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This multi-step continent-spanning trip and absurdly drawn-out scientific revelation could have been an email.

If you make a claim like "Defamation laws were invented during the Civil Rights Movement to silence protestors," you really need to include a citation.

I get that the grandfather is shitty and manipulative and none of the parents have the emotional maturity to deal with it, but arson still seems like a bit of an overreaction.

“Q: What is the evil this world runs on? A: Better you than me.”

Fun cruise ship reading.

Baffled by the lack of self-reflection in this book. Sarah keeps talking about how she saw Facebook going down a very dark path, partially because of the political outreach work that she began at the company. But never is there a point where she talks about why she didn't leave or what made her stay. That absence of self-evaluation makes this a much more shallow memoir than it could have been.

I can see I'm going to have to make a list ranking the most batshit revelations in this book.

This is good so far. I'm not a fan of the incredibly-avoidable-miscommunication set-up, but at least it's backed up by the story. I *really* like that the author is taking some time to establish the characters and the worldbuilding before diving into the romance. Much better than the fantasy romance I read that couldn't be bothered to explain how its characters' powers worked.

Old-man-yells-at-cloud jumpscare. Why are you throwing a rant about smartphones into a book set in 1936?

I already love this club of petty weirdos.

It's been a while since a book dropped a twist/revelation that made me go "OOOOOOHHH SHIIIIIIT," so congrats to this book for doing that.

Can I read 230 pages in 24 hours? Let's find out!

Using this as a placeholder for We Have Engaged the Borg -- An Oral History of Wolf 359, a Star Trek fan project.

More here: https://linktr.ee/Wolf359project

From Chapter 15 -- For Sale: One Sesqui:

"For $111, 'a hot-tempered, high-spirited cinnamon bear' named Sonny was sold to Benjamin Satler, who lived on Ninth Street near Buttonwood in the Spring Garden district. Satler felt sure that his neighborhood of narrow row houses with small backyards would be the perfect habitat for a half-grown bear."

Slowly but surely getting through this. It's fascinating but dense with details.

If the U.S. decides to do something for the 250th anniversary, the 150th will be a low bar to clear.

I know this book got an edit between its Amazon publication and its trade publication, but it needed at least one more pair of eyes on it. I just read an entire chapter where a POV character was standing behind another character but somehow managed to see and describe every expression and movement on her face.

You're given the chance to describe a modern-day Library of Alexandria, and the best you can do is a vague paragraph about a room with a high ceiling and some pneumatic tubes?

This has such a cool premise, but so far it's a let-down. No reasonable suspension of disbelief could prepare me for a fight scene where two recent college graduates (one with an injured arm) fought off multiple trained and armed military agents in a fight that emphasized hand-to-hand combat.

In historical fiction (which I guess this counts as), it's the sprinkling of everyday details -- department store purchases, Clark Gable movies, the leading news story being Joe DiMaggio's retirement -- that really reels me in.

Rereading in anticipation of seeing the movie this weekend. I have my mother's old, beat-up copy, which she got in fifth grade, and I'm handling it as gently as possible.

I always struggle with literary fiction because I'm compelled to stop and dissect each paragraph and disgorge my thoughts in an email draft, which is a poor use of my time. But, as someone who lurks on the periphery of fandom spaces, I'm interested in this premise, so here we go.

Does there need to be a love triangle in this story? These characters have found multiple corpses and seen at least one murder take place in front of them. They have no way to contact help or leave the island. No one knows where the killer is and the sun will be setting soon. How does anyone in that situation have the bandwidth to think about which boy they want to date?

This is an interesting concept, and I can tell this is going to be a pretty quick read. I hope the story goes into some introspection about online influencers and true crime influencers in particular. Otherwise, the main characters being influencers will feel like a bit of a gimmick.