Bookish Thoughts

It's been years since the-toast shuttered, but back when they were still posting (and I was reading) every day, I loved Gretchen McCulloch's column , in which she analyzed internet slang as a linguist. When the site went down, I lost track of McCulloch (and a handful of other people whose writing I always looked forward to). Happily, she didn't go far. She has her own blog , a column at Wired , and now a book! It took the book release for her to come back on my radar, but now I'm looking forward to reading more about the rise of casual written language and how it interacts with the rest of life. Like all of her writing, this book as a ton of fun to read while also being incredibly informative and helping me shed my prejudices about the evolution of language. It helps that I can easily see myself in the pages (I'm a Full Internet Person, tyvm), and I actually remember a lot of history McCulloch goes through, from early chat rooms and AIM through the proliferation o...

There was a time in my life (before kids) when I actually did a decent job of keeping up with popular culture. I know, from looking at other adults around me, that this time will probably come again. But at the moment, I feel like I'm missing out on a lot because I can never seem to put together 45 minutes to watch a TV show (and forget about doing it 10 or 13 or 22 times to watch an entire season of something). The good news is that I can always find time to read - during my commute, for 15 minutes before bed, those rare times when I manage to get all three kids to sleep at once. Reading is easier, because I can dip into books 5 minutes at a time and easily pause them when life intrudes again. But I miss feeling like a part of something when these popular TV shows arrive and it feels like everyone is watching them except me. My brother got me The Last Wish for my birthday over the summer, because he was excited about the upcoming series on Netflix. I hadn't even heard of ...

I enjoyed but didn't love The Wedding Date when I read it last year. I didn't feel a pressing need to read the sequels - there were other romances I liked more and my TBR is already way too long. But when a friend bought this for me as a gift, I had no reason not to read it. I went in expecting a fun, quick romance whose characters struggle with racism and sexism and that's exactly what I got. Maddie and Theo were both interesting characters, especially because they managed to bring out both the best and the worst in each other. It was a fun dynamic, especially as they swung from seeing the worst in each other to seeing the best. They have the same problem Lizzie and Darcy had - they're too similar to see each other clearly at first. It's a classic for a reason. My only complaint, and the real reason that I'll never be totally sold on Jasmine Guillory, is that her sex scenes fade to black to quickly. Part of the reason I read romance is for the steamy sex s...

For a few days after I finished this book, I was surprised that I wasn't still reading it. Part of my brain was still living in Cornwall in the 1790s. Which I suppose speaks to how engrossing the book actually was and my desire to find out what happens next to Ross, Demelza, Verity, Elizabeth and all the rest. This isn't my usual fare, but it's definitely growing on me. I appreciated Graham's prose in this book more than the first one, which I think speaks more to my frame of mind than the writing itself. In the last few weeks, I've been feeling my brain turn back on and I'm starting to appreciate more complicated writing again instead of just gorging on lighter, fluffy stuff. This book requires a bit more attention than I was initially expecting, but it rewards it. That said, I still struggled with the crowd scenes - Graham tends to jump around a room and require his reader to follow three or four distinct conversations at once. I'm also having a hard tim...

In the far future (and also the distant past and also right now) two groups are fighting for control. They send operatives back and forth through time to ensure certain outcomes, open up possibilities, make sure something does or does not happen. Two of those operatives (Red and Blue) make contact, begin writing letters, and ultimately fall in love. It's a classic story, made fresh. By fresh, I mean utterly delightful. It's a high concept version of a tale as old as time. The settings are delightfully bizarre, but the emotions are completely recognizable. The language elevates this, making the whole book a wondrous puzzle to be solved. (Shortly after Red referred to Blue as "Da-Ba-Dee" I played the song for my son, and I've been singing it to myself ever since.) It feels like a fun game you're playing with yourself (or the characters/authors are playing with each other) right until the heartbreak shows up and you discover just how invested you are in Red and...

The penultimate book in Scalzi's Old Man's War  series was actually a collection of short stories that built into a novel. The last book is a collection of novellas. It's not quite as successful as the previous book, mostly because there's a little less room for error. I didn't like one of the short stories, but it didn't much affect my liking of the book as a whole, since it was akin to not being fond of a small side plot. But when I didn't like one of the novellas, that was a quarter of the book that felt wasted to me. Which makes it sounds like I liked this book less than I did. And I did ultimately appreciate that novella, but not until the very end. I spent most of it wondering where I recognized the main character from and why she mattered to the overall story, but it all came together in the last few pages. The other three novellas were fantastic and built to a suitably satisfying conclusion. I think there's still a lot of room for Scalzi to r...

