The beginning of this book was kind of slow for me. It's one of those books that doesn't matter unless you care about the characters, and I didn't care about the characters for the first hundred or so pages. I was interested, but not invested. The first two days I read this book, I got through about sixty pages, just enough to be consistently reading. And then I picked it up the third day and couldn't put it down.

This book starts with a simple concept. Irene discovers her husband is reading her diary, so she starts a second secret diary and uses the first to manipulate him. Then the book devolves into an entire family affair. I think this was why it was difficult for me initially to get into. The book became something I wasn't expecting from the beginning, and that adjustment took a while. I don't think the diary element was necessary at all to the story, although it was initially what drew me to this book.

But what was so wonderful was how real each of the family members was. This wasn't a melodrama, it was real people, a real family unit that was falling apart. By the end I couldn't tear my eyes away from any of the characters. They made the book worth it. Irene's husband was an artist who painted her almost exclusively, supporting his family off her portraits that were often emotionally and/or sexually revealing. That element was so well done and woven into their dysfunctional relationship beautifully.

I did think the pace picked up a little too much in the end. The majority of the story took place over the course of a few weeks, but the parts got shorter and the time frame got longer, and the story wrapped up really quick months after the events of the story. I was less interested in the actual ending than the overall arcs of the characters. The epilogue meant more to me than the climax did.

Considering that this seems to be Erdrich's lowest rated book, I'm very interested in trying more of her work. I would definitely recommend this book if you're interested in a study of a family falling apart. I loved it.

I want to start by saying that I don't think this book is any less well done than any of Krakauer's other work (that I have read so far). My lower rating is personal taste and not a comment on the quality of this book. Krakauer is a wonderful nonfiction writer, a great researcher. He does a fantastic job of explaining difficult concepts to the layperson.

But going in, I expected this book to be more about Tillman's death and the government cover up. That seemed to be what the synopsis implied and that was what I was interested in. His death didn't occur until around page 250 (out of about 350 pages). Most of this book focused instead on Tillman's life and his motivations for joining the army, which I personally had very little interest in. If you want to learn more about Pat Tillman as a person, I highly recommend this book.

I personally found Tillman rather unlikable. Which isn't to say I think he was a bad person, I just didn't like him and it made reading this book more unpleasant than it otherwise would have been. Krakauer said repeatedly how sensitive Tillman was, how kind, how humble, how thoughtful. But he acted like the entitled football players I went to school with; they got their way so often they came to believe they inherently deserved more than other people. In high school he got in frequent fights, eventually beating someone so bad they wound up in the hospital. He was charged with assault with a deadly weapon, but the judge knocked it down to a misdemeanor so he wouldn't lose his football scholarship.

Then there were the other small things, like partying late at night even though his wife had work early in the morning and continuing even after she asked him to stop. Or telling a Frenchman that he'd be speaking German if it weren't for us. Or risking his death for pointless stunts just because it was entertaining. It felt like everyone anecdote involved him being arrogant or self centered or hotheaded. He just wasn't someone I liked. This wouldn't have mattered if the book had been mostly about the aftermath of his death, but it was largely about Pat Tillman the person, and I wasn't interested.

I really enjoyed the political elements of this book. Krakauer obviously has a liberal bias (which I found kind of funny considering how hard he generally tries to keep himself out of his books), but his information and facts were sound. I think it's probably good to know the bias going in, but it didn't detract from the book at all for me. I was a child in the early 2000s so while I remember a fair number of events, I don't understand their significance. I remember the Jessica Lynch rescue, but not the scandal around the lies involved. It was fascinating to fill out my knowledge, and I definitely learned a lot from this book.

The way Krakauer delved into friendly fire was fascinating. It wasn't just Tillman's story, but friendly fire in general. He covered some other incidents and discussed its history in war a bit. It was one of my favorite aspects of the book because I hadn't realized how prevalent friendly fire was. At one point he gave percentages for how many casualties (fatal and non fatal included) were from friendly fire and in Iraq it was 41%, which is apparently not too far from the norm. Afghanistan was 13%. I literally had no idea it would be anywhere near that high. If asked to guess before this book, I would have said less than 10%.

