Was it perfect? Can’t quite say. Did I love every minute of it? Yes. 

Normally I’m not super into knowing a lot of details of a story before I start, so I was kind of annoyed the publisher’s blurb for this goes right out and says Jane is displaced in time from the 1970s. However, as I got into it, I was glad I started with this info as it put me in a place to have just the right suspension of disbelief to enjoy this book whereas I may have found it all a little too out there if I went in expecting nothing weird. Instead of hunting for reasons why and sources of magic I just followed the story and embraced the characters, and, like I said, loved every minute of it.  

I read Silence of the Lambs before, but I did not give it a rating on my previous read and can't quite remember how I felt about it. This time around I can solidly say I enjoyed it. There feels like there's less Hannibal Lector in this compared to the first book, and even at times...I forgot he was part of the story. Oops. I didn't necessarily miss him and still enjoyed his parts in moving along the plot, especially in letting us know who Clarice Starling is as a person.

I adore Starling. I love her motivation, her intelligence, her observation skills. She is underestimated in this story by almost everyone in it either due to her being a woman, still being in training, her age, her career/education change, but she always pulls through. I found her to me a much more compelling character than Will Graham, honestly. She doesn't see the crimes the way he does, but she relates to the victims and respects them - and when she finds herself frustrated at her own career setbacks she remembers it's not just about her, but the other women she is trying to protect. We love that in a hero.

Our villain didn't get as much of a back story or motivation compared to The Red Dragon, but I personally found that to make the story a little more tense and mysterious. Not knowing how he finds his victims or his long term plans on how it all is really going to work out...he fumbles and experiments and is just genuinely a loose canon. 

Closing with Hannibals letter to Clarice was a chilling ending for me - just being reminded he is out there, he is smart, and he will continue to play with people as he always has....love that creepy feeling. I was thinking I might take a break from this series and come back some time later, but that being set up for the next book makes me want to keep going.

I think what I love most about this book, is Anne herself. She is just so patient, observant, and empathetic I can’t help but love her and hope the best for her. She has a lot of restraint that I think we all wish we had in dealing with family that can be quite ridiculous, as well as understanding the good intentions of people that may have persuaded you into the wrong decisions. I’m glad we get to know her so well since I feel like we barely learn about Captain Wentworth at all.

Thinking about it, I do appreciate that the focus is less on the love interest because I can spend most of the book hoping Anne gets her happy ending and not worrying about who it is with. And then when we learn more about certain characters backgrounds and get the added justification of knowing that Anne was just a bit more observant about peoples intentions, it made it all the more satisfying when everything worked out for her. 

This is my second time reading Persuasion, and this edition had annotations so I found that pretty interesting. I got a good mix of confirming things about etiquette I had already picked up from reading Austen's previous work as well as things that were new to me. It was fun to learn Austen's personal opinions on her approval of the navy and to see that portrayed in this book and wonder how much of an influence she had on readers at the time.

"Because human knowledge declines with distance from the shore there is a temptation to believe that these deep, dark waters are lifeless and we can do what we want with little prospect of harm."

I was excited to read this book because one of the only things I know about the deep sea is that we don't know much about it. It was a little disappointing that there wasn't as much deep sea info as I had hoped, but I suppose it's only fair considering... how much we don't know. I still came out of it knowing more than I did before.

When it moved off the topic of actual deep sea life and environment, we sometimes found ourselves more towards the surface or shore, but mainly on the topic of climate change and other environmental issues. Also something I can't be surprised about by any nature/science book written in the 21st century. If its not a heavy topic, it's the elephant in the room.

The main thing I took from this book is that, we really are destroying our environment and pretending we aren't - out of sight, out of mind. And unfortunately I don't know if I'll get to read a book about the deep sea that's more in depth before we destroy it as it is now.

I thought about reading this just because I knew it would be a quick read and good for the season. Then I second guessed it, wondering if there was a point to reading something I know the story of so well just from seeing so many adaptations. Then I second guessed my second guess, because why would there be so many adaptations if it weren't a worthwhile story?

