This book, for one thing, is a really quick read, and for another thing, really made me think about how some parts of childhood and being a kid are universal---despite where your house was located, what culture you grew up in, or what struggles you or your family experienced. As I was reading, I thought about how I view my own childhood as something to be taken out in bits and pieces, like scattered episodes of a TV show that, when put together, give a vague impression of the overall plot. I think a lot of collective memory, especially in relation to childhood, is like that. The introduction of this book very helpfully shed light on Cisneros as an author and her lived experiences that directly contributed to her writing style and inspiration for this book. I'm excited for the opportunity to meet Cisneros later this year when she visits my university for our annual Writer's Symposium spring events, and especially look forward to hearing her speak more on her craft. The craft in question (at least in this book) reads to me like the choice to connect a series of flash pieces that follow the life of our narrator in a certain socioeconomic landscape and community on Mango Street. Each story features authentic characters, emotions, and images that you can hear and taste and smell all in one. It gets back at that idea (for me) of being able to find some of the more universal parts of childhood in between the folds of every page: playing jump rope with the girls who live nearby, being wary of new neighbors, wondering what makes certain adults act the way they do, feeling the weight of going from a girl to a woman... the list goes on and on. Being able to read about a community of children that, among the similarities, also hosts a variety of differences was a privilege. To tap into another's lived experience through fiction and wonderful prose is exactly why I read and continue to read. This was a lovely book in every way, especially in its ability to make me ache to taste nostalgia and wonder if things would actually be better if I could return to days of innocence.


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One of my favorite quotes from The House on Mango Street:

"We are tired of being beautiful."

I've had this book for at least three years now and finally read it! And boy was I missing out on such a wonderful collection of short stories, and retellings of classic fairy tales no less! I think some of the current literary market is getting bogged down with fairy tale and myth retellings if I'm being completely honest, even as I continue to work on a current project that's a loose retelling of part of The Odyssey. But where I think this collection goes in a fresh direction is its dependence on readers having prior knowledge of the way these fairy tales are "supposed" to go. When Chainani executes the twists and turns to be found in each of these retellings, they work for their cleverness as well as their refreshing take on the parts of fairy tales that have become archaic when it comes to gender roles, societal expectations of what love looks like, and some of the more ridiculous parts of these bedtime stories most of us have come to accept as part of the unique genre. The first story starts with a bang: "Red Riding Hood" in an interesting world of sacrifice---one woman determined to be the anomaly, and ravenous wolves portrayed as young men with just as dangerous appetites. I thought great attention to detail was given in the placement of each story (especially with the transition from "Sleeping Beauty" to "Rapunzel"). Some of the stories fell a little flat for me or seemed to border on cliche in their attempts to portray girl boss characters and the like. But to like every piece in any collection of stories is rare, and so many of the worlds of these fairy tales are imagined in various cultures in creative ways (in other words, not everyone's white or living in a English/French/German-inspired kingdom). The illustrations scattered throughout are so lovely, too, and represent an art style that reminds me of Chainani's School for Good and Evil world I love oh so dearly. I think Chainani has clearly established himself as a fantasy author well-practiced and talented at subverting expectations at the base story-telling level, creating unforgettable and likeable (as well as hateable) characters along the way. I can't end this review without raving about the final story, "Peter Pan," which was so well-placed as the ultimate tale and possibly one of the best short stories/pieces/retellings I've ever read. There's already so much to choose and play off of in the realm of Peter Pan and his fantastical Neverland, but the direction this story goes with Wendy as its narrator took twists and turns I never could have expected and loved. There's a great and subtle balance of multiple themes, from trying to hold on to childhood, to pleasing selfish people, to falling in love with someone who sees and wants all of you, to acting in true love by setting it free. Ugh, it just struck me as a heartbreakingly beautiful and stunning piece of creative work. Finishing it while at the beach and staring at the ocean in front of me while processing it made for an even more dramatic time experiencing this piece.

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Some of my favorite quotes from Beasts and Beauty: Dangerous Tales

"She's lucky to be alive, they tell her in their grunts and growls. Lucky her beauty isn't worthy of beasts" ("Red Riding Hood").

"But sometimes, there are bigger things in life than what's right" ("Jack and the Beanstalk").

"Or maybe I saw love where I wished it would be, says the witch. Projecting onto a man what I wished I could give to myself. Making him the answer to everything. Now that is real evil" ("The Little Mermaid").

"Who made you, he breathed. Who made someone so wondrous and pure?" ("Peter Pan").