Which also leads into the discussion on the military and how cover ups happen. I'd have a hard time arguing that the military is good at keeping friendly fire incidents quiet since I thought it was so much lower. I appreciated Krakauer explaining the chain of command and how it happened, but I will admit I struggled following some of it. There were too many military titles, names, and weapons for me to keep it all straight in my head. My only complaint here is that I wish there'd been more about friendly fire in general and how the military deals with it. There was enough, but that was the worthwhile part of the book for me.

The last small critique I had is the sexism. I don't think it was coming from Krakauer, but just the people in the book. There was a "boys will be boys" vibe to Tillman's childhood and the fights he got into. His wife at one point made a comment about how he was becoming so sensitive he was growing breasts. Tillman himself discussed how he thought the Afghan men were effeminate. It wasn't a big part of the book, but I definitely cringed when I came across those bits. It was never discussed critically and I definitely got the feeling that Krakauer was just capturing these people's lives, but it was rather unpleasant to read.

I did still contemplate giving this book four stars, especially once we actually got up to the friendly fire incident, but I just don't think it was quite there for me. Still a very worthwhile read, but not one of my favorites from Krakauer. If you like Krakauer in general, I'd recommend picking this up.

This was a super cute, Gilmore Girls-inspired story about a film nerd and a cheerleader who fall in love. And honestly, I was pretty down for that story. I feel like if you are also down for that story, you'll like this book.

The two characters were both well done and interesting with strong motivations throughout the book. I enjoyed reading from them and enjoyed the different take on Paris and Rory. I did think at times Rachel got a bit annoying, but it was never overwhelming. For the most part, I was just rooting for the both of them to reach their happy ending, which is essentially all I need from a contemporary romance.

The feminism was also really wonderful in this. There's a decent sized discussion on internalized misogyny. Rachel is filming a retelling of The Odyssey and has written Helen of Troy as the villain, pretty and vapid and utterly selfish. But this rubs Sana the wrong way, who thinks Rachel is treating Helen as an object the same way she was in the original, despite the feminist retelling. It spends a lot of time exploring feminist takes, and women having agency regardless of who they are or how they're treated by men.

There's a lovely quote on page 248- "It was easy to digest, this film. A consumable kind of feminist vision. The pretty girl was bad and the quiet girl was good and she had warned them all. But it didn't question why those women had been pitted against each other in the first place."

But I did have some issues with the book, and I think the largest was the Gilmore Girls inspiration. It's so obvious this book was meant to be like Gilmore Girls and at points it was too much for me. There were too many specific scenes drawn from the source material, too many near quotes, too many relationships. The grandparents were just the Gilmores, down to the weekly scheduled dinners because of their estranged relationship with their daughter who ran away after becoming pregnant as a teen. Sana (Rory) ran into Rachel (Paris) and wrecked her project at the beginning, almost causing her to fail. The broken arm from the car crash, Massoud (Christopher) showing up unexpectedly. It was too close to the original and at times it was so hard to look at this book on its own. It felt flatter, like some of the characters were just weaker copies of the Gilmore Girls version. Some scenes felt like they existed only because they came from Gilmore Girls, and not because they fit naturally within this story. It was honestly strongest for me when the Gilmore Girls comparison was just a loose inspiration. And I'm very interested in Safi's other book because of that. I want to see what her storytelling is like on its own, when it's not actively trying to be like something else.

I think the dialogue felt a little too on the nose. Just by existing, everything in a book needs to further the story, but there's a subtle way to do it that flows within the story. In this book it felt obvious and unnatural, like the characters knew the ending and were pushing toward it. It wasn't terrible, but it definitely felt forced.

Some of the problems seemed like they were too big of a deal in the story for what they were. At one point Rachel's film teacher doesn't like the changes she's making to Helen's character (from the point above) and demands Rachel change it back or she'll fail. Rachel frets about how to tell Sana that she's betraying her. And like, it's really not that big of a deal? It's high school. Just say your crappy teacher threatened to fail you unless you did the project her crappy way, problem solved. Make yourself a version you like for good measure and in two months, no one will remember the old crappy version. But it was the catalyst for basically the entire last third of the book, and I rolled my eyes a lot.

