I think the main problem with a book about a sheltered Jehovah's Witness who realizes her religion is a cult is that a lifetime of sheltered belief has made Scorah incredibly boring. She's not a great storyteller; she is not particularly witty or funny. She is not insightful, and only barely manages to notice (and only in retrospect) when she makes others uncomfortable. I'm happy for her that she has escaped, but it wasn't a particularly good story.

An interesting enough audiobook, but I'm not sure I would have been interested enough to do a physical read. Was pretty horrified to learn that many Romans were bulimic so that they could keep eating outrageous meals all the time.

I read this book like a stubborn dog who didn't want to be out on a walk, but would occasionally pick up a scent that would make me trot a few more blocks until I wanted to turn around again.

Which is to say, every time I was about to put this book down for good, another piece of Mantel's beautiful prose sucked me back in.

I fucking hate the way she says "he" constantly for Cromwell, forcing me to reread entire paragraphs to make sure it is Cromwell speaking at certain points and not another man in the scene. I'm not sure I want to read anything else by her ever again.

I used to read her books in high school and my mom and I were always in stitches. This held up surprisingly well. Some of her jokes are a little outdated, but she is funny enough that it makes up for it. A personal favorite way to say no: "Not while I live in America and there's porn on the internet."

It should be harder to kill a person. It shouldn’t be possible. We should be immortal, untouchable, beloved children of a just God. There is a flaw in the system. A mistake has been made.

A perfect short story.

Not really sure why this book was so gloriously hyped. It felt like a shitty Blake Crouch thriller; a family who loves each other but isn't all that interesting has a bunch of terrible stuff happen to them and they have to band together and learn to trust and save the day. Yawn. I thought it was a horror book, but I, big baby that I am, didn't find it scary at all.

Meh. The pacing wasn't great, the characters weren't interesting, the Dracula bits all felt like a shitty movie from the 40s. I'm glad I listened to the abridged version because I would not have made it through the full version.

It's no secret I'm not a big fan of Bradbury or his era of scifi, and I have all the same problems in general that I do with this volume in particular. His view of dystopia is so restrictive that it just doesn't feel realistic enough to be scary anymore. It also has eye-rollingly dumb things, like Guy not remembering where he met his wife. Just another classic that doesn't hold up.

I loved Tyson's narration of the audiobook, and it's a great intro/refresher to the basic principles of astrophysics. I didn't learn too many new things since I have listened to many hours of Startalk in my day, but it's a nice short read.

I laughed, I cried. This is my favorite kind of review to write.