reneedecoskey's reviews
318 reviews

This is a story about mothers and daughters and sisters and college admission scandals by the author who wrote Devil Wears Prada. It was good, and often very witty. Not a deep read, but a fun one. 

This book is FASCINATING. It examines cults of all kinds, including religious cults, sci-fi cults, fitness cults, MLMs, and the cult of personality that crops up around social media influencers. In doing so, it looks at the language and how it is designed in each scenario to hook different kinds of people in different ways. Highly recommend.

I listened to this on audio. The narrator was great and I couldn't stop listening! 

If you have middle grade readers, this book is pretty funny. It’s about a boy named Ben who moves to a new school in Idaho where his school mascot is a potato called Steve the Spud. When Ben accidentally injures the mascot during a cafeteria hot dog-throwing incident while he’s trying to look cool for the basketball team and cheerleaders, he has to become the mascot as punishment for 2 weeks. But he doesn’t want anyone to know it’s him, especially his friends Ellie and Hunter. So he tells them that he's grounded so that they won't expect him to be around to hang out, especially during basketball games. In the midst of this, one of the cheerleaders falls for Ben and asks him to the school dance. But is she the one Ben really wants to go with? 

A web of lies is woven. Hilarity ensues. Lessons are learned.

I took a point off of this one because some of the references in the book felt like kids today might not understand them. For example: The Macarena. That was the popular dance when I was in eighth grade in the mid-90s, but it felt a little hard to believe that a middle school kid 25 years later would still know that dance. There were some other references too that felt a little bit dated. Overall, I thought this was a fun book. I enjoyed it and I read it out loud to my nephews who are 6 and 8, and they liked it too (and greatly appreciated the references to Harry Potter, which never goes out of style). 

Malibu Rising is the story of the Riva family, told over the course of a single day in 1983 — the day of their annual party. Flashbacks give more insight into their family history, including the 4 siblings’ famous father abandoning them, their mother’s alcoholism, and how Nina came to be her siblings’ caretaker. By 7 am the next morning, the party will be over and Malibu will be on fire — starting with Nina’s house where it took place. The book winds us through a lot of family drama that leads each of the siblings to important realizations about themselves and their role in the family dynamic moving forward. The ultimate beach read. TJR didn't disappoint!

I was in the mood for a beach read to enjoy in the cool breeze of … my living room box fan. I’ve never watched the Bachelor/Bachelorette, but this book imagines a similar show (Main Squeeze). Our protagonist is Bea, a plus-size blogger who becomes the show’s first plus-size Main Squeeze.

The book is told through Bea’s perspective, but also through other context like text messages, audience chats, gossip columns, and more thoughtful online articles. The cast of characters is wonderfully diverse, but not in an “on-the-nose” kind of way. It’s not diverse for diversity’s sake, but because that’s the way the world looks. The main focus is body diversity, which struck a chord with me. Bea’s experiences as a fat person and the kinds of things that were said to and about her were very relatable. Her feelings about it were very relatable. The way she was made to feel was very relatable.

To be honest, I didn’t expect to enjoy this book as much as I did. I didn’t expect it to address body diversity so accurately in the way that it did. It exceeded my expectations.

Mixed feelings. I really liked part of it, and the other part felt like I was getting a lecture about not understanding what it’s like to have kids because single, childless people clearly never respect or have empathy for people with children and just want to go out and get drunk all the time and don’t understand anything about how “real people” live. Apparently. I flew through the first half and then the second half just left a weird taste in my mouth. 

Follow Me was a fun one with lots of twists and turns that kept me guessing (and losing sleep to read it). It’s about a social media influencer, Audrey, who curates her entire life and posts it on Instagram for her scores of followers and the world to see. That includes someone who has been obsessed with her for years and even watches her through her computer after tricking her into installing the software to allow it (this is a real thing creepy people do and the author wrote this book after seeing a bunch of men talking about it on Reddit). When Audrey moves to DC — where this person lives — she finds herself with a legitimate stalker on her hands. I kept changing my mind about who I thought it was. This book was a fun read to start the summer.

The Midnight Library was fewer than 300 pages but somehow felt longer, like parts were drawn out more than they needed to be at times. Still, I enjoyed this book, which sees Nora Seed experiencing all the lives she could have had if she had made different decisions. Quantum physics and string theory and all that. In the process of exploring those other lives (via the Midnight Library), she regains her will to live. Content Warning: suicidal ideation and attempt.

3.5 stars. I liked this book, but sometimes I felt like maybe we didn't need to see every single life she could have had, however briefly we saw them. I started to get a little bit lost among them. 

I listened to this on libro.fm and I think I started crying about four minutes in and then continued to cry off and on for the rest of the 3.5 hours it took to listen. This is a book I wish I'd had as a kid. I felt seen and understood and somehow the words Lisa Fipps wrote to help children today who experience the same bullying and fat-shaming that I experienced as a child were therapeutic to me even as a 38-year-old woman.

When Ellie went through the Fat Girl Rules, I found myself nodding along, able to recall each incident that had me adding that exact rule to my own subconscious list. When Ellie's mom taped up articles about weight loss and tried to motivate her to diet, I recalled comments that adults in my life (not my mother, though) had made to me. I'm still sitting here with tears pouring out of my eyes just thinking about how beautiful this book is and how much I loved it.

One aspect I thought was so wonderful that it was included was how Ellie realizes that her bullies have their own insecurities. That level of empathy is so important for children to see and understand.

The book doesn't make a point of being showy. And in the process, it normalizes several things I thought were important. First and foremost, it normalizes fatness. Not all bodies are meant to be thin. Not all people will be thin, no matter what they do. It normalizes therapy. Disordered eating can and often does stem from something psychological, and regardless of the reasons why a person goes to therapy, the stigma needs to be removed. There's nothing wrong with it. I loved how it incorporated diversity in a way that Ellie viewed as completely normal to her everyday life in that she embraced Catalina's family and their cultures and traditions, and it was also her custom to celebrate both her Christian and Jewish heritage, as well. She didn't question it. She celebrated it. An important lesson for kids who learn to see "the other" from the adults around them. I also love that it teaches kids (through Ellie's therapy sessions) how to respectfully and responsibly advocate and stand up for themselves in order to embrace who they are.

It's written in verse but because I listened to the audio, I didn't get to experience that quite as much. It's likely that I will find a copy of the book and read again so that I can experience that aspect of it, as well.

This was such a great book with good lessons for kids (and adults). It's getting a hug and someone telling you that you're a whole person and you deserve to be seen and to occupy space in the world. When you're a fat child, you don't realize how much you internalize the message that you're not worthy ... even into adulthood. That belief is still with me, and I realized that listening to this book. This is a 100% must-read. Don't let the middle grade label turn you off of it. It's for everyone