This was book was both very upsetting and intriguing. I think that obviously, on the edges of my mind I knew about radium poisoning and other issues with radioactive substances, but I don't think I ever thought in detail about how it was used in our lives and how it caused the damage it did. It is amazing to me just how much damage we can cause with greed, lack of knowledge, and flippancy for the little we do know. Any time I read a story like this, and find myself thinking, "Well, duh!" I have to wonder what we can look back at a hundred years from today and see so obviously how we are causing damage - and know that there were always people who knew from the beginning, and people who will deny it until the end. How depressing! That was highlighted in this very book with the postscript, which I first thought was a summary to close up the story but was actually just the same events happening again, except in the 70s.

This book felt a bit longer and more repetitive than it needed to be, however knowing that one of the author's main goals was to highlight the lives of the women who suffered through this makes me respect the length a bit more - each woman really was given her own history rather than mentioned as just another victim. I did truly become attached to them and felt empathy for them in a way I don't typically connect to historical nonfiction. Being introduced to them as teenage girls and walked through to their very young deaths felt truly heartbreaking.

This was cute!! Thank you!! This was such an enjoyable, cozy, hopeful read while I was home sick and had just read some denser books. I fell in love with Mika so quickly, and wanted her happiness so strongly after being told her past. I liked that the personal issues in the relationship felt realistic to the characters while also not feeling too overly dramatic. The kids were cute, and I loved that the concept of the whole family felt more crucial than just the romance. Jamie was perfectly adequate as a romantic interest but I adored him as the father figure to the kids.

One of my favorite aspects of this is that neither Primrose or Jamie's mothers are painted solely as bad people - just messy ones who made a mistake. I loved that Mika and Jamie finally found where they belonged, but also was glad to see that they gained closure as well. Jamie in reconnecting with his mother and knowing it's too late for them, but losing the fear of his brothers and getting his fathers journals back. And Mika in realizing Primrose was doing what she thought was best, but chose wrong, and they can try to be better to one another here on out. Knowing that the characters get their happy ending but also get to continue healing the injuries of the past gave me those extra fuzzies.

This is a clear, concise history of housing development, focused mainly on the early 1900s to 1960s, that emphasizes all the parts of a machine created to segregate people of color from white people in the US. Some of the factors are blatantly obvious, some more subtle, but this book illustrates just how much segregation was programmed into our environments and how it still perpetuates today. I would like to say this would be a good book for the people who say things like, "it's not that deep," or "it just happened that way on its own," "that's ancient history," "it's not actually racist" to get a proper view of it all, but I don't think they'd be the type that is open to this book either, sadly. 

A large part is focused on sub-urbanization, and specifically mentions Levittown NY and as someone who grew up on Long Island, makes this a local history for me as well. I did learn some of the basic facts about Levittown in high school, but only to highlight is place in history as a post war solution, the original ticky tacky houses, etc. but never about the blatant segregation there and towns like it. I did learn some of those details a little later on, on my own, but still never just how clearly worded in the law that the refusal to sell to Black families was.

The saddest thing about this whole book, is that every step of the way, when civil rights movements finally force the laws to change, it is always too late, and the damage has already been done. It highlights just how much of privilege is gained in such short bursts of time, that can't be evened out just by making things "equal" later on.

I don't know if this book was really for me. I think there was a point in my life I would have eaten it up, but I guess not now. I listened as an audiobook, and then actually switched to an e-book around 80% because I didn't necessarily want to DNF it but I wanted to get through it quicker.

The worldbuilding was interesting enough, and part of me enjoyed the vague bits we learn of it through Klara's limited perspective, but also found it to be a little frustrating. This felt like a novel that wanted to have a discussion on the ethics of AFs and "Lifted" children but then didn't give it room to know more about either. Did Lifted children commonly experience health issues? How many people tried to make replacements of those children? Those are questions I won't get answered.

I did actually enjoy the fantastical elements of the Sun and his special nourishment. This is where Klara's perspective added charm - there could have been a scientific element she didn't understand but that made sense in this world.

Or, knowing that she was altered after trying to sabotage the Cootings machine and we are being told this as the story of Klara's life, we can wonder how much of the story is truly reliable, as Klara knows she is not fully functional after losing those fluids. (Could no one refill them or anything? Dang.) The sun's special nourishment could be anything, or nothing at all but the random occurrence of Josie getting better with no known reason, and our need to seek for one. I do enjoy the open endings that let me keep wondering about things like that.

I think the loveliest part of this story was just getting to see Klara's observations of the small moments - her complicated relationship with her mom, the awkwardness with her dad, the joy her relationship with Rick brings her. I did truly get the feeling that Klara was special and I loved her for that. But also, what did that bull ever do to anyone? Just getting flack for existing.

