jodiwilldare's reviews
1523 reviews

I was attracted to Bittersweet by Miranda Beverly-Whittemore because it had the same sort of setting as We Were Liars, a book I really enjoyed. A wealthy family’s summer compound? A promise of intrigue? Sign me up.

However, where ‘Liars’ was subtle and clever, Bittersweet is obvious and aims to be smarter than it is. Damn. Read more

I’ve spent the entire morning reading review after review of John Darnielle’s Wolf in White Van, the debut novel from The Mountain Goats’ singer that was long-listed for the National Book Award. After reading each five-star review that lauds it for being life-altering or mind-bending I’m all “Fuuuuuck that noise.” I don’t get it, and I’m trying very hard to get it. Read more

Epistolary novels are my genre kryptonite. I find them hard to resist and even harder to quit even when the going is not so great. This is the only reason I can give for finishing Ava Dellaira’s young-adult novel Love Letters to the Dead. Read more

Here’s my advice when it comes to Karen Joy Fowler’s fabulous We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves, don’t read anything about it at all. Skip the jacket copy, the blurbs, every review, including this one, pick up the book, and start reading. The less you know the better the experience and trust me this is a book worthy of your time. I wouldn’t steer you wrong. Read more

It’s not often my Rock & Roll Bookclub hits 100% when it comes to book completion (every member finishing the book). It’s just as rare that as a group we all agree a book is kind of “Eh.” The stars aligned when it came to A.S. King’s Reality Boy a young adult novel with a stunning premise and not such a great story. Read more

Lindsay Hunter’s novel Ugly Girls is unrelenting and unsparring and strangely compelling. Read more.

I spent much of the morning paging backwards through Merritt Tierce’s Love Me Back looking for that paragraph that gutted me, had me curled up on my side, the book in my hand, deep breathing to avoid tears. Of course I can’t find it. It was a good’un though, about being desired by someone you love and making that be enough. read more

I’ll be the first to admit I’m kind of an asshole when it comes to war books. They bore me. War is barbaric and dehumanizes us, I get that. Do I need to read one million books to reiterate this point? No.

That’s kind of how I felt about half of Anthony Doerr’s All the Light We Cannot See, the other half I really enjoyed, but the boring parts got in the way of the good parts and this National Book Award nominee left me mostly underwhelmed. Read more.