readkaylaread's Reviews (292)

This short story wraps around you like steam from a mug of your favorite drink and lingers in your mind for months after the holiday season ends. I cannot rave enough about this Christmas story: though semi-autobiographical, Capote has a way of making you feel like you’re reading about your own Christmas tradition—even though I’m pretty sure i’ve never actually eaten a slice of fruitcake for Christmas. That whole sad-content-warm-drippy-nostalgic feeling that the holidays make us all feel? Capote puts it on paper

The heading for NYT’s review of this book in 2005 reads, “outrageous misfortune” and now you don’t even need to read the book because those two words capture the entirety of this memoir. Walls’ childhood is cringeworthy and captivating all at once. It reads like a fairy tale, but just like a fairy tale, you’re thinking “who the fuck is allowing these kids to wander the woods alone?” Walls’ alcoholic father and eclectic-and-wildly-detached mother can be infuriating and heartbreakingly earnest in the same chapter.

Reading this book is kind of like eating a lemon bar: it's sweet and chewy and makes you feel good initially, but you know if you eat more than one you're gonna start feeling nauseous. The book is pretty on the surface. You can practically feel the South Carolina sunshine warming your skin when Sue Monk Kidd writes. But maybe I'm tired of petulant white girls (@ The Help) being at the center of civil rights era books. We do not need more white savior books. I'm tired of political-but-not-because-it's-just-a-side-plot. And... I can still remember the way Sue Monk Kidd describes carpet in a honey farm 2 years later. And May, June, and August feel like a long, strong hug after the end of a long day.

I mean, c'mon. I will make this brief, because who am I to comment on one of the greatest men to ever live, but I think this should be required reading. File this under "books that will change you." Malcolm X in his fullness, in his brokenness, in his rage, in his love. A moving target since the moment he was born. He feels other-worldly--all edge, all brightness, like a star fell from the sky and tried to inhabit the earth. You don't read this book, you wrestle with it, and when you're on your back and bleeding and out of breath and there's a stitch in your side, you look up and feel like you're seeing things for the first time.