My friend recommended this book to me as a light read, and it definitely was a light read. Normally I would enjoy the urban fantasy vibes of this, but it felt like there were just too many elements mixed in. I never really connected to the characters, and I'm not sure if we were supposed to distrust Ned the whole time, but I sure did. The romance was fun. Overall, I think this was just not for me.

Minor complaints about world-building that I probably got too hung up on:

They're pirates, but instead of ships they have houses that fly. There's magic involved but it's only used for flying houses? And I guess there are witches. Ladies have to pass a test to fly the houses but servants are just allowed, which an offhand comment is made about it being non-sensible, which felt like a meh excuse for an explanation. It's a matriarchy, but the ladies still stress about behaving well in public, not going out with gloves and scarf in case they get sick or tan in the sun, or conversating properly. I know these were things men stressed about in the same time period but it felt kind of meh to keep the same stipulations for women in society when so much is different or gender-swapped - I wish they could still be a little less typically ladylike while being pirates?

In the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic, I read David France's How to Survive a Plague, written after the documentary of the same name was created (and which was also discussed in Never Silent). After reading it, I looked up Peter Staley since he was one of the activists mentioned a lot and was still alive, which is a depressing criteria for looking into people further, but AIDS did that, unfortunately. I saw that he was doing a lot of discussions and activism for the Covid virus and followed him on Twitter, which is how I found out about his own memoir.

I'm old enough to remember part of the AIDS epidemic from the mid-to-late 90's, but personally unaffected enough to not think about it very often after the fact. I was also a kid then, so I was living in the history without really understanding it. How To Survive a Plague was a very informative overview, but I had a hard time keeping track of all the people involved, so I was interested to read something from a more personal point of view. Staley was honest about his experience as a closeted man on Wall Street, his ego when working with ACT UP, his drug addiction, and many other aspects of his life. At times it almost felt very blunt, but I guess when you have friends dying so rapidly from a disease that other people are ignoring, the almost off-hand statements like "but he had actually died the week before," just called more attention to how overly often these activists were receiving sad news and continuing to fight through it.

I don't know what else to say - it's a hard and sad story to hear, but an important one to remember.

There was a lot more murder in this book than I remember as a kid. Also, did anyone ever get that mouse some sandals that fit????

Listen, I knew what this book was about before getting into it. But I waited weeks with this on hold from my library and it finally was available as I wrapped up my last audiobook, during a five hour drive. So despite knowing some parts of it would be a little too relatable I started listening to this while driving and that was a bit of a mistake.

There are parts of Michelle Zauner’s story I already knew so well. Losing a parent to cancer, knowing it’s happening and feeling like you have to cling to the time that you have. There are parts I could never relate to, growing up a white kid with the worlds blandest foods as my only cuisine til I reached adulthood. The way she writes about the foods she shared and loved with her mom made me regret not being as adventurous, reminding me to be in the future. Feeling the ties loosen of her connection to her culture is something I couldn’t imagine - maybe I have had fleeting moments where my Jewish last name feels so much more like a misrepresentation with my father and grandparents gone, but that was already so loosely connected to me in the first place.

Anyways, ten minutes in I was already losing it. I felt solidarity in the times I cried in grocery stores and at red lights in the driver seat. That guilty, jealous feeling when you see older people with their aging parents. I was surprised at the mention of her reoccurring dreams about her mother after her death - down to the exact plots I have had the same dreams. It never seemed like something I could ask others I knew that had been through something similar. I felt a lot of catharsis with this book. I cried of course, but I knew that would happen.

Despite the book telling us off the bat that El Faro sinks in the title and in the introduction, I still found this book to be more thrilling and harrowing than I expected. What will happen next?? There were moments where I had to remind myself this was a nonfiction book, especially in sections where the crew were stated to be thinking or feeling something that would just be impossible to know and I knew had to be contrived from the black box recordings. But even in those moments I would have the thought, "How could we possibly know how they felt? This is real, not a novel" and be reminded by myself that these were real people who lost their lives due to the cutting of corners for profit and bad decisions by the people in power, not just a story I was reading and think again about just how tragic it truly was.

