Reviews and Comments

I liked this. I might not play enough games to fully appreciate it? But I was very into the complicated friendship and the emphasis on the rarity of that connection.

My favorite place to start thinking about what feminism can be; it continues to teach and resonate decades later

So glad this is finally done. They’re crap! I couldn’t stop reading them!! Very settler fantasy of Yukon wilderness, too many convoluted murders, just don’t start is my advice

I’ve already hooted and hollered about the many ridiculous things the book gets wrong about libraries and academia and I won’t rehash (although ffs if you’re going to write a book revolving around these key details, why wouldn’t you think you need to actually learn about them?!). But even beyond that, this just doesn’t work. Like, the premise of why the murderer wants to do the murdering? Nonsensical. I stand by my appreciation of the romance plot. And I do like the idea of magical maps etc etc. But those are the only reasons this isn’t a one-star review.

Rereading this as teaching prep and rediscovering how much I love this book. It was just about the first thing I read as a budding book historian to help me think about what the field might be. And returning to those questions today from a position of much greater familiarity with book history, I’m struck by how nuanced and yet available to newcomers Howsam is (and now that I know Leslie, it’s no surprise—she and her work are like that!). Anyways, if you’re looking to get a sense of why and what book history might be, this will be tremendously helpful.

I am bad at titling my reviews but “holy wowwww” seems to cover it. I loved this. The story of Marie, her efforts to turn the dismal abbey into a fortress, the struggle to defy patriarchy, the love for her sisters that turns into holy love, the carnal and secular love for her various lovers that also becomes holy, just the whole thing. Part way through I came across a review that was so dismissive and childish that it raised all my hackles and the ways in which that review has been bothering me helps me understand why I loved this book so much. If you can’t handle nuance, if you’re not open to the long history of women struggling against what they’re told to believe, then this book is definitely not for you. But it’s full of rage and anger and beauty and love.

I guess I’m just in a place where I need intense books

ok, it's possible I didn't like that Charlie Lovett book because I've been listening to Northanger Abbey in slow drips for months now and I just love it and there's no imitating her voice even if you're a genius writer

This book… is just not good. I wanted not-serious, not not-good. Oops.

and now for something completely different, phew!

This book pulled me into its world of trees and gutted me. I loved the richly drawn human characters and the stories they and the author tell about and learn from trees. I didn’t love the whiteness of the book, but also the relationship Powers describes between people and trees is a particularly white western one—some sense of indigenous stewardship before the end would have made that less irksome. But the book is beautiful and devastating to read, and I can’t stop thinking about trees.

will i ever finish this book? unclear. do i actually want it to end? also unclear. definitely thinking about trees A LOT

I didn’t love this the way I did Diaz’s first book—this one felt a bit more obvious in how it was going to go about telling the story I could feel it wanted to tell about money. But it was also a good story, so I forgave some of its faults

I loved this! I did want to shake just about every single character for one thing or another but also I couldn’t stop reading it. This is much like how I feel about every Barbara Pym I’ve read, and I’m clearly going to need to read more. Extra points for being about indexers and writers.

Obviously had to read this after I read Jenn Shapland’s memoir, since I’d never read any McCullers, and holy hell is it good. Took me forever because it was so intense that I could only read it in bits.