990 ratings (3.90 avg)
484 reviews

Abbey

Add friend

https://www.goodreads.com/abbeyrogue

Abbey’s currently-reading shelf

The Letters of Vincent van Gogh by Vincent van Gogh

The Sewing Girl's Tale by John Wood Sweet

The Woman in the Wallpaper by Lora Jones

More…

Abbey’s Bookshelves

to-read‎ (2085)
currently-reading‎ (8)
read‎ (1026)
did-not-finish‎ (4)
women‎ (629)
audiobook‎ (286)
novels‎ (275)
my-physical-library‎ (246)
barack-obama-recommends‎ (228)
reviewed-books‎ (218)
history-american‎ (217)
bipoc‎ (161)

classics‎ (147)
autobiography-and-memoir‎ (138)
ya‎ (132)
antiracism‎ (117)
feminism‎ (105)
also-a-movie‎ (103)
my-audible-library‎ (101)
read-2019‎ (100)
history-social‎ (94)
history-women‎ (87)
bowie-book-club‎ (85)
read-2020‎ (85)

true-crime‎ (84)
children‎ (82)
read-2021‎ (80)
oprahs-book-club‎ (77)
read-2022‎ (75)
read-2024‎ (75)
read-2025‎ (75)
heroines‎ (68)
read-2018‎ (68)
theatre-and-plays‎ (66)
politics‎ (63)
pop-culture‎ (62)

pulitzer‎ (60)
mental-health‎ (57)
read-2023‎ (55)
biography‎ (50)
history-european‎ (50)
popsugar-2018‎ (50)
popsugar-2019‎ (50)
popsugar-2020‎ (50)
popsugar-2021‎ (50)
popsugar-2022‎ (50)
popsugar-2023‎ (50)
popsugar-2024‎ (50)

Stats | More…

Abbey is Currently Reading

Abbey is currently reading

Five Days at Memorial: Life and Death in a Storm-Ravaged Hospital

by Sheri Fink

bookshelves: read-2022, popsugar-2022, also-a-movie, antiracism, audiobook, health-and-medicine, history-american, my-audible-library, new-orleans, politics, women, true-crime, reviewed-books, currently-reading

Reading for the 2nd time

read in October 2022

Rate this book

Clear rating

1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars

Abbey said: " POPSUGAR 2022: A book featuring a man-made disaster

I don't recall this book's release, which is curious, considering that New Orleans has become ingrained in my DNA. Maybe I didn't want to know about the actual horrors that my heart knew occurred in POPSUGAR 2022: A book featuring a man-made disaster

I don't recall this book's release, which is curious, considering that New Orleans has become ingrained in my DNA. Maybe I didn't want to know about the actual horrors that my heart knew occurred in that broken, beautiful city so close to my heart.

I watched the limited series on Apple TV+, and knew I had to read this book. I knew this part of town; I have most likely passed this hospital a thousand times, but it never really registered to me (when I was a student at Tulane, only two New Orleans hospitals were on my radar: Tulane and Charity).

Whenever I encounter a story of Katrina, I parallel my thoughts, feelings, and experiences. When the storm was approaching, I was concerned, but not panicked. The Storm would likely turn at the last minute and hit Mobile; hurricanes always turned at the last minute to hit Mobile.

At Memorial (or Baptist, as old timers would always call the hospital), community members filled the waiting rooms and corridors, with beer coolers and their pets, thinking they would shelter there for about 24 hours or so before returning to their storm-bruised homes.

Hospital staffers checked on their patients, including chronically ill patients bused over from an affiliated nursing home -- the patients would be safer in the hospital than at the smaller nursing facility.

Dr. Fink takes us on a horrific journey through Memorial Hospital in the days preceding and after The Storm.

What happened at Memorial was a microcosm of what happened in New Orleans: clerical and procedural breakdowns led to unimaginable suffering, unused resources lay waste, and sick, poor, often Black people were marginalized and eventually murdered by the people meant to care for and protect them.

People entered The Storm, anticipating a difficult few days, not knowing that they could lose their family members, their dignity, their homes, or their lives. Most of that loss was preventable, but due to bureaucracy, corruption, racism, ableism, healthism, and even the tyranny of religion we have a Russian doll of continually unfolding terror that was unleashed onto a glorious city and her remarkable people. ...more "

progress:

(page 460 of 18)
— Oct 24, 2022 01:51PM

Jan 17, 2023 10:15AM · see review

Abbey is currently reading

Little Girl Lost: The Life & Hard Times of Judy Garland

by Al DiOrio

bookshelves: currently-reading

Rate this book

Clear rating

1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars

Jun 09, 2026 08:56AM

Abbey is currently reading

The Second Sex

by Simone de Beauvoir

bookshelves: women, currently-reading

Rate this book

Clear rating

1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars

progress:

(60%)
— Apr 13, 2026 12:55PM

Mar 20, 2026 07:36AM

See all 8 books that Abbey is reading…

Abbey’s Notes & Highlights

Book cover for The World As It Is: A Memoir of the Obama White House

The World As It Is: A Memoir of the Obama White House by Ben Rhodes

1 note & 34 highlights

if an immature leader throws the world into chaos, then the world will know whom to blame.

See Abbey’s 14 books with notes and highlights…

Abbey’s Quotes

“I don’t want life to imitate art. I want life to be art.”
― Carrie Fisher

tags: art, life

391 likes

“I learned from him that often contradiction is the clearest way to truth”
― Patti Smith, Just Kids

tags: morals

341 likes

“The way to right wrongs is to turn the light of truth upon them.”
― Ida B. Wells-Barnett

116 likes

“You think your pain and your heartbreak are unprecedented in the history of the world, but then you read. It was books that taught me that the things that tormented me most were the very things that connected me with all the people who were alive, who had ever been alive.”
― James Baldwin

9087 likes

“Please, no matter how we advance technologically, please don't abandon the book. There is nothing in our material world more beautiful than the book."

(Acceptance speech, National Book Award 2010 (Nonfiction), November 17, 2010)”
― Patti Smith

tags: books, materialism, musicians, pure-awesome, technology

730 likes

More of Abbey’s quotes…