The author did a great job setting up the dominos that would all fall into place to cause this horrible occurrence - I knew that the blame would be heaped on the captain which becomes even easier to do to a man that died in the sinking. But Slade makes it obvious that this is the culmination of the hubris of many men, not just one. It is easy to blame the captain's choices when they are clearly the straw that broke the camel's back - but if just one precaution had actually been properly followed before that, would 33 people still be alive?

The book mentions multiple times the sinking of The Fitzgerald and the Marine Electric as turning points for maritime safety requirements (both of which I have found books about to add to my TBR after this). With the El Faro it was obvious that we were once again flying too close to the sun. It's strange to know that after over 100 years, we can still think "This is impossible!" when the Titanic sinks to, "This is impossible!" when the El Faro sinks. The cynic in me knows that while we learn from these events, they never seem to be the last of them.

This is just one of those books where I feel like it was written exactly for me - right in the beginning I can tell me and the author are on the same wavelength and from there on out I'm gonna love everything and be a little biased probably. There is a mix of history with memoir-like moments, and while it's not linear in any way, I am personally a fan of this type of nonfiction style - I like to find a little bit of emotional attachment to the information and I will find it even more compelling and memorable.

Tsui starts the book by talking about her childhood at Long Island beaches which is exactly where my own love for the water started, geographically and emotionally. There is a specific moment where she talks about, as a child, being knocked under by a wave and losing direction - struggling just long enough to be short on air until she's kicked in the head by her cousin and finds her way up. How time stretched and restarted.

This was a particular thrill I sought as a kid - and a few days within starting this book I found again at the same beaches as an adult and felt exactly the same about it. I think I could have come out of this book happy I read it with just the feelings in this moment: the awe, fear, mystery and respect for the sea all at once, and knowing I shared this experience with someone. Making this connection with the author honestly just made me want to hear all her other thoughts and experiences and knowledge about the subject.

This book was warm and fuzzy and ended how I wanted it to. Sometimes that's all I want!!!! I loved the humor in the writing style. The kids were adorable. I cheered at Linus's character growth - learning to love himself and others, stand up for himself and others, and be comfortable in his own body . I'm also just always a sucker for when one character knows they're totally into the other, meanwhile the other is oblivious. 

This story was haunting. The telling was straightforward in a way that highlighted how gruesome parts of it were. The repetition of the "minor details" throughout - like dogs barking, explosions in the background, dust and gravel, the chewing gum - slowed me down enough to keep me in the moment and feel uncomfortable. 

I'm not sure why I just completely did not enjoy this story. I love a tragedy! Something about this one just didn't make me feel the catharsis that can come with a tragic story. Esmeralda was a silly girl who lived a hard life and fell in love with a man she dreamed could love her but was just an airhead. I know it's a common theme in classics or older literature in general, but the continual reminder that keeping chaste is the only way she can expect the spell to find her family again to work was just really annoying.

Quasimodo didn't even feel like he had a personality, so on top of being an outcast he didn't even seem humanized by his own storylines. As stated, Phoebus was a total airhead. Gringoire made for comic relief, I suppose.

Claude Frollo was a hella creep and a great villain. But a lot of me knows that a lot of his sin was still based on Esmeralda's ...existence. It just gave off too much "he couldn't help but sin when he saw her" without enough of blaming Frollo for being a major creep. I know that's also of the times, but it was just a bit much for me. His death was extremely satisfying.

I started reading along with Dracula Daily, and I made it to mid-June before I got impatient and just dove into the book onto my own. I just can't read a book that slowly apparently, though I loved the concept.

Considering this is one of the classic and most adapted horror stories, with so many derivatives based on it, obviously there's a certain predictability to it for modern readers that there wasn't necessarily for the time it was written. Despite that, I actually found the story more tense and thrilling than I expected. I did feel it lost some of my interest towards the third quarter of the book, basically from after they piece together all of the information until they actually capture Dracula in the end. The final scene almost made up for that, but then that dropped off rather abruptly as well.

All in all, I enjoyed it, it kept me interested, I liked maybe half the characters. Mina was my favorite, Seward was actually interesting. Van Helsing was cool for being the old man who just knew all this stuff, but when he went on and on, I did find myself skimming a little. Jonathon Harker, Arthur and Quincey just felt like warm bodies to be involved. Quincey especially had the potential to be much cooler. Lucy deserved better.