juliajjshields's reviews
396 reviews

this short lil story was entirely unnecessary but I thoroughly enjoyed it & felt 🥹

3.75✨ this is essentially a book on active listening which allows you to deeply connect with others. It’s narrated by Brooks who can sound monotonous at times, but overall is a strong storyteller & conveys his messages well. As someone who has done a lot of self work + unpacking of ego via therapy & other modalities, most of what was shared wasn’t new. However, I appreciated the individual stories shared and the new perspectives I gained. This is one of those books that I think if we made it required reading, people would move even a lil bit differently & make society a more empathetic space.

“Therapists are essentially story editors. People come to therapy because their stories are not working, often because they get causation wrong. They blame themselves for things that are not their fault, or they blame others for things that are. By going over life stories again and again, therapists can help people out of the deceptive rumination spirals they’ve been using to narrate themselves.”

2.75✨ this started so strong & fun! I actually found things funny & it was well done. However I started to get lost towards the end things felt thrown together. It was definitely a solid read if you want to be engaged but I wouldn’t recommend it enthusiastically… a book about workplace toxicity at its finest & people with a whole lot of trauma and issues. Felt myself getting anxious reading at times because of how icky it was so not slay but again, entertaining. glad my fav cliff got a happy ending & that Jolene ended up going to therapy lol

3.75✨ dare I say this is the best one??? loved sloane & Xavier together. we love a bad ass fmc!! I ate this up even the family dynamic side plots. The aggressive nuggets of what I’m assuming was Roman was a bit much as were the alluding moments to the next book, but overall super fun & fresh. Only thing I was not about was the whole shoe moment bc i just truly couldn’t get past how unsanitary it was oof. All other spice and banter was slay big fan of this pairing, their clap back ability & their goldfish. this satiated my desire for a spicy silly lil romance thank you huang

 

However the Barbara plot and ending just let me down? Im glad she’s alive but Im just…confused. It felt like we were trying to see how these two stories came together just for one to end up taking precedent over the other (Bear) and the other (Barbara) being solved so quickly it lost me. Was that not the focus? Like I thought we were trying to find Barbara while unveiling these elements of Bear that were going to relate to one another? And they didn’t??? At all even in the slightest just full left field…sure you can claim the Hewitt’s are trying to save Barbara from her family when they couldn’t save Bear, the family being the true evil blah blah but again, not really a thriller. Finished this earlier today and spent my hours in the car thinking about it and still just as unsatisfactory to me.

🥹🥹 gonna be honest I was anticipating to feel meh. I didn’t love the last book of Monaghan’s and the premise seemed a bit dull. Whoever wrote the summary needs to be fired because this was anything but!! There’s so much more to the story than the silly meet cute described. It tackles grief and courage to be open and kids/divorce and coming back to yourself. I thought this was so so wholesome and my heart felt all warm and fuzzy. Ethanand his long time admiration/crush on Ali + the ways that would show up were just so so good. This was lovely :,,,,,) just pure 🥹🥹

this was so fun & wholesome! Started listening on a roadtrip in France & took my time finishing as I transitioned back home. There were many wonderful nuggets :) I really appreciated the way the book felt personal & anecdotal while sharing the history of family trips and travel in the US. This was very US and white middle class centric, but the demographic makes sense as that was who was able to take road trips/travel at that time. I’d love to read or listen to a book about roadtrips in other countries as well I think it’s so fascinating. I learned a lot that I know I will continue to think about on roadtrips in the future or when flying or passing rest stops or getting gas etc. Very well done & a great listen!! 

I am sO conflicted with this one. The ending had me emotional it was so tough. I loved starting each chapter/year with what we were talking about then, I thought the premise of the story was clever, but the execution confused me a bit. Felt as if there was an outside narrator then it was from the characters’ perspectives then narrator pops in every now and then so that was a bit confusing…

I’m also just icked out by infidelity lol so the fact that was the entire premise of this book was rough. Mallory’s lack of self respect for 20+ years made me so sad especially when I thought things may have started with Scott just for her to end it because he wasn’t Jake…same Jake who stayed with his wife year after year, wanting everything and not willing to give anything else up. 

At the same time, I thought the way we see their lives unfold every year was well done…the ending with Bess & Link was so predictable and yet so heart wrenching. I found myself wishing there was more to read!! The fact this is 28 summers #1 makes me hopeful maybe there will be more from them. 

Definitely conflicted on this story yet feeling it in my heart in a way I can’t ignore…I think for the fact alone that I’m feeling so much with this book it’s a 3.5! I’m a firm believer that stories should leave an impact no matter how small and I’ve read a bit too many books recently thatve left me feeling indifferent. This was a welcome change  

3.25✨ found this to be a lovely lil portrayal of the intimacy of girlhood and growing up. I enjoyed seeing our narrator questioning the imposed structure of religion & unpacking her deep love of her friend. Overall though, I wasn’t blown away by the writing or felt there was anything new. I found the excerpts of real letters sent between Zaza & Simone to be the most touching. Perhaps I should try reading the original in French! We shall see. 

I appreciated the perspectives and ideas brought here. Some essays resonated while others lost me but that’s often to be expected with collections of essays. 

I loved the deeper dive of magical realism as an escape and healing for oppressed & minoritized communities where alternate realities are possible. magical realism about the powerless gaining power, unlocking imagination, and coming together to fight oppression against impossible odds. Villarreal’s unpacking of whiteness and European / western contexts, the co-opting, the genre of fantasy vs magical realism etc in these fields were great. Her examination of identity was strong and I learned a lot about video games, a realm of fantasy I don’t explore but have learned more about as they’re the way my partner engages with the genre.

There were aspects of fantasy vs magical realism I felt aware of but Villarreal articulated the differences so well I felt it in my body. 

✨Fantasy discovers the new world, whereas Magical realism is a world invaded by violence. If fantasy is the literature of world building, then magical realism is the literature that results from world breaking.✨

Another - 

“Magical realism occurs in the post colonial fall out whereas fantasy occurs in the historical context of a first world view, war battles kingdoms etc.” // “Both fantasy and magical realism are fabulation. What separates the two is power.” 🤯

While I’ve always loved the genre of fantasy, stories that stuck more with me were those of what I now understand to be magical realism. 

I also was so enamored by one of the final essays on video games and Viking culture. “Vikings as fantasies of white indigineity supplant the stories of indigenous people” OOF and the rise in Viking culture post Obama and rise of Trump. 

Yall there is so so much I can say about this one. I didn’t even touch on the aspects of music and pop culture. I will continue to think of these essays for a long time and will definitely be buying this book to have a copy of my own.