I had mixed feelings about this book, but in a way I didn't expect. For starters, this book is very nonlinear. It flips back and forth between a bunch of different timelines and feels very jumbled for that, which I expected to have a huge problem with (nonlinear storytelling is not my cup of tea). But honestly, that didn't bother me at all. It didn't feel like any of the different timelines had linear stories to tell of their own, so the end result was an amalgamation of all the different little pieces of Scarlett's life. It came together really well for me.

But I didn't love a whole lot beyond that. The story kept me interested the whole time and I liked the concept, but I didn't love the characters. I didn't feel attached to them and their lives. I didn't feel emotional when they were experiencing heartbreak and grief and difficult choices. I want to be involved enough in the characters' lives that I'm crying with them, but this book didn't have that for me.

I found the main character, Scarlett, incredibly irritating. Which like fine, that was the point that she was a selfish teenager who made stupid decisions at times, but there were points where it wasn't interesting to read because of that. She treated her college roommate like a doormat and occasionally it would be called out. The roommate would say something like hey it's really rude that I spend all my time and effort caring about you and you ask me nothing about myself. And Scarlett would apologize, but then it would be immediately dropped and go back to Scarlett treating her badly. I want to see the growth of characters in situations like this, and it never felt to me like Scarlett experienced much growth.

It also felt like I didn't get to know many of the side characters well. Scarlett had a couple of boyfriends, a couple of close friends, a mother who was very present, but I didn't feel like we truly knew any of those people. Maybe it was intentionally because Scarlett was supposed to be a self absorbed character, but it made the story feel a little lacking to me.

One thing I did really like was how it dealt with the pressures of being high achieving teenagers. Scarlett and her high school friends lived in a very small town and were fairly well known for being smart and talented and motivated. They were all going off to college, good colleges, in a place where that wasn't the norm. And that led to some negativity as they dealt with the pressures of that and how it followed them into college. It was an interesting discussion.

Overall, I think this book was fine. The characters were a little lacking, but I was compelled through the end and I think if you like nonlinear, issue driven contemporaries, it might be worth checking out. It didn't blow my mind, but I didn't think it was a waste of time either.

This was one of my favorite middle grade historical fiction diaries as a kid and I really loved it at the time, but I was a little bit disappointed by it as an adult. Compared to the other diaries like this I've reread in the past couple years, it just didn't feel as strong. It felt like it lacked the depth that a lot of them have.

I think part of the reason is that this book is so short and so fast. It's only about 130 pages of diary and doesn't even start in Hawaii. The main character is only in Hawaii a couple of weeks before Pearl Harbor, and only a couple of weeks after. It doesn't feel like she had enough time to set down roots or meet friends or get invested in Hawaii as a place. I think the whole thing needed to be slowed down. I do think this book is fairly shorter than a number of the other diaries in this series.

I also wasn't a big fan of the epilogue. The epilogues of these books usually wrap them up and give an idea of what could have happened in people's lives of the time (in a child friendly way, of course), but this one just seemed unnecessarily depressing and pointless. It felt like a bit of a sucker punch. I don't mind a good depressing ending because sometimes they add so much depth, but this one felt cheap.

I dunno, it's probably good for kids but one of those books that doesn't hold up as well for adults. I certainly loved it as a child. I just wished I loved my reread of it as much as I did some of the other diaries.

I think in general, graphic novels just aren't my thing. I don't get full stories through visuals the way other people can. The visual aspect doesn't appeal to me or add very much to my experience of the story, and because there's so much less text, it does feel like I'm not getting a full story.

I also felt like the pacing was a little bit off. So much of the story felt like exposition, and when it wasn't exposition, everything happened so quickly. It felt like it needed to be much longer and slowed down. It was a bit confusing to get into as well. It immediately starts by throwing a bunch of names and countries and organizations at you, and I really didn't have any idea what was going on for a while.

That said, this was at least fun. I thought the story was cool and I liked following the characters. It's just the format I struggled to get into. So I definitely would recommend this if you're interested in a sci-fi graphic novel. My boyfriend devoured the whole series and love Ascender even more, so they come highly recommended. I'm not totally averse to continuing on and might at some point, but it's not high on my priority list.

*Not sure on the age group for this (YA or adult), so I just didn't mark any.

I got this book for a class in college and I think this is mostly a reread, but I wasn't certain I'd read every single story and I wanted to make sure I had. Plus, most of them are really good so I didn't mind experiencing them a second time.

Like most short story collections, this one has some ups and downs. There are definitely a few stories I don't like, but most of them are really good. I think some standouts to me were Doreen Baingana's Tropical Fish, Scars of the Earth by Mildred Kiconco Barya, Modupe by Sarah Ladipo Manyika, and Counting Down the Hours by Blessing Musariri.

