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waytoomanybooks's reviews
140 reviews

The Dictionary of Lost Words by Pip Williams

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emotional informative reflective sad medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

2.0

The premise of the book is what initially drew my attention and captured my interest. As someone who was once a curious, inquisitive girl with a love of books and a large vocabulary, I fell in love with Esme and her work. (I’m now an adult with the same love of books and a hunger for information.) That being said, the book loses steam about halfway through, which is why it took me a while to finish it. Nothing was happening, narratively or emotionally, with the characters, so I lost interest. The final third of the novel truly drags, and the author seems to have lost steam because
she pretty much kills everyone off and makes a sixty year time jump with little context
. It’s a boring book, and it’s not a strongly written one, too. I would suggest that you only read as far as page 247 (the chapter titled December 1912). It drops off after that.
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Memorial Drive: A Daughter's Memoir by Natasha Trethewey

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challenging dark emotional reflective sad tense fast-paced

4.0

It’s so hard reading memoirs where someone is going through something so challenging and so painful because all I want to do is step in and do something. Or I say, “Don’t do that! Do this!” As if “this” is easy. As if “this” is obvious. As if “this” is even something I would or could do myself. It’s a painful reminder that we don’t always or often see the big picture when we’re in the middle of it. That we could go through this exact same painful experience and get the exact same painful result. That maybe we’re not as smart, as brave, as strong as we’d like to think. What makes a memoir memorable are the ones ones that plumb the depths of human emotion and endurance, that wring you out, that make you have to get up and walk around before going back to the material. I think people write memoirs to remind the authors themselves and the readers of their shared humanity. The author is exposing their soul, and they’re asking their readers to help them take care of it. This is just such a memoir.
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The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway

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adventurous emotional reflective sad fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? No
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

Hemingway's thoughts, feelings, and ideas about the world are deeply flawed due to his racism, sexism, and antisemitism, but goddamn do I love the way he writes. I love his short, sharp prose though. Each word is thoughtfully chosen and deployed.

The main character is Jake—who is so clearly a self-insert that it’s almost laughable—and we see the world only through his eyes. He’s self-centered, broken by war, desperately sad, and serious. In between jazz age parties, you watch this man crumble beneath the weight of his suffering, and even though he kind of sucks, you can’t help but feel sorry for the guy.

Jake's travels in France and Spain read like a journal/travelogue. He’s simultaneously numb and in pain, but he also sees beauty in everything. He’s a walking, talking contradiction.

The prose is melancholy, wistful, and reflective. You end up feeling bad for almost all the characters, who have all wrecked their own lives or been wrecked by others or some combination. This is the first novel of Hemingway's that I’ve read, and despite some of my qualms with it, it makes me want to pick up more of his work. He's writes a compelling, fascinating read.
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The Awakening and Selected Stories by Kate Chopin

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challenging emotional reflective sad tense fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

A review just on The Awakening. I haven’t yet read the short stories.

I’ve been assigned this work twice now, and each time I’ve read it, I’ve loved it and gotten more out of it. It’s always incredible to me when a work from 100+ years ago still resonates so deeply. I hate how much I can empathize with Edna, but I appreciate having her as a character I can look to for comfort, almost, or maybe to feel seen and understood.

However, I can’t and won’t ignore how this narrative and other feminist narratives of this time period have huge issue regarding race and eugenics. Those topics need greater recognition and acknowledgement when early feminist media is discussed. It’s awful to think that these white women were begging for freedom and rights, yet would step on black women, poor women, disabled women, etc. to get where they wanted to be. 

Both of these points of view can exist simultaneously, people!
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Blood and Beauty by Sarah Dunant

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adventurous emotional slow-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

Though it is overly long—by about 200 pages—it is fun and is easy to follow. It’s a great example of what historical fiction can be. The author clearly loves her subjects and her bibliography shows that she exhibited thoughtful and careful attention to detail. I can see mysel  picking up the concluding sequel of this saga in the future.
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Devil in a Blue Dress by Walter Mosley

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challenging dark mysterious tense fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? No
  • Loveable characters? No
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

An interesting look into racial politics in the years just after WWII. Lots of violence interspersed with emotional introspection and reflection. Definitely heed trigger warnings.
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E is for Evidence by Sue Grafton

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dark mysterious sad tense fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? No
  • Loveable characters? No
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

1.5

This was an assigned reading. I was really disappointed with this book. The first half drags, and though the second half was a page turner and held my interest, the twist was out of left field and totally there just for shock value. And the
use of two bombs made by an unrelated, barely mentioned third party is just lazy writing
. All of this, coupled with a lot of internalized misogyny made it a difficult read. Kinsey, the protagonist, thinks everyone except her is ugly and fat. "Ugly," "old," and/or "fat" is literally how the protagonist describes every single person she meets. I had trouble understanding how the various motives connected, and I do not like Kinsey at all. Though the characters were interesting, I didn't ever feel attached to any of them. I did not enjoy this book. As my Detective Fiction class has shown me, there are many other, better Detective books out there.
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The Big Sleep by Raymond Chandler

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adventurous dark mysterious tense medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? No
  • Loveable characters? No
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

It’s a compelling read, especially for an an assigned reading assignment. It doesn't meander like the other crime/mystery novels I've read, which I appreciated. I did have to ding it point for the misogyny, homophobia, and racism that I have learned comes with territory of the genre.
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The Thin Man by Dashiell Hammett

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adventurous challenging funny mysterious reflective fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? No
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

I really enjoyed this book! And the movie starring William Powell and Myrna Loy is delightful. The dialogue is snappy, and the characters are just that: characters. It's fun, it's fresh, and it's fast-paced.
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A Murder Is Announced: A Miss Marple Mystery by Agatha Christie

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adventurous dark emotional funny mysterious reflective medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

This was an assigned reading that I happened to quite enjoy! This was my first Agatha Christie novel, and I can see myself picking up more of her work. What was surprising about this Miss Marple novel is just how little she shows up in this book and how little she does when she's there. I dinged a star for this reason, as well as because I think the novel could've been about 50 pages shorter to keep it from dragging towards the end. The twists, however, were quite good, and it was easy to get invested in the plot and characters. It was definitely a page turner!
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