A disclaimer of sorts: I have watched at least the first several seasons of every Shonda Rhimes show, but I have given up on all of them. They stress me the hell out. The drama always feels fresh at first, and then it’s like all the shows start to cannibalize themselves, more and more people die, no one ever stays together for good, etc. There’s no stability. That’s a primetime soap for you, and why I don’t watch them anymore, but I’ve always admired her […]
I am not smart enough for this book
Last year, I read a number of books of short stories and reiterated in each review that short stories aren’t really my thing. I like a lot of plot to sink my teeth into and by and large, I don’t get that from short stories. Doesn’t mean they’re bad, just means they’re not for me. I get Zadie Smith’s Feel Free and somehow just completely missed the part where it says “essays” on the front cover. So like short stories, but non fiction. I very nearly gave […]
“My life was narrated for me by others. Their voices were forceful, emphatic, absolute. It had never occurred to me that my voice might be as strong as theirs.”
Educated is a force of nature. There is very little I can say here that hasn’t been said already, and probably more eloquently, but Tara Westover’s memoir about growing up the daughter of Mormon survivalists in Idaho was one of the best books I read in 2019. Oh, it is only January 6th? Nah, I stand by it. Educated felt like a combination between The Glass Castle and Beyond Belief while still remaining in a class all its own. “It happens sometimes in families: one child who doesn’t fit, […]
“[We’ll] never know how much of this book the squirrel wrote.”—Mindy Kaling
I received My Squirrel Days from the lovely emmalita during our Cannonball gift exchange. I was very excited because my library did not have Kimmy Schmidt’s Ellie Kemper’s memoir available to borrow and I must read all memoirs written by people with more than 50,000 Twitter followers (edit: apparently Ellie doesn’t have a Twitter but she has 546k Instagram followers so the sentiment is the same). There comes a time in every sitcom actress’s life when she is faced with the prospect of writing a […]