I am obsessed with this book. Binged the last two hundred pages while at work (oops) because I couldn't put it down and then immediately put the rest of Harper's books on hold at the library.

My biggest problem with thrillers in general is they so often rely on cheap ploys to hold the reader's attention. There's a big dark secret you don't know, who is murderer, what grisly crime will happen next. I don't hate that, but I frequently feel like if you took away those devices, the story and characters wouldn't be able to hold up on their own. The story in this book was magical. I adored it.

Everything was fascinating to me. Every character relationship was well done and fleshed out. Every character had a full history and personality and their own motivations and desires. Every setting was gorgeous. Everyone and everything felt so real and authentic. I truthfully didn't even care about the mystery aspect because the rest of the book was so well done.

It did feel like it ended a bit abruptly. I was expecting like one more chapter to kind of give closure, but it very much seemed to stop as soon as all the information was revealed. And it also seemed like the characters made massive leaps in logic frequently, to the extent that I was a little confused/annoyed. Like when a woman was found drowned on the beach, everyone immediately assumed murder with nothing to suggest that apart from having drowned in the ocean. It happened a fair amount and sometimes I had a little trouble following it, just because it didn't make sense.

I'm looking forward to reading more of her books so much. I will caution that this is a slow mystery, heavy on the characters and light on the thrills. If you're looking for something fast paced and exciting then it's probably not for you, but I adored this. Best mystery/thriller I've read in a very long time. And judging by reviews, this isn't even Harper's best rated book so I am beyond stoked to read more.

Really great book. This deserves all the hype it's getting. McCurdy is really insightful and a fantastic storyteller. She mentions being discouraged from writing as a child and it really makes me a bit sad because she is a wonderful writer. I really hope she continues publishing, either fiction or nonfiction, because I'd love to read more from her than just her own story.

But as far as this book goes, it was really powerful. She discusses her abuse at the hands of her mother, borderline neglect from her father, various abuses in the entertainment industry, trauma from the paparazzi, her eating disorder, dysfunctional relationships. It's so tragic. And I think it's very important to hear what children are put through for the purpose of our entertainment. Obviously not all of them will have the same experience as McCurdy, but she discusses some broader issues outside of her own story as well.

I did struggle a bit with this book feeling disjointed. It had very short chapters and while I enjoyed that most of the time, it did make the book feel a bit jumpy and not as smooth as I'd prefer.

I'm much less detailed when reviewing audiobooks, so that's about it for me. Such a great book and I'm glad that she seems to be confronting her demons and working towards a happier life.

Some warnings: the eating disorder content was incredibly graphic so just be warned going in. She's illustrating her experiences and how she felt, but it is detailed, including calorie counting and bulimia.

Also this may just be a me thing, but she talks really fast in the audiobook. I know a lot of people listen to audiobooks at faster speeds, but my brain is super slow at processing auditory information and I think I would have gotten more out of this had I read a physical copy. But I'd already started it and was enjoying it by the time I realized that and didn't want to wait weeks to months for a physical copy.

This book is so crushingly sad. Like heavy trigger warnings for pretty much everything you can think of going in, but it's well worth the read.

The writing is absolutely stunning. It's so beautifully captured and the descriptions and context make it feel so real and hit so close to home. The characters are also quite stunning. Apart from Henry, who never really felt as fleshed out as he could have been, they were all fantastic.

I wish it had focused a little more on the school explosion because it's such a big event just to exist as a catalyst for an entirely different climax, but even that was well done in the limited space it was given. It hit me as a reader so hard and felt really wonderful. I was reading this at work and trying not to look too upset.

Where it lost me just a little was the climax. It wasn't so much what happened, but the way it was written. At a point it stopped feeling real. I stopped connecting to it. I liked that Perez wasn't afraid to make this book brutal and real, and I like a good tragic ending that has you leaving the book feeling like you've been punched in the gut, but I mostly felt kind of empty. The explosion at the school made me want to cry. The showdown with Wash's family made me anxious. But the climax itself left me wanting something different. I wanted it to hurt more than it did.

But overall, fantastic book. I understand why this receives the hype it does. It's such a grueling look at racism and sexism that doesn't pull punches to save the reader's feelings. If you also like getting punched by a book (especially one as spectacularly written as this), I recommend picking this up.

This is pretty, but I'm such a soccer freak that I was fascinated.

And truly, my rating has a caveat that childhood me would have adored this way more than I do now. As a ten year old who didn't have a real coach (bless my father for putting in so much work from age 5 to 14, but soccer was not his sport and his coaching was mostly limited to "run fast, kick hard, have fun"), this book would have meant the world to me with all the drills and detailed discussions on technique. It would have made a big difference in my game and knowing how to improve by myself.

As an adult who doesn't play anymore, it's less relevant and to be honest a little bland, but I still enjoyed reading it quite a bit. I just like soccer. I'm sure there's better out there than this book, but I loved it too for all the specific stories about Mia Hamm and her teammates, and the memories of moments they had in games. I kind of wish I'd read it by a computer so I could have looked up videos every time she mentioned a specific play from a specific game.

I dunno if I'd recommend this to many people because it is just a lot of basic soccer tips. If you're coaching a young team or are a young player, there's probably better books on the subject out there, but I'd still recommend giving this a go. I had fun and that's all I really need.

This is a legal argument in favor of abortion taking the stance that the majority of people do not consider a fetus a full person, but rather see human life as intrinsically sacred.