I've been rereading a lot of older books near and dear to my heart this holiday season, as I often find myself doing with my extra down time from school and a certain urge for coziness on late December nights. But this is a new read! I listened to the audiobook version (which I'm fairly certain is narrated by the same reader used for Happy Place), and think Emily Henry's books can be most enjoyed this way. You get to hear how the reader chooses to interpret certain lines and express the witty dialogue Henry really is so good at writing. I'm still struck by Henry's ability and affinity for jumping around in different timelines in her books. Happy Place certainly did this, while Funny Story and Book Lovers not as much. The way it's done adds even more great depth to what I think are complex and human characters I enjoy learning about in every timeline. In the case of this book, multiple timelines and glimpses into different seasons of Poppy and Alex's lives and friendship is key to becoming invested in their "friends to lovers" arc (this book's example of this arc is what I mean when I say I want a "friends to lovers" kind of relationship). While Poppy and Alex's friendship and dynamic (opposites really do attract here) is super fun to see develop and read about, I also just really enjoyed this book for its emphasis on the anomaly that is traveling. I love how Poppy adores traveling, explains the intoxicating boldness I think most people have experienced while on vacation, and the certain kind of freedom it brings (like her views on the beauty of airports), but I also love how she ends up viewing traveling and the definition of home as a way to understand what she truly wants for her life and what she is and isn't willing to give up when it comes to the life she wants with Alex. My only gripe with this book isn't even that big of a deal, but at times it's so painfully obvious that these two people are meant for each other, and they know it, and I as the reader know it, and yet they take forever to choose to be happy with each other. I get that that reflects reality: meaningful friendships risk complete destruction when the line separating platonic from romantic is toed. So, truthfully, I find the way Henry wrote their relationship to be realistic. But the inner romantic in me rolled her eyes from time to time, impatient to see hero and heroine kiss already. In that same vein, I thought Poppy's near-constant references to "what happened in Croatia" set up the reveal to be rather anticlimactic, since the past and present storylines kind of intersect at this summer Croatia trip, so it's a long while before readers get to even learn what happened on this trip. I really can't say much else in opposition to this book---it was cute and summery and Alex Nelson is kind of my dream man: literature nerd, high school teacher, fit, shy and quietly hilarious---I mean, c'mon. Book Lovers and Funny Story still rank higher on my Emily Henry totem pole, but I don't think anything's going to top Book Lovers if I'm being honest. I still recommend this charming read all the same!



Some of my favorite quotes from People We Meet on Vacation:

"It hurts to want it all, so many things that can't coexist within the same life."

"Maybe things can always get better between people who want to do a good job loving each other. Maybe that’s all it takes."

"It’s fascinating. How so much of love is about who you are with someone."

My main takeaway from this book is that if you're interested in something (however niche it may be), and you have some writing talent, research skills, and support from a publisher, you can write about anything you want and see it sell. Like, this book is literally all about oranges and nothing else. It starts with generalizations and overall fun, scattered orange facts before getting into some etymology, historical significance, geographical and biological explanations, and brief anecdotes from the author concerning some cool orange-related individuals in Florida. It also has a structure meant to function like bones---holding up the entire framework, but not visible. Cause at first I said, "Okay, this really is just oranges. No trickery from the title here." But then a closer look at how certain chapters transition from one to the next, building bridges from one seemingly unrelated orange fact to another, helps readers distinguish how large and far reaching the influence of oranges in social and economic spheres is. I've been joking with my peers who read this with me that we each have an absurd amount of orange facts to pull out at random functions, but I sincerely love in such a nerdy way that McPhee's writing has inspired so many writers to publish stuff about their unique interests. Look at Susan Orlean's The Orchid Thief, directly inspired by nonfiction writing like McPhee's, or Nick Hornby's work at comparing two seemingly nonlinear figures in Dickens and Prince. The nonfiction genre holds space for scholarship and unique perspectives on the many topics and wonders this world has to offer. The great McPhee has selected oranges (among his many other works that I think I'll eventually be checking out).


My favorite orange fact I learned from reading Oranges​: The fruit on the outside of an orange tree will be sweeter than the fruit growing on the inside. In fact, every orange's placement on a tree will result in slightly different tastes, shapes, and colors that cannot be exactly replicated.

