing Girls quite a lot. Even viscerally, parts of it. This book… I am scratching my head as to how someone thought this was all set and ready to go to print. I just… well to start with, this author has clearly never met a teacher in her entire life. We’re leaving in the middle of class and not getting fired? We’re assigning busywork essays that we don’t grade and expecting kids to do it? We’re leaving school at 3 pm? We leave town for two days with “accrued leave”?! There is no such thing as accrued leave in teaching. The main character’s appeal was marginal. I did not super understand why the hot detective was into her. Super weird characterization commentary- (using the phrase “that ship sailed” is clever ironic repartee, she believes, for reporters in Boston? Seriously.) And the lack of resolution on so many levels!! Almost none of the plots quite got there. It was like she stopped the book at kindle marker 90% and forgot to add the rest. I am just flabbergasted about how bad this is- unrecognizable from her first book. Just not the same author at all. I generally only one star actually offensive crap or I would one star this. It is… bad. ...more
This is not nearly as good as Midnight Library. The whole thing felt like it was happening so far at a distance. I couldn’t connect to the characters This is not nearly as good as Midnight Library. The whole thing felt like it was happening so far at a distance. I couldn’t connect to the characters at all. I thought the main character was just wildly dumb on a couple of points, too. The plot went on forever with nothing and then super quickly resolved in a way that did not give it the four hundred years of weight it was supposed to have. There are a couple of pages of lovely musing about life, some even better ones about memory. But this was far more forgettable than Midnight Library. It might make a beautiful movie though if they rework it a bit- we’ll see what Cumberbatch does with it. ...more
"She imagined, now, what it would be like to accept herself completely. Every mistake she had ever made. Every mark on her body. Every dream she hadn "She imagined, now, what it would be like to accept herself completely. Every mistake she had ever made. Every mark on her body. Every dream she hadn't reached or pain she had felt. Every lust or longing she had suppressed.
She imagined accepting it all. The way she accepted nature. The way she accepted a glacier or a puffin or the breach of a whale.
She imagined seeing herself as just another brilliant freak of nature. Just another sentient animal, trying their best.
And in doing so, she imagined what it was like to be free."
If you like that, if you felt the tears prick at your eyes unexpectedly, if you stopped a moment because you felt that, you need this book. I sure did. Like I said in my last review, I am wintering. If you are wintering too, this is a book to take to that space. If you're not, this could be a book that's a much needed breath between the acts....more
Okay, as a teacher, I LOOVVVEDDD the first third of this so much. This part of things is basically a super recognizable portrait of two educator typesOkay, as a teacher, I LOOVVVEDDD the first third of this so much. This part of things is basically a super recognizable portrait of two educator types I know - and have been, emotionally, at some point- that were just so spot on I found a knowing, gleeful little smile curling up my face before I could stop myself. The private little pettiness! The martyrdom! The grudges that feel so real and urgent! The posturing and bending sideways to convince yourself why all this is worth your time. Oh man it was so good. I was kind of sad that we had to get to the murder mystery part- I just wanted to see more teacher types sniping and griping for 300 more pages as they played out their battles over years and endless meetings. The first third was SO GOOOD. Fourth star is for that. Three stars for the rest, which got less and less interesting as it went on. However, I *was* delighted that FOR ONCE we had a thriller involving a teacher that was not about sexual misconduct with a student, which people seem to think is the only thing worth writing about in teachers’ lives or the only thing crazy enough for a thriller that a teacher could be imagined to get up to. Schools are workplaces with all the normal adult drama that goes on at any other workplace. Teachers are people with a lot going on, y’all, and I appreciated how much this was NOT about the kids at all....more
This was far, far weaker than Anonymous Girl. The flash forward and back structure was lazy, interrupted plot flow, and drained much of the suspense aThis was far, far weaker than Anonymous Girl. The flash forward and back structure was lazy, interrupted plot flow, and drained much of the suspense and tension building they they’d do in the present day sections. And worse, it was unneeded. I figured out what the deal was with the group after the first story, which could have been told at a girls’ night around the circle. This needed more unexplained violence and unclear, ambiguous gaslighting. The gaslighting here was ineffective because we didn’t live it with the main character. They told us all about it every step of the way. The two main antagonists didn’t seem to have enough of a reason to be involved with the group, honestly, and some of the others seemed less than believably all the way in. I needed far more slow realizations of dawning horror, and far fewer explanations of where the hidden cameras were. Stop. Telling. Me. Things. I had absolutely no fear whatsoever that she was going to get caught in their trap as a consequence. It clearly wasn’t that kind of book. And if not, what is even the point of this story?
