This book was fine. There was absolutely nothing wrong with it. I enjoyed all of the short stories except for one, and they all went by pretty quickly (at least when I bothered to pick up the book). But I didn't love anything in this book. None of the short stories left any lasting impression on me, and I'm really struggling to think of specific things to say about them even though I only read the last one two days ago.

Some of them felt kind of fairytale-esque. Characters felt like archetypes and the stories a little too nonspecific with a lot of focus on the overall moral. It was fine, just not really my thing.

Water Horse was my favorite, and honestly the only one I remember in its entirety. It was a really lovely story that touched my heart, but that wasn't enough to knock this book up to 4 stars.

I preferred McKinley's to Dickinson's by a pretty wide margin. Definitely want to read more Robin McKinley in the future, but I may stick to her novels. Not a bad read, but I just have so little to say about it.

Truthfully this didn't sound that great to me, but I picked it up because I just really love Patrick Radden Keefe's writing.

His research is really the standout here. He talked a bit in the beginning about how he specializes in writing about people who he's unable to interview, and that really shone through in this book. Even when he is able to interview the subject, you can tell he takes everything they say with a grain of salt and comes into the interview with enough prior information that he can tell when they likely aren't being truthful. He does a really great job in the book of contrasting what the interviewee said with some of the information he found through research, and illustrating how they don't really line up. It's a masterful approach to journalism.

A few of the stories were less interesting to me (like the one on political corruption, which I just kind of struggled to follow), but overall they were fascinating and really made me interested in some topics I knew nothing about. Like a Dutch mob family. Who knew. And the one article about Judy Clarke, a death penalty lawyer who takes on obviously guilty clients, was my absolute favorite.

Overall I highly recommend this book if you like well researched journalism or true crime. It was fantastically done. I'm still a little confused about how the Anthony Bourdain article fit with the theme, but I'm not gonna complain about another good piece of writing. Definitely give this book a go if it seems up your alley.

This was cute and fun, but unfortunately that's not really my vibe with books. This was just so far outside of my comfort zone that I didn't really get it.

Mma Ramwotswe takes her inheritance after her father's death and uses it to start up a detective agency where she goes on unlikely adventures and solves various mysterious with absurd speed. It's a little bit silly and over the top, but it's also got a sincerity to it that was quite nice. Most mysteries only take about a chapter to solve and the rest of the book follows her personal life, financial struggles in keep the business afloat, and various marriage proposals (despite being an overly pragmatic 35 year old divorcee, she's got a line of men desperate for her affections).

This reminded me quite a bit of Encyclopedia Brown in adult form, which was kind of fun. I get why people would enjoy this, it just wasn't for me.

This was an absolutely wonderful book. Orange's writing style is gorgeous and he does such a great job with all the characters. There are so many different POV characters, but he so easily captured their personalities and motivations so they all felt distinct and sounded different.

What I really loved about this book was how in some ways it was just the beginning. You meet all these characters and are introduced to their stories, but you don't get their closure. You're just given the pieces of their lives with an idea for the future, instead of their full stories. It was masterfully done.

Also the emotion in this was just stunning. It was so visceral, especially the rage. It's full of power.

One thing I didn't love was the constant switching of tense and perspective. Some of the characters are written in first person, some in third. Some chapters are past tense and some are present. It's always a little jarring for my brain to adjust with each new chapter and I wish there'd been a little more continuity. I also thought the dialogue was sometimes a little clunky and too expository.

My main issue was just how many characters there were. I loved the majority of them, but there were one or two in the second half of the book where I was just completely lost and couldn't figure out their context. Like I adored what I was reading, but I think I got overwhelmed with how much was happening from so many perspectives.

This book was so powerful. I absolutely loved it and highly recommend. Can't wait for his next release in 2024.

I adored this. I was a Nancy Drew fan as a kid, but truthfully the Hardy Boys were always my first love.

