Marisa > Recent Status Updates

I ended up reading to the halfway point and got impatient and skim read that last chapters. It’s a wildly original and interesting fantasy tale, but tbh, I just don’t have the time or capacity to read an entire…well, tome like this. Maybe someday! I will at least check out others in the series regardless.

This has been an endearing and odd read. I didn’t realize it was the fourth in a series, but it also hasn’t mattered in the slightest, as the story seems to be self contained. Reminiscent of the kind of world building found in high fantasy, it’s unlike anything I’ve ever read. Not cozy, but still humorous, we follow a rather boorish dinosaur and his journey to a city permeated with an obsession for books.

Okay, seriously, I love this book! It reminds me of the spooky chapter books I used to read as a kid….The Spooksville series by Christopher Pike. Each chapter is like a mini story, all within a larger story told from the protagonists perspective. It’s got a dark, pragmatic humor running throughout and as the author is from Columbus, I find that the campground has a familiar, rural Appalachian vibe.

A brutal, honest, and necessary book. This starts with small snippets of time spent as a war photographer in the middle east. Seeing how little cruelties are almost…casual…and how they are encouraged is terrifying. But when you have become a small monster within the maw of a larger and more powerful monster, I’m not sure what other path there is when you’re at that point. America is not a heroic nation.

Damn! 80 pages in and I am now solidly hooked, and that’s with me already knowing what one big reveal was going to be. Also, Jane is pretty much a total babe, and it’s not fair that she is fictional. That is all.

This book is pulling at my heartstrings in all of the right ways. Kody is just about the sweetest main character I’ve been introduced to in a long time, and the author is doing a masterful job of capturing what it’s like living in Appalachia. She is successfully avoiding being overly sentimental and overly judgmental at the same time and I just really appreciate it.

I’m setting this aside for now, because I don’t have to mental capacity to fully commit or it. However, it is a must-read, possible must-buy for me!

Doing a great job of providing context thus far. (And I am disappointed with how little
I know about any of this)

It’s like “The L Word” before “The L Word” existed! (Only more inclusive and realistic)

A decent enough read, but I don’t care so much for the author’s writing style. And I really hope the author is deliberating making the antagonists difficult to like, because I REALLY can’t stomach much more of them at this point. There really aren’t people like the Whitman’s out in the world are there? Thank god for Valerie - I can relate to her and her emotional connection to trees.

This book grabbed my eye, as someone who “is broke but still wants to eat.” Typically I grab cookbooks and flip through them to look at the recipes briefly. With this one...well I’ll be damned, but the author is witty and clever (she has a creative writing and it shows) and I actually read the entire introduction. Guess I’ll be reading the entire book now. Curses.

This chick is cool. I'm digging her thoughts on vulnerability, art, and connection. How have I never read/listened to anything of hers before?