Where Am I Now is Mara Wilson’s memoir – if you don’t remember, she’s the kid from Matilda and Mrs. Doubtfire. It’s not a bad book despite the low rating (I’m torn between a 2 and a 3 but since I read it a few weeks ago and remember it with a feeling of mild annoyance, I guess I’m going to round down), it just has the same problems as every memoir by a young adult that I’ve ever read: a lack of/really odd sense […]
A really boring review about a really funny book.
Tina Fey, man. What even is there to say? It’s her memoir. It’s really, really weird that I picked it up at all because there’s not much on this planet that I’m less interested in than celebrity memoirs. I’m an ISTJ, I’m interested in a lot of things, but not that. I reluctantly read Leah Remini’s book Troublemaker because I was curious about Scientology and it seemed like an accessible book about it, but read the parts about her life and career and behind the […]
I did not enjoy it.
And I’m pretty bummed about it. I wanted to like it. I liked the first half, in which nerd genius Laurence and young witch Patricia meet in middle school and become half-assed friends. I liked its many, many beautiful lines. I liked young Patricia and to a small degree, adult Patricia. I liked that it was a book by a trans woman that got mainstream attention without her trans-ness being the reason. I liked the cover art. I liked that a nonbinary character who used […]
a·sy·lum (noun): shelter or protection from danger.
This book is probably not what you’re expecting. It’s mostly photos, and it’s about closed “insane asylums.” Are there spooky photos of sweeping, ruined staircases? Yep. Rooms piled high with abandoned, old-fashioned medical equipment? You bet. Peeling paint? Pages of it. Overgrown grounds? Yes. That is what we’ve come to expect (or at least what I have come to expect) from books about defunct mental institutions, and this one technically delivers that. The difference is the entire tone. In the 10 or 15 dense pages […]