I also have a note about the cover. This isn't a critique of the book itself, and I'm fully aware that authors have no control over covers, but it's so disappointing to see covers that make the main characters whiter and thinner than they're described in the text. Sana is described as browner than her cousin, who's already browner than her pale sister, but the cover image didn't really reflect that. And Rachel is repeatedly described as larger than Sana, to the point where her sweatshirt was huge on Sana. She's also described as soft and while that's not the same as fat, she has a moment of reflection about how Sana specifically desires her for being "soft," which society in general considers an undesirable trait. But again, the Rachel on the cover doesn't seem to reflect that. It doesn't make the text any worse, but it is disappointing.

Overall, even with my critiques, I really enjoyed this. I was down for the story and it was such a fun read. I highly recommend if it sounds like your kind of book because it probably it.

I read a couple of Orwell books in high school and didn't like any of them. I had kind of an intense hatred for the author, really. But as an adult, I wanted to give him another try. I was 15 the last time I read this and didn't really remember much of why I disliked it. It sounds like a book that would be right up my alley. But my opinion hasn't changed. At least now I can articulate slightly better why I dislike it.

First, this book is split into three parts. The first part surprised. I enjoyed it. I thought the world was interesting and Orwell's thoughts on society were worthwhile. I like the points he's trying to make about social change and politics. The first part was pretty much entirely just the world and Winston's character set up.

But then part two happened and everything bad came flooding back. I hate the romance in this book. Just hate it. It doesn't work for me in any way. I find Julia's character annoying and pointless. She exists in the story for the ending, but it didn't feel like she had any role. Winston was just dragging her along on his journey, and I would have much preferred if it was just his journey alone. So much of the story focusing on him finding ways to hook up with his girlfriend it becomes largely about that for the middle portion of this book. I like romance, but I neither like them as a couple or care enough to hate them. They're just crappy boring people, and together they accomplish nothing.

I also hate the sections from the book that Winston receives. He is given an underground secret book about the resistance, that's basically a vehicle for Orwell's thoughts on government, politics, social change, etc. Which is fine, I liked reading about his thoughts, but the problem is that we'd already seen all the concepts explained in that book in action. The war is discussed thoroughly from Winston's point of view, and we can come to the conclusions made in the book on our own. The book excerpts offer nothing new. They just rehash the same concepts in dry textbook-like language. And they go on for so painfully long.

Spoiler thoughts on the ending:

Spoiler

The only thing I did remember about this book was how much I hated the rat scene at the end. I thought it was because I liked rats and books that focus on how evil rats are annoying me (which is kind of true), but that's not why I specifically hate this ending. I can easily replace it with spiders in my head and be properly horrified. My problem is that it feels so trivial. He's been systematically tortured for an extended period of time, physically and mentally. He's been beaten down. He's emaciated. He's lost all his teeth. He's broken. But forget all that, the thing that really gets him is being threatened by rats and telling them to torture his girlfriend instead (even though he knows they already have?). I just don't get it. I don't buy that as the big moment of torture and change when he's already been through dehydration, starvation, sleep deprivation, beatings, and the torture device from The Princess Bride.

I did actually appreciate Winston's character arc, though. I thought that was an interesting progression. I don't necessarily like how Orwell went about it in the storytelling, but I did like the general arc.

I don't think I'll ever understand what so many people see in this book. I found it boring and annoying and a whole lot less meaningful than the general population seems to. Like yes, I think the world is interesting and well done, but I don't think the story itself is. At least now I know for sure where I stand on Orwell.

This is my first introduction to the Temperance Brennan books, and I think this was a particularly bad place to start. However, it also left me with no desire to ever read Kathy Reichs again so this will probably be my only experience with these books. But my thoughts are definitely going to be skewed by this being my first book in the series, despite it being book 12.

First, it was incredibly confusing. Most procedural cop thriller series can be read out of order just fine. Authors generally do a quick summary at the beginning of the major players, family situations, romances, etc in case you're starting here. This book had that a little, but not right at the beginning and it only gave background information on Brennan and Ryan, the two main players. I had no idea who the other people in the lab were, and it was incredibly relevant to this story in particular. By the end of the book, there were at least a half dozen people who I knew by name alone and couldn't give you any additional information. And they weren't meant to be minor characters, I don't think.

