a note: do not read this book while you are in grad school; it hits too close and is incredibly discouraging 

aside from that, this is a well written but heartbreaking story about grad students navigating their relationships with themselves, friends, romantic partners, their past, and their future. uncertainty is the name of the game. they grow and change, repeating the patterns in relationships that are familiar although flawed. 

thoughts on beach read: 

but first, a caveat: i still think all romance novels are just slightly different flavor variations on the same basic premise: he (the tall, dark, handsome, and damaged) hates everyone in the world but her (the sunshiney, naive, adored by everyone, and easily overwhelmed); they are both obsessed with each other and everyone knows it but them. 

putting this aside, i liked beach read! it was cute and light and happy. there were some miscommunication things that made me a little annoyed but they were eventually resolved with open and honest conversation (wow! clearly written by a woman). i like that their “dates” were set up as research for both of them (one was clearly much more educational than the other) but it was a cool concept. 

overall good!! impressed!!

emotions! 

i’m not a huge poetry person, but margaret atwood’s writing can make me feel whatever she likes. as expected, i appreciated and related to some poems more than others, but they were all enjoyable to read. 

like ottessa moshfegh’s other work, the characters in eileen are not likable but they’re still so intriguing. the first 2/3 of the book were pretty slow, and it feels like all the action was packed into the last 1/3 of the book. i like that this book isn’t sunshiney and that we as the reader are drawn into eileen’s delusional thinking. 

dense and informative, but full of anecdotes which made it enjoyable to read. 

this book broke my heart and made me hungry. michelle zauner’s relationship to her mother reflects my own, especially with the way the two show their love and care. heartbreaking and well written. be ready to cry. 

this unexpectedly turned into a holocaust book???

from a research methods perspective, it was interesting to hear about 3 different approaches to ethnography: one was fully observational, one was fully immersed, and one was somewhere in the middle. it seems like lily king is trying to underwrite the misconception that indigenous people are all the same and are primitive when compared to western civilizations, but i don’t know if she exactly hit the mark. 

that being said, i LOVE lily king’s writing and will gladly read anything else she writes. 

thoughts from my re-read: 

this is worse than my worst case scenario of a depressive episode, and i was so intrigued that i couldn’t put it down. none of the characters were likable, but i was still incredibly invested in their stories. it was pretty entertaining, unrealistic yes still plausible, and inspired a bit of empathy. 

i can’t believe that i disliked every single character, but that i loved the book as a whole. ottessa moshfegh is a master. 

this was a little grueling to get though; there were moments which piqued my interest but it felt unnecessarily drawn out. BUT the chapter on “the story of a generation in seven scams” was very well done. It is reflective and critical of the systematic problems underlying the economy, performative feminism, social media, and consumerism. 

the chapter on rape culture within universities and the greek system forced me to reflect on my own experiences and complacency within a flawed system. in a culture rife with sexism and gender bias, entrenched in “tradition,” there is an immense need for change, and i don’t think this essay necessarily hit the core of this issue. 

it’s clear that this was written during the trump era, and there is much more trump family discourse than i expected (or, that i as a canadian care for). melanie and ivanka are placed in the same realm as strong and powerful women throughout the book, and i think that including trumps weakened the arguments that jia tolentino tried to make. 

tldr: the book overall isn’t worth your time, but i do recommend reading just the chapter called “the story of a generation in seven scams.”