Novels about people treating one another carelessly in academic settings are some of my favorite things, as are unlikable protagonists. The Lights has both, but it still missed the mark for me for reasons I'm struggling to identify. I'm not sure if I will like it more or less upon reflection, or if I will remember it at all.

I think different editorial decisions would have made this book stronger. I also think that the focus of the marketing has been a little misleading, given how little time Conley spent at Love in Action. Still, an important memoir for the time it chronicles (if it does flirt with being overwritten in a rather MFA sort of way), and one that most people who grew up queer in the South will relate to at least a little.

Masterful. Having read this twice, I think I can say that it’s my favorite novel, and this after years of claiming that I simply could not pick one. But I adore everything about The Secret History, from the cadence of the sentences (read the last page and a half or so, when Richard recounts his dream, aloud and listen to the music in the lines), to the digressions that only seem unnecessary at first, to the details Donna Tartt chooses so carefully to build her characters, who are selfish and terrible, but for whom I cannot help but feel a deep affection. This book plays like a movie in my head and instills in me the most sweetly painful nostalgia for the college experiences I had, and the ones that I did not.

The most common descriptor of this book is "weird." Maybe my threshold for weirdness is unusually high, but I didn't think its weirdness was its most salient feature. What it really is, is an unusual and refreshing blend of science fiction and fantasy that not only tells an engaging story but makes (in a not-preachy manner) an important statement about the world. That makes it sound so lame, but whatever. Read it. You'll see.

I'm a sucker for books featuring librarians and library settings. Sometimes it's successful, sometimes not so much. Luckily, The Archived is one of those examples where it works well. Schwab imagines the afterlife as a library (the Archive), where copies of dead people (Histories) are stored, sleeping in drawers, tended by Librarians capable of reading the Histories' memories. The Archive is connected to the world of the living (the Outer) by a shadowy limbo made out of corridors, called the Narrows. It is the job of Keepers, like protagonist Mackenzie, to patrol the Narrows and return Histories that have woken up back to the Archive where they belong.

I really enjoyed this book. It starts as a slow burn, and it was fun to build on my knowledge of the Archive as the book progressed. Although the pace felt slow in the first half, I was happy that I stuck with this one because the second half takes off and was difficult to put down. Recently I've read a few so-so books, and it felt so good to get wrapped up in Mackenzie's story and to find myself thinking about it when I wasn't reading the book. It even made me want to start writing again.

Hopefully the sequel lives up to this one.

I wanted to be more objective and give this a four-star review, but I found myself unable to give it anything but a five. I really loved this book. It sort of has a love triangle, which is my biggest literary pet peeve, and still I loved this book. So much that I screeched and shook my hands in the air when I finished the last page, which prompted my boyfriend to make an expression of slight alarm but great warmth. (Because he's a wonderful boyfriend and indulges lots of screeching about fictional characters and situations.)

Now. I need the third book. I need it to exist and be a real thing that I can hold in my hands and take far too long to read because I'm subconsciously procrastinating about finishing it, because once I finish it, I have to leave that world. Or else I need to make friends with Victoria Schwab and get coffee/tea with her so that at the very least she can tell me what happens next for Mackenzie. Or both. Preferably both. What do you say? Have coffee/tea with a really enthusiastic librarian and writer, Victoria?