just a lovely, short, slice of life book.

Fredrik Backman’s Ove and Micha would be best friends i’m convinced. 

 I feel whole when I’m in the middle of reading an Emily Henry novel. They’re always so sad to finish.

I think the best way to review this book to show my new EH ranking:

1. Happy Place
2. Book Lovers
3. Funny Story
4. People We Meet on Vacation
5. Beach Read 

there’s no way i would have understood the adult version so i am happy this exists.

An absolute chilling, informative, and masterful novel. 

On 9/11/01 I was suppose to attend my first day of preschool. I grew up learning about this day but having only a sliver of knowledge of what actually went down the morning of and days after 9/11. As a child I wanted to stay away from learning too much because it terrified me. Even when bin Laden was killed during my last few weeks of 6th grade, I just knew that he was evil. I had no idea of the impact that day truly had on the US and the world. This book made me realize just how much my life has been shaped around this tragedy. 

It is almost unfathomable to think that 9/11 even happened at all. I grew up in a world of security, of metal detectors. I do not know the freedom once experienced by American citizens before 9/11 and that is okay with me. I frankly will be a lot less irritated going through TSA from now on. As I listened to this audio book, which I highly recommend because it has 45 narrators and a beautiful conversation at the end between the author and a narrator, I looked up photos and videos from that morning. I also watched 90 minutes of the Today Show coverage. I had to see what people saw on that day. 

The stories told in this book are staggering. I was most shocked by how little people in both towers and on the ground knew what had actually happened. So many people would come out of the rubble and ask where the buildings were. They could not even fathom that the towers had collapsed and that they survived it. There’s so many stories that just took my breath away, I could talk about it for hours.

Such an interesting concept. I read the first about three years ago and didn't remember too much (that isn't a criticism on that book, I am just terrible at remembering plots) but I felt like this sequel brought me right back into the world. It reintroduced me to April and the Carls but then got right on to what happens next.

Like his brother John, Hank has a great way of writing fiction that also comments on society at large. But Hank is able to add that science element. The message is even more prevalent now with the rise of AI and what it means for our future. Will there be a day where AI controls so much that we don't have to think for ourselves? How will we know when it's all gone too far? Big questions like that are answered by incredibly real and likeable characters. 

I appreciated the amazing group of narrators for this audiobook and the bonus feature at the end just for people who listen to books!

This had a much better story structure than the first and Quentin was not as insufferable. Thank goodness for that.

However, this has a very unnecessarily graphic r*pe scene in chapter 25 that is maybe all I’ll remember from this book because of how terrible it is. To be clear, I can see why this incident needed to be in the story to complete the character’s arc. But I see no reason why it needed to be depicted in this way and for that many pages. Ugh it just leaves the worst taste in my mouth and makes me never want to pick up another Lev Grossman novel again.

This was just very very basic. Not hard to get through or bad, just meh.

the meddling friends trope is my absolute favorite!

The book I give 4⭐️ but this production is a perfect 5⭐️.

While I understand that the point of 1984 is to be a warning, I did find the ending devastating. I wish it could have ended in a victory against the Party and not with Winston and Julia’s work being for nothing. 

I’m glad I read this in school because the messaging about corrupt governments, free thought, and propaganda is important but I do hope schools have moved on from it. Since these freedoms are being fought for all over the world every day, there is better diverse modern literature to replace it with. 

This production value was awesome. Andrew Garfield gave the audio performance of his life.