betsyrisen's reviews
828 reviews

My reasons for reading this book at this time: the world is on fire, so reading a fictional take of a Fox News-like organization feeding demon possession straight into half the population felt, oddly soothing? I understand most of you will wonder how the hell I make that logic work, but what can I say, I dig it.

I can't think of a single person who reads my recs who would enjoy this other than me. Gory horror, graphic violence, needless killing of family pets, this book has it all. I couldn't stop reading it. Again, I feel like this review has more to say about me than anything...

I really enjoyed this frenetic writing style, and while I feel like I could predict at least the direction the story was going in, I was still at least caught off guard now and then.

Predictable ending, however, was predictable. And boy did this get long in places. Could have probably trimmed down 100 pages and not lost any punch.

Sidenote: It wasn't until I'd finished this book that I realized I've had 2 others by the author on my TBR forever, before ultimately deciding they weren't for me. 

"The part of Sherry that was always just outside of everything, the part that was quietly taking notes in the back of the classroom, the part that volunteered to take the photo, the part that stood behind the table at the prom and ladled out the punch - that part of Sherry thought, "I didn't know that someone's knees really could buckle. I didn't know what they meant when they said that their stomach fell through the floor."

This is not generally my kind of book, but I'm trying to diversify. I feel like it took forever to get through. And I'm also stubborn, so even though I was 70 pages in, I told myself I'd get to the end of the chapter and then decide whether or not to continue reading. Which is EXACTLY when it got good (ain't that always the way?)

This book keeps you wrong footed as a matter of course, and it works for the plot, but it makes my head hurt. And I think there were too many characters. I kept losing track of who was who and why they mattered. I appreciated the conclusion of the story being wrapped up with a cozy little bow, and didn't even mind a little tease at the end. 

"Once more, I had caught a glimpse of the truth lurking beneath our day-to-day existence: The universe is much bigger and stranger and more wonderful than we can even begin to imagine. But the least we can do is try. "

I had this book on my TBR for ages, and I was so excited when my turn came up. I had some trouble getting into it at first, and found myself annoyed that it seemed more like an autobiography (including a ton of background of the author with hardly any paranormal text in sight!) and the book was half over before we got to what I had wanted in the first place. But I realized, as I kept reading, that just because it wasn't what I was expecting, didn't mean it wasn't interesting or important to the overall story.

I wholeheartedly agree with the majority of the conclusions the author came to, and actually found it very uplifting in the end. Some of the writing could have used some polish and got repetitive in places, but all in all, a truly interesting read. 

"Try being taken seriously when you're suffering from crippling anxiety, or on the verge of tears, or screaming."

"Women have much to be angry about, but aren't given many avenues for expressing their anger. People with PMDD are caught between their biology and sexist expectations. Many people with PMDD have reported that their symptoms are less serious when they're alone." Great, the perfect excuse for why I rarely leave the house (also, truth)

So apparently, lots of INFJs have PMDD. >mind blown emoji<. "INFJs represent 2% of the population, and are known for being emotional and analytical, as well as sensitive." 

I found this book so interesting and helpful. Hopefully I can utilize it to make some changes in my life or bolster the ones I'm already undertaking in order to make it easier for me to exist, as well as not turn homicidal at the people around me. 

I enjoyed this book so much.

I really have a soft spot on my TBR for historical books that read like travelogues. I probably know more than the average high schooler about the American Revolution, but it is one bit of history I'm always telling myself I want to learn more about, and this was a great way to do it. Lots of names you would recognize, plenty you don't, (a working understanding of the musical Hamilton comes in REALLY handy here), and I want the author to write an entire book about Benedict Arnold alone! This is one of those books where I'd tell myself "just one more chapter" but then couldn't resist continuing. 

I found this book easily digestible and wide ranging for someone with at least a basic understanding of the underlying concepts.  But the whole thing did come off a bit like a commercial. In the preface, the author states that her background is in journalism. "Wherever I've presented a bias for or against the 15-minute city idea, I have done so with no greater authority than informed personal opinion." I would say that it does, as promised, "establish a broad base of history, influences, and ways of thinking about urban design" <-with you so far "to frame this debate more clearly in the urgent context of the climate crisis." And that's where you lost me. 