I think this book is kind of mis-marketed. I picked it up initially based on the description describing the "vivid energy" and telling you to "grab your flashlights and join the gang" on the adventure. That's not really the vibe of this book, and I expected (as I assume a lot of people would) that it was going to be much more lighthearted and fun. It's a pretty dense, slow read with a lot of historical context about feminism of the early 20th century and behind the scenes of publishing legalities. I have zero issues with that as I obviously rated this book 5 stars, but it took a bit of adjustment once I realized I was reading something entirely different than I expected. I figure a lot of people didn't get what they wanted from this and that's why the low rating.

But once I got beyond all that, I loved the book. Just everything about it. I loved learning about the creation of the Syndicate (so ominous lol) and Edward Stratemeyer, who created Nancy Drew along with many other series books. I loved learning how the company was structured and how ghostwriters worked. I loved the backstories of Harriet Stratemeyer, daughter of Edward and eventual CEO of the company/writer of Nancy, and Mildred Wirt Benson, writer of many of the early Nancy books. I loved the historical context of how Nancy came to be specifically relating to the early 20th century and how series books became such a big deal, and then how feminism transformed that into books for girls as well. It was all fascinating information.

Rehak spends a lot of time discussing how feminism changed throughout the years, from the very early 1900s when Harriet and Mildred were children up through the 70s and present day, especially as it relates directly to how Nancy was perceived and how she achieved such longevity when many series books were quickly forgotten. She also discusses in depth the various edits that went into Nancy, both at the time when the Syndicate disagreed with their writers and changed Nancy into a more ladylike character and in the 50s when all the books were rewritten to be less racist and easier reads.

Everything about this was so interesting and well researched. I loved every minute. I'd highly recommend this, just keep in mind it's a denser book that focuses a lot on the behind the scenes of the publishing industry. This was honestly so much better than I was expecting and it's definitely one of my favorites this year.

I'm of two minds with this book. On the one hand, I cried for like literally half the book which I always appreciate (I'm very much a crier and enjoy that). But on the other, I didn't actually think it was that amazing. It hit me in the emotions, but I had so many issues that I couldn't decide between three and four stars. Went with four just because I do enjoy a book that makes me cry and I will be adding this to my list of books to reread whenever I want a good cry (right up there with Ribbons by Laurence Yep and PS I Love You by Cecelia Ahern).

In terms of issues, Ove is a terrible person. I understand that he's dealing with his grief and the whole point of his character is that he's supposed to be a crochety grump, but it wasn't amusing to me. He's actively a terrible person, and he was that terrible before the grief. Like you don't get along with your neighbors and grumble at them when they interrupt your day asking for help? Sure. Don't like the random stray cat so you shoo it off your property? Fine. Scream at service workers and say disgusting things about a dude being fat? Nope can't do it. This book would've worked better for me if he'd been a likeable grump who just wanted to be left alone, but there's a line that was crossed. You're kind of supposed to come around on Ove and start seeing him in a better light and I didn't. He was awful.

The emotion also felt very superficial to me. Like Backman succeeded in making this an incredibly sad book and I cried, so I'm not saying he failed at the emotion, but it felt so hollow. Some books make me cry because the story has so much depth and the characters become real to me, and some books make me cry because the rely on cheap ploys. This one was the latter. It was very reminiscent of the first bit of Up with the dude and his wife. Like yeah it's super sad and I'm going to cry, but I feel nothing for the book now that I'm not actively reading it.

I devoured this all in one day. I was absolutely here for the sadness and the grief, and apart from being a little contrived, I think he did such a good job portraying that. I want to be sad when I read something sad and I want to feel what the characters are feeling, and that's exactly what happened here. I was all in and didn't want to stop.

Overall, definitely worth it, but I don't think it quite lived up to the praise for me. I'd previously read Beartown by Backman which I wasn't a fan of at all, so I think maybe after this I'm done. Like I read the one I needed to read and I'll let him go out on a high note for me. If you like stupidly sad books about grief, I recommend it, but keep in mind it's pretty contrived if that's going to irk you.