This was cute! After reading Delilah Green Doesn't Care and reading the preview for Astrid Parker Doesn't Fail, I think I was actually more excited for this installment of the series. I found Astrid to be an interesting character in the first book and wanted to see what was underneath all her "I need to be what I'm expected to be." pressure.

I enjoyed the romance plot, and while some parts were more dramatic than they needed to be, I was glad to see other moments not be as over the top as they could have been. It was a relief to see the characters assume the worst case scenario in their minds, sit with it, then actually go try to talk it out with each other. I was happy to see Astrid's relationship with her mother leave on a tense note but with room for improvement. After seeing a pretty big focus on the sibling relationship in Delilah Green I almost wish we had seen more of Jordan and Simon working out their issues.

I do feel like I always find something a little off with the author's descriptions of people - this time I raised an eyebrow at every time we were given the phrase "women and nonbinary people." I know this had the intention of being inclusive, but it only seemed to be used when characters were discussing their connection to feminine presenting people, and it gave a feeling like we were just treating non-binary as another kind of woman. At least in this book the author actually used the word lesbian as a label a few times instead of completely dancing around it?

I can't say I'll necessarily come back for Iris's book - I have to admit she's been my least favorite character in the series - but we'll see.

This book was charming and whimsical, and I'm so glad I picked it up between library holds - it passed the time so delightfully. I loved Sophie, Howl and Calcifer and all of their attitudes and sass.

I  was pleasantly surprised to see Sophie accept and almost embrace her curse to let herself be more outspoken and outgoing. Her characterization painted a picture of an old lady I would love to be. Howl's dramatics were hilarious, and I enjoyed Sophie bullying both him and Calcifer into being better creatures. I was only disappointed with how quickly the ending wrapped up after all the lead in.

I think I managed to go into this book somehow expecting too much and not enough?  To me, the structure and layout were actually the most appealing thing, though I know others could easily find it frustrating. The typographic choices and chasing of footnotes made this feel almost like one of those Choose Your Adventure books I read as a kid, but more stressful. I almost wish I had kept those little annotation post-it notes on hand to mark things I questioned or orphan footnotes so they would be easier to check back on. Maybe for that alone, I'll give it another read in the future. I at least should have been using multiple book marks for the times I was trying to hold my place only to be sent to another section of the book anyway.

As an actual horror story plot, I wasn't super impressed and I think that's where I let myself down expecting too much. When I was just enjoying the paths I was following I was fine, but I did eventually find myself looking for more meat to the story when really it was about the ride. But at the same time, if there were too much detail there would be less to question, and isn't that the whole point? The good part was that by chasing down footnotes and going between the house and Johnny's story, it kept me distracted and a little stressed, so when I came back to things it felt a bit like returning from a commercial break and being like, "oh right!! that's where we are! dang!!!"

I loved the structure and the symbolism and I love an unreliable narrator. I respect the amount of work and creativity that went into this book and how it managed to be such an interactive experience. I both hated it and had a great time. Thanks!

 

I've been on a nonfiction kick for a while now, and I've always had a bit of a morbid fascination with stories like this, so Into Thin Air has been on my radar for a while. Going into this book, I was aware that I had seen a movie that was based on it without realizing (Everest, 2015) so on top of it being a true story I already knew a good chunk of details (depending on how accurate the movie was, of course.) I also knew there was controversy around this book and with Krakauer's versions of what happened - enough so that Antoni Boukreev wrote a book of his own (The Climb) to tell his story that I intend to read as well. I also knew Beck Weathers wrote a book (Left for Dead: My Journey Home from Everest), and researching more now, I found that there are books written by Lene Gammelgaard (Climbing High: A Woman's Account of Surviving the Everest Tragedy) and Lou Kasischke (After the Wind: 1996 Everest Tragedy, One Survivor's Story), so I could easily go down a rabbithole on this event and I probably would enjoy it.

All of that is to say: I went in with an open mind on Krakauer's telling. In his defense, he does make it clear that by the literal nature of the location, the logical skills of everyone involved are extremely inhibited by the altitude on the mountain. He states this multiple times, and mentions many small and larger instances where peoples' mental capacity weren't at 100 percent, but that was something that could only be seen in hindsight. The biggest example being his interaction he initially thought was with Andy Harris but turned out to be with Martin Adams - causing him to report Harris at a location that he never actually was - a fact which was not realized until months later when the two men compared their stories.