And then the plot. It took me until about halfway through the book to realize what the plot was. It was a mystery within the lab itself instead of a specific case (there were in fact several different cases involved). I think that made this a particularly bad place to start in the series since it wasn't a typical case, although of course I can't speak for what the other books are like. The cases involved were pretty basic and Brennan didn't actually do much work in solving any of them. The main lab mystery took over her story, but it was so obvious. Like painfully obvious. One character was bad. Everyone hated them. They were continuously annoying and mean. They were described as evil. Plot twist, they were the villain. What a shock.

I also really couldn't stand the writing style. She included so much unnecessary information, either in pages of narration or paragraphs and paragraphs of dialogue. The worst was on page 99 when I seriously considered dnfing the book (and probably should have). Brennan says the town name reminds her of Mohawks, monks, and monastery cheese. Then proceeds to go on about those topics for two and a half pages despite it literally having no relevance to the story. It happened all the time. Random information on Chicago Transit Authority, the entire backstory of Brennan's exhusband's extended family, long explanations of technical forensics information that was pretty hard to follow as someone who knows nothing. When she included stuff like the cheeks being wide and that indicating a certain race, that was cool. When she wrote three long paragraphs about how the sternum was formed, not so much. I started skimming about a hundred pages in because it was intolerable.

There was also just so much unnecessary stuff, even when it wasn't in paragraphs of random information. When Ryan was driving, it would say what streets he turned on. There were long pages about Brennan getting food poisoning even though it contributed nothing to the story. At one point she randomly went to North Carolina to hang out with her daughter and the whole thing was vaguely described in summary. I was honestly just kind of lost. I didn't understand why she was including so much extraneous stuff.

Brennan was super annoying. I understand why they changed her character in the tv show. I could hardly stand her narration in the book when I was quickly skimming. She would whine and whine about how she'd go home to an empty house and how Ryan (her on again, off again, on again, off again, on again, ad infinitum boyfriend) didn't care about her anymore, but then people would ask her to hang out or offer her rides and she'd refuse and insult them. At one point she asked Ryan to hang out and he said he couldn't because he was picking up his daughter in the morning, who he was estranged from and had a heroin addiction. He didn't want to risk being late. Brennan said she understood, and then in narration went on about how she didn't understand and felt abandoned by him. That is one of the most understandable rejections I've ever seen. And those are just two examples, but that was what she was like for the entire book.

The ending was the trope where after it's all over, Brennan and Ryan sit down and explain what happened to each other/the reader, which was really annoying. I much prefer seeing the drama play out than being told about it after the fact. Just in general, it seemed like most of this book was pretty big on telling over showing.

And I wanted to add that yes, I watched the Bones tv show and enjoyed it. This book was very different in terms of characters and story (Booth is Andrew Ryan in the book and they're from Canada, Brennan has an exhusband and an adult daughter, and there are a million other differences). But the differences didn't bother me because I didn't expect them to be at all similar. This isn't a one star review because I was expecting it to be like Bones the show. This was a one star because I found it thoroughly unpleasant.

Honestly, I was just so confused for this whole book. Confused and bored. I'm not too picky with cop thrillers most of the time. I don't care if they're amazing. I just want them to be entertaining for a couple of hours. This was negative entertainment, if that's possible. Perhaps other books in the series are better, but I won't be finding out. This was a weird one because it was laboratory mystery instead of specific case mystery, but even then, the overall writing style and characters were just unpleasant. I wouldn't say don't pick up this series if you're looking to give it a try, but definitely don't start with this book.

I had mixed feelings on this book and was mostly torn between 3 and 4 stars. Overall went with four because there were some lines at the end I thought were really powerful and that pushed it over the edge for me.

First of all, I think the story structure was a bit tired. We start the story during the aftermath of Jack's death and switch between the past (how we got here) and the present (Remy talking to the police). I've read a fair number of thrillers and I don't hate that setup, but it is one that feels a bit overdone to me. It didn't feel like that book was doing anything new or different with it. I think the saving grace was that this was more of a contemporary than a mystery/thriller, so it didn't matter quite as much. It was about character growth rather than plot twists or thrills, so it didn't matter that the ending was predictable. I could see exactly where the story was going, but I really enjoyed the journey getting there.