I also found the writing pedestrian at best, the references weirdly mixed up (Tiger Beat magazine as teenagers? For women who are supposed to be 30 now?), and there were a truly weird amount of brand references to the point where I wondered if they were getting paid for product placement like TV shows do (did you notice that they spelled out “Apartments.com” fully every time they used it?)
However. The one insight I did find truly compelling was the overall premise. A lot of chick noir novels are formulated to be about the deep fears and longings of middle aged white American women. And I found it so fascinating, revealing, and true, that they made a horror novel out of the main character’s desire for female friends and companionship. Like, the idea that if some nice women go out of their way to make time for you and bring you into their circle and relieve your loneliness, it must be a suspicious, devious plot. Some lovely new women thinking you’re worth the time of day can’t just happen on face value- we’re all too busy and tired and over scheduled for that in our thirties. It’s amazing and rang so true that this desire for a female community is deep enough to make a horror show out of it. I think they hit on something super real there. I just think the plot they built around it was unfortunately weak and didn’t mine it effectively....more
I am wintering. That’s the wheel of the year I'm on. As a teacher, I don't get to winter in the actual winter. From September to late May, I sometimesI am wintering. That’s the wheel of the year I'm on. As a teacher, I don't get to winter in the actual winter. From September to late May, I sometimes feel that I hang in suspension above the usual round of life. I become a functional being- I sleep, I pour everything I have into work ten hours a day, six days a week, I do whatever I can convince my body and mind to do to recover after that each day, I collapse full out on Saturdays, and start the cycle once more. I feel out of time in the worst way-it's the opposite of the cycle that this book tries to remind you of, to push us all to remember. I don't have time to pause to mark the passage of time- other than by working even more because interim reports are due or papers must be returned. It's the time of the endless to-do list. I sometimes feel I become a human task completion machine for several months a year. It's like I put myself and my life on hold and go into a mental, spiritual sleep for nine months just to keep up with the constant demand, then get thrown abruptly up on shore again and my brain's like, "Oh right then...who are you again? What were we thinking before all that happened to us? What threads did I set down just...when was that? Surely just yesterday?”
And then... I winter all summer. Which is why I recognized what May was talking about almost immediately- and identified with her again and again as she went from "Indian Summer" to "Thaw." The start of the cycle where you can't quite stop yourself from continuing to work although you're actually quite done with your tasks. The next stage of guilt about finally getting yourself to stop- although again, no one is asking you to do otherwise. The stage after that where you go into total mental and physical collapse and all the illnesses that have been lurking just under the surface, suppressed by adrenaline and necessity, come to the surface. The slow, halting first attempts at getting up again, and then falling down again because you tried to 0 to 60 it, because that's how you operate. Then the gradual ability to think again returns- to *really* think- to string thoughts together- and the patience and stillness to notice things worth thinking about. Then the beauty returns again, finally. Slowly. And the self, equally hesitant, haltingly, begins to peek out, and remind you who you really are once more. Or who you think you are? It's hard to tell after nine months. It's all shifted a little bit- and you're not sure why.
I've been through this cycle nine times now. I fought it harder the first few times. My review of Possession is a round of me fighting being utterly subsumed in Year 3 or 4. I have found it harder to fight the last few times- and I worry about the accumulating alterations over the year- how my school year persona, as off to one side as I attempt to keep her..well she seeps in. There are parts of her I like- and lots I don't. I want to fight it harder. I try to like I did in my twenties. It gets harder every year-but I'm determined not to give up.
