to me, there is nothing that symbolizes the lack of romance in modern life quite like tpretty great title if you ask me.
so at least i liked one thing.
to me, there is nothing that symbolizes the lack of romance in modern life quite like the qr code. the fact that this book is full of them is the least of its worries.
among the biggest of my worries, you're surely wondering? thank you for asking. that's simple:
WHY DO MEN NEED TO WRITE SO MUCH ABOUT PENISES. i'm no prude but at a certain point spending this much time on phalluses takes up what we should've allotted to regularly scheduled programming, like character development, or themes. you know. the little things. (buh dum ch.)
in fact, an inexcusable section of page count is spent on shock value, masturbation, gross-out descriptions, pop-culture references, and brand names. what we're left with couldn't amount to much even in the best case scenario.
i enjoy an unlikable character more than a likable most of the time, because i am annoying and my brain is a cesspool, but i can't bear an unsympathetic one. we spend 300 pages in the mind of glue, and what is intended to be an exploration of the millennial experience left me unmoved and unrepresented. and in spite of the synopsis' claim that this book centers around hong kong's protests and "demise," that felt like an afterthought at best.
i liked the author's first book, but this reads a lot like the sophomore novel of someone whose debut was praised for its originality and literary quality when its most interesting portions were its observations of other art.
which is, you know. what happened.
bottom line: it's never a good sign when you're writing a rant on netgalley.com.
this book is truly nothing more than its title: extremely simple, almost annoying and cloying writing about very preschool-level topics, like imaginarthis book is truly nothing more than its title: extremely simple, almost annoying and cloying writing about very preschool-level topics, like imaginary friends and hitting and stuffed animals.
i read this book because of its title, and its title is the explanation for everything i hated about it.
life is so cruel in its ironies.
bottom line: i can't believe i'm giving this one star, and i can't think of any reason to give it more than that. ...more
the feeling of satisfaction when you finish an incredibly long book: wired
the feeling of satisfaction when you finreading incredibly long books: tired
the feeling of satisfaction when you finish an incredibly long book: wired
the feeling of satisfaction when you finish an incredibly long book without enjoying it for even a moment: whatever is better than wired
reading murakami is always a balancing act between how brilliant he is and how misogynistic he is, and let me tell you this one was pretty heavily leaning one way!
it is actually just arduous and difficult to read 1,318 pages of women being described by their breasts. i have a pretty high tolerance for sexism in media, perhaps to a worrying extent, but sexual assault, pedophilia, and harassment were at the core of this plot. it's a lot harder to ignore the very strange way murakami writes women when that's the case.
but even beyond that, reading from the perspective of a female character who cannot go a chapter without thinking about her boobs...it gets old! i don't know when murakami encountered a beautiful woman who apologized to the ugly older men she slept with for the size of her chest, but i'm praying for her healing.
bottom line: i'm going to keep reading murakami. i'm just going to delete this book from my brain....more
at any given time, i feel like i'm reading romance as a cry for help.
when i find a romance novel i love, it's my favorite kind of genre to enjoy. justat any given time, i feel like i'm reading romance as a cry for help.
when i find a romance novel i love, it's my favorite kind of genre to enjoy. just so comforting and fun and feelings-y.
but the vast, vast majority of the time, i am way too picky to bear it.
and in this case, well...this book is just bad.
sorry.
i really wanted to like this book, insistent product placement of the author's weird side quest cupcake wars-appearing bakery and all.
but it was too quirky and too much for me. there were CLIFFHANGERS in this book. like, chapters that ended with ellipses. "until he saw who was in the room..." and "she wasn't ready for what happened next..."-ass sentences. it feels silly.
this was unfortunately a not-good book on a sentence level (lots of weirdly constructed ones), on a plot level (clichéd confessions, an undue level of love interest-on-love interest obsession), or on a character level (we have a quirky gal and a boring guy, much like every romance of the last 5 years seems doomed to contain).
on top of that, this was arduous to get through. we're talking 320+ pages of miscommunication followed by 10 pages of happiness followed by, you guessed it, MORE miscommunication.
and for two people who tell each other 1100 times they'll be harmless (maybe "be harmless to each other" can be our always), they never tried to talk at all.
sheesh.
bottom line: i don't know what i did in a past life to deserve it, but this was a punishing read....more
this is one of those books i'm so excited to read it feels like it's been ordained by the universe.
let's see what happens (feat mini reviews for each this is one of those books i'm so excited to read it feels like it's been ordained by the universe.
let's see what happens (feat mini reviews for each story).