I had mixed feelings on Lyu's writing style. Most of the time it felt overwritten. Writing is an incredible amount of effort, but as a reader I don't want to see that effort. I want it to feel easy. This book never felt easy. It never flowed naturally. It wasn't bad, but it usually didn't work. Which of course implies that sometimes it did. There were a few really powerful lines. For me it wasn't enough to make up for the rest of the book, but I do think a few at the end were why this book got a 4 star rating from me.

My favorite line: "I am not a phoenix rising from its ashes. Fire does not cleanse, only burn. Death isn't rebirth. Jack is never coming back." (Page 324)

The dialogue didn't work for me at all. Similarly to the writing overall, I could see the effort in the writing of the dialogue. It all felt too perfect, and not real or natural. When people speak, especially when they're emotional or arguing, it's messy. It's not always going to be the right thing. But in here, it all seemed too perfectly constructed and as a result fake.

Final negative note was on the character of Jack. He seemed like a nice guy. Only, since he was probably the third most important character in the book, I feel like I ought to have more thoughts on him than 'seemed like a nice guy.' The book literally opens with his death and he is the catalyst for so much that happens. But I never really cared about him. He just existed to be the catalyst. I think the lack of development for him brought this book down for me a fair amount.

But all that being said, I was invested in this book. I teared up at the end. It was well constructed, even if it's not one that will ever make a favorites list. I really enjoyed the focus on friendship, especially a toxic friendship. It's an interesting theme and while I think it was mostly handled too obviously, I really liked the message this book sent about unhealthy relationships. I'm very glad I did pick this up and read it, even if it's one that I don't think will stay with me particularly long.

Overall, I'd give this a light recommendation. I don't think it was mind blowing, but it's an entertaining read if you enjoy dark contemporaries and toxic friendships in YA. I wouldn't be averse to picking up Sarah Lyu again, but I don't think she's an author I'd go out of my way for after this book.

*hesitantly tagged as mystery, but I do think this book is more of a contemporary with some mystery elements*

I was hesitant going into this book because I did not enjoy The Great Alone, also by Kristin Hannah, but I adored every second of this. I wound up sobbing by the end because it was so emotional and touching. The story of this family was just lovely.

There still felt like there was a slight pacing problem. Some major character development happened so fast, almost like these major problems were too easily solved. Their mother starts opening up to them with what seems like very little prompting, which doesn't make sense when they've been trying for 40 years to bond with her. I don't know if I would have noticed this as much if I hadn't read The Great Alone first where this problem was so much more apparent, but for all that this book is 400 pages long, I think it needed a little bit more time.

Just in general I'm not a huge fan of the story within a story trope. Hannah does it well here, but for me it was always something that was going to bring this book down. I find that it creates distance and disconnects me from the secondary story which generally disconnects me from the book as a whole.

The only real critique I have (because the other two are very small things and I was still considering between four and five stars) is that I don't like the ending. For me this was a book that went on just a little bit too long. It felt too neat at the end, almost like it cheapened the book slightly by working too hard to give it a happy ending. It's nice when things work out, but this book didn't need that. It was a predictable plot twist and the whole time I kept hoping it wasn't going to happen because it was too easy for such a difficult story. It wasn't terrible by any means and definitely didn't ruin the book, but it was weakest part of the book for me. I left off feeling kind of meh, which was disappointing after a book that was so wonderful.

But all that being said, I adored this book. For a good portion of the time I was reading it, I was legitimately thinking about giving it a full five stars. Even for four stars, it could still make my favorites list at the end of the year. Every good thing people have said about Kristin Hannah, I felt in this book. I didn't get it after The Great Alone, but I do now. Perhaps that one was a fluke because this was stunning.

I loved Nina and Meredith's characters. They were so well crafted as people and so interesting. I was really interested in them as people and where their stories would go. I think we lost a little of them later on in the book as it focused more and more on their mother's story, but I really loved it.

And I was entirely absorbed by Anya's story. I wanted to know who she was and what happened, how she became so distant from her own children. She had an absolutely heart-wrenching story and I was sucked in from the beginning.

