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 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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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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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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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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I wanted to read The Extinction of Irena Rey because of the pretty cover, but also because the plot does sound like it might be interesting: The novel is about eight translators who gather in Poland at the house of the writer Irena Ray to translate her next novel, but then Irena goes missing. The thing is, as soon as I started reading the first chapter, I knew I had made a mistake and that I was not going to like this novel.
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I wanted to read The Shadow Key for a few reasons: 1) It is historical fiction 2) It is a gothic story 3) It is also a mystery 4) It is set in Wales. I ended up really enjoying it. It is predictable, but it still managed to surprise me. It straddles the line between realism and the supernatural without tipping over definitively into either side. I think readers who typically avoid reading supernatural stories may enjoy this one.
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Blue Sisters is a story about four sisters, which made me think of a book I read last year, Ann Napolitano’s Hello Beautiful. I liked Hello Beautiful, but I was not completely sold on the sisterly relationships portrayed in that novel, so I was kind of on the fence about reading Blue Sisters; however, Blue Sisters has a lot of glowing reviews online, so that convinced me to read it. I am going to be straight with you: I do not like Blue Sisters.
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Emilia Hart’s Weyward is an interesting story about witches, and despite the bad reputation that witches have, I think it would be cool to be a witch with actual magical powers. Weyward is also a predictable story, but then again, the trauma that men inflict upon women is predictable. The novel shows how three generations of women from the same family overcome this trauma and thrive.
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I like Isabel Cañas’s first novel, The Hacienda, so of course I was going to read her next novel, Vampires of El Norte. Also, there are vampires in it, so it must be thrilling, right? Unfortunately, Vampires of El Norte fell a little flat for me.
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