I don't usually put cookbooks into my Goodreads account...although that's because I almost never read them cover to cover.
Samin's magnum opus is an exception. I loved the deep dive into culinary art and science at the beginning and then had a blast going through the recipes.
This book is basically a come to Jesus moment, but with flavor. I can't wait to let it inspire everything else I cook.

I feel like I've been reading this book for forever, which makes sense, given that I've been listening to it in short bursts.
It reminds me of how much I dislike magical realism. I feel like I need to sit down with it and think about what it's doing with the Frankenstein archetype and modern warfare and I also feel entirely ill equipped to think about it in conversation with a situation I know nothing about. Which leaves me in the very odd place of finding the "made a monster" bits to be the least interesting part of the book.

What Roy does here is really cool and, while it takes a while for the interwoven stories to get going (and one finds oneself wondering who the main character is and what the story is at first), the answer becomes clear and one learns to trust in the quote about shattered stories on the back of the book.
The downside of realism is that your ending can never be about the turmoil and the trauma of the state or the people, but always only the persons who are in the story.
Roy is a gorgeous writer and her prose carries the reader through the story in a way that the characters don't necessarily. (Welcome to contemporary fiction, she says drily.) They are neither simple nor poorly drawn, but they can feel like vehicles for the language rather than the language feeling like reflections of them. And the...let us call it world building; the space between creating a universe and bringing the one that already exists to those who live in ignorance of it is not that wide and the best of both kinds of stories share a willingness to let the reader come along for the ride and learn in the process.
It's probably a statement about me and not the book that I feel dissatisfied with stories that end with the oasis of tranquility. That is, after all, a point of the book. #Iwillneverbesatisfied

I'm torn between a 3 and a 4. The ending frustrated me just a bit, but I have a feeling that my dissatisfaction was less about what the author did and more about the options I feel like she didn't even consider.

She totally could have pulled an "Aerin and Tor" from Robin McKinely's The Hero and the Crown and she didn't and I'm annoyed.

This book is a gorgeous blend of Malaysian culture and mythos with one of my favorite genres ever - the gothic novel. It's got arranged marriages, ghosts, conniving female "friends", dead parents, obnoxious yet attractive men and, oh yes, a house. If this genre is not your jam, as they say, then I can totally understand finding the young ingenue frustrating and the plot slightly ridiculous. But for me, it's such a grand meeting of literary conventions that I can't help but appreciate it.
Although, apparently, I found the ending rather more frustrating than I'd anticipated.

What IS this book even?
I'm tempted to just leave the review there and wait until I finish the series to process my thoughts on it.

Another delightful edited by Navah Wolfe book.
This one took me longer than I would have liked to get through (Man, do I need this upcoming vacation).
But if you liked The Thief by Megan Whalen Turner, this book will definitely win you as well. The main character reminds me a bit of Gen, but he's also a delightfully crotchety teller of tales in his own right and it's both exactly the story you think it is and not at all.
I really liked it and I'm looking forward to whatever Rowland does next.

Oh, the huge manatee.
That’s a lie, no sea mammals were harmed in the making of this book. Wells’ grand exploration of sentience and aliveness dressed up in robot mystery continues apace.

It took me forever to finish this book. I started reading it in...I don’t remember. I know I was reading it in Philadelphia and that was January 2017 so, two years?
And given that I don’t remember what I read last week, the fact that I could pick this up and just keep going is a testament to how well Kirstein’s ideas hold together and stick in the mind.
But I still feel like this book is just the beginning and it was mostly setup and introduce the world. I’m looking forward to finding out more.

This book is incredible. What Gay does here is searing and brilliant and a testament to her skill as both an author and narrator. I'm still shaken by her words, still turning them over. She gives voice to experiences that have no words, but that resonate all too deeply. Her voice is kind and searing all at once and she will stick with you long after the book is done.

Awww, Murderbot!
I love this cyborg do much. Its adventures are exciting space opera that is also all about what it means to be a person:
The AIs that murderbot spends time with and the ways they are embodied, made human through treatment, have (or don’t have) autonomy or TAKE autonomy.
The humans and the ways they are indebted, contracted, restrained.
The corporations, in the very literal sense of bodies, that have authority and agency in ways that other bodies don’t.
Anyway, it can be just a story about robots and adventures and saving the world. But if you choose to engage in the rest, it’s there and glorious.