Hannah's story telling is what really stands out here. Her writing didn't get in the way and didn't offer too much on its own, but the story was everything. I couldn't wait for answers and closure and to watch this family grow closer together. There's so much pain in this book and it was all dealt with wonderfully. I felt all the pain and connected with all the characters, and above all else, that's what I want. This had me sobbing by the end and even then I didn't want to put it down.

I highly recommend this book if you're interested in an emotional family story about mothers and daughters that will break your heart. I'll be picking up more of Hannah's work, and I'm so excited to do so. I get the hype now.

I was very hesitant going into this book because I love The Handmaid's Tale (it's 4 stars for me) and I especially loved how it ended. That book was powerful to me because of the limited scope of Offred's narration, and I think that's the main reason this book is only three stars. We get three different perspectives: a young girl growing up in a privileged family, a woman privy to the inner workings of Gilead, and a Canadian girl with an outsider's eyes. It's a pretty wide scope and we get so many answers to the questions brought up in the first book. Only, I never really wanted answers.

I think if you're someone who read The Handmaid's Tale and wanted to explore Gilead more or were irritated by the lack of closure at the end, you'll love this. Atwood does a good job of giving satisfactory and well developed answers. I just think for me it didn't matter what the answers were because I never wanted them.

I also found myself particularly irritated by Daisy's point of view, the young Canadian girl. She's 15, but read more like 12 to me. She was so painfully immature and ignorant, and almost more like a teenage caricature than a real person. I don't know how often Atwood has written from the perspective of teenagers, but I read YA a fair amount and really expect them to be just as well fleshed out as the adult characters. Daisy felt like what an adult expects a teenager to be, rather than an actual teenager.

I really loved the other two characters, though. Aunt Lydia was so well developed and her backstory was wonderful. She's rather flat in The Handmaid's Tale because we only see Offred's perspective of her, and this book enhanced her character beautifully. I'm not sure how much I particularly cared about knowing about her, but Atwood made her fascinating and I was hooked. I loved every manipulation and every facet of her personality, positive or negative.

This book brought up some interesting thoughts for me in regards to literary fiction. There's no good way to define it, no hard lines, but in general, we seem to have no issue categorizing The Handmaid's Tale as lit fic. This book, on the other hand, felt a lot more commercial (genre?) to me. The focus wasn't an individual's story, but rather fighting the system and the (melo)drama of their lives. It wasn't like the first one at all in that regard, and I think it was weaker for it. I love genre fiction and it's most of what I read, but this felt like it was trying to be something it wasn't.

I also found this book rather predictable. Especially towards the end I knew where it was going and for the last 60-80 pages was really dreading it. I kept expecting Atwood to pull out something new or interesting, but it was all just rather generic. Like she was giving us something easily palatable and expected. It wasn't terrible, but I think that was what knocked this book down from 4 to 3 stars for me. This wasn't a story I wanted wrapped up with a bow. The first book was too messy for that, and powerful because of it.

Overall, I just don't think this was for me. It was well done. Atwood is a wonderful writer and I've yet to read anything of hers I didn't find worthwhile, but I didn't think The Handmaid's Tale was a book that needed a sequel. Mostly this book gave me a lot of answers to questions I was happy to ponder on my own. It felt like it almost cheapened the ending of the first book. I still recommend it, though, and the people who want closure are probably going to love it as much as the first one.

I considered giving this two stars, but I think having seen the movie first really helped me like this book more. I could picture scenes and tone a lot better because of that. Overall, it's an interesting story. Stallworth led an undercover operation infiltrating the KKK in the 80s. It was an intelligence gathering mission and there weren't any dramatic arrests or information learned, but it was cool to see how the cops infiltrated and how the KKK was structured.

I really wish we (the reader) had learned more about the KKK, especially since the investigation didn't lead anywhere dramatic. I thought it was going to be more of a deep dive into their beliefs and how the organization worked, but it was just kind of a brief overview. I don't think I learned anything new about them, and all I knew before was that they were racist and kind of dumb. I'd have been okay with the book not having any kind of dramatic conclusion if he'd gone more in depth on the KKK and it felt worthwhile, but it just seemed kind of bland.