I very much agree with the criticisms of this telling. Krakauer does not necessarily hide his opinions of certain people, and with all the discussion of altered logic, it doesn't seem to be a defense that gets applied to everyone equally. There are moments that feel a bit too hypocritical - the author highlighting that Boukreev descended ahead of the group and framing it as a selfish decision, despite Krakuaer himself itching to jump ahead of his team and descend earlier (which saved his own life.) It is also made clear that on the mountain it is important to take care of yourself or you are useless to those around you, and people have to make decisions on whether they are strong enough to help others without hurting themselves; again, a defense that doesn't seem to get applied to everyone equally. It feels like he tossed in that Boukreev went ahead to try and get things ready for the team as a slight nod at trying not to look too negatively at him. Throughout the book it is mentioned as well when guides have climbed the mountain with or without oxygen, and that when the guides climb with it they are "doing so for the good of the team," implying that not using the supplemental oxygen is irresponsible. Then in the closing of the book, critiques the use of oxygen as one of the reasons climbers who aren't truly experienced enough to climb the mountain are one of the problems (Krakuaer by earlier admission, being one of these climbers.) Yes, hindsight was much clearer off the mountain, but there are problems in this telling that the author already had hindsight on before he wrote them.
 
In the end, this is a story of hubris, human error, and the temptations that come with capitalization. There is no one person to blame for this event, though no one can take no blame at all. I think the most adept viewpoints come from two of points of view in the epilogue. One, an online post shared from a Sherpa orphan, highlighting that Sagarmāthā is being polluted by the outsiders, but that the Sherpa people are at fault as well for enabling these outsiders to try and conquer the mountain. That they are doomed now in the shadow of Sagarmāthā rather than saved, pulled in the wrong direction by the money from the would-be conquerors of Everest when living in an area that is poor and struggling. The orphan’s only solution has come as leaving their homeland and not returning. The issue is so complicated that is the only answer they could find for themselves. 

The other viewpoint in the epilogue comes in a letter to Krakuaer from Scott Fischer’s sister, and I think is an apt conclusion for any kind of memoir written about events like this and the responsibility of writing them as well as reading them: 

Krakuaer introduces this letter as one that was hard to read, and makes basically no rebuttal, but it does make a certain commentary just that he includes these statements at the conclusion.
 

But mostly what I take from reading this book is, you’d have to be crazy to want to try and climb this mountain. 

This was, overall - a fun book (if you find horror and gore fun, that is.) I was really into horror movies as a kid, but kind of moved past it, but I like to toss some back in to mix it up and was getting in the spooky mood. I loved the concept, and I love anything with this kind of meta approach, but I don't think I can say I totally loved this final product. I listened to the audiobook, and while I enjoyed the bits interceding the chapters as backstory to all the characters and why they were so messed up, I had been feeling like they managed to tell me something and nothing at the same time. I've discovered after reading that they were meant to be literal magazine clippings, VHS blurbs, etc "scanned" into the book, which made more sense knowing - I admit that those visually do add more to the vibe of the story as an inclusion than just a bit read aloud. 

I've said it before about the horror & thriller, and it may be a personal feeling, but when you've consumed enough of the genre, you become trained to expect the worst. I'm always going to spend the entire story imagining the most dramatic, gory, twisted, or even happy endings while I go along. I don't necessarily expect to be surprised at this point, only hope that the twist is delivered in a satisfying way. I wouldn't say it was in this case on this one. However, Lynette's character growth made up for this, for me. Despite being an annoying, paranoid recluse, I didn't dislike her. I predicted where the story was going mostly, but seeing Lynette overcome her fears and protect her sister(s) was what truly made this book enjoyable for me.
 
Throughout the entire book I felt like there was something a tad bit off with the characterization of everyone, and the "man-hating" felt kind of overhanded even for a book where the women are all victims of extreme violence from men, based on a movie industry where the violence against women has always been extra aggressive. I couldn't quite put my finger on it and it didn't stop me from reading, but it was definitely a small criticism I felt throughout the book. Anyways, after looking more at the book after finishing it, I realized I had gone through the whole thing assuming the author was a woman - I didn't think deeply about their name and the premise of "how did the victims deal with life afterwards" felt like a take a woman would have on the genre (and that's on me for assuming.) Finding out it's actually a male author kind of answered what I couldn't put my finger on about what seemed just a little off, but maybe that's just my feelings. But overall gave the inclination of "He's a little confused, but he's got the spirit."

PS. Dani was my favorite, and I actually appreciated Heather by the end - would have liked to hear more about her monsters

This book was hopeful, sweet, sad, and lovely. It had me feeling more emotional at moments than I expected. That voice in our heads telling us, "If I were really so bad, if I really needed help, wouldn't other people notice and say something?" was very familiar to me.