Reviews by librarymouse | The StoryGraph

447 reviews by:

librarymouse

American Predator: The Hunt for the Most Meticulous Serial Killer of the 21st Century

Maureen Callahan

4.0

challenging dark informative fast-paced

Unsettling, well researched, and well written.

Content Warnings

Hidden Valley Road: Inside the Mind of an American Family

Robert Kolker

4.0

challenging emotional informative reflective fast-paced

This was really interesting, though I often had trouble keeping track of the brothers because there was so many of them. I believe I've seen Margaret Galvin Johnson's art before, which I wasn't expecting when I started reading the book. Some of the research being done seems to be almost a positive spin on previous methods that had been used by the eugenics movement. This is very interesting take on reflecting on both the impact of mental illness and its treatments, and the human side of living through and coming out on the other side of trauma.

Content Warnings

Disgrace

J.M. Coetzee

5.0

challenging emotional reflective medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

Strong character development: Complicated

Loveable characters: Complicated

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

I have so many feelings and questions about this book. It's so beautifully written. I caught some of the extra detail in the book, but I know there are hundreds of details and references sewn into the book that I've missed on this first read through. One instance that was particularly impactful was the mention of verbena and jonquil on page 177 and pine on page 178, after his visit with the Isaacs. Their respective meanings of prayer or a request to pray for an individual; forgiveness or a desire that affection be returned; and endurance, piety, and hope in adversity add so much to the characterization of David, yet the description of flowers scenting the air fits so neatly into the scene setting that they could comfortably be ignored. David Lurie is intensely easy to dislike, yet there are instances in which he is not quite redeemed, but is humanized and brought out of his self-reflective/self centered stupor. He has a main character complex to the point of near delusion. Despite his continual fall towards lust, he does seem to learn something, though I'm not sure what. He learns loss and grief, learns that he is incapable of compromise in many ways but is capable of letting go of what he cannot control. Coetzee does a fantastic job with these characters and their individual and collective shames.

Content Warnings

The Babysitter: My Summers with a Serial Killer

Jennifer Jordan, Liza Rodman

4.5

adventurous challenging dark emotional medium-paced

The Babysitter shows life in Provincetown MA in the 1906s through a mix of personal memoir and synthesizing a timeline of Tony Costa's life and crimes. There was an astounding amount of casual drug use, alcoholism, and a combination of the two, and the manic energy that cocktail of drugs creates was captured really well by Rodman's descriptions of the adults in her life. It was fully not the intention of the book, but having friends from MA and fond memories of visiting them, the vivid description of Portuguese foods and familiar locations made me smile. The happy memories Liza Rodman shares are intimate and nostalgic. This book is written with stunning detail, showing both the best and the worst the era and location had to offer.

Content Warnings

Things Fall Apart

Chinua Achebe

4.25

challenging emotional reflective medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Character

Strong character development: Complicated

Loveable characters: Complicated

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

I read this for a post-colonial literature class, and I'm glad I read it. It was refreshing to read this after reading Heart of Darkness. It's consumable in its vocabulary and narrative form.
Split into three parts, Things Fall Apart tells the life story of Okonkwo. It starts with his rise of Okonkwo, from being the son of a disgraced, effeminate, untitled man to being one of the strongest and most respected me of Umuofia. Parts II and III track a the stagnation of that rising trajectory as the novel confronts the disgrace and stagnation of Okonkwo’s life and legacy, and finally the fall of Okonkwo in his inability to adapt to the changes brought about by colonial occupation. Telling the story of colonization as one of atrocities committed against a community working to preserve their heritage, Achebe inverts the false narrative often taught in Western schools about colonization as progress towards enlightenment. The characters are not always likable, but they portray a reality that has been suppressed by the dominant narrative for the better part of two centuries.

Content Warnings

Heart of Darkness

Joseph Conrad

1.5

challenging dark reflective medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Character

Strong character development: Complicated

Loveable characters: No

Diverse cast of characters: Complicated

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

I don't know if I want to rate this. I'm reading it for a class. There's some interesting parts to it, and a lot to write about, but it would be a stretch to say that this is an enjoyable book. I'm glad I'm reading it in grad school, rather than in highschool like a lot of my peers were required to.

Content Warnings

Mere Christianity

C.S. Lewis

DID NOT FINISH: 16%

Not interested. The content oscellates hard between being far more progressive than I expected and incredibly judgemental.

Cleopatra and Frankenstein

Coco Mellors

DID NOT FINISH: 6%

Wasn't in the mood for fiction about sad women.

Killers of the Flower Moon: The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI

David Grann

4.5

challenging emotional informative medium-paced

This book was fantastically written and well paced, keeping me engaged the entire time I was reading it. This wasn't something that was ever covered in my schooling. I took 3 years of American history in high school and did not cover this. I'm incredibly upset about that. To know that American secondary schools still rely on the false trope that native Americans assisted white settlers, some That stuff probably happened, and now racism isn't real anymore is really upsetting. I'm really glad that there's a book that outlines the atrocities against the Osage people in such detail, so it's harder to brush these atrocities under a rug and try and write them out of history. The author's dedication to seeking out the reality of the situation beyond the efforts of the FBI is what made the book so impactful. Often when there's a book about an issue that impacted a very small group of individuals, a person from outside that group writing about it feels like an ethnography in a bad way. To know the lengths Grann went to to find justice for the Osage people, or at least reveal the reality of the situation keep this book on the side of good. The title being derived from the poem about Molly Burkhardt was a fantastic thematic choice. It made the reality of the situation more tangible to somebody is far removed from it as I am.

Content Warnings

Ida B. the Queen: The Extraordinary Life and Legacy of Ida B. Wells

Michelle Duster

3.75

emotional informative reflective slow-paced

Ida B the Queen is a familial exploration of the civil rights movement, the fight for suffrage, and Idea B Wells's hands on work fighting on behalf of individuals and alongside organizations. He great granddaughter does a wonderful job telling the story of Ida's life and work. I just wish that it went into more detail, though that detail might be available in the biography the author's grandmother wrote. I enjoyed the section about the author as a teen and young adults, and how her family encouraged her to live up to her own dreams and expectations for herself instead of aspiring to emulate her great-grandmother. The organization of the book with the timeline in the middle also kind of threw me off. I was listening to it as an audiobook and I thought that I'd accidentally skipped to the last section when I hit the timeline. I feel like it would have worked better as a part of the conclusion. The slow pacing of the timeline is it my preferred method of organization of historical events, but I did enjoy the side bars that further explained the individuals that Ida crossed paths with. Overall, Idea B Wells is a really cool woman and it was interesting to read about a sort of looming historical figure through the eyes of her descendant.

Content Warnings

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