I had wanted to try Sara Paretsky for a minute because she's such a beloved thriller author, but I've decided she's not for me. I don't enjoy her writing style. Like I don't think it's bad by any means, but I'm not a fan of the overly casual, asking the reader rhetorical question, etc narration. It always kind of grates on me and especially in a darker genre like this.

I also just wasn't a huge fan of the story. The suspension of disbelief went a little beyond me (I struggle to get behind a single random private detective who barely knows what she's doing going after a massive government conspiracy. It's just a lot.) And overall I like my thrillers a little smaller and more down to Earth. I didn't quite realize how big this was going to get when I picked the book. And it was just so long. This didn't need to be as long as it was. 

But it was fine and kept my attention. Not a bad book by any means and I'm glad I finally tried Paretsky, but it's also good to know she just isn't for me.

I don't know if my issues stem solely from this book or if I was getting burned out listening to audiobooks, but I kind of struggled.

For starters, it was really interesting and I love the way she makes the reader change perspective. By viewing America as a caste system much like India, it changes the conversation and the way you view society. It was incredibly worthwhile in that respect. I also really enjoyed how she tied three societies together throughout the book- America, Nazi era Germany, and India. She included a lot of examples for all three and it was very educational.

I did feel the book was a little too simplistic. Like the ideas were all really good, but I wanted a lot more than what she offered. There were a lot of anecdotes instead of solid information and she spent a great deal of time rehashing the same points. Anecdotes and repetition for sure have their place and this book is meant to educate, but I found it a little lacking.

For sure a worthwhile read and I would definitely recommend it, but I've been trying to read more books on racism in America to educate myself and I don't think this was as useful to me as some of the others. But like I said at the beginning, this might also be colored by the fact that I needed a mental break from audiobooks.

Nancy Drew is always a fun time. Enjoyed the mystery. Enjoyed the characters. Enjoyed the vibes.

I will admit, as an adult I was distracted by the abrupt writing style. There's a lot of dialogue and it's pretty fast paced. I'd like to read one of the originals at some point to see what the difference is like. But I had fun. It's Nancy Drew.

This is not really what I was expecting, and not in a good way. Like I genuinely found this pretty awful and it was only barely better than a one star. Erickson is a biographer first and came to historical fiction later in life, but to be honest, none of that influence shows here. She's not great at fiction (based on this book) but you also don't have the in depth historical knowledge that sometimes comes with such a background. So I'm not really sure what the positives would be.

For starters, this book is wildly inaccurate. I don't mind that, but I know some people do, so I figured I'd throw that out there. Mary has a secret daughter and has a whole thing where she runs away to Rome for a while and enjoys dressing up as a peasant. I dunno, it's weird. I don't mind when things in historical fiction are totally made up, but I felt like her actual story was way more interesting than the made up bits. Like if you're going to invent things, make them good and work well with the story.

The narrative was awful in that it basically didn't exist. This book very much felt like Erickson wrote out a timeline of events she wanted to cover in Mary's life and then wrote a scene for each bullet point on the timeline. There was no cohesion or development. It ran in chronological order, but that was about it. A scene would happen, we'd skip a few months and get a new scene where Mary would be in a new place doing something entirely different. And we'd get this awful little summary of the things we missed. It really was not structured well at all.

And I don't know how Erickson managed it, but Mary has no personality in this book. Like just taking a brief look at history, Mary Queen of Scots is not a historical figure who vibes as bland and boring. At all. I read a number of children's books about her as a kid and was so fascinated. Make a positive or negative person, she is fascinating. But in this book, she had basically no motivation. She wanted to rule Scotland. She wanted to usurp Elizabeth, kind of, sometimes. She loved Lord Bothwell mostly, except when other hot guys distracted her. But she wasn't wishy washy either, because that would have been too interesting. It was more like she was written to fit each particular scene, instead of having a strongly developed personality throughout the book.

I wouldn't recommend. Based on the reviews, Erickson has other historical fiction that is better, but I don't think I'll bother giving it a try. This book lacked everything, and I read it quickly just for the sake of getting it over with. I probably would have dnfed, but I am such a sucker for Mary Queen of Scots.