Cynthia > Recent Status Updates

The entire royal family is ridiculous and deeply dysfunctional. What an absurd institution.

Such an odd blend of first-person/second-person POV here. This will take some getting used to...

Fake dating trope!!!

I usually have such a hard time with audiobooks, but Trevor Noah’s narration is absolutely captivating. Also, any memoir that starts with “The first time I was pushed out of a moving vehicle...” is already A+ gold.

Jones is doing a great job of making me wish Celestial dumps Roy with a quickness. I hope that is intentional because, innocent or not, I find myself wishing for the Louisiana prison system to keep him locked up and lose the key, permanently.

“...They did what people do:
Smiled out—or frowned.
People like definite decisions,
Tidy answers, all the little ravelings
Snipped off, the lint removed, they
Hop happily among their roughs
Calling what they can’t clutch insanity
Or saintliness.”

I'm giving this one another shot. Let's see how it goes this time...

Three essays in, I’m very frustrated by this book. Jerkins seems to be trying to make up for what she lacks in maturity and wisdom with histrionics, which is just not a good look.

It took a minute for me to get into this one, but as the collapse of Lehman Brothers looms I am hooked. It is so interesting to see a fictional account of history one lived through (graduating college in the year of the economic collapse was not fun, to say the least) and feel all the anxiety and fear come rushing back.

Riveting. I love beautiful, lyrical writing, but sometimes you just need a page-turner.

I don’t usually like when novels shift perspectives, but Penelope and Mirella are both engrossing (and frustrating) characters.

I shouldn't be this excited about a YA fantasy novel with an urban, Afro-Latina protagonist in the year 2017, but here we are. Totally sold at "her fro stretched magnificently around her in a fabulous, unbothered halo" and hoping the rest lives up to the first few chapters.

“Signs, however, didn’t rely on the existence of the supernatural. History wanted to be remembered. Evidence hated having to live in dark, hidden places and devoted itself to resurfacing. Truth was messy. The natural order of an entropic universe was to tend toward it.”

I see that a lot of reviewers hate Hamid's long sentences, but I'm finding his writing remarkably skillful and lovely.

This is definitely an academic book and not light reading by any means. It is more anecdotal than I expected...

I'm only a few chapters in but already see why this is one of the YA books of the year. I wish I had books like this around when I was younger!

Life's too short to keep reading books you hate. DNF.

The format of this is killing me. Does it get any better/easier to read? I've never wanted to throw in the towel on a book so quickly.

Yikes. The hype surrounding this one seems more than a bit unwarranted. Joan Didion's The Year of Magical Thinking was a beautiful meditation on grief and loss. This, so far, is not.