I'm on record as saying 50 Shades of Grey is not as bad as I thought it would be, but this one was... pretty bad.

Here is a conversation I had about it at book club:

Spoiler

E: I read the 2nd 50 Shades book after K talked about it last time.
Me: Me too! I'm so mad!
E: Yeah...
Me: Like, nothing happens in it. Every chapter is like, something ALMOST happens and Ana worries what will happen, and then... it doesn't happen.
E: Well, and I thought... she was going to get kidnapped?
Me: Yes, me too! I'm pretty sure K did say that. So I spent the whole time being like, okay but when's she getting kidnapped?
E: I was at like 90% and she hadn't been kidnapped yet.
Me: Maybe she gets kidnapped in the next one?
E: There wasn't even that much sex in this one.
Me: And it was boring sex!

so... in conclusion... Ana does not get kidnapped in this book. Nothing happens in this book. Christian's therapist does not understand confidentiality. Or, possibly, psychology. Christian doesn't understand anything.

I'm probably still gonna read the 3rd one eventuallybut if she doesn't get kidnapped in that one I will be PISSED.

I would probably only recommend this to a devoted Little House fan, which I am. *puts on bonnet* The Little House books were the first books I read on my own, and I read and re-read them so many times. I've been to DeSmet twice.

Here seems like a place to note: I acknowledge that there are problematic elements in these books! But I still have extremely fond memories of these books. And reading this annotated edition gave some interesting insight about how LIW (and her daughter Rose Lane) consciously shaped the narrative of her fictionalized life. Pioneer Girl was meant to be a nonfiction autobiography, but Laura & Rose worked together to fictionalize it into a series of novels based on her experience. So there are things like, in the autobiography LIW notes that she was afraid of the black doctor who came to treat their malaria because she'd never seen a black person before, but in the novel it's changed to "She would have been afraid of him if she had not liked him so much."

There's also a lot of interesting insight on the main problematic element of the books, the portrayal of American Indians. For instance, there has been criticism of her naming the Osage chief Soldad du Chene, a French name. But historical records show there WAS a Soldad de Chene who was an Osage chief in the early 1800s. BUT he wasn't around during the time she was writing about, the 1870s. There are records in LIW's files of her writing around to various historical societies at the time she was drafting Pioneer Girl to try to track down the name of the Osage chief at the time she was writing, and that's what she ended up with.

There's also a lot of fascinating information about the stuff LIW chose to leave out of her novels--some of it is pseudo-scandalous stuff like nearby saloons and allusions premarital sex--and some of it is stuff about how pioneer life is actually even HARDER than it looked in the novels, like a lot of bouts of serious illness were left out, and also a backtrack trip to Kansas, and also the fact that they had 2 annoying moochers crashing with them during the entire Long Winter who took the best spots in front of the fire and ate more than their share of food!

Also a lot of interesting back and forth between real Laura and Rose as they figured out how to shape it into a novel, and what deliberate character choices they made in fictionalizing the family. (Laura made Ma into kind of less of a badass than real-life Ma was, giving some of her best moments to Pa!)

There are also a lot of photos and documents included here, as well as just a lot of attempts to mine census data and other available records for information about minor characters. It's a WEALTH of information for history buff Little House enthusiasts!! Possibly WAY TOO MUCH information for non-enthusiasts!

Also some people asked me about if this was appropriate for children--I would say it's not INAPPROPRIATE--even the "racy" content is pretty mild by today's standards--but it would probably be very boring for all but the most studious of children! Excerpts might be really interesting to use in a history or creative writing class though.

(read as single issues)

I'M NOT CRYING YOU'RE CRYING

just kidding, I'm crying

I'm excited about the concept of new lady Thor, and I probably enjoyed this more than any of the comics I've read about dude Thor, but I'm just not that into Thor's solo Asgard adventures in general??? I prefer Thor as part of a TEAM? that's just personal preference of course!

Also I liked that the villain was an evil interdimensional CEO!

