Bonnie G. > Recent Status Updates

Starting to engage more with this. So many call this Dickensian, and it is, in a way, but I feel myself far less pulled into the world created than I do with Dickens' books, even the ones I don't love.

I struggled a bit at the start of this, but now we are getting into my two favorite subjects: obsession and the handcuffs of inculcated faith. There is a reason I so love Graham Greene. As we move toward O&L actually meeting, I find myself fully immersed and looking forward to finding out how bad Oscar and Lucinda will be for one another.

There is good here, but Ramona is so shrill and entitled; it is hard to root for romance. I get that she is remaking herself, and that is hard, but she expects everyone to just let her do whatever she wants. She is like a 13-year-old rather than a 26-year-old.

A pure heart inside a murderous body. This is so sweet and so cruel!

Started reading this last month, and then several library books came in and displaced it. I am back on it now and really having fun with it.

More a reminiscence than a novel, but written with the facility for language Roth displayed throughout his long writing life, but which seemed to dry up in other later books.

I have not liked any of the later Roth I have read, but this is appealing. it is not great, but it is a moving and deeply personal novel set in a moment of war (WW2) and epidemic (polio). It feels pretty darn relevant, except that people were very different then, with a sense of duty and honor that is now gone.

We are finally hitting the time I first lived in NYC, so extra fun. These books have all been an elegy to New York, or at least as it was before, and this moment is captured so perfectly I could weep.

Is that all there is? What happens when a person reaches their life goals, is a success, and something is missing? For Ray Carney, the answer might be moving from being a fence to pulling the job. So far, I like this even better than the other books in the trilogy. I have faith Whitehead will stick the landing.

I have not stopped smiling since reading the dedication. I just love this series, and I can tell this last one in the trilogy won't disappoint.

I still don't like the chapters in second person, and I feel like Annabel, who is supposed to be smart, is not smart at all. She has a life altering situation to deal with, and she opts to get no information to help guide her. As a person who was a teenager before the internet, I am always amused when younger people think no information was available then. We had libraries, and Judy Blume books, and other resources.

There was a section of this written in second person, which annoyed me. Second person is hard to get right, and I don't think Mullen met that challenge. That said, the underlying mystery and the view of the Pine Barrens (which is inherently mysterious and hella creepy for anyone who has been there) are very good.

Enjoying this overall, though Mullen's prose gets too flowery, and she leans occasionally into the melodramatic. It is a pretty melodramatic story, so some of that is justifuied, even necessary, but some of the language still feels like too much even for this content. I think of other writers who do similar things; Jane Harper and Liz Moore come to mind. I appreciate how judicious they are in the language they use.

Liking this cold case mystery a lot. More literary than most in the genre.

This MM historical romance is sexy, fun, and beautifully written. I am fully immersed!

I was right about where this was going, and I am so far moved by its honesty.

I think this is going somewhere unexpected, and it ups all the antes. I am glued to the page

What a delight to spend time in my home boroughs of Queens and Brooklyn in the hands of such a gifted writer.

This remains a great history of desegregation in Atlanta, but continues to not link this history to modern "conservatism". I am in Atlanta as I read this. I lived here for 16 years, and I talked to many Black and White Atlantans about this history over the years. I thought I had the story straight, but the actions of many, from Hartsfield to Rich's Department Store, were whitewashed in the history I learned.

It is chilling to read about Westminster and Lovett (private schools many of my son's friends and my friend's kids attended) refusing to integrate. My son's school was the first private school in ATL to integrate, admitting MLK's children shortly after opening in 1969. I found it depressing that this was a huge deal, still mentioned often in the mid-aughts when my son got there.

Miss Lion never fails me. I have loved getting to know Pierce better, but other happenings indicate that my fervent wish for a Hawkes/Islington love match is likely not to come true

Kruse notes that John Steinbeck called the shouts and actions of parents who threw things at children integrating Southern US schools as "filthy, bestial, and degenerate." That works. I am seeing success in Krause's efforts to link this to the current segregationist mobs, the ones demanding an end to DEI, and those capitulating (most American businesses) to those filthy bestial degenerates.

Off to another great start!

The stomach-turning depiction of White Atlanta continues to enlighten this person who lived in ATL for a long time and has read extensively on the topic. I am in Atlanta for an extended stay and have recommended the book to several people already.

When is the last time I read literature about happy things: empathy, kindness, love? Sure there is trauma, regret, and detachment; that is life, But it is more about love, communication, connection, and honor. I want to read more about that. It is lovely!

Dry as dust, but edifying about white flight in Atlanta. It is shocking to read about the very public efforts to maintain racial lines in housing. Less successful is the attempt to portray this as a foundation for MAGA. We can point to popular movements throughout the world and through history using racism/xenophobia/class distinction to divide and conquer. I don't see this as different.

I do love Ann Patchett! These words are, ironically, lovely beyond words.

Finally linking this moment to MAGA. Appealing to poor white trash by messaging that they deserve more for being White and attacking education and effort feels very current. People with social standing and money telling PWT that the biggest impediment to their progress is Blacks forcing their way in (then mostly for lower-priced housing stock) and Jews (for being Jewish) sounds just like Trump nation.