The biggest problem was the writing. Stallworth isn't a writer. He's a cop who wanted to write about his interesting experience. Which is fine, but the book had so many run on sentences. They'd be a paragraph long and phrased in a convoluted way that I sometimes had to reread in order to understand. He wrote how I would imagine he was trained as a cop, to get everything technically precise even if felt superfluous. My guess is this would be fine for a police report, but so awkward in a memoir. Example from literally the second sentence (which isn't the whole sentence, just part of it): "one of my duties was to scan the two daily newspapers for any reports of information concerning any hint of subversive activity that might have an impact on the welfare and safety of Colorado Springs."

And I'm not sure I've ever seen any use so many quotation marks (not including for dialogue). Every bit of slang down to "wannabe" was encased in them, and anything Stallworth seemed to disagree with. There was at least one on almost every page, and on one page I counted ten of them (again, not including quotation marks around dialogue). Examples: we were to look "nice"; he became a "model patrolman"; conformity to the "norm"; what we referred to as a "Yes Man." Fun fact, those all came from the same random page I just opened to when looking for examples spur of the moment.

It was also just boring. I thought he'd have to work hard to cram everything into just 188 pages, but it seemed like he was almost struggling to fill them. There was a lot of repetition, which is kind of an impressive feat in such a short book. He'd repeat information about the KKK and constantly remind us that even though Chuck was undercover, Stallworth was in charge. And there were so many different groups that all had different acronyms that I gave up keeping track of who was who.

Honestly, I'd just recommend watching the movie, which is very entertaining, and then googling what didn't happen (there was a lot of manufactured drama in the movie). That way you get a fun story, but also the facts. That was what I did a few months back, and I don't think reading the book added much to the experience.

Overall, not a book I'd highly recommend. It could have been a great story, but Stallworth really needed a ghostwriter. I was torn between 2 and 3 stars, but decided to give it the benefit of the doubt because at the end of the day, I'm glad I read it. I feel like I gained some understanding of the undercover mission and it was amusing that he pulled on over on the KKK.

Reread 9/12/2019

I don't know how to put my feelings for this book into words. It's so beautifully stunning, but that description doesn't do it justice. It's a raw, emotional, and painful story. I remembered this being amazing and expected to give it another 5 stars, but I'd forgotten just how amazing. This is one of my favorite books of all time and one I will be rereading again and again.

Often in sad books, I see the manipulations of the writer. This character is lovely and nice and caring, so when they die you the reader feel pain. And I do feel the pain. Those books make me cry, but at the same time, because I can see how I'm being manipulated, there's always a bit of fraudulence in that sadness. This book creates none of that. It's just sad and real. Marin's pain is so raw, but never melodramatic. She's just a girl in pain and the pain I experience reading this book is so similar to having that pain in a close friend's life.

This is a one sitting read for me. I can't imagine wanting to put this book down at any point, or even being able to. The only break I took was when I was crying so hard I needed to wash my face before I could continue. It's absorbing and entrancing in every way. When I first read it two years ago, it was a one sitting read then as well.

I adore the writing. Even if the story hadn't been good (it was amazing), the writing alone is enough to carry this book. It's lyrical and lovely. LaCour takes the rawest of pain and gives it to the reader with her words. Sometimes I didn't even want there to be a story because I was so caught up in her prose.

But I do so love the story. Marin's history with her grandfather is heartbreaking, and her feelings toward Mabel so full of regret but also acceptance. It's so nice to read a story about a romantic relationship that's over where the two people involved still have a future, albeit a different one that they originally wanted. The emotions are complex and painful. Marin's grief mixes with her love, and fear with regret, and hope with loneliness. There's nothing simple in this book, but also no melodrama. Just a young girl surviving.

I'd highly recommend this book. It's amazing in every way, shape, and form. Nina LaCour is a stunning writer. I don't think it's possible for me to overstate how much I love this book.

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I thought this was a beautiful book in every way. The writing itself was lovely and almost poetic. The characters were so well crafted and felt real, even the ones who weren't major characters. The story itself was slow paced and character driven, but I was so invested in the characters I couldn't put it down. I absolutely adored this.