u know what? idk why i’m reading this 

This book was cute and I got through it pretty quick. I don't read romance that often but I enjoyed this one, probably because a large focus was on Delilah and Astrid's issues as sisters, and Astrid's shitty relationship. I found myself more invested in those things than Delilah and Claire's romance.

The whole book was basically just a miscommunication trope, but I wasn't mad at it because I felt like it worked well here; I could see Delilah's and Astrid's teenage issues being pretty realistic. I know we can look at the miscommunication stuff as "gosh, just talk about it" but with family stuff that goes that far back, I can see the struggle. I was happy that everyone was a little introspective about their problems and knew it was a group effort to screw things up rather than the fault of one person (Besides Isabel....she sucked. But, who knows, she could be redeemed.) Claire and Delilah's miscommunication worked too, in my opinion because they have similar issues of having past expectations of each other, along with the deadline of Delilah intending to leave town and never come back. 

The "oh no, we have to share a bed," was a little forced in though, lol. Even with the whole estrangement thing, I don't buy that Astrid Parker would forget to book enough rooms. That girl was on top of shit.

All in all, Delilah and Claire's romance was cute, but I was more happy to see Delilah and Astrid finally connect as sisters and start to heal their own personal issues. Reading the except for Astrid Parker Doesn't Fail had me feeling I probably will like that book even more, honestly.

I did think it was kinda weird how at some point for every character it was specified they were white, even down to  including Delilah's one night stand in the beginning. I kept waiting for a character to be introduced who was not specifically white, but...nope. It didn't always seem relevant  without adding any other kind of representation and gave kinda a weird vibe.

I enjoyed all the POVs in this story, and found myself excited to get back to other characters while also staying compelled with where I was. This story got a lot darker than I expected, which is saying a lot considering I expected the famine, war, etc. 

Even though it was obvious that Zhu and Ouyang's stories were set up juxtaposed to each other, and I picked up where Ouyang and Esen's storyline would eventually end up, I was very surprised by Zhu's action at the end of the novel. But, kinda loved that she went completely off the rails. I'm curious to see how the next novel moves forward.

I think this is the first time I really enjoyed one of these novelizations of a "minor" mythological character; I'm not sure if this is because I went in knowing less about Norse Mythology than I have for the Greek stories I've read like this before. The characters were more easy for me to keep track of, and I became attached to most of them.

A lot of the plot could actually be kinda depressing, but that's pretty common in a lot of myths. With this story I actually became attached enough to the characters to care when these things happened, and made it feel like much more of a tragedy than the typical delivery. I really did love Angrboda and her weird children.

I learned a lot about earthworms from this book, mostly due to the fact that I have probably never once thought about them for longer than a few seconds. They have a very important role in our environment, which is something I'm not surprised to learn about basically any aspect of the Earth after reading so many nature nonfiction books the last few years. I came out of it with more respect for them and respect for the people who care about them.

However, this was one of those situations where I felt like listening to the book as an audiobook may have been the wrong choice for me. I loved reading Flower Confidential by the same author, but maybe Stewart's writing style didn't work as well with me in listening context. But I learned a lot, I found it interesting enough, and it was short enough that it felt like I'd rather finish it though than give up on it.

Thanks for sharing, Amy Stewart.

I know I'm an outlier on this, but I honestly love a slow, tedious build up of a story. For the majority of this book I found myself thinking, alright, this is nice, it feels like a bit of slice of life but like if you were also a man in the french revolution worried about being accused of being an aristocrat (because you are...but a a good one.) I truly was enjoying my time with it even when I kinda felt like that was all that was going on, and kept wondering, okay, is something going to actually happen here?

Then in like the last quarter of the novel, I realized exactly what was going to happen here. And you know what? I also love a story where I can see the ending coming a mile away but have it delivered so well it still hits me right in the face. It had me straight up sobbing in a way I did not expect when coming into this book with, well, I enjoyed a Christmas Carol a lot more than I expected and this is the "It was the best of times, it was the worst of times..." book so I might as well see what's going on here.

I listened to this as an audiobook which is my favorite format for tedious (affectionate) story, but I actually immediately bought a physical copy when I was done so I could come back at some point and live in the prose. I was especially in love with the personification of La Guillotine and her cures for headaches; and the very obvious symbolism between the wine spilling in the street in the beginning of the novel along with all the "wine" that La Guillotine drank.

Sometimes I just really enjoy reading a classic and loving it for the things that made it a classic.

I saw this book in the pride display at The Strand bookstore when I was visiting my friend and I was like "Ohhh, the 2000s, might as well check that out! (And then borrowed the book from my library.)

It's true, it's a very niche book. I am only slightly younger than the author (and Taylor Swift) by around half a year. I definitely kept finding myself thinking "Were we this young when that media was released?? We were this old???" I was very familiar with maybe about half of the media talked about in detail in this book, most of which I interacted with when it was released, but the other half applied enough in the sense that even if I wasn't familiar with it myself I remember people around me being really into it and hearing about it often enough to know its impact.

My pull to this book was basically that I had been thinking a lot about how different representation for queer people was in the aughts (In my graduating class of over 600 kids in a "blue state" I recall there being one kid actually out of the closet) versus seeing the teens I worked with in 2018-2020 be so comfortable with being who they were and so open about it. Sometimes I forget what things were like then and what they're like now. Sometimes I remember and am glad younger kids experienced a slightly less hateful childhood.

In the closing essay, Perry talks about noticing those differences and seeing the changes that have been made and feeling like we won something, but then worrying how quickly it could disappear and questioning, what if those assholes were right? This hurt a little extra hard when I'm finishing up this book the day after Roe V. Wade has been overturned and mentions of Obergefell v. Hodges being reconsidered along with others

But yeah, for me, this book was very relatable. I loved the way the it discussed looking at media we enjoyed in the past and understanding it's flaws while knowing it had issues as well. Mean Girls, Glee, Ellen, everything else that felt groundbreaking then is so easy to look back and say "yikes!" but it doesn't mean they didn't have their power too.

this is just too dense for my brain to process right now. i’ll be back. 

While I was reading this book I kept thinking about that viral tweet,

Same energy. and I liked that about it. 

This book was a deep dive into something I had never thought about and don't think I really would have thought about thinking about. It was actually more immersive than I expected it to be as a nonfiction book. After reading a few books about species and natural selection, etc, it was interesting to read about plants that have basically been 100% shaped by the involvement of people. Pretty much all the history and information in here was new and interesting to me, and I won't look at cut flowers the same as I used to.

Stewart did a great job of tying the histories together in a way that made the industry and it's growth feel very understandable.  I can't say I wasn't gonna read a book about earthworms otherwise (I'm pretty sure I've actually seen mentions of The Earth Moved and felt intrigued) but this author made me want to read more of her work.