...this is fix-it fic for The Great Gatsby and I am HERE for it.
Anyway, this is why it's important for books to come out of copyright after the author dies, so that writers like McLemore can have fun with texts like this.
It's a completely different book and also it's so obviously a response rather than a retelling and it basically upends the entire original. In a good way. I was delighted.

This book took me like four shabbatot to read and it's a testament to Gladstone that I not only finished it, but gave it a four.
My bias against the American novel and, you know, the car probably got in the way even though I could see from the beginning the ways in which Gladstone was playing with archetypes. Well, some of them.
But also like it was peak 21st century complex fantasy in all the right ways.

I have absolutely no idea how this book would land if you read it, but having Brooks as the narrator and hearing the utter glee he has at the jokes he's told over the past 80 or so years is basically the point of the book.
He's so excited to his listeners about the jokes and the people he made them with and the stories they told together. And if you like hearing someone reminisce about a thing you like as well is fun for you, you should definitely listen to this.

I skimmed the last third of this book because I was getting so tired.
It is possible that I'm just the wrong audience, but this went from enjoyable for about a third to boring but like maybe it'll pick up to just...why.

1) The complete lack of plot. Just like absolute PWP for the entire book and most fanfiction this length trips over the plot at some point. Not this book.
2) Characters have described traits, but they don't like actually act like they've had the experiences they had. Particularly the one where Blake is killed a certain way and that's consuming Mal at the beginning of the book and then he does the exact same thing to Kyle and, like, NO MENTION IS MADE OF BLAKE?? But it's pretty constant.
3) Form recapitulates content. There's a lot of edging the reader to think that there might be narrative satisfaction in this book but NOPE. Unlike Kyle, who eventually gets off, this book doesn't pay off the vast majority of plot points or character arcs.
4) This is mild but like, what the hell was up with Kyle's parents? Like, it felt like a very shallow depiction of people who care very strongly about appearances and also this might be the gap between 2015 and now in terms of how extremely wealthy conservatives present themselves. They struck me as the type to fix Kyle rather than immediately disown. Whatever, again, window dressing not people makes it hard for the events of the book to feel real.

Anyway. 1.5 stars for a book that is ostensibly about caring about both relationship dynamic and the people in it and only succeeds in doing the former in print.

This is the second time this year I've been burnt by picking up a romance novel by an author who wasn't recommended by someone whose taste I trust. We'll see how long it takes me to learn...

If you've read every other book in The Queen's Thief, you will read this one too because it's more of the people who made the series so compelling.
If you haven't, go read that now because this book is SO CLEARLY made up of character sketches and deleted scenes that it's all about deepening the things that are already there. 

This is...not a book for everyone, shall we say. It assumes a significant familiarity with the sugyas that are often taught to boys in particular as they learn how to learn Gemara and it does not translate. It's not supposed to.
If, however, you are looking for a book that serves as both a collection of examples and a larger structure for how halakha as a system handles uncertainty (and, arguably, the entire concept of ex post facto), it's a great presentation of a very complex topic in a way that is a delight even if you don't like sports.

This was one of the books that was less perfect and more transcendent in its 5 star-ness.
I do wonder how it lands if you're not familiar with Kaikeyi as the, well, evil stepmother of the Ramayana and don't necessarily see the ways in which Patel is writing the "villain's hero story". And I'm not super familiar (because US education leaves out way too many other cultures' critical texts) but I know enough to see what Patel is doing with the mythic structure and reclamation. 
And the tension between Good versus Evil on the divine scale versus the human scale and order versus helpfulness and, man, there is SO much here and it's all gorgeous and I loved it because I love when people take mythic archetypes and draw out the humanity at the heart.

 I can't believe we're four books in and we've only just finished talking about the mishna!
When's the next book coming out, I want to hear R. Lau's take on Rava and Abaye.
And other statements I didn't expect to be writing about a literary history of the Talmud. Still, this series has dramatically enriched my learning and I highly recommend it. 

I think this book improves on reread. Also, it stayed with me far more than most books I read, enough that I wanted to read it again (although I somehow forgot Grace existed and then, when she showed up, realized there was a lot more to this book than I remembered). This is why I don't delete old reviews; I didn't notice any pacing issues this time, although I listened instead of reading, but I also had a sense of the story's arc. I have a feeling I'll be going back to this one again.

The audio on this is excellent and I couldn't believe the book ended. I wanted to hire Kyle McCarley to read me some of the fanfic, which is not a thing that works.
This book is still so good and I just want to reread it again.