I feel like with short story collections, as long as there are a handful of great ones that grab me, I'm inclined to give it four stars because to me it's an incredibly worthwhile book at that point.

Beyond those few notes, it's hard to write a review for this book. These stories were chosen for their variety- in style, subject matter, and location. They're all about womanhood in Africa, but that's the only similarity between a lot of them. The only other thing I could do is discuss each individual story and there are way too many to even consider that. It's a good book, a worthwhile read if you enjoy short stories. I can't imagine that there wouldn't be at least a few you enjoyed. I don't think I'll ever reread this full book again, but I can see myself going back to some of my favorites.

An additional note: While these are stories about romantic love, they're not romances. Figured I'd add the distinction for anyone who might need it.

This book was a wild ride. There is so much I would love to discuss in this review that's just plain spoilers so I can't get to the most absurd stuff, but man. If this is what romantic suspense is like as a genre, I need to start reading more of it. I didn't like the book or think it was good, but it's certainly not one I will be forgetting anytime soon. I consume a lot of media and a lot of books, and honestly I'd rather have a memorable two star than a forgettable three star.

Let's start with the boring negatives. First, this book was very long. Like incredibly long. It went on forever. It took me over a week to read and ordinarily I get through books in 2-3 days, especially books that capture my attention. This just seemed never ending. The ebook I read was over 900 pages which I think translates to about 450 in a regular book, but even then, it felt longer. There really wasn't any need for it to be so long and I feel like I'd have enjoyed it more had it lost 100 pages or even more.

It also took a long time for me to get into it. I was bored throughout the first half of the book. Bored and confused. There were a lot of different characters and convoluted relationships and multiple people who seemed unnecessarily similar. It took me a a few scenes to figure out that the cop investigating the murder and the man looking into his wife's disappearance weren't the same person. I also don't think characters were introduced well. I ordinarily don't have such a hard time following books, but I really didn't know what was happening in the first half. This is the first in a series, but it honestly felt like she was bringing back characters I was already meant to be familiar with.

Now let's get into the romance because oh boy. I like to go into books blind so I didn't know anything about this one except that it was romantic suspense and the first in a series (I own the second, borrowed this from the library). However, I happened across a line from a review that said they took issue with the main romantic relationship because it was inappropriate. So I was prepared. The main character is introduced pretty quick, Caitlin Montgomery Bandeaux, a grieving mother with mental health issues, a lot of family drama, and a recently murdered estranged husband. Okay, cool. Then the hunky lead cop investigating her husband's murder is introduced, and I'm thinking to myself, okay I can see where that would be inappropriate. They flirt a bit, they obviously have some bit of attraction, the cop is overly interested in her body and her as a person, etc.

Then a therapist shows up out of the blue, lies to Caitlin in order to become her therapist, uses her sessions for his own personal gain, manipulates her, and they fall in love. He's literally the ex husband of her former therapist, and is looking into his ex wife's disappearance. I want to have words to express how incredibly wrong that whole situation is, but I really don't. So we'll just leave it there.

This book also relies on a trope I really hate, which is that everything happens because of mental illness. What is that character's motivation? Mental illness. Why wasn't this brought up before? Mental illness. Why did the murderer- mental illness. It wasn't just one instance or one character, but several. And it was tied to pretty much all of the climactic moments. I'm also not one hundred percent positive because I'm not personally familiar with the one diagnosed mental illness (which is a spoiler so I won't name), but judging based on other representation discussed in media, it was very cliche and poorly done.

This book was also predictable. I called the big plot twist from very early on and I'm not sure many people would have missed it. Like I said above, it was very predictable and cliche. The only part of the ending I didn't guess was an element I feel like wasn't foreshadowed at all. Usually when a book fools me, I can look back and pick up on some clues that I missed that seem so obvious in hindsight, but in this book there wasn't anything. It didn't make sense for the context and honestly felt like it hadn't been thought through all the way. The only justification for it was mental illness, which apparently is the only motivation any of these characters know.

Now this is a romance novel, so it's obviously got to have a happy ending. It's not a spoiler, just a requirement of the genre. If there's not a happily ever after, you're reading a novel with romance and not the romance genre. Both are fine by me, but I want the ending to be earned. This ending was one of those magical happy endings where it doesn't make sense that everything has been solved. Some of the problems were things that couldn't be solved. I was honestly super interested in the last third because I wanted to see how creative she would get because I literally couldn't think of a plausible way to have that happy ending. It was disappointing to me that it felt tacked on and lazy.

But I dunno. All that negativity, but most of it was about the story. A different story, some different characters, maybe I would really enjoy a Lisa Jackson book. I have a couple on my shelf (including the sequel which is more of a companion than a straight sequel) and I'm actually pretty eager to get to them.

