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Author: Josie

The Inconvenient Indian: A Curious Account of Native People in North America by Thomas King

The Inconvenient Indian: A Curious Account of Native People in North America by Thomas King

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The Inconvenient Indian is a great book if you are looking for an introduction to the history of the relationship between Indigenous people and white people in Canada and the US. For someone like me who has already read many different books about Indigenous people, The Inconvenient Indian is just a broad level look at this relationship and does not really examine how it affects Indigenous people on an individual level.

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All the Colors of the Dark by Chris Whitaker

All the Colors of the Dark by Chris Whitaker

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2025 is off to a good start in terms of my reading. Chris Whitaker’s All the Colors of the Dark is a very slow-burn story about missing girls and a serial killer. Some people might not like how slowly the story moves along, but I think this novel is great and I spent a lazy Sunday afternoon powering through this book to its satisfying conclusion.

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Lincoln in the Bardo by George Saunders

Lincoln in the Bardo by George Saunders

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George Saunders’ Lincoln in the Bardo is a well-received, Man Booker Prize winning novel about the death of Abraham Lincoln’s beloved eleven-year-old son, Willie, and how Willie ends up in the bardo between life and death. It sounds like an interesting read, but I wish I had taken a moment to flip through the pages before buying this book because I do not like how it was written.

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The Lightning Bottles by Marissa Stapley

The Lightning Bottles by Marissa Stapley

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After reading Richard Powers’ The Overstory, I needed something less heavy to read, so I thought Marissa Stapley’s The Lightning Bottles would do the trick, however, it ended up getting me riled up about society’s internalized misogyny. The Lightning Bottles is specifically about misogyny in the music industry, but I think it is a good book for music lovers, particularly if you have an appreciation for the Seattle grunge scene of the 1990s.

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The Overstory by Richard Powers

The Overstory by Richard Powers

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The Overstory is the second novel of Richard Powers’ that I have read, the first being Bewilderment. The Overstory is a Pulitzer Prize winning novel that was Powers’ last novel before he published Bewilderment, and both novels have a common theme of human destruction of the natural environment. The Overstory is a dense novel that even I found to be a bit much, I think because it presents a lot of hard truths about how unappreciative humanity is of this amazing, beautiful world that we live in, and how our main character energy has resulted in the mass destruction of other lives that share this planet with us.

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The Hitchcock Hotel by Stephanie Wrobel

The Hitchcock Hotel by Stephanie Wrobel

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A long time ago I learned that authors get paid to write reviews of other authors’ works, which I thought was disappointing because I liked to believe that authors are giving an honest opinion when they write their reviews and are not influenced by monetary gain. But after seeing the praise for The Hitchcock Hotel from the likes of Riley Sager, Alex Michaelides and A. J. Finn, I am convinced that authors are pocketing money as they trick us into reading crappy books, because The Hitchcock Hotel is not a good novel.

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The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver

The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver

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I probably never would have read Barbara Kingsolver’s The Poisonwood Bible if I had not read Demon Copperhead first, and I am so glad I did not miss out on this incredible story of family, religion and race. I completely understand now why The Poisonwood Bible is such a well-regarded novel, and I highly recommend it, just do not let its thickness deter you.

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Luckiest Girl Alive by Jessica Knoll

Luckiest Girl Alive by Jessica Knoll

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I liked Jessica Knoll’s Bright Young Women enough that I decided to read her debut novel, Luckiest Girl Alive. I am glad that I read Bright Young Women first because I probably would not have bothered to read any other of Knoll’s novels if I had started with Luckiest Girl Alive. That is not to say that I think Luckiest Girl Alive is a terrible novel. I actually ended up liking it by the time I finished it. But Luckiest Girl Alive is a more sensationalistic story compared to Bright Young Women, and it is a real exercise in empathy with one of the most disingenuous protagonists I have come across in my literary travels.

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