This story hurt so good. It put my heart in a vice, and then it just squeezed it tighter and tighter. Towards the end I had a hard time putting it down because I had to get to the end and the promise of relief. And the ending was completely worth it. What really elevates this story, though, is the language. Wilson plays with English in a way I've never experienced before, and it adds a whole extra layer to the story, making the fantasy world feel even more lived in. I'm definitely going to be checking out more work from him in the future.

I enjoyed this series, but it's also been one of diminishing returns. Kwan can't really mess with Nick and Rachel, so they've gotten a bit boring. Astrid has fun drama, but the attempts to keep her likable result in her seeming mostly passive in her own life. And Kitty is just exhausting. I don't even know whether I should be rooting for her or not. Still, this book is filled with ridiculous drama and extravagant parties and luxurious clothes. It's fun to watch these lives, knowing I'll never have them. And by the end of the book I didn't even want them. I guess this series was the perfect length. I got exactly what I wanted out of it. It was fun while it lasted, but I'm ready to move on to something else.

This book was practically perfect in every way. It follows a young girl named January who, at the beginning of the twentieth century, discovers a door to another world. Her guardian denies it's existence and nearly succeeds in making her doubt it, too. But then she finds a book about all those other worlds, which irrevocably alters her life's path. The interleaving of the two books is well done, and they build on each other in incredible ways as January discovers that she's closer to the center of the story than she ever expected to be. This is a book about stories. About the stories we lose ourselves in and the stories we tell to make sense of our past. It's about claiming your spot as protagonist in your own story while recognizing that everyone else is a protagonist, too. The world is full of stories, each story it's own world forever spawning more stories and worlds, contributing to the richness and vastness of life. It's also a book about colonialism, u...

I'm starting to love Antimony almost as much as I love Verity. The two of them have more in common than they would ever admit, but Antimony isn't quite as experienced as Verity. She's competent, sure, but she's still learning how to gather and rely on her allies. It's fun to watch her put her team together, and become a force to be reckoned with. Of course she still has a lot of growing up to do. She's quick to blame herself and thinks she needs to take sole responsibility for her mistakes. Which has left her pretty isolated. As she starts to build a found family around herself, I'm looking forward to her reconnecting with her family of origin. She just needs to figure out that she doesn't have to take on the world all by herself. I also appreciate Antimony's books for their settings. Magic for Nothing  had me eager to visit the carnival and Tricks for Free  is making me want to visit Disneyland. My kids are still too young to appreciate it, but ...

Six months ago, Ove's wife died. Yesterday he was let go from his job. So today he has decided to kill himself. But first he has to deal with the new neighbors, who just backed their trailer into his mailbox. As Ove's various attempts to kill himself are thwarted by his neighbors, he slowly discovers that maybe he does have something left to live for after all. This was a very sad book about a grumpy, old man who has outlived his purpose. Ove is a man of strong opinions. He knows the right way to do things and he'll be damned if he lets anyone do it the wrong way. Because of this, he often finds himself butting heads with all the people he comes into contact with. But beneath his grouchiness is a heart of gold. See, there's a right way to do things. And Ove isn't going to let a cat die of the elements, even though he hates cats. He isn't going to ignore his neighbor's request to fix the radiator, even though they've been feuding for most of their lives...

China Rich Girlfriend  was pretty much exactly what you'd expect the sequel to Crazy Rich Asians  to be: an almost successful attempt to recreate the magic of the first one. It had all the entitled, big spenders, their manufactured problems, and their constant attempts to one-up each other. It was somewhat clunkier, almost like they skipped the last editing pass to get it to the presses on time. Throughout the book I kept thinking to myself that this or that scene could have been tighter, shinier, more polished. The first book glittered so brightly, maybe this one couldn't help but look a bit dull by comparison. There are three main storylines: Rachel and Nick's return to Asia after their wedding to get to know her father, Astrid's crumbling marriage, and Kitty Pong's attempts to win the respect of high society. The three storylines never quite come together, so the book ends up feeling a bit schizophrenic. Maybe that will be resolved in the third book. (Though I...