I don't know how these books can possibly still be getting better, but they are.

To paraphrase Yapa, how do you live in the world the way it is? Published in 2016 and set in 1999 and read by me at the dying end of 2023, not one second of this book is surprising because we as a global society and we as an American society have learned nothing.

"How could a human life, a thing so layered and vast it was a world unto itself, be reduced so quickly and completely to a cold corpse beneath the trees?"

And there is what I think Yapa's answer is. Love. You survive this world by loving as big and as hard as you possibly can.

I would also answer love, with an asterisk that if you didn't believe all cops were bastards before reading this novel, you probably will after.

Just another derivative, uninspired war book. One bonus point for WWI instead of the classic WWII, but that's the only nice thing I have to say.

The writing wasn't terrible, but there was no plot beyond a weak attempt at a will-they-or-won't-they-romance but all the suspense is spoiled because the framing device for the entire novel is Tom missing his beloved wife Evie now that she has passed.

The bulk of the novel (minus the framing device) is letters, and despite the cast of a half dozen, every one of them writes with the same style so all the pages blur together in a big snooze of lazy writing. 

The bits about the perils of war could have been really compelling, if we didn't have Evie shrieking about how she wants to join the war effort in France and how dare her loved ones be concerned for her safety. This trope is like corsets: it's been used as shorthand for oppression for so long that instead of rooting for her, I've rolled my eyes so hard that I've fallen off the couch.

I would only recommend this if you really, really love coming-of-age novels and would prefer to read a diary over anything with a plot.

I found Sexton via an interview on TikTok that was so startlingly raw and fascinating that I wanted even more of his thoughts. This book delivered (and I highly recommend the audio).

A great book to read at any point in a relationship, Sexton asks the questions we never think to ask ourselves, like What do we want out of this relationship? What does a successful relationship look like? Can we be honest with ourselves about our answers? Why is everyone fucking the nanny? (Okay, maybe that last one is more specific to his clients.)

Sexton describes his book as a how-not-to book rather than a how-to book, which is exactly the kind of refreshing take that I like.

Who knew I would like gunpowder fantasy so much? This was an excellent middle book in a trilogy.