This book was fun, at least in the final half/third. It was absolutely absurd and over the top. I wasn't enjoying this for how good it was, but how ridiculous. This was a wild ride. Not entirely pleasant all the way through, but I do quite like being constantly floored by all the ridiculous elements thrown at me. I was excited to see where on earth she would go next. It's maybe not the best attribute in a book, but it's enough for me.

So was it good? No. Will I read Lisa Jackson again? Definitely. I do think maybe some of her other books will be better, but if they're anything like this I'll at least have an unforgettable time reading them.

In case you're interested in some of the more wild tidbits and don't mind spoilers because you won't be reading this:

Spoiler

At one point, the main character is in the middle of having sex with her therapist (who she's still paying to be her therapist, mind you) when she switches into her dead twin's persona. At the same time, her sister is murdering their illegitimate half sisters who are also their cousins (incest is fun) with spiders and sugar, because their names are Cricket and Sugar. Duh. The Sugar sister/cousin is also having an affair with the murdery sister's husband. Which was kind of teased the whole book and then thrown in real quick at the end like Jackson forgot to write a climax for it. There's a lot more, but I don't have time to write a review as long as this book.

At this point what is there to even say? It's Harry Potter. Jim Dale is a really engaging narrator and I'm looking forward to finishing off this reread soon.

***

I found it surprising how little happens for most of the book but still how engaging I found it. It was one that I never wanted to put down and I flew through the long sections of teenage drama and angst. There's definitely less magic and action than most of the other books in the series, but so much character development and buildup for the final showdown. Although, I still found the climax very exciting, I think as an adult there's a lot of telling about what happened and we don't exactly get to see most of it. Of the three later books, this is probably my least favorite, but I still adored it.

I read this book as a teenager and really enjoyed it. I'm not sure how I found it or why I picked it up (neither poetry nor memoirs were really my thing when I was young), but I did and I loved it. Somewhere along the way I lost my copy so I haven't been able to reread this book in years, but I've kept thinking about it. I finally got a new copy yesterday and read it all in one sitting, and it was just as wonderful and emotionally powerful as I remember.

"I was my father's littlest girl, his hell on wheels, running away from him each morning, just ahead of his headlights, around and around the block."

The imagery in this book is so evocative. I included that quote because it was the first that stood out to me, the first that I wrote down, but I'm not even sure it was my favorite line. It was just one of many wonderful lines. And those wonderful lines made wonderful poems. Corrigan ties the literal and figurative together so well.

I almost don't want to talk about this because anything I say can't possibly measure up to what her writing does. It hits me so hard that I have to take breaks. It's not always healthy because it's real, and real life isn't always healthy. It's just a stunning look into mental health and the minds of teenagers, and her own struggles when she was young.

I'd highly recommend this if you're interested in a YA book that deals with some very heavy subjects. I've not read many that tackled eating disorders as well (although obviously trigger warnings because this book is incredibly graphic). Now that I have my own copy again, I'll be picking this book up frequently to return to specific poems and read snippets. I loved it, maybe even more than when I was young.

Reread 5/21/2020

Finally finish my reread of the Jim Dale audiobooks. Unfortunate timing since JKR is now just doing what she does all over the internet and I probably won't ever be talking about these books again, but I did want to at least finish discussing what I started. I think the Jim Dale audiobooks are good if you can get used to some of his interesting choices. If you know his pronunciations or random French accents will bother you, maybe this isn't the audiobook for you. But if you can adjust like I did, he does a really great job with the acting and emotion. He's such a wonderful narrator and it was well worth all the little weird things.

I also teared up a bit at one section (you know the one), which I've never done before. I think that was a testament to Jim Dale's narration.

***

A fantastic conclusion to the series. I was just as invested reading this as an adult as I was the first time when I was 13. I teared up at several different points and my heart was racing. There were so many details I'd forgotten over the years that make this book seem so much bigger and better than my memory. This one also has the most inconsistencies that I noticed throughout the series, though. All small things, but still annoying (for example, Hermione modifying her parents' memories and then later saying she understood the principle of memory modification but had never done it herself). It didn't impact my enjoyment too much, especially for the second half of the book.

One of my favorite things about this book is the redemption arcs, or lack thereof. Some characters have redemption arcs; they've done wrong and they get the chance to put it right (or at least begin putting it right). Others remain the same evil they've always been. But as much as this series is about good vs evil, this final books allows for a third category. Some characters who have done wrong, who have embraced evil, turn their backs on it without a full redemption arc. They can be as selfish and awful as they've always been without being evil, and I loved that.

All in all, this reread has been amazing and this finale was as good as it could have been. With all the hype leading up to the conclusion, it's astounding to me that Rowling managed to wrap everything up and not make this whole book a disappointment. It was just wonderful to read.

Reread 5/31/2020

I listened to the Jim Dale audiobook and I think this is one of those books that improves upon second read. The first time I read this, it took me so long to understand the story and what was happening and who these people are. This time I just immediately fell into the story and it was nice to experience this book without that initial 100-200 pages of confusion.