Maybe it was just too much information. Maybe it wasn't organized in a way I could fully take it in. I had thought that reading it as someone sort of in the same boat, if you will, as the author, would be enjoyable. Instead I think I came out of the experience more confused.

*Beware potential spoilers*

One could argue I didn't know what I was getting into with this book, so it's not the books fault that I was so confused at times. But oof.

There was so much to love and hate and be annoyed by and root for in these characters (although I will admit I started to get a bit lost. Not sure so many different characters were needed to move the story along, and it left some characters underdeveloped that I would have liked to have seen more of).

One of my biggest pet peeves about a book is when it spends all its time building up to the conclusion and then just kind of jams everything into the end. There was more of a resolution than I feared I'd come away with, but again, it just seemed rushed.

I don't think this is a spoiler if you've already decided you want to read the book, but I will say I appreciate a book that I picked up because there was body behind a wall, and it somehow became a background story to the novel as a whole. Well played by the author.

"The old system, inherited from Thomas Jefferson and based on Bacon’s sixteenth- century conception of the forty classes of knowledge, was not expansive enough to handle the variety of books that were brought over from the Capitol, let alone what was to arrive in the coming years. Consider the number of inventions and new branches of scholarship that had emerged since Jefferson sold his collection to Congress in 1815. There had been no electric light, photography, or basketball, among hundreds of other subjects, when Jefferson prepared his 1815 catalog." >mind blown emoji<

"Younger library patrons in the 1990s who caught a glimpse, or even used, the “frozen” card catalogs that for a time stood side by side with the new computer terminals, may not have understood the reluctance many had in letting go of what scholar Markus Krajewski called the “paper machines.” See, I'm old. I definitely used a card catalog as a kid. I can still remember the way the old wooden drawers would stick when you'd try to open them. And oh, the smell. I'll never forget it.

 "The Library of Congress houses the largest archival collection of Walt Whitman materials in the world. When Whitman noticed several errors in one edition of “O Captain! My Captain!” he mailed the page to the publishers with his corrections marked in ink." Stop it I can't. 

I missed my calling as a Library of Congress cataloger. Apparently there is something called "Library Hand" script and I want to learn it. I LOVED THIS BOOK. It brought back so many memories for me, and really got me thinking about my reading journey as a whole, to be honest. It seems hard to fathom now, as I'm 20+ books in to my goal for the year on the first of February, but I actually took remedial reading classes in first and second grade. Something must have clicked at some point, because I've been off like a shot ever since. 

Book fairs? Best thing to ever happen to me. School libraries? Would have moved in if I could have. First job? Library. College job? Library (two different ones, for that matter). A friend and I used to quiz each other on the Dewey Decimal System for FUN because we LIKED IT.

Ugh. This was the best.

"If he truly had understood what that meant—that time runs out—he would have done it all so differently. Maybe you can’t understand until you’re the one standing on the brink. Maybe we’re not meant to. Maybe it’s some biological trick designed to keep us safe from the saber-toothed tiger, only now it keeps us building big cities and worrying about deadlines. Maybe we’re not supposed to get that it will all be gone, we will all be gone—until it’s too late to do anything about it. If life’s a joke and death’s the punch line, in any good setup, you never see it coming. Because if we did understand, we would spend it all in the sun with the grass between our toes. What else was the point? We’re here, then we’re not. And before that and after that, the mountains stay put and the waves keep crashing and the storms come and go and none of any of that is aware that for a brief, fleeting moment, we were here too. We were a part of it too. It’s a relief to know you don’t matter." 

You're never going to catch me sleeping on TJ Newman.  I'd give anything to buy her a beer and just sit down in front of her, splay out my hands and say, "How?"

I find myself chuckling every once in awhile when reading her books because they skirt the line between unbelievable and plausible in the MOST enjoyable way. I've had this book on my Hold list for MONTHS and I'm so glad my number finally came up.

I really enjoyed this book, which I think showcases a different take on the exploration story. Chapters dedicated to Sacagawea, James Beckwourth, Laura Ingalls Wilder, John Muir, Florence Merriam Bailey, William Sheppard, Harriet Chalmers Adams, Matthew Henson, Amelia Earhart, and Sally Ride. 

Some names and stories I knew, many I didn't, but all told in an interesting and accessible way.