I read this hoping to be able to book talk it to junior high kids because I think the concept (reality TV love story!) is something that will be easy to sell but I think the material is a little too much for me to comfortably tell a whole class about--the first chapter has a super drunk actress, there's a big plot line about drug dealers, etc--but I think that a lot of teens will dig it.

I liked it okay... I always love behind-the-scenes reality TV stuff, and I especially liked Magnolia's ongoing rants about how adults always expect teens to change their minds but teens should just live in the moment, man. I think that's a good message.

(It was... interesting... that all the side characters here are diverse but our 2 protagonists were white. Still: Mila was probably my favorite character, so... hooray for that I guess. Also, class diversity, in that Ford is from a poor, rural, crimey family.)

Ultimately: a fun, quick read; recommended for fans of reality TV trash!

Oh man, I stayed up too late to read this all in one sitting! Ahh! A great page-turner, and I loved the snippets of the Princess X webcomic. I can't wait to tell kids about this one--so many of my regulars are big fans of Homestuck and other webcomics, and I think they'll really love the way the webcomic is part of the narrative and of the mystery.

also: I love that this is a story about the power of girl friendship!

Spoiler

now that I think back about it like, the secret webcomic plot seems like an extremely convoluted way of going about things? Butttttt in the moment I was just totally here for it.

I re-read this for the first time since like, high school maybe? For obvious reasons.

I know this is a total childhood favorite for many people--it's not for me? I enjoyed it when I read it as a youth but it didn't imprint on me the way some other plucky heroines did. (eg [b:Anne of Green Gables|8127|Anne of Green Gables (Anne of Green Gables, #1)|L.M. Montgomery|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1390789015s/8127.jpg|3464264].)

So, in anticipation of Watchman, I've noticed a lot of (white) people re-reading it and realizing that maybe it isn't the perfectly anti-racist book they remembered it being? Here's my hot take on that: a Southern white lady wrote it in the 1950s

So yeah, it is totally a story about a white girl learning an important lesson from the suffering of a black man, in a way that would feel extremely icky in a contemporary novel. (OK maybe not given the popularity of [b:The Help|4667024|The Help|Kathryn Stockett|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1346100365s/4667024.jpg|4717423]......) But! I still really did enjoy the re-read, and Scout's voice is so strong and delightful. There's a lot of sharp cleverness here, and a lot of frank talk about race and class and coming of age in the south.

Also, I mean, yes Atticus is a great voice for justice blah blah blah but also he is a total dick to a rape/incest victim? (Who is, of course, in turn, being a total dick to a disabled black man.)

Also, Scout's "not like the other girls" lifestyle is not very 3rd wave.

Still: overall, a lot of this endures fairly well.

This was an enjoyable work of memoir/literary criticism, as the author revisits her literary heroines from childhood to present day. I couldn't help but compare it to [b:Spinster: Making a Life of One's Own|22889766|Spinster Making a Life of One's Own|Kate Bolick|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1415580758s/22889766.jpg|42459922]'s 5 Awakeners--I read Spinster first, and I think it's more... sophisticated of an endeavor? Although her perspective as a British-Iraqi Jewish woman looking for herself in so many classic British heroines is intersting, How to Be a Heroine's conclusions are not quite groundbreaking (any character written in the 1800s is probably not a flawless feminist icon; be your own heroine!) but I still enjoyed Ellis' literary trip down memory lane, especially since I've just been revisiting Little House and To Kill a Mockingbird myself. It certainly left me with a few more books I want to re-read (and a few I want to read for the first time).

This is so lovely and relevant and also a little bit of a page-turner. I definitely want to re-read it at some point. The most tender Mean Girls story I've ever read.

I'd heard lots of great things about this so I was happy to see it available as an audiobook that happened to be the approximate length of my last trip! It's definitely a great book--great research, wildly interesting story--and it kept me engaged while I drove. The narrator does a fine job.

That said, I think I'd have preferred to read this in print--I kept wanting to flip back and remind myself about who was doing what, and it's annoying to do that in audio.

Still: a super fun, impressive book--a great great blend of history, science, and biography. (I'm late to the party on this one so you probably already know that.)