UNKNOWN BY UNKNOWN a girl gets laid off with generous severance only to be invited to house sit in a beautiful home for money and no responsibilities but walking a dog...this is my dream.
even if it did end abruptly at the most exciting part. rating: 3.5
LI FAN this is so clever and so unique and so empathetic and so well-executed. in my humble opinion.
it is also so short. rating: 4
TO GET RICH IS GLORIOUS you have to love a scammer. you HAVE to. rating: 3
FAREWELL HANK i can only hope that one day i become a creepy and controlling old lady with a nickname so pervasive no one remembers my real name anymore. rating: 2.5
CURE FOR LIFE this story would have gone craaaazy if it were written during the #MeToo era. as is: it's fine! rating: 3
KLARA friendship breakups are worse than any romantic breakup and that is the dark secret of adult life that no one tells you. rating: 3.5
A VISIT well this made me feel vaguely sad and guilty for a reason i can't quite pinpoint. a feeling to which i say: no thank you! rating: 2.5
FLIES this story contains a description of a dead rat so vivid and disgusting that it occupies a permanent section of my brain previously reserved for my siblings' names and my favorite cookie recipe.
spoiler alert, i guess. rating: 3
SHE WILL BE A SWIMMER this is one of those stories that fails at what it was trying to do and thereby does the exact opposite. unfortunately. rating: 2
PHENOTYPE if this story was a full-length novel it would be trendy on bookstagram and have, like, a 3.53 average rating.
which is a compliment. rating: 4
ME AND MY ALGO this is just the worst, i'm sorry...this is middle school creative writing prize level writing...
i can't stress enough how much i thought i would like this book. rating: 1
PERSONA DEVELOPMENT this had traces of what i thought this entire collection would be.
and a great title. rating: 3
TOMB SWEEPING never a good sign when the title story doesn't hit. rating: 2.5
CAT PERSONALITIES what are we even doing here. rating: 1.5
OTHER PEOPLE this started somewhere and made me think it was doing something and then...i don't even know what happened.
aaaand that's it! rating: 2
OVERALL at no point did it even cross my mind that i might not like this book, which a) is one of my most anticipated reads of the year, b) shares an author with a book i unexpectedly really loved, and c) has a gorgeous cover (most important).
but this felt very shallow and thoughtless where the author's debut was the opposite. bummer. rating: 2.5...more
i like an unlikable protagonist, but it turns out i can't stand 3 miserable ones.
for me, the experience of being alive as a woman isn't defined soleli like an unlikable protagonist, but it turns out i can't stand 3 miserable ones.
for me, the experience of being alive as a woman isn't defined solely by hating my body, or by thinking about men, or by hating other women. i have moments of all of those, sure, but they don't make up a significant part of my life. let alone the majority of my experience. let alone all of it!
in the universe of this book, that's all women have.
we have three perspectives and they are all the same: just absolute victims of patriarchy, with the same voice, living the same experience. one looks like emrata, one is thin with "bad boobs," one is fat, but all three are obsessed with their bodies and male validation and nothing else.
there's a lot this book is trying to do, but it overplays its hand a all of it. creating three of the exact same character to do the same thing in an over the top and nonrelatable way and facing down an abrupt and meaningless ending doesn't work for me even from that standpoint.
beyond that, the writing grated on me: all thoughts are merciless or relentless. people are both nervous and worried. skin is knotty and bumpy. this stacked adjectives on top of each other to see what sticks.
the answer to what sticks is my frustration, even reviewing this a month after the fact.
bottom line: i love women! i love being alive! i wish this book did too.
