kristianawithak's reviews
1598 reviews

I figured since I still haven't managed to see The Social Network, despite the fact that I have longed to see it since Aaron Sorkin was announced to be writing the screenplay and that it has been in my home for more than a week, I figured I could read it before watching the film. It was good, I'm excited to see what Sorkin did with it.

It was an entertaining enough novel, but nothing really grabbed me as being entirely unique or inventive.

I don't understand how the author got away with summarizing the storyline of Chronicles of Narnia and calling it something else and that somehow counts as inventive. I guess if you say the book is, "Mixing the magic of beloved children's fantasy classics (from Narnia and Oz to Harry Potter and Earthsea)", you can write whatever you want, as long as you add sex and cursing. I was engaged enough to really want to know how the book ended though, so it wasn't all bad.

The more I think about this novel, especially the characters though, the more it makes me sad. The characters are these post adolescent kids who seem terribly unhappy with their lives, at the end of the novel I don't see much change or hope for their circumstances.

I love Lisa Lutz. I was nervous that her first non-Spellman book might not live up to my expectations, but I was blown away by the creativity behind Heads You Lose. As I typed the title I finally got both jokes. I was also nervous that the co-author thing might be weird, but it was fantastic. I liked the Paper Heart feel to it. I wasn't sure what was real between Lisa and David, but the running jokes between the two and the development of the plot was just great. It's so fun to read something creative and unique, it's like a funny Raw Shark Texts, unlike anything you've read before.

I sound like a jr. high girl with a crush, but that's how I feel. There's no denying.

The Manual of Detection is charming. It's in a world that is slightly off kilter to our own with a reluctant protagonist who always carries an umbrella and rides his bike. It's well written and intriguing. I really enjoyed it. Plus I was half way through it before I went on vacation, which is the best part of a book in my opinion, so I had perfect conditions to read, enjoy and finish this book.

I've had a hard time listening to books while I work. It might be the new responsibilities I have, or I'm just lazy and my brain does not want to multitask more than it must. I've downloaded a ton of books in the last few months: Christine Falls, Squirrel Seeks Chipmunk, The Lightning Thief, Cheever's Shorts Stories, A Confederacy of Dunces, House of Cards, &tc. and I didn't finish any of them. Embarrassing.

But I finished a book last week and it was so great. I don't care if I don't read another book for awhile as long as it is as enjoyable as A Visit from the Goon Squad.

I read one of Jennifer Egan's previous novels, The Keep, and I was not terribly taken by it. So when I picked up Visit from the Goon Squad because it won the Pulitzer Prize my expectations were kind of low. And because it won the Pulitzer Prize means I in no way discovered a hidden gem of the literary world. I merely jumped on the bandwagon, and I was not disappointed.

I think there is a soft spot in my heart for interrelated short stories. When I come across them I am instantly sucked in. I love when they are not in chronological order and when it's like a puzzle to read and figure out how it's all connected. Goon Squad shifted time and chronology, it focused on many characters that all became interesting. When I finished it I started it again because I wanted to figure out even more how all the characters tied together. I hope someone made a chart, but it might also ruin the web in my head.