alisarae's reviews
1562 reviews

I’ve read some of Junji Ito’s other works, so it was cute to read this light story instead of a horror. Though he tried to make the cats horror monsters in the beginning, he failed. 

I did it! I read the whole Bible in a year (welll technically, Father Mike read it to me on his podcast). I haven't read the whole thing straight through like that since I was a teenager. It is more interesting now that I am adult with the knowledge of literature, interpretation, critical analysis, sociology etc, that I have built up over the decades. I also always appreciated Fr Mike's commentary and the way he points out references to other parts of the Bible, linking it all together and reminding us of what we have already read. This was also my first year reading the deuterocanonicals and the expanded version of Esther - better late than never! 

Wallahi, the Emirates really was like this. Reading this book made me nostalgic for the UAE, and a bit regretful that I didn't make more of an effort to meld into that place. I want to bring the Emirati's hospitality, grace, and immunity to being rushed with me into the new year.

This book was perfect! I loved the Belvedere siblings: Rafi has such a big heart, Birdie is truly laugh out loud funny, and Liz painfully reminded me of myself (cue the millennial cue) lol. The setting (hollywood matron mom's quirky/swanky renovated inn in upstate New York) was lush and cozy and of course I wanted to be there too. And the drama level was just right, with plenty of character growth along the way.

I enjoyed reading this with my book club because some people brought up good points. Such as: why wasn't this a play (2 characters and 1 setting, it is perfect for a play)? and MC is so annoying that it is a pleasure to see him suffer.

My initial thoughts, even within the first couple pages, is that this is the "origin story" of the MC from Notes from Underground. The guy is friendless, inexperienced, withdrawn, naive but doesn't know it, and rather intense for societal standards, so I can easily imagine his first heartbreak fueling his transformation into the incel antihero in Notes from Underground.

Aaaahhh that was sooo cute!!! I was melting inside the entire time. I love this series and this book was the best one yet.

I've heard about this method before and so I was curious to learn more. The concept is simple: run 80% of your mileage at a low intensity Z2 pace, and 20% at Z3+ pace. The book stretches this out for a while, explaining the history of running programs, the science experiments behind the 80/20 method, how it works across different sports, etc. It gets a bit repetitive bc the author keeps hammering home how this method is the greatest thing ever. Though I am convinced, it was a bit overkill.

The important takeaway for me was that most hobby runners don't run their easy runs slow enough, and they don't run enough easy runs. I get why: if you are running 5 days a week, 4 of the 5 runs are going to be a slow jog pace. Meanwhile, commonly repeated knowledge of a running schedule is that you need a tempo run, intervals, a long run, a recovery run, and cross training, with the implication that all of that needs to happen in the same week. Then when you are trying to hit certain goal paces and comparing yourself on strava, things can get hairy, quick.

The other good thing to know if you are trying this method is that fast runners have a larger range of what slow running is for them, so it can be frustrating for amateur runner to try to stay in the target heart rate zone since the window of what is available for them is much narrower. So have patience and delete strava from your phone ;)

This was my least favorite book in the series but I did still enjoy the cozy fantasy vibes and the trans rep is quite sweet. I started off hating the audiobook narrator, like how did they find the most annoying sounding person ever to read this lol. but it turns out there was a purpose to that and as the character evolves, the narrator's voice changes. Really thoughtful to do it that way, I have never noticed that in an audiobook before. Honestly this series deserves so much more attention from readers, and I hope this author's audience grows.

This was another great installment in the series. It made me happy to hear about how Pip was getting along with his new friends. The author handled Pip's emotional and learning needs with such a gentle touch, really sweet.
Btw the audiobook for this is not bad! The voices were different than I had imagined but it was fine.