------------------ tbr review
this sounds more interesting to me than the alternative...more
well, i accidentally read taylor swift fanfiction.
it did not go well.
this is partially due to the fact that i am no taylor swift fan. i know this is cwell, i accidentally read taylor swift fanfiction.
it did not go well.
this is partially due to the fact that i am no taylor swift fan. i know this is currently tantamount to committing domestic treason or to thumbs-downing videos of baby animals forming interspecies friendships, but i can explain. i'm not secretly a 29 year old man recording too-close tiktoks of himself ranting about how now he can't watch the big game on sundays without seeing her face. i have simply always been neutral, and now she is everywhere. that's fine.
it's also beside the point, because in spite of my fairly opinion-less take on her...even i think this book, which claims to be solidly pro on the topic, has a pretty unfair depiction of her whole deal.
it is very weird to profit off of the most famous person in the world in what you claim is a love letter to her by perpetuating the meanest stereotypes about her — that she profits off her breakups on purpose and wouldn't be famous without them.
i have a lot of criticisms, beginning with carbon emissions and ending with money chasing, but even i can't deny she's talented.
on top of that, this book is just bad. in some silly ways, such as: - the liberally inserted very bad song lyrics - the number of adjectives - the moment when taylor-by-another-name escapes a crowd of rabid fans by (check notes) walking down the street and putting sunglasses on - essentially-taylor insising wearing her full wedding dress onstage...every single show, because nothing says "ready to perform" like 20 pounds of tulle - taylor-insert making our male main character do a fashion show to determine his new rock star look, ultimately deciding on (again let me check my notes) a "rakish bow tie" and "glasses" like a "lounge pianist." she skated straight past rock star to theater kid - the idea that our love interest could just open his laptop and buy a ticket the day of the final show of a tour we've been repeatedly told is sold out - imagine playing piano and asking the musician how they want it to sound and they go "like sunrise after sleepless nights." i'm putting in 2 weeks notice
it's also bad in some not as silly ways. this couple had less than no chemistry, to the point that i assumed we were still early in the book until i was flabbergasted by a surprise kiss and looked to see we were at the halfway mark. the only thing more surprising was the sex scene.
this is a second chance romance, and it seems like all of their love story is predicated on the idea that one time they had chemistry and that they share musical talent. but neither of those are on page so i don't know what we're doing here.
not to mention the writing. if you're into emotions described like "I snuff the rogue indignation" or "She endeavors to smile" or "inquisitive disappointment," this is the book for you.
so much of this book is just STRANGE. our love interest's tragic backstory is that his family's retirement home is closing. our heroine is dragging around her newly divorced mom on a pop concert tour she doesn't seem interested in. why were these choices made??? we spend so much time on these bizarre plot points and it's like...why put them in at all???
and i just can't stress enough how if your retirement community is failing, i don't see how dating taylor swift for the publicity is the best way to handle that. last i heard geriatrics weren't her primary demo. it's one thing to sell jerseys to teenage girls, quite another to try to convince them to put their grandparents into a home in the rural south. and the book just ends without resolution on this so who knows!
riley (read: taylor) is one of the least likable protagonists i've read in memory: completely selfish, fame-obsessed, describes "what she does" as "reaching everyone with her music," listening constantly to her own songs, inviting her ex husband to events "for inspiration," and unable to understand why everyone doesn't immediately kowtow to her in a scenario where basically everyone already does. i don't really know how to describe how unrealistic and unfeeling and borderline sociopathic this character is, but it certainly isn't a flattering portrayal of taylor swift!
so if this book isn't for her fans, and it isn't for her non-fans...who is it for?
bottom line: this is a money grab with no plan to get the money.
for me, this book was love at first sight (that cover! girls falling in love at the university of edinburgh!)...and dislike at first read.
unfortunatelfor me, this book was love at first sight (that cover! girls falling in love at the university of edinburgh!)...and dislike at first read.
unfortunately, this is just not well written. that feels like the meanest criticism there is, but there's no avoiding it here. this book uses synonyms for said, is teeming with appearance descriptions, and has darlings on every page that likely should have been killed.
and this extends, sadly, to plot: everything seems to be going really quite well, and then suddenly someone does something quite unforgivable, out of nowhere and inexplicably. less than ten pages later the book ends. that's after hundreds of pages of what feels like flippant, underexplored inclusion of a dozen serious social issues.