I thought my first Cormac McCarthy book would probably be The Road, considering the length of time it's been hanging out on my "to be read" list and its shorter length. But No Country for Old Men has come first, and I sense I now have a pretty good taste and feel for the rest of McCarthy's uniquely told narratives. My short review for this book is as follows: "this book was like a puzzle with all the pieces scattered and labeled in plain sight. but i still wrote 'what?' 'who?' and 'wow.' all over every page." I'm really rocking with this idea of a puzzle because McCarthy's writing style requires readers to do some moderately heavy lifting to keep track of everything that's going on. From a flippant use of pronouns, to sections within chapters acting as if they're completely separate from other sections in content and focus, to time jumps that imply things that happened in between without them ever being explicitly stated, it's, in one word, thrilling. Another word could be "frustrating," which I'd be lying if I said I didn't resonate with more than once. But I have to admire McCarthy's ability to create and sustain a story that stays manages to stay afloat without explaining everything to the reader. I had plenty of moments where I felt the satisfaction of being a "smart reader" for putting a few of the puzzle pieces together. And, in terms of the plot itself, I feel like I became the most invested in the overlapping storylines that focused on Chigurh chasing Moss and Bell chasing them both. Bell strikes me as the most fascinating character. He's aware that he's getting old and past his prime in the police force (hint hint, title significance!), but still invested enough in his perception of what it means to fight against evil to try to find and get Chigurh back in handcuffs. Precisely because he fails, with Chigurh roaming free and Moss dead (which was a major turning event that happened earlier in the story than I expected it to, wow), is where true emotion lies: the state of America is plummeting toward an evil that past generations can't "defeat" and future generations must learn to live with. The book's female characters make me equal parts fascinated and uncomfortable with McCarthy after the recent publishing of the very timely Vanity Fair article about his long-time, underage lover. That's a wild sentence. But yeah---Moss' wife and the hitchhiker Moss picks up on the road and ends up getting killed are the only two female characters of note. And guess what---they both end up dead. Larger commentary on how they relate to the women (or more like "woman") in McCarthy's own life has to be acknowledged here, that no one is safe from the evil Chigurh embodies, save for those he doesn't see as being a threat, like Bell. People like Bell would be dead if they and their power in law enforcement were actually a threat to someone like Chigurh and his connections. There's a lot more I could say, but I'm still processing most of it and feel like the Vanity Fair article is clouding most of my opinion of this novel's author right now.



Some of my favorite quotes from No Country for Old Men:

"How does a man decide in what order to abandon his life?"

"It takes very little to govern good people. Very little. And bad people cant be governed at all. Or if they could I never heard of it."

"If there's one thing on this planet you don't look like it's a bunch of good luck walkin around."

The amount of content and craft moves pushed into each and every one of the essays in this collection makes approaching a book review feel nearly impossible, if I'm being honest. I want to feel like I'm covering all the bases of my thoughts, but my thoughts feel jumbled because each piece left me with a different impression of either awe or confusion. Over the entire collection, I was able to make clear connections back to the title and felt like I was therefore able to grasp themes of cultural identity, violence in Colombia, violence in America, and the author's multilayered relationships with multiple family members and their family history. I think my main point of contention is every essay's plethora of names. There's too many to keep track of, to be frank, which made the skim reading I was already doing even more difficult. But, to be fair, I understand how the author had to hold all of the names of these people and places to be able to write about her family and some of the more researched elements that intersect with her family history and history in Bogota, Colombia. I'm also aware I could've been a better reader and sat with each piece for longer, but I just didn't have the time. In connection to that, I think there's just one too many things going on in each essay. After learning that Cabeza-Vanegas' style of essay-writing is heavily inspired by Montaigne's rambling, digressing influence, I feel a lot more accepting of her maximalist style. Because that's clearly what's going on here: an attempt at approaching a variety of ideas, impressions, and images with a lot of language and repetition. Each essay is filled to the brim with similes and metaphors (my nonfiction class made jokes about counting how many we could find across the book, but that we didn't have that kind of time). Truthfully, this sense of maximized figurative language really only demonstrated to me that she's a talented, eloquent author. At times, I started to get annoyed at what seemed like a stretch of word choice or a rambling metaphor spanning across two or three sentences. There's a lot of digression going on on the sentence-level as well as the macro paragraph-level, which makes it really hard to focus on one thing at a time and reach the end of each essay with a sense of what its aboutness was. A few essays stand out to me particularly for very specific images and physical sensations, but aboutness-wise? They're mostly shaky. I know I'm the type of reader who appreciates a good flow of figurative language, but also the writer's ability to get me to the conclusion with a vague idea of what I should be feeling or taking away from the content. So, to wrap things up, this book and its emphasis on lofty prose and maximalism isn't ultimately for me, though I really appreciated the element of translation that can be found at the beginning of each essay. None of the translated idioms seemed to really connect to the content of the essay it was affiliated with, but I was kind of okay with that. Each part of the collection begins with a retold Colombian creation story as well, and these didn't clearly connect to other parts of the essays in a way I was also okay with. But I'm here for anything mythology related. :)



One of my favorite quotes from Don't Come Back:

"This is what we do, impose narratives on the unfurled darkness, try to steer heavens and countries for the greater good and the greater truth."

