benedettal's reviews
395 reviews

Very thought-provoking, but equally quite bleak, which I didn’t enjoy. This book was my introduction to Magdalene Laundries and I mean yikes, it was awful to read about that. The main character is also depressing, due to his upbringing and the unfortunate circumstances of his birth. His actions are pure but they’re not gonna lead to any good for anybody. Overall this just made me mad at the church in Ireland for perpetuating this barbarous practices, and for so long.  

I actually really enjoyed this. Maybe it was because I’d just recently rewatched kill you darlings, but I was endeared to Jack Kerouac after sort of growing out of him thanks to the movie, and this non-fiction novel helped cement that renewed good will.

This book is as rambly as ever, but it has a special charm as it documents his journey as a lost soul and a writer, living for his craft. His adventures are wild to think about today, as well as unnecessary really, but they make for a good book. Better than Dharma Bums for sure honestly, felt more real. Don’t know why he ever chose to hide behind fiction. Or maybe I just like the name dropping. 

I liked this. Not surprising since Hemingway can hardly do any wrong, but still. I prefer novels, which this is not, but I was still enchanted by the prose. I love how it is so dry but can still convey all that emotion. The vignettes are poignant and fascinating. I would read this over and over.

This was an interesting one. Building on a lot of real Hollywood stories, Taylor Jenkins Reid reminded me of a perhaps slightly more compassionate Jacqueline Susann, creating an unexpected queer narrative that I have to say had some real power. It was a very pleasant read, interesting enough and quite entertaining. I thought the twist in the end was a bit forced, a but much. It’s high camp, not bad, but camp.

This was a fun mystery. The introduction of the character of Poirot is great, very easy to see why he’s so beloved. Overall I always read murder mysteries with a bit of distance, so it’s not like I had a guess as to whodunnit, but I still found the twists and turns interesting. 

Sadly, I didn’t enjoy this as much as Lynne Tillman’s other works, although it was still enjoyable. This is a more straight forward work of fiction, compared to the other semi-autobiographical novels/memoirs, but in a more literal sense it’s such a wild ride. No chapters, hardly any punctuation, straight flow of consciousness, unreliable narrator. The characters are more like weird vignettes or caricatures, the setting is never explained - a spa? a mental hospital? It doesn’t really matter. It’s just a sequence of reflections, sort of conveying the idea of a convoluted brain. All in all it’s fascinating, if a bit chaotic. Maybe I would have liked it better if I’d read it faster.  

I’ll have to go back to this one someday, as I don’t think this first read through did it justice. Overall, I’m always a big fan of stoicism, and conceptually I love the idea of a Roman Emperor sitting down and putting his philosophy down to paper for posterity. And the fact that he is remembered as such a good emperor makes this even better.

However, I guess I was somewhat naively hoping that this would be more historically relevant, would speak more of what it’s like to be an emperor, his ruling philosophy, which the meditations do definitely not. It’s not a fault I should be giving it, but it kinda influenced my enjoyment. It was just a sort of by the numbers philosophy treaty, and I need to pay better attention to appreciate it more.

This novel was such a trip but like in the best way? I could not have imagined a more heartbreaking and relatable exploration of contemporary relationships tbh, not saying that lightly. Maybe it was the disclaimer at the beginning that said that the story was somewhat inspired by real events (or rather it was one of those things and people are made up, any references to real life are fortuitous, which I’m always quite sceptical of). 

Indeed, this is a story about dating, dealing with feelings for past partners, emotional unavailability, and ultimately, in an unexpected plot twist, loss. It’s heartbreaking to see Adelaide do her best in the face of mixed signals and an impossible task of pleasing a broken man. Through his pov we see how difficult it all is for him, which makes it even harder to blame him after all. It’s a lose-lose situation, the story of highly emotional people meeting at the wrong time and insisting it must be destiny anyway. It was a hard one to put down. At least the ending was satisfying, which is not nothing, but man was this brutal. 

This was a lovely little retelling of Little Women, much less on the nose than I thought it would be judging by the marketing. It tells the story of four sisters and their progeny, starting in the 80s, which is a nice touch. Their quirks and personalities are very well developed, and the writing is lovely. The plot is a bit odd, but not unbelievable, but I guess my biggest issue is that I couldn’t quite relate to the sisters so much, which on the contrary I think is one of the strengths of Little Women. They’re just too weird. Nonetheless, it’s an interesting story and I won’t lie and say the ending wasn’t really moving. It kept me hooked throughout, even though it’s not generally my cup of tea.

A perfectly serviceable novella, my first Gaskell. The late 19th century setting and general vibes of the story are not necessarily my cup of tea, but I appreciate this is a product of its time, a time in which relationships were not openly spoken of and women often suffered for love, due to inconsistent lovers. It’s a short and effective story, depicting poor Phyllis as a remarkable young Victorian woman, all proper and impressive for her time, though no Cathy Earnshaw or Jane Eyre even. It also funny enough reminded me a lot of a novel I also read recently, Eugenie Grandet by Balzac, which also talks about cousins and ill fated romances. Quite interesting that two such stories would emerge in two different countries at around the same time, and with a similar name, but it really goes to show they were both depicting a very course of events.