There were a lot of interesting points and I did find this book really worthwhile overall. Dworkin talked about the value of human life and how people who place equal value on it can hold such different beliefs. He made several arguments relating to abortion that I'd never heard phrased in quite those ways before that I found fascinating and well constructed.

I also really enjoyed the discussion on dementia at the end. I did expect more on euthanasia based on the title, but it was relegated to one chapter at the end with an additional chapter on dementia, relating to both euthanasia and bodily autonomy, which was my favorite of the book.

However, it felt very repetitive. It felt like he reiterated his point on no one believing the fetus is an actual person every other page. He'd say things like 'but this belief holds no weight if you take into account my prior statement, that most people do not see a fetus as a person.' Like my dude when we're fifty pages into the book you don't need to keep telling me what your main point is. By that point I've got it.

There was also a fair amount of ableism, which may or may not have been intentional based on the topic and the fact that eugenics was also briefly covered. He also spent a lot of time telling you what you believe, whether you're in favor of abortion or not, and that what you think you believe is wrong. And then he went off on a lot of weird tangents, like when he talked about the commonly held belief that a ten year old dying is sadder than a three year old dying. Like I'm not even judging that one, I'm just so confused because I'm fairly certain I've never heard that before. If he wants to make that statement, sure, but is it really such a commonly held belief as he kept reiterating? I have no idea.

I think I would have really enjoyed this had it been condensed into a fifty page essay or something. There was so much repetition and so much extraneous tangents that despite large portions of the book being worthwhile, overall my experience wasn't that enjoyable. I'm still glad I read it, though.

I adored this book for the character relationships. It captures so perfectly a situation in which children have to "earn" the love of their parent; the competition with each other, the guilt of the parents, their self worth being linked directly to their achievements. It's fantastic. All of the characters are fully developed and you feel for them, even the parents who don't intend to cause such harm. I especially loved the sibling relationship for its nuance and depth. Absolutely fantastic.

Where this book kind of lost me was the Jewish mysticism. I'm not sure I disliked that aspect so much as it went completely over my head. Like I couldn't remotely follow what was happening or what was intended by it.

But I really enjoyed it overall. Would definitely recommend and also am interested in picking up more from Goldberg.

Better than the first book, as I expected, because there wasn't so much exposition. It gets right into the story and it's such an enjoyable ride.

I love the amping up of the drama and the war and the stakes. People died in the first book, but in this book you really start expecting important people to die and it's so good. No one is safe and you can feel all that tension.

I also love the continued exploration of the world. You get to see so much diversity in terms of landscape and people's lives, the way they survive. And you also get to see more of Tenebria and they finally start becoming recognizable characters in their own right. It's really well done.

This one took me ages to read because there was a gnarly bit of animal abuse later on and I just couldn't bring myself to pick it up for a minute, but it had nothing to do with the book's quality. Highly recommend the series and I'm looking forward to continuing on!

This was utterly fantastic. Cannot recommend enough.

This isn't so much about the history of slavery as it is how we're dealing with that history. So while you do get a lot of historical information, the focus of the book is present day. You're following Smith as he visits various historical places, from Monticello to a slave port in Africa, and takes a deep dive into what people are doing today to share that history. He talks about the slavery centric tours at Monticello and what it's taken to get to a point where slavery is explicitly discussed there. He visits a confederate church that doesn't discuss slavery at all and a plantation that was restored specifically to become a testament to the history of enslaved people.

There's so much in this book that is worth the read and I genuinely think you should just go ahead and pick it up. I can honestly see myself rereading this in a few years. Just a wonderful piece of literature.

I listened to the audiobook and would also highly recommend that experience.

I adored The Survivors and while I don't think I liked this book quite as much, I still think Jane Harper is a fantastic writer. She's so good at slow, drawn out stories that are more about the people involved than the mysteries themselves. The mystery elements almost matter less than the journey of the characters. Which I just adore, but definitely isn't for everyone.

This book I struggled with a little because it took me so long to care about the characters and their situations. There's so much hidden from the reader that by the time I knew enough to get invested, the book was half over. But once I was invested, I was hooked.

Everything feels so real. All these people have their own lives outside of the mystery, in this case the suspicious death of the main character's brother. The world doesn't stop spinning for everyone to investigate what happened. Instead that's almost the background as they keep living their lives.

Some things felt wrapped up a little too easily in the end. It was all so messy and then somehow it all wound up being tied up with a bow in a way that didn't quite feel real.

But I still loved this. It's one of those books that the more I think about it, the more I like it. I'd still recommend The Survivors over this one, but I'm so excited to read more from Harper.

This was my first Follett novel and it wasn't really what I expected. There was lots of petty, gossipy melodrama. Which I didn't hate, but I kind of thought from the way people talk about him that his books would be different? Wrong expectations going in, I guess. I really thought it'd be something more thought provoking or deep, but it was a little shallow and kind of just easy fun. It's one of those books that I definitely enjoyed in the moment, but the more I think about it, the less I care.

Essentially we focus on the poor relation of a wealthy family who is brilliant and infinitely better than everyone else, but alas the world is against him. It felt like cheap drama.

To be honest, had this book been tweaked and the focus put more on the romance than the family drama, this could have made a decent romance novel. It was almost there and it might have been a better book for it.

But I really enjoyed the pace. This is so slow and detailed that it really allows the reader to follow along with everything. It flowed so unbelievably well and that more than anything is why I'm interested in reading more Follett. I'm curious to see what some of his other books are like.