I'm so impressed with all the moving parts of this novel. The influence of several Greek myths, mainly the legend of Demeter and Persephone, combined with the poignant and literary setting of Cambridge, really gave this book a distinct atmospheric feel. Listening to it as an audiobook only helped add to this sense of atmosphere, of a campus riddled with death, potential suspects, and reminders of a past the main character, Marianna, won't ever be able to get back. Having read Michaelides' The Silent Patient only recently, I picked up on his preference for melding new storylines with the patterns of classic Greek narrative and the intrigue of a good old fashioned murder mystery. The crossovers to The Silent Patient, which in this literary universe occurs after the events of this book, were so so cool for a knowing reader to pick up on (aka, I thought it was really cool and gasped out loud when I realized Theo Faber was entering onto this book's scene). Like The Silent Patient, this novel's narrator is also a psychotherapist, spurred to pursue the particular profession from her own set of intense daddy issues, among other childhood abuses. I think from what I've seen of this author so far, they're clearly capable of crafting unique and believable characters in settings that enhance their characteristics rather than turn them cliche. So much of what we learn about Marianna becomes so important for the delayed reveals in the story later. The comparison of Tennyson and Marianna's own experience of looking just past the veil to the people they've loved and lost really resonated with me. I didn't think to question Marianna's opinion of her late husband, Sebastian, who tragically drowned in the ocean on a trip Marianna urged them to take for the sake of their marriage, until I realized that we only had her opinion of him to go off of. Since she's clearly biased, how farfetched is it to discover that he was a murderous, disturbed man who manipulated a naive young woman, Zoe, into committing horrendous acts of murder that would not only wreak havoc but ultimately cause a brutal betrayal for Marianna, a wife he clearly didn't truly love? I was truly shocked when this plot twist unfolded, not only because I never suspected Zoe, but because I was very nearly convinced that Edward Fosca, Marianna's prime suspect upon starting her unofficial investigation, was guilty of killing his own students---particularly a set group of young women self-titled The Maidens. Fosca is such an interesting character in his own right, since we find out he was sleeping with these female students of his, but not actively killing them. He really comes off incredibly guilty at times, but perhaps that's just Marianna's clear lack of complete mental stability and desperation for a way to explain the horrific stabbings and have a sense of closure for the loss she's suffering in her own life. I also must sing Fred's praises for a moment---he is just the sweetest, most romantic, clumsiest thing. The way he pursues and cares about Marianna, and actually helps her productively move forward with her investigation, is precious. His belief in premonitions added to the element of the book's atmosphere that felt supernatural, too, what with Marianna's hunch that her prayer to Demeter and Persephone on the island of Naxos may have started all of her misfortune and followed her to Cambridge. I definitely had some points of confusion upon finishing the book, though. I can tell the ending was supposed to be ambiguous for the sake of what I assume will be another book. That's cool, but caused me to say, "What? No, c'mon! There's gotta be another book out already." to myself in the car as the audiobook wrapped up. I think the logistics of how Zoe pulled off the murders are a little cloudy to me, as well as why Sebastian was so motivated to have these murders be orchestrated in the first place. Could it be that Marianna was really too jaded to see any red flags, and we, therefore, as readers don't get to see them either? I'm not sure. The beginning section of each new part was clearly meant to imply we were reading from Fosca's perspetive, but I think it's actually supposed to be interpreted as Sebastian's perspective once we know his true intentions. I also wanted to see Marianna speak to Fosca at least one more time, since I ended up convinced pretty early on of Marianna's theory that Fosca was guilty. I'm very glad there was a plot twist in this regard, though. This is definitely a book I'd reread a year or a few years down the line with the intent of closely reading for details I wouldn't have thought to focus on for a first read. I also need to keep tabs on Michaelides to make sure I'm aware of when his next book comes out.



Some of my favorite quotes from The Maidens:

"That was the horror of it. We all secretly hope that tragedy will only ever happen to other people... sooner or later, it happens to you."

"She sometimes felt she had been cursed, as if by some malevolent goddess in a Greek myth, to lose everyone she ever loved."

