alisarae's Reviews (1.65k)

I can't get over how much I liked this novel. Following the POV of the narrator (/author? it comes across as heavily autobiographical), an American teacher in Bulgaria, we track his relationship with a gay Bulgarian prostitute. The writing is so detailed and vivid—it perfectly captures the sensation of isolation an expat feels in a country where you only half-understand what people are communicating.

I liked these quotes:
"Maybe they were a mistake, my years in this country, maybe the illness I had caught was just a confirmation of it. What had I done but extend my rootlessness, the series of false starts that became more difficult to defend as I got older?"

"I didn't understand the bitterness with which I had spoken, the bitterness not just toward the woman but toward the place, this country I had chosen; I hadn't known I felt it, and I wondered how deep it went."

"I would write a poem about him, and then it would be the poem I remembered, which would be both true and false at once, the image i made replacing the real image. Making poems was a way of loving things, I had always thought, of preserving them, of living moments twice; or more than that, it was a way of living more fully."

"Love isn't just a matter of looking at someone, I think now, but also of looking with them, of facing what they face..."

Beautiful photos for every dish and foods that I like. Lots of Asian fusion and curries, for example. The reason I wouldn't buy this is because about half the book is some kind of pastry or bread. I don't eat gluten and it isn't easy to adapt that sort of thing. So, I'll stick with some of my other go-to faves.

Practical concept for a cookbook: every recipe is meant for your pressure cooker or slow cooker, with indications for where to stop prep and freeze for later. It would be easy to double the recipes and eat half now, and freeze the other half. Full color photos for every recipe.

Most of the recipes are necessarily "shredded" or "pulled" meat with either a tomato, balsamic, Mexican, or Asian flavor profile. Some recipes are a bit of a stretch--why make meatballs in a pressure cooker?? I cannot see that ending well, haha. Or the salads are like Asian Chop Salad *with pressure cooker chicken.* But I am thankful for lots of gluten free options--there is even a list of gf recipes in the back, and it would be easy to adapt others as well.

Brilliant.

Two girls discover their father's secrets after his tragic death. The novel-in-verse took a while to grow on me, but the hard, honest concepts won me over. In the author's note: Families are messy. Most parents don't live up to their children's hero worship. I like reading YA that talks about the hard stuff.

Definitely go with the audio on this one--spoken word poetry is meant to be heard, and the author reads one of the characters.

One of my favorite cookbook authors, not one of my favorite cuisines.

This is the second memoir I've read about domestic transracial adoption (Bitterroot by Susan Devan Harness is the other). Both advocate for open adoptions, the chance to build memories with relatives who get it. "Get it" meaning the complications of being other in a white society, and also those family quirks that are more inherited than learned.

In Bitterroot, Susan Devan Harnass spends a lot of time explaining the bureaucracy involved and the decades of national policies meant to erase indigenous families. Nicole Chung faced a tiny fraction of that red tape and spends more time exploring her longings and fears as an adoptee and her family history. Her story has a very satisfying resolution and makes for a good book, something I wish more adoptees had.

A romance writer is dealing with the death of her father and the discovery that her parents' marriage was not the happily ever after she had grown up believing when she learns that her next door neighbor for the summer is her college nemesis, a sexy creative writing wunderkin. Since the protaganist is a romance writer, the story pokes a lot of fun at genre tropes. Engaging and just the right dose of estrogen ;)

Beautiful illustrations. The text was a bit stiff.

I didn't come to this book already knowing who the author was, so I feel it would have been way more interesting if the story was expanded to include more of her life. The illustrations are punchy, contemporary, and fresh. The text and story itself fell flat.