Anyway- that's why I winter every summer. I didn't have this name for it before this book- but it is the perfect one. It's the language I've wanted to justify how deeply underground I go during this time, the random emotional outbursts I have, the amount of quiet I need, the inconsistent personas I display, the ideas I cycle through and discard. And how, somehow, it puts me back together again ready to face another year of teaching with a serene smile on my face.
What does wintering feel like? Well.. it feels... it feels kind of like this:
"...winter sleeps are the best... when I wake in the night, the dark seems more profound and velvety than usual, almost infinite. Winter is a season that invites me to rest well, when I am allowed to retreat and be quietly separate. .. There is not enough night left for us. We have lost our true instincts for darkness, it's invitation to spend some time in the proximity of our dreams. Our personal winters are so often accompanied by insomnia: perhaps we're drawn towards that unique space of intimacy and contemplation, darkness and silence, without really knowing what we're seeking.. Sleep is not a dead space, but a doorway to a different kind of consciousness- one that is reflective and restorative, full of tangential thoughts. In winter, we are invited into a particular mode of sleep: not a regimented eight hours, but a slow, ambulatory process in which waking thoughts merge with dreams and space is made in the blackest hours to repair the fragmented narratives of our days.
Yet we are pushing away this innate skill we have for digesting the difficult parts of life. My own midnight terrors vanish when I turn insomnia into a watch: a claimed sacred space in which I have nothing to do but contemplate. Here, I am offered a place in between, like finding a hidden door, the stuff of dreams. Even dormice know how to do it: they sleep, then wake awhile and tend to business, before surrendering back to sleep.
Over and over again, we find that winter offers us liminal spaces to inhabit. Yet still we refuse them. The work of the cold season is to learn to welcome them."
I found it so telling she acts on this first by attending a St. Lucy's Day mass in London- a ritual that's not her own, in a language she doesn't quite understand literally, but understands completely symbolically, a place that forces her to be quiet and notice beauty all around her. I just... this is what I do, to try to hold onto myself in the early part of the school year. I've become a pointed, giant fan of Michaelmas and St. Crispin's Day every year. I bake a blackberry pie or make jam and share the Michaelmas story every year- I've felt the need to share that story, in fact, every year since my first year of teaching. I started baking a few years after that. I share the Henry V Crispin's Day speech every year in late October- just before Halloween, in fact. I always end up connecting with everyone I know online who is a Shakespeare fan- it's the one day a year we check in with each other, on that post. I set reminders on my phone- it's my last desperate gasping attempts to hold onto time before it gets away from me. I love these rituals- I'm still me, a little bit, in fall. It hasn't quite all faded out yet. One of my first free days around the winter break is almost always the solstice. My ritual is to surround myself with poetry on the winter solstice (a genre that I rarely read the rest of the year, by the way)- It's a big deep breath in as I welcome myself back for two weeks. I'm Catholic- I always thought it had to do with that. I stopped practicing a long time ago, but it runs deep- but now I think maybe it's about wintering. It's about pushing out as much life as I can before I feel totally snuffed out.
Anyway- this is a long way of saying... I felt her. I felt this. I am doing this. July 4th was my small light in the dark- my St. Lucy's. I'm probably somewhere around the solstice in the cycle of wintering now. I have turned the year, as they say then. The glimmers of life are returning. Now, slowly, and in fits, I hope, comes the thaw....more
So, I didn’t care overly much about the ins and outs of the poker part. I’m sure it would be very exciting to someone with more knowledge than me- butSo, I didn’t care overly much about the ins and outs of the poker part. I’m sure it would be very exciting to someone with more knowledge than me- but that part mostly made my eyes glaze over. I also found her writing to be quite often repetitive, and she didn’t always seem to get when a point had been made and she didn’t need to give five other examples. I definitely am in the opposite possible mental place to identify with some of the Always Be Optimizing stuff she gets into at various points (if you haven’t read that Jia Tolentino essay on this PS you should get right on that- so good). I also never quite fully believed in the balance of skill vs luck she was selling- there was so much more unpredictability than even she, who insisted on the importance of luck to the end, wanted to acknowledge. Ugh, all those chapters about reading people and how off you could be just because of how someone felt that day. I also found her journalistic writing style well… journalistic, which for me is tough to take at book length. I want some prose to sing at some point if we’re going beyond an essay length.