I've never read a short story collection quite like this one, or a collection I liked as much as this one from start to finish. I made jokes to my peers who read this book with me, as well as in my Goodreads review, that I'd like to have whatever Saunders was having when he wrote these stories. But in all seriousness, he as a writer has the kind of tone that makes readers even remotely familiar with his work go, "Oh, that's Saunders for sure." He has such control over each of the narratives, even when things seem completely wacky or abstract. I've since learned that a lot of post-postmodernism elements are at work in these stories. Postmodernism can be understood as traditionally cynical and focused on the idea that nothing really matters. Post-postmodernism, then, decides to go beyond this irony to find some hope. I really see this happening in the first and last stories in this collection (which happen to be my two favorites): "Victory Lap" and "Tenth of December." Just when all seems truly lost, that some one or other is gonna die and the ending might leave you in tears, something turns around and bam---there's just a little bit of hope or redemption in the midst of the sadness and postmodern foundation. All of these stories take place in pretty average places, at a first glance. I was fascinated by how Saunders tells readers what they need to know about the setting and society of a story without directly telling them at all. I mainly saw this happening in "The Semplica Girl Diaries" and "My Chivalric Fiasco." Like, c'mon, the language is hilarious in "My Chivalric Fiasco" and does the necessary work to orient readers in the setting. This is one of several stories that also hints at there being technological advancements and miracles of medicine that we haven't quite reached yet in our own society. From "My Chivalric Fiasco's" KnightLyfe drug to the morbid reality of what's happening to the Semplica Girls, to nearly all of "Escape from Spiderhead," we're thrown into the deep end of stories that Saunders makes believable enough to track with in the midst of things that make it very clear we're not quite situated in a society where everything's normal. If I ever happen to master post-postmodernism, I hope I'm able to at least mimic Saunders' mastery of delayed reveals sorta well. I'll be thinking about these stories for a good long while and definitely want to check out more of his work soon.



Some of my favorite quotes from Tenth of December:

"Why was she dancing? No reason. Just alive, I guess."

"Which maybe that’s what love was: liking someone how he was and doing things to help him get even better."

Did I skip all the other Bridgerton books in favor of reading this one to be ready for Season 4 of Bridgerton coming out soonish? Yes. Do I think I'll go back and read all the other ones to catch up? No. Do I particularly care? No! I have this thing where I only reread books I really really love and don't read books I've already seen the TV show or movie for but never originally read. I don't quite know why, but it's just what I do. I know that Benedict Bridgerton is my favorite character in the show and that I had plenty of time to start reading his book before the season aired if I started now. So I did! And I listened to it as an audiobook, which I highly recommend, seeing as the narrator has a fantastic accent and did a really good job of jumping back and forth between character voices and genders. All in all, I think the Cinderella storyline this book follows fits really well into the original fairytale as well as a Regency-era setting. I loved how Sophie's lineage and birth out of wedlock is explained at the very beginning, since the rest of the story really hinges on how she and Benedict cannot be socially accepted together because of it. I really liked how they have a "love at first sight" moment, but what I liked even more was how messy their relationship becomes. If you read or watch Bridgerton-adjacent content, you've got to except spice, and there was plenty of it here. I didn't expect Sophie to end up working in the Bridgerton household and be painfully close and far from Benedict at the same time, but I liked how it allowed the two of them to really fall in love without Benedict knowing that she's not the servant she seems. A lot of the characters (especially Violet Bridgerton) end up being onto her, what with her refined education, accent, and social skills, but the charade of her identity is kept up for long enough to be believed. I also really really liked that Benedict is able to realize Sophie is his mystery woman only once she has a blindfold on, covering half of her face. That's such a great way to resolve that conflict! But the conflict of him continually asking her to be his mistress was sooooo good, too. Sophie's wicked stepmother ended up being a more hateable villain than I imagined, especially when she has Sophie thrown into jail. Oh, my! My audiobook version also included a bonus epilogue that detailed the short but cute romance of Sophie's stepsister, Posey, which I thought was super cute and gave more of a glimpse into Benedict and Sophie's happily ever after. Overall, I was thoroughly entertained and can't wait to see how this particular story is adapted to the screen, seeing as they went out of order and gave Colin a season before Benedict. How Benedict's past relationships with men and women in the show's canon will affect his own personal season and relationship with Sophie is yet to be seen!



Some of my favorite quotes from An Offer from a Gentleman:

"I'm leaving!" she said, with, in her opinion, great drama and resolve.
But he just answered her with a sly half smile, and said, 'I'm following.'
And the bloody man remained two strides behind her the entire way home."

"I can live with you hating me," he said to the closed door.
"I just can't live without you."

"It was strange, to find a woman who could make him happy just with her mere presence. He didn’t even have to see her, or hear her voice, or even smell her scent. He just had to know that she was there."

"A man only got one shot at declaring himself to his true love; he didn't want to muck it up completely."