I grew up having a vague idea of what happened to the Dionne quintuplets - they were the first surviving quints, and were taken from their parents by the Ontario government and basically put on display. It’s a dark spot in Canadian history. The girls were treated like zoo animals, complete with viewing hours as they played in their fenced-in playground. They were cruelly exploited, plain and simple.

The girls were incredibly isolated, never meeting other children or leaving the hospital they called home; their only friends were the nurses and teachers hired to care for them. I now understand why the surviving sisters have struggled so much in their senior years - that isolation sabotaged their social and general life skills.

But how is the book itself? Wood researched the heck out of it, and didn’t hold back on any of the awful bits. The story is formatted as a series of journal entries, news articles and letters. The central character is a (fictional) nurse, who cares for the girls from birth through to their toddler years. I think she represents the reader, looking from the outside in. It’s really an interesting perspective to read about; at first she truly believes that what they were doing was good for the girls.

Near the end of the book, the story took a jarring and drastic turn. I struggled with it - it seemed very out of place and pulled me out of the narrative. But the rest of it was fantastic.

Canada Reads books are always iffy for me - I’ve been disappointed more than a few times. But I thought the premise of Fifteen Dogs was clever and I hoped for the best.

Unfortunately, this story fell flat. The social dynamic between the dogs was so very wrong - it bordered on lunacy. The tone was monotonous and bland, and I couldn’t connect with any of the dogs or the people they encountered. I don’t know how to describe it except to say that this book tries too hard.

I’m really bummed that I didn’t enjoy Fifteen Dogs. You can’t win them all.

I really enjoyed this one! It was a little odd to read about an alternate beginning to the Doctor’s time with Barbara and Ian, but I liked it nonetheless. The story is from Ian’s POV - I’ve never seen a Doctor Who novel written from the companion’s view before. It was a nice twist!

3.5 stars

I couldn’t put it down! The majority of the book was fantastic, but I felt a bit let down with the ending. It was too predictable.

“There’s nothing worth having that doesn’t die.” Goddamn it, Jeff - you’ve made me cry. AGAIN. I rarely cry while reading a book - unless it’s written by Jeff Zentner. How does he do that?!

Actually I think I know how: by creating fantastically real characters. They’re solidly written and extremely flawed. You just can’t help feeling for them (good AND bad). I loved Delia’s relationship with her mother - it was beautiful. I actually wish there was more of it in the story. And the dialogue was funny at times, insightful at others, but always spot on. Oh, and totally off topic - Delia’s mom’s tattoos sound amazing (love love love Edward Gorey)!

I’m not the type to gravitate toward contemporary/coming-of-age books. But I will always recommend his. Go read it!

I have FINALLY tackled Ready Player One. I’m not really sure why I’d avoided it up till now; I guess maybe because I don’t like video games? Whatever the reason, I do kind of regret waiting so long!

This story is quite the love letter to the 80’s – all of the pop culture references were really fun to read about. And the concept of the story is very cool and unique – a worldwide online hunt for the holy grail (so to speak). It got me thinking about what if OASIS actually became a thing in the near future. Not surprisingly, I found the thought to be really depressing; our society is already consumed with social media escapism. It wouldn’t end well.

Now, there was one thing with this book in which I struggled with – the pacing. The first 150 pages or so left me SO BORED, but I resisted DNFing because everyone just raves about how great a book it is. It was quite the slog. But after those 150 pages the story began to pick up, and I enjoyed it from there onwards.

So. Let’s talk about the elephant in the room: the movie. I’ve heard so many awful things about it, and it’s always a disappointment when a film deviates so much from it’s original story. So I haven’t seen it… but now I want to! I’m curious to see where it went so wrong, and basically rubber-neck through that disaster of a film.

What do you think? Should I watch it?

⭐️⭐️⭐️1/2