However, what I DID heavily identify with and get into was her journey through how difficult it was to change her mindset, the way she’d thought through and evaluated situations her whole life to get to where she was. And then the discovery that that wasn’t enough- there was so much more on the other side of that. But it was incredibly hard to reach out for it and take it. After all, why abandon a strategy that’s been moderately successful so far and lead to you eating, making the rent, and in a job that you’re pretty interested by? Is it worth the risk to go from survival to thriving? I was really compelled by her honesty in the process of going through that decision and then forcing her body and mind along with her. I appreciated seeing the low lows of that- something lots of people aren’t honest about as they encourage you to go for your dreams/live your best life/whatever. But also the small ways she became a different person outside poker. I loved when she pushed back on being lowballed for a fee the first time. I loved when she said no because someone wouldn’t pay her what she was worth and didn’t apologize. I wanted to see more of that and less of the play by play of the hands. I get that there’s an audience to play to and she’s deep in that world, but still. The psychological angle was the original purpose and I wanted more of how it ended up affecting her personally. Again though- this just may be what I personally need right now. I am wintering. I am reflective right now.
Finally, Erik also seems enormously cool, and she seems wildly fortunate to have lucked into being mentored by him, and after a fashion, his friends. He seems like a real one. More Erik, I say!...more
Final Girls was far better than this. I found the ending underwhelming, to say the least. I did not at all like any part of anything that happened aroFinal Girls was far better than this. I found the ending underwhelming, to say the least. I did not at all like any part of anything that happened around Theo at any point. Gross. I did not think the Vivian-Emma relationship was as amazing as everyone else did. It started off well but then it dropped the thread- I think it would have been much more effective w/o the constant need to go back to the present day storyline- much more time to develop it and make it continue to feel emotionally real. Much more time to establish the mystery and power of Vivian- this cut that off way too soon. And I liked present day Emma far less than past Emma so I’m not sure we’d be missing much by cutting the present day storyline. ...more
This one was much much better. I really liked the twisted set up. This is not a whodunnit. We know whodunnit by chapter 2, and see inside their head wThis one was much much better. I really liked the twisted set up. This is not a whodunnit. We know whodunnit by chapter 2, and see inside their head with them telling us all about it, just so there’s no doubt about it. Nor is it whydunnit. We know that too. This was something different: A, now that we know all of that... will anything actually come of that or not? Will this guy just keep getting away with it? This was a different way to do the you-in-danger-girl plot line but make it terrifying in a different way. And I genuinely did not see the end twist coming either- which is good because I’d have rolled my eyes far more at this one if I had. But it worked in the moment. Finished it in an afternoon- just what I wanted from a thriller. ...more
This was... I don’t even know yet. A delight. The quiet sort. A combination of Gormenghast with the best of Valente’s labyrinthine poetic escapes withThis was... I don’t even know yet. A delight. The quiet sort. A combination of Gormenghast with the best of Valente’s labyrinthine poetic escapes with the most intriguing of Strange and Norrell’s footnotes. It was the deep love of words and knowledge of Possession roiling under a surface of apparent calm. It’s deep turn inwards was the perfect fantasia for quarantine, the sort that makes magic out of a prison, that makes a religion out of limitations and symbols, and meaning out of what is left to us to access of the world. It is hushed, mature acceptance that stays steadfast against outrage, it is about having a steady, firm center of yourself that can’t be penetrated or undermined by anyone, at last. It’s about the many people we become over the course of our lives, and the very different truths we care about when we become them and leave our last skin behind, slipping out of it like selkies who put their skins in the trunk for good, just needing to look now and again to Remember (as our main character himself would spell it). It’s like... it’s like if American Gods grew up and became a much wiser grandmother that didn’t care about the day-to-day headlines, one who has earned the right to be beyond it all. It’s... well it’s a spell that I recommend that you don’t fight. I read it in one sitting as darkness fell on one of the liminal days of the year- in the between space between finishing and becoming again, when everything was quiet, even, for once, my mind. And it was perfect....more
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