jess’s Comments (group member since Jun 18, 2024)

jess’s comments from the Big Book Summer Reading Challenge 2024 group.

Finished Jade City by Fonda Lee (540 pages)! Cool concept, mid execution. I gave it 3 stars… and personally won’t be continuing the series.

I am here to start! A little late tho!

Just finished SPQR by Mary Beard (536 pages)! I gave it 5 stars. A magnum opus culminating 50 years of dedicated historiography on the Roman peoples with a delivery that is easy to consume (if you like history... or it may be a slog at times) given the thousands of years gone by and evidence of humanity lost to antiquity. Here's my review: SPQR: A History of Ancient Rome by Mary Beard

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


“10, 10, 10 across the board” in Beyoncé voice, because it was epic. I mean ngl at times it was a slog to get through… But hey if you like history, then you’ll really enjoy the dedication and delivery of this book!!! Or at least I did :)

This book definitely has me thinking about the Roman Empire (and the Republic, thank you for educating me Mary). I see it’s influences everywhere now. When I see Cicero in used bookstores, I giggle thinking of his egotistical ass. But ya, I just know too much now. Like how they painted shit and fart jokes on bar walls. How an emperor’s parents named him Bootikins so that’s what he was known as. How ancient historians made stuff up to make things sound nice on paper. How gruesome, funny, messy, relatable, unrelatable, perverse, silly, and ultimately human the Romans were. The far past often feels like a fantasy worlds away, so thank you Mary for dedicating 50 years to this magnum opus, so my gen Z brain can fathom and feel some sort of shared humanity to people that existed ages before me.



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