Marisa > Recent Status Updates

As of 2025, StoryGraph has been my primary reading tracker and reviewing space for several years, and I don’t anticipate coming back to this space except to update once a year or so — would love to reconnect over on StoryGraph :)

With another year of reading behind me, this feels like a great time to stick a reminder on my GR page that I am primarily tracking my reading with StoryGraph now. And Goodreads doesn’t yet shelve 10 indie books I read this year, which included a couple of my top faves of the year 👀

Follow me @ mgdoherty over on StoryGraph if you want to spy on what I’m reading in real time 😂

Ah so this section of the book is like, a whole arc.

“Their relationship was 30% geography projects and 70% the weirdest shit I have ever seen.” This is actually really beautiful and lovely how much love and grief and humor all mix together in this book.

Grief and mortality as guiding themes of the book.
Also you can’t tell because I didnt update my reading until today, I spent about 2 weeks trying to read the first 100 pages. Meanwhile I’ve now read 300 pages in one night.

I wanna talk about formatting and use of visuals to convey meaning and themes, but later. What’s the effect of a more cartoony comic strip vs. hyper-realism?

OHHHHHHH.

Oh I’m gonna have thoughts about this use of plant and payoff and how that factors in to how I feel about the first 100 pages or so.

I can’t swear to it because I haven’t read her first book in a while but I think Allie’s eye for composition has gotten cooler.

I think the book’s hit its groove. Early chapters felt almost like they were trying too hard, but these chapters all feel more focused and precise.

“Death can take away your friends and pets, but it can’t take away the weird shit they did.” This is oddly comforting.

A bit of a mixed bag for me, to be honest, but Chapter 10 is Allie Brosh at the pinnacle of her graphic narrative power.

Very cool premise. A few stylistic writing quirks keep pulling out of the story, though, especially because it’s such a well-acted audiobook, so it’s really jarring when the narrative suddenly summarizes whole conversations that ACTUALLY, I want to hear, because worldbuilding.

I've spent the last week of my life reading this, annotating the margins of my pdf, and just wow. This book is a lot of work to read, but luckily, I'm predisposed to read chewy challenging work, anyway. It's a remarkable achievement of a book.

As disjointed as my reading experience was thanks to a pandemic and a skipping audiobook disc, I think the magical thinking of young (Catholic) girls really comes through in this book. I recognized a lot of the thinking my friends and I had as kids and the way the stories of saints and myths blend together to become the archetypal fabric of your life.

Ouch, I hadn’t consciously made the connection between this book and my own family history, but ow, my heart. There is no universe in which I could read this chapter and not think of my grandfather experiencing the exact same car ride.

Ok, I apparently misunderstood a critical detail about whose revival story was whose. Suffice it to say, I don’t think listening to this for 6 months on a series of CDs did wonders for my reading compression 😅

Oh, this is very Virgin Suicides.

1. WOW. That should teach me to make assumptions. (Although really, I was halfway to knowing this.)
2. This line <3 “We cling to the most painful reminders of our youth, our memories or our injuries, perhaps so we can look back to our former selves, console them, and say: Keep going. I know how the story ends.”
3. I’m getting dissatisfied with this framing device as we get closer to the end.

Wished I’d been reading a paperback version the whole time bc I’m catching so much more nuance. Gwen’s character feels more developed by now.

Feels like we’re running out of pages for the story.

Not totally vibing with the writing style or the pacing so far. I feel like we’re in a rushed first act, and maybe that’s because it’s a novella... not sure.

Petra Herrera! A soldadera to research later.

Huh. Okay, I admit that ending caught me off guard. Up until the literary final four pages or so, I would’ve sworn this was gonna have a sequel.

Nyame is such a beautiful part of this book. Am curious how others have read her presence.

Ah I think my questions about the throwaway enby line just got an implied answer. Neat.

Well, this just became a lot more plausible.

Also the throwaway line about the enby is weird. Maybe it’ll get built on later, but for now, it feels like an weird attempt at textual inclusivity that actually raises more questions than worldbuilding, in this context.

I’m more invested now but a little confused about which relationships I’m supposed to root for as a reader. One is... compelling but also really unnerving, and the other hasn’t been really developed (to the point where unless something major changes, the only plausible way I see them getting together is if this is a duology.)

I’m invested in her relationship with her sister. That’s the love story I stan.

This was a really slow, sad start, but now is when it got my attention.

Honestly I KNEW my lizard brain couldn’t be trusted, but ya know, I kinda did, anyway.

Huh. I’m sure how I feel here.