Anyways, I enjoyed this a lot. I didn't expect it to have such funny little moments and wit in it, and I found myself laughing at quite a few lines.  I am definitely more interested in checking out some of Dickens' other work now. It's a heartwarming story and I'm glad I took the time to read it and remind myself to enjoy the little things.  Also, I really want to go watch A Muppet Christmas Carol now.

I gave this book 5 stars the first time I read it and I can see why. The story feels compelling, even if it feels a bit predictable at times. Obviously we know things as the reader that the characters in the story don't know, and it feels appropriately satisfactory when they find out as well. Even though I remembered the gist of the story from the first time I read it, I still felt surprised at certain points so I have to give it props for that. This time around I think I am mainly impressed and a little uncomfortable by how much I feel bad for the villain once we learn his back story.

Will Graham is right, in the end. It is not the places that are haunted, but the people.

I went for the audiobook but i should have gone for the ebook

This book was interesting enough all the way through for me, just from the bouncing back and forth in Raskolnikov's mind about how guilty he should be feeling for his crime - his cycles through delirium, acceptance, acknowledgment and self-validation for his actions kept me thinking of him as a real (albeit kinda crazy) person and not just as a murderer or a criminal. I found that I had to constantly remind myself of the details of his crime to remember just what kind of person he was.

Having Sonya there as Raskolnikov's foil was really what made this book enjoyable for me. Where he is weak in his beliefs, she is faithful. She is a victim of her circumstances and he continues to perpetrate her own. Yet he has the hubris to think they have "fallen to the same level" and that just strikes me as the attitude of the kinda dude that would commit this crime.

My biggest gripe with the book has to be the epilogue. I could say it almost ruined the book for me. Raskolnikov finally admitting his crime is so shocking (even thought we've known the whole time) and so satisfying. It would have been an abrupt end to not know his repercussions, but finding them out was almost disappointing. Having the epilogue felt like having all the weight taper off the issue. I would have rather been left in the dark on the repercussions of Raskolnikov's crime, beyond the punishment by his own conscience and mental state. I would have been left to dwell on a lot more.

 "But I know that if you look deep down into the darkness, even in a rat hole, there is some life down there, some fecund spark, like it or not."

Rats!! This book was really fun for me to read - it was a mix of observations on rats and historical information. Other reviews were correct that this isn't totally about rats, it has a lot of barely-rat related history attached, but as I came across this book while trying to find books about NYC history, I was happy to see that. The rats were a bonus. A lot of things really can be rat adjacent if you want to them to be.

My favorite thing about this book was watching the author's descent into rat obsession. I can feel the simultaneous disgust and respect for rats, and the disgust and the respect became mine too. The more you look for something, the more you see it. The more you see, the more you learn, and find what you have in common. And now I know how to look for rats, too.

"Rats are everywhere. Don't think they're not near you."

"I suppose some will wish to debate whether it is important to keep these primitive arts alive. I shall not debate it. Either you know it in your bones, or you are very, very old."

I read this book so slowly, and not because it was hard or boring to read, but because I enjoyed the writing so much, I didn't want to rush taking it all in. I had seen A Sand County Almanac mentioned in enough of my other nonfiction reads that I had to add it to my reading list, and I am glad I did.

So much of this book really felt so applicable even now, even though our environment has changed so much since the author wrote it. I kept forgetting it was written in the 1940s until there would be references like "the recent extinction" of the passenger pigeon. And having that highlighted, I questioned how many of the small and local species of flora and fauna Leopold references have been lost since. (If....honestly - when I read it again, I will actually probably take note of them to look up.)

The writing in this book was just so lovely. You could tell it was written with true passion and care and respect for the author's own environment and all the living things around him. So many of the remarks about our society's prioritizing of economy over ecology are still so relevant, if not more. Many parts of this book really made me consider just how much humankind's hubris thinks that we can do whatever we want to this land like it is not a living thing that is supporting us more than we support it.

"It did not occur to us that we, too, were the captains of an invasion too sure of its own righteousness."