Bonnie G. > Recent Status Updates

I was impressed before, but this last portion focused on Putin's Russia is absolutely riveting.

Just pivoting to the author's own story as she returns to Russia as a reporter. I am looking forward to this. Thus far this book has been an exceptional read that is tragically relevant in 2026 America.

Is it cheesy? Absolutely! But it is a Christmas story, and It's a Wonderful Life and Miracle on 34th Street are cheesier than a block of cheddar and I love them. I love the two leads here, and this is giving me all the Stars Hollow feels, which is a plus. A good way to usher in the year so far.

The history depicted is horrifying, edifying, and terrifying. Also, it is brilliantly told. My great-grandfather and several great uncles were forced to dig their own graves and shot into those graves by the Ukrainian army. This in front of my grandmother and the rest of the family. The death and depravity are not a surprise, but this is expanding my knowledge and my heartbreak.

Fascinating and edifying. I know my basic knowledge of this era (in which most of my family was murdered in pogroms) was lacking, but I learned it was closer to nonexistent.

I was having more fun before we got to Absurdistan, but I am still fully onboard.

The crazy continues, and Shteyngart becomes even more brutal in his political commentary, which I guess is necessary to awaken our central oaf.

The love child of Philip Roth, David Foster Wallace, Thomas Pynchon, Saul Bellow, and Anton Chekhov. I love my tragedy wrapped in laugh-out-loud hilarity and brilliant commentary on cultural appropriation and hegemony.

This is one of those books that has been on my shelf for years. I am glad I decided to close out my year by getting to a few of those books gathering dust, because this is brilliant.

What fun! All the frenetic energy and wit of David Foster Wallace and the wild ride of Pynchon, but through the lens of an obese, shlubby Russian Jew whose criminal father has separated him from his beloved America, which he experiences as a collection of tropes and fetishes.

Is a William Trevor collection ever a bad choice? I say no! So far this late collection is very good, and I would argue that the story Men of Ireland qualifies is great.

I love scientists, not that we allow them to work anymore in our post-truth world, but when we did, they rocked so hard.

The beginning was informative, but a little turgid, but once we vge from the foundational information to the stories of these families, this reads like the most heartbreaking and simultaneously inspiring story imaginable.

So far, this is very thorough. A strong foundation to tell the story of the women who demanded answers about The Disappeared.

Brokenhearted. The things people are willing to convince themselves is okay, the dehumanization that is possible and than makes possible the unforgivable. Evil is easy to dress up.

This is stunningly reminiscent of Never Let Me Go. It's hard to separate the two, though changing the focus to children rather than young adults, and having the alternate reality where Britain and Germany negotiated a treaty to end WWII brings in some new elements. Of course the theme of dehumanization is one that can support more than one book. I am hoping it moves a little further from NLMG.

Chidgey's prose is gorgeous, and I am very intrigued so far!

Patti Smith is a treasure, a living goddess. How lucky I am to have her words.

Oh, I had a feeling it was going in the direction it went when we got to Serk's story, but Choi has managed this so much more adroitly than I expected, and with so much more nuance than I could have gotten to with my patchy command of the late 20th-century history of North Korea. I also enjoyed my time with Louisa's story, much of which felt pretty familiar to me based on my own teens and early 20's

It has been a busy couple of days, but I am squeezing this in to every available moment. I am rapt. I love that the pacing feels urgent while everything happening is sort of slowed down.

This is fantastic so far. If this continues to be this good, it will make harder my struggle to limit my best of list to 10 this year

After returning this by mistake at 40%, I finally got it back from the library yesterday. I feared that with months between leaving and picking back up I would have to start from the beginning, but not at all, I remember everything. I backed up a couple of pages, but that is all. Luckily I have had no idea what was going on throughout, so there is no confusion. And I mean that in a good way. I like this confusion.

There were a couple of rather snarky entries, Ask the Optimist and Woof. that failed to move me, and in fact to make me feel a bit of the ick, but Saunders came back roaring with The Great Divider, which was brilliant.

I no longer hate this. I don't like the female lead, I don't understand the motivations of the male lead, and I have zero investment in any happy ending, but I guess I will finish.

This is not good. The first two books in this series also were not great, but I liked the second a lot despite the bad writing and some unappealing character attributes. This one I may not even finish, but I haven't decided for sure yet.