i wish it could, but debut doesn't begin to explain it all away: this was under-edited by a lot. it feels tropey, shallow, cliched, and i came away thinking i needed more and less at once.
bottom line: if you don't have anything nice to say, you shouldn't say anything at all...but i really wanted to like this book.
a little thing i like to call Too Much and Not Enough, sadly.
in the first half, i have to tell you...i hated this so much. it stole the "where are youa little thing i like to call Too Much and Not Enough, sadly.
in the first half, i have to tell you...i hated this so much. it stole the "where are you supposed to put all of it" beautiful love and mourning line from fleabag and had a going rate of one simile per sentence, as in most sentences on average had one but sometimes mercifully one would be spared, but not to worry because just as often, somehow, evilly, there would be more than one.
the second half was better, for some reason. but that's a lot to get over.
this very badly wants to be a quiet, striking, introspective book, like those written by sally rooney or brandon taylor, but it doesn't know how to do that. maybe the author will find a way!
bottom line: yipes.
(thanks netgalley for the e-arc)
------------------ tbr review
blacked out and requested books on netgalley exclusively because of their covers...more
modern life is an unrelenting nightmare <3 and so is this book.
do you know how difficult it is to get me to think a MAN is a better person than a womamodern life is an unrelenting nightmare <3 and so is this book.
do you know how difficult it is to get me to think a MAN is a better person than a woman? a woman who is our protagonist? a man who is bad?
but our main character, a woman who is addicted to internet stalking, being nosy, justifying her own behavior, and chalking it all up to a vague feminism, is so much worse. she begins at rock bottom and manages to do a sum total of negative character development, spending her days jealous of a hot dead girl who dared to date her not even boyfriend 2 years ago.
i can excuse a lot of bad behaviors in the face of the unrelenting misery of daily life — this is coming from a person who usually replaces at least one meal with a small pile of sweets on any given day, like a child who magically gained the power of self-determination — but it turns out even i have a line.
bottom line: this is monotonous, unchanging, and hard to get through. much like la vie quotidienne itself.
this may seem like a beach read, but it's actually a fantasy novel about a millennial who is able to live in a major city, own a home in california, ethis may seem like a beach read, but it's actually a fantasy novel about a millennial who is able to live in a major city, own a home in california, eat takeout every night, and take luxury vacations on a copywriter's salary.
to which i say: lol.
by far the best part of this was the food descriptions.
everything else was mediocre to bad, ranging from silly characters to silly plots to silly writing (for example, trying to describe how time moves slower in this setting and saying "Everything was longer in Italy. Even time," when in fact time is the only thing being described).
on top of that, this is the perfect romance for all those readers out there who prefer their love interests to take advantage of drunk and/or weeping and/or mid-mental breakdown women.
dreamy!
bottom line: i want a cold glass of wine and a tomato-based appetizer in a seafront restaurant now, the lack of possibility of which will be the second way this book disappoints me.
once upon a time, i claimed that i would read any book that was written by lynn painter. i'd read not one, but two of her YA contemporaries — which i once upon a time, i claimed that i would read any book that was written by lynn painter. i'd read not one, but two of her YA contemporaries — which i would call my guilty pleasure genre if i had feelings and/or had ever felt guilty about anything — and, in a crazy twist for a heartless soulless hater such as myself, i'd (gasp) enjoyed both.
for someone who is literally constantly looking for even one comfort read in this cold, cold world, and for someone who constantly hates all of them, this was huge.
first book in a while to make me Rage. this put me right back in my mean era!
it sets out to write about love and ambition, about who owns stories, abofirst book in a while to make me Rage. this put me right back in my mean era!
it sets out to write about love and ambition, about who owns stories, about the flaws of people and of writing and of science. all interesting things.
unfortunately it chooses to do so with a writing style and a protagonist that seem to be in an annoying-off, endlessly undermining its own purpose. i don't know whether the author or the main character is more self-absorbed and self-impressed, but i do know that there was no character or narrative growth here.
i wanted to like this very badly, and i thought that maybe i would, but all of it rested on my belief that eventually the self-insert self-interest would end in a flurry of character development and redemption and recognition.
