postmodernblues's Reviews (465)

Andrew Rannells is very skilled at short-form nonfiction, so each essay feels compact and punchy. I loved having some additional insight into his more recent career endeavors, such as The Book of Mormon. I would have loved some discussion of his experience with The Boys in the Band, but overall I really liked this book. And, man, I just love Andrew Rannells.

"Once having set up her idols and built altars to them it was inevitable that she would worship there. It was inevitable that she should accept any inconsistency and cruelty from her deity as all good worshippers do from theirs. All gods who receive homage are cruel. All gods dispense suffering without reason. Otherwise they would not be worshipped. Through indiscriminate suffering men know fear and fear is the most divine emotion. It is the stones for altars and the beginning of wisdom. Half gods are worshipped in wine and flowers. Real gods require blood."  - Zora Neale Hurston, Their Eyes Were Watching God, page 145.

This book is really engaging and fast-paced, with an interesting road trip/heist plot that carries it to an abrupt and subversive end, but it has a serious problem with verisimilitude. The stakes grow comically high as Winona and Lucille encounter increasingly illegal and elaborate activities and never once brush up against the police. I believe it is intended to be empowering, and it accomplishes that goal, but I came out of this book thinking "how the hell did they not end up in jail?"

they totally pulled the Jared's Parents (Silicon Valley HBO) thing with Winona's mom! I know some people seem upset by this ending but I really liked it. It was a nice parallel to Lucille's dad.

Not quite as good as Daisy Jones, in my opinion, but incredibly readable and suitably summer-y for lazy poolside reading. The setting is decadent and aggressively Californian, and the family drama is just dysfunctional enough to keep it moving. Kind of reads as though someone wanted to write a book about the Bluth family from Arrested Development, but play it completely straight. Complete with real boyfights!

The YA romance genre is extremely hit-or-miss for me, and a lot of the time I'll read something light only to become frustrated with its clichés and contrivances. Not so with our dear friend Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe. I had known this was one of the well-loved classics of YA, but I was not expecting to like it as much as I did. Saenz's sparse language and expressive metaphors serve to create a really quiet yet beautifully devastating story. I really identified with Ari as a character. I listened to this partially on audiobook, however, and I have to say Lin Manuel Miranda being the narrator was random as hell and a little weird for me as a former Hamilton freak.

It's obviously difficult to evaluate an anthology as a whole, since the stories are all different and represent a wide range of quality and authorship, but on the whole I definitely enjoyed this one, even if a few of the stories had me dragging my feet. "The Map of Tiny Perfect Things" was undoubtedly my favorite, and a fantastic one to end the book with.

"'Patrick', she says. 'I wouldn't lie.'

'No, of course you wouldn't. . . but I think that. . .' My turn to sigh, contemplatively. 'I think. . . you know how they say no two snowflakes are ever alike?'

She nods.

'Well, I don't think that's true. I think a lot of snowflakes are alike. . . and I think a lot of people are alike too.'"   - Bret Easton Ellis, American Psycho, page 363

An intensely uncomfortable reading experience, to be sure, but ultimately culminates in a wonderfully and infuriatingly ambiguous story that is completely unique and stream-of-consciousness. Fascinatingly, this book relies on the lack of distinction and uniqueness between characters. Very, very interesting.