Maia > Recent Status Updates

Found this with a big discount at Target and, exhausted by the pandemic and with time to fill up for a few weeks, I decided to go for it ... in the hopes that it’d be at least engrossing the way her earlier books used to be. Thus far: no such luck. It’s actually a ridiculous book in the sense that there’s very little novelistic flair: it goes on and on and on about Egypt this and that as if it were a textbook!

This is a fun, fast-paced, reasonably suspenseful “sunbathing” book to read while I’m still stuck home during the Coronavirus crisis ... BUT: I’m at a loss to understand the large percentage of incredibly positive, enthusiastic reviews since thus far what I can gather is that both the style and characterization is incredibly derivative, a sort of post-modern MacDonald in wise-cracking tight writing.

This is a very silly book, really ...

I’m really struggling to finish this book and it’s only due to my lifelong compulsion to nearly always END what I’m reading, that I’m even dealing with this struggle at all. Because honestly: I’m not really sure what the point of it is, at all.

I reserved it at the library immediately when I read about it in the NYT and on NPR. It sounded fascinating and compelling. And yet it’s not!

Im fast losing patience with this book. I hardlt ever give up and not finish but might have to with this one!

Finally, time to read "Freedom". And I have to say: I am pleasantly surprised. I'm actually enjoying it very much, laugh out loud at odd moments, and certainly recognize "Patty"--have seen "her" everywhere! :)

ok, it's getting a little better but i'm still dying for it to be over!

Another dud chosen by another bookclub sap. Maybe it's not that bad in German, but in English it reads horribly, and pretentious to boot...

This is going slow because I'm really struggling here. Who in my bookclub chose it? Everything I read I think, nope, don't buy it. And the historical parts bore me to death...

Still horrified by these women's lives--never thought I'd feel so glad not to have been born Chinese in the 19th Century!

Picked by one of my bookclubs, so far I'm (pleasantly) surprised. Not my cup of tea--and not as good as her last, which I enjoyed--but Lee is lyrical without too much effort, and believable. The footbinding thing is horrendous, though--totally ghastly.

I've resisted, and resisted, and resisted reading this book--which I see everywhere, thereby inflating my deep-rooted suspicion. I even see it everywhere in Germany--already translated, eh?--which makes me even more suspicious.

i have to give her credit: as annoying as her formulaic writing is, this one's quite compelling--though i don't buy it for one instant

ok--i sort of guess where this is going (not a good thing in a suspense book) but I guess my biggest qualm is: why are Hannah's heroines always such annoying drags?!

Have turned to Hannah's first psychological thriller (which I never read bc of the baby angle) and so far, find it grippier than the following ones

still holds my attention

almost last in summer book list 'thou not, alas, at the beach! Surprised by how compelling thus far, how authentic it reads.

Ok--done.

I'm surprising myself by actually enjoying this book--started it on last day of beach and looking forward to it

book arrived last nite & can't stop reading--so far, incredible