there are a few essays I liked in here, but the whole book was bogged down by weird exercises in ego & the author’s blind spots about (his own) class and wealth. the overall result was not great. 

excruciatingly boring. sorry!!!

Just not my thing. A little too slow, morally compromised main character a little too self absorbed (though to the author’s credit, she’s very believable & you get why she is the way she is, it’s not for no reason, & she’s clearly not supposed to be totally sympathetic), & I am just… not very interested in the art world for many of the reasons that come up as issues in this book! I think there were interesting things happening with race/whiteness & the marketability of art about race. and I like the choice to explore that with a main character who is a little bit terrible. Taking this as a sign that I should stop reading my roommate’s books just because they’re around the house and easy to pick up lol

continuing to really, truly enjoy necromancers in space, even if these books give me mental illness

reread

🥲

these books are making me deranged!! tragic uncategorizable relationships of care make me froth at the mouth. grimdark evil murder girls. extremely “are we the baddies????”books.

the whole book I was exclaiming “god is just some guy!!” to my partner on the couch. And it just says that in the appendix at the back lmao.

saluting tamsyn muir, godspeed you crazy homestuck bnf

I guess Meg Wolitzer is a bit of an Oprah book club sort of author but I do like her whole Thing about complex & morally-compromised characters & their relationships to one another over the course of 30 years. the other book of hers I’ve read, The Female Persuasion, does a similar thing but I think more successfully. this book felt a little unfocused, its characters don’t receive equal attention though it makes overtures like they might, and some parts move very weirdly and rapidly - like

the sudden AIDS gala breakup lol

 

(ACTUALLY as an aside, I did joke to a friend that this was like the straight & not deranged version of A Little Life, down to the part where 1 “core” friend is really going through it and has to be rescued by everyone else but gets like very minimal narration time comparatively lol. also i think i don’t believe that an adult cartoon showrunner would be that rich and famous but i guess it’s not like i know matt groening’s life!!)

realizing that I finished this and found I liked most of the main characters much less on reflection than I did while reading. they’re all so obsessed with talent & being interesting that it makes sense! it is believable characterization. It’s not a negative thing about the book at all, & they’re well written, sympathetic characters generally. but I think the overarching theme of being swept into and seduced by interestingness and excitement/interesting and exciting people isn’t one that resonates (with me!) as much as themes around say, the clash between the stated and actual goals of liberal capitalist feminism in Female Persuasion. but both books do envy in an interesting way, & look at careers & work & identity in an interesting way. 

sometimes you simply do not have to finish a book that is making you feel ill!

idk she was not doing it for me. I think I like my horror a little vaguer and less interested in the specifics of horrible things - I’d like to not know exactly what the monster looks like, but this book tells you that within 100 pages. I dig the premise of biohazard parasite disease + teenage future serial killer terrorize boyscouts on small pei island! but the sections with Shelley or whatever, the future serial killer kid, were making me feel physically unwell. sometimes I’m down to stick with that (I love and recommend TITANE to everyone despite finding it physically difficult to watch that film!) but broadly the experience of reading this book was more like a too-long r/nosleep story and didn’t feel worth hanging around for. I hope those kids escaped and learned the meaning of friendship or whatever. I guess in the world of this book Falstaff island is an absolute no-go forever lol. 

in this house we love a reflection on death and grief. stylistically interesting! i like the idea of removing lincoln’s agency a bit at the end, that’s fun to me. but i think not 100% my thing or maybe didn’t approach the historical aspects i find most interesting?