Beyond that, I think the writing is just as lovely as the first time. I enjoyed the characters a little more (although I still think the romance was not incredibly well done), and the intricacies of the story made more sense. I still highly recommend picking this book up, and that goes for a reread as well.

***

I really wound up enjoying this book. At the beginning I was unsure because of how atmospheric the book was, but the story was incredibly enjoyable and so well written. I did find that at times it felt like the atmosphere eclipsed the story, and it could be frustrating to read all these passages that added only to the atmosphere and not the story.

For me, the biggest detriment was that it was too heavy on atmosphere to the point where it weakened other elements of the book. This was especially true with the romance. I love romance in books, but because this book in essence was so beautiful and atmospheric, the romance wound up feeling too beautiful and atmospheric, and because of that, it also felt a bit fake and empty.

But overall, I thoroughly enjoyed this and would highly recommend to anyone who enjoys artsy, atmospheric fantasy because this book was incredibly well done.

Reread 6/11/2020

So I did get around to picking up the audiobook of this, and I think I honestly liked that experience a little bit less. Mostly I love hearing celebrities narrate their own books, but I just don't think Ben Folds has the most expressive reading voice. While I was listening, it was like I could visualize him just sitting in a studio reading off the page. It was a bit dry. Not terrible, but I put off listening to it for a few days because I realized he was putting me to sleep a bit.

I guess just disappointing all around, but not terrible. Still a solid three stars and I'm still glad I gave it a go.

***

I want to start this review by saying that I'm a huge fan of Ben Folds. He was my first concert at age 13 (thanks to my sister) so for literally half my life I've been listening to his music. I was so excited to pick up this book and came away largely disappointed. It's not that this book was bad by any means, it's just I had such high expectations and this book didn't hit them.

I would recommend this book to anyone who's a fan of Ben Folds and already interested in this book. I did learn more about his life and his music career, and I found a lot of the information itself quite interesting. I'm quite glad I read it, but also glad I got it from the library instead of picking it up full price from a bookstore like I was considering.

One of the things I loved about this book was how his personality shined through. The way he wrote sounded like the way he talks. I love the way he discussed his life and his past mistakes and didn't try to gloss over them. He'd say point blank, this was a crappy, immature, selfish thing I did. But he also didn't gloss over the fact that a number of those crappy things helped his career. One theme throughout the book was that what's been good for his music career hasn't always been good for his personal life (a paraphrased line from one of his songs).

But it fell flat for me in several regards. First, while I liked the themes, a lot of them seemed forced and hammered in. He sounded very much in sections like he was trying to teach you something, but it wasn't a profound lesson or often anything that needed paragraphs devoted specifically to it. I'd rather he have just focused on himself and his own life rather than lessons for the reader.

I also felt rather disconnected from him. I enjoy memoirs because so often you get such a close perspective of the person's life. You learn so much about them and their relationships and the way they think and live day to day. There was a little of that, especially early on, but this book was heavily focused on his music career specifically. He skipped over a lot of his personal relationships or just mentioned them very briefly. It's not that I wanted all the sordid details of his divorces, but I just wanted more of his life. I never felt close to him in this book, and that's what I'm really looking for in memoirs.

I think someone who's a musician (and also a fan of Ben Folds, of course) would probably enjoy this book more than me. I don't really understand music in the sense of creating it. I quite like listening to it, but I can discuss it or think about it the way I can literature. A lot of his discussion on music in this didn't mean a whole lot to me because of that. Which I totally don't blame him for, I was just looking for a more personal focused memoir and that wasn't what this book was trying to do.

At times it felt like he was focusing on kind of surface level points about his career that the majority of his fans would already know. There were full chapters on both Rock this Bitch and The Fake Album, and it just felt kind of unnecessary in a book that's already intended for fans. He wasn't doing deep dives into basic subjects, just a chapter explaining what they were and how they came to be. Apart from those two specific examples, that felt like how he covered most of the topics in this book. I always wanted him to get more personal and more in depth, and take more time with these subjects. He talked about his mental health at the very end for a page or two and that was the first time in this entire book about his life that he mentioned having panic attacks. I just wanted more.

It also felt more like chronological vignettes than a single cohesive narrative. Each chapter was a few pages about a specific topic that only sometimes connected to the next chapter in the story. It's not a style I particularly enjoy. I much prefer longer form narratives and this felt a little choppy to me.

But with all my negatives, this book was still worthwhile to me and I'd still recommend it if you're a fan of his. It's interesting to learn new things about his career and his life. I actually plan on rereading this via audiobook in a few months because I wonder if that will be a better experience, and even if not, I'll be quite happy to listen to Ben Folds talk at me for a few hours. Not a bad book by any means, just not really what I was looking for.