unfortunately, the book and i seem to disagree about what was happening throughout. and nothing ever changed.
at no point was i able to tell where this book was going.
and at no point did i really want to.
at the very beginning of this book, you think you have mat no point was i able to tell where this book was going.
and at no point did i really want to.
at the very beginning of this book, you think you have met your male lead, due to the fact there is banter happening and an allegedly good-looking man is present. but then you read about a series of unfortunate events, of the X-rated variety rather than of the charming evil children's book category i prefer, and you're like, never mind. can't be him. he's bad at sex.
but it is.
it is him.
and the romance in question will come to fruition (if you'll forgive the disgusting and accidental pun) as our female lead teaches him how to, you know. hanky panky. get the car rockin' so you don't come a-knockin'. attend a session of sexual congress. knock boots. delight in the afternoon.
whatever you want to call it.
unfortunately, even in the face of these bizarre and frankly undesirable circumstances, i found these characters to be the unthinkable: boring. and it turns out that is kind of an important part of a romance book. or maybe a book in general.
on top of that, i found all of the morals around this arrangement to be pretty off-putting and blah. fairly immediately, because i forgot to mention that finn (the guy) is a c-list (generous) celebrity writing a memoir (okay) that we are supposed to pretend anyone would care about (they would not) and it is ghostwritten by chandler (the girl) (his employee), the ol' mind palace jumps to oh, this is sexual harassment.
no matter how shy or freckly or Old World Charming he is, your boss asking you in a shared hotel / airbnb situation to teach him how to hanky panky is...pretty high on the Icky And Illegal charts, no?
even later, once these two are In Love, their conversations veer into a new grosso dynamic i like to call You Should Follow Your Dreams And Stand Up For Yourself, But Not With Me Tho.
because don't worry — chandler decides to chase her dreams and write books of her own. she just inexplicably decides to finish this one, even though it will mean a lifetime of lying, first.
generally and beyond all of that insanity, there's a lot we're trying to accomplish here—social issues we attempt to address range from aging parents and ocd and anti-semitism to bullying and hollywood and Finding Your Passion.
none of it is discussed satisfyingly or fully, or even in a very fun or interesting or non-"what is happening what are we doing here" way.
but that's par for the course.
bottom line: not even one moment of this made sense to me.
(thanks to the publisher for the e-arc / 1.5 stars)...more
sure, this book is pretty ridiculous, and all of its lines of dialogue feel like punch-ups on a netflix show written by millennials about gen z, and tsure, this book is pretty ridiculous, and all of its lines of dialogue feel like punch-ups on a netflix show written by millennials about gen z, and there's an unnecessary love triangle, and all of the characters are pure evil or worse, annoying, and it's inexplicably and clumsily written from the point of view of a teenage boy who is forced to learn a lesson about how Women Are People Too at the end à la an after-school special or a video you'd watch in health class...
sure, become a mermaid because of the weight of bigotry in the world...but do you have to be SO DRAMATIC about it.
i loved the idea of this book so mucsure, become a mermaid because of the weight of bigotry in the world...but do you have to be SO DRAMATIC about it.
i loved the idea of this book so much (satirical ish literary horror about a swimming star who chooses to become a mermaid because of the weight of misogyny and homophobia and racism), but the execution...not so much!
the language felt sloppy and imprecise in that hard-to-define underedited-debut way, and despite being categorized as a horror novel i would say only one scene really qualified as such.
otherwise it tended more toward melodrama and hit-you-over-the-head themes and arguments. here's an example, when our protagonist has recently sustained a head injury and is conspicuously refusing to answer her doctor's very normal question (how's the pain): "He misunderstood.
How was I supposed to differentiate between the pain due to the concussion and the pain due to the agony of everyday human life?"
yikes.
if i am being fully honest—and to the eternal chagrin of myself, my loved ones, and the world around me, i usually am—this was annoying and boring. in our main character, in the frustrating writing, and in how obvious and repetitive all the themes are.
i cannot stand being talked down to as a reader, especially for themes as simple as "bigotry abounds."
bottom line: my biggest, hardest NOPE in a while!...more
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