Cassandraann1 > Recent Status Updates

Towards the end of chapter 5. I never understood in the Disney animated movie why the bird was screaming “serpent” at Alice. Now I understand from the book that when she grew, her neck got extremely long like a snake. Her neck wasn’t all that long in the movie so it didn’t make sense.

restarting this book four years later. Didn’t get far the first time. I remember reading it while waiting for my kids to get their first Covid shot during the pandemic. Seems like an eternity ago.

Also about the healthcare industry: Gilda says the acupuncturist and holostic doctor were the first who actually seemed to listen to her and care.

Then finally when a liver test was off and she was admitted to the hospital, she finally felt relieved that, “at last, somebody believes me. Someone will find out what’s wrong.” So sad and seems like nothing has changed.

It’s horrific that, while Gilda continued seeing doctors for her health ailments, they all basically wrote her symptoms off to depression or anxiety. And it’s sad that this still happens commonly nowadays.

I’m not really interested in reading this anymore, but it just arrived at the library so I guess I will.

Again, I find it strange how emotionless his writing is while sharing how his daughter Katie cut him off. I feel like this is an outsider recounting the facts of his life.

Deja vu… I thought I already read this anecdote about his argument with Mel Brooks (who said he only argued to see how much Gene would fight for it).

I guess people used to travel to Mexico for divorce because it was quicker and cheaper (in US you needed to prove fault).

Page 64 - Wondering why Gene Wilder had to fly to El Paso and take a bus to Juarez to get a divorce??? All the people traveling with him were also going to get divorced.

I’ve only read a few pages, but it’s very jarring how he writes of very serious issues (such as his mother’s heart problems or the abuse he endured at a military boarding school) in such an emotionless/matter-of-fact way.

Page 369 “At a certain age - in Sadie’s case 34 - there comes a time when life largely consists of having meals with old friends who are passing through town.”

I feel like this author imagines they are sharing deep, universal truths in their book. This is the most relatable one they’ve written, but many fall flat.

Trying to remember where the other “because” symbols were


Page 53 - in Sadie’s poetry game

Page ? - when Sam’s driving looking for secret passage


Page 354 - in Friendship game

I’ve been attempting to read this book for months. This author overcomplicates everything and expands a one sentence idea into an entire page. The anecdotes also include a lot of unnecessary details.

This book is such a chore to read. I borrowed it from the library FORTY-SIX WEEKS AGO and have 11 days left to finish it (ran out of renewals).

I learned a new word. Automagically. I thought it was a typo, but I’ve learned it is a real word that people use.

She’s obviously talented, determined, motivated, and extremely hard working, but it is easy to see the benefit of her family’s privilege. Moving across the country just so her and her siblings (while still in elementary school) could train with an Olympic coach. then paying for another coach to do one-on-one ocean sessions with her, then her and her mother staying in England for the summer to swim the Channel…

It’s weird how she mentions that every adult she interacts with wants to “make sure her parents weren’t pushing her to do this” (swim the English Channel). It makes me question her parents’ role in it all.

1) I wonder what that guy Andy thinks of her book. She writes that the rest of her team was holding her back during the Catalina Channel swim, then at the end, the boys couldn’t handle the cold any longer so they swam ahead while she stayed back with the other girl. Then Andy bragged to reporters how he felt so strong and was able to finish faster than the girls.

She says when she was 12 years olds, she would lift up her 220 lb swim coach and hold him over the side of the pool!?

I don’t like how the author doesn’t use quotation marks for dialogue and how he rarely refers to the main characters by their actual names. Ike and Bobby are always “they” and Victoria is always “the girl,” even when her friend Maggie js referred to as “Maggie.”

I never quit a book (just skim read to the end if it is really awful), but I was already considering it after the first paragraph. This author loves 40+ word run on sentences. He also loves describing every single mundane, minute, insignificant detail of what the characters are doing.

I've been enjoying the story so far, but this Mia chapter is boring me and getting ridiculous. A Wall Street man creepily following her on the subway (as she tries to escape him). Turns out he just wants to ask her to be a surrogate for him and his wife. The reason he asks? Because his wife is Mia's identical stranger, they even somehow share the same mannerisms.

These run-on sentences are absurdly long, verbose, and frequently confusing.

On page 109, there is a sentence that is two entire pages long. I tried to include a portion of the sentence here, but it was 900 characters over the limit.