blueberryhotel's reviews
55 reviews

Sea Change by Gina Chung

reflective sad medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.5

i didn’t expect to dislike this book as much as i did, but i think it lost me right away by dumping so much exposition at the very beginning…. and then continuing to consist of mostly exposition for the entire book. this is a great example of what “show, not tell” is warning against. rather than letting the characters’ actions speak for themselves the narrator is constantly explaining everyone’s motives and backgrounds which makes the writing feel so dumbed down almost to a YA level. the main character wasn’t compelling to me at all despite her struggling with the universal difficulties of adulthood. the author seemed to be attempting to straddle the fine line between sympathetic narrator in a tough situation vs a completely dislikable/impossible to understand narrator, in the vein of my year of rest and relaxation or the first bad man. those books work better imo because you at least have some interesting exploration of the extremes of human characteristics and behavior, while the main character in sea change is painfully average. you want to write another novel about a twenty/thirty-something who, like, Can’t Even Adulting? give me something INSANE! 
also, i think alternating between present/past throughout the narrative is difficult to pull off with dexterity, and this book definitely doesn’t do so. it almost drags more because we keep returning to the narrator’s past and she’s hardly doing anything in the present aside from saying things like “I think about that one time when I was younger and my mom hurt my feelings. That was hurtful. I’m messed up because of it now.” 
then there’s a bunch of lamely under-explored details that seem thrown in for textural effect but just look lazy, like the author hinting at the main character having ocd within the last 50 pages when nothing else has suggested as such thus far. or the narrator’s cousin’s toxic relationship, which verges on abusive but again seems to be written to straddle a delicate line in order to avoid having to write a more complex narrative about abuse. i think overall this book lacks a distinct point of view. 

Birds of America by Lorrie Moore

adventurous challenging dark emotional funny reflective medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? N/A
• Strong character development? N/A
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

The First Bad Man by Miranda July

5.0

Big Swiss by Jen Beagin

dark funny reflective tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

i feel like the only person who wasn’t head over heels obsessed with this book but idk something about the writing style didn’t always work for me. sometimes it read as cheeky/fun, other times it verged on YA. i thought it presented some really interesting perspectives on trauma and “healing” in a very non-traditional sense; for the most part the characters were rejecting psychiatric/therapeutic models that have become ubiquitous through watered-down mental health awareness graphics on instagram or whatever. that said i did find it somewhat hard to connect with the characters. i appreciate an unlikeable/super flawed narrator, but the characters almost felt like caricatures beyond the point of enjoyment and understanding. and the plot was also very out there, almost absurdist. idk, it was still pretty solid and there were a few chunks that struck me better than others re: prose, but it just wasn’t totally for me

How to Write an Autobiographical Novel: Essays by Alexander Chee

emotional hopeful inspiring reflective sad medium-paced

4.5

another fantastic essay collection; i love reading writers writing about writing (lol). yeah maybe it’s self-congratulatory or even masturbatory IDC. it’s very instructive to me! and i think chee makes a great point in i believe the final essay of the book about “the point” of writing through perilous and dark times. creating something  that morphs and transforms as it leaves your mind and encounters an audience through which it is changed and altered into something entirely new. even if it only reaches one person: that’s magic, and that’s the point. you can really hear dillard’s influence as one of chee’s teachers. i admire the optimistic practicality that underscores much of their work. must read more chee (and read this one again soon)

The Abundance: Narrative Essays Old and New by Annie Dillard

adventurous challenging emotional funny hopeful inspiring mysterious reflective medium-paced

5.0

i’ve been meaning to read annie dillard for so long and i’m so glad i finally did. this feels like the perfect place to start too. everyone was sharing her essay about a (different) total eclipse earlier this year around the eclipse, and now that i’ve read it i definitely see why. dillard’s hard to categorize — she’s so much more than a “nature writer”. she accomplishes that elusive, deceptively difficult task of connecting seemingly innocuous and transient moments with the grander human experience, the things we all share, and manages to do so without veering into preachy (even in an essay explicitly referencing catholicism!) i love when i read a book’s forward by a different author lauding the author i’m about to read and it gets me excited to start; the forward here definitely did that for me and describes dillard’s writing more comprehensively and illustratively than i can. 

Slow Down: How Degrowth Communism Can Save the Earth by Kōhei Saitō
Did not finish book. Stopped at 28%.

ok i was reading this for my book club and it’s undoubtedly well written and easy to understand but as you might be able to guess, very depressing. so i was making slow progress and then it was due back at the library and i couldn’t renew it because someone had a hold on it :( hope to come back to it eventually

Crush by Richard Siken

dark emotional mysterious reflective fast-paced

5.0

heartbreakingly beautiful. i love the way that louise glück writes about siken’s writing in the forward (introduction? not sure). she says all i could ever say about the powerful obsession and frantic energy that drives siken’s work. each poem demands to be read, devours the reader just as it is devoured. “you are jeff” is a highlight of course. def want to read more of his work

White Cat, Black Dog by Kelly Link

adventurous dark funny mysterious reflective tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

5.0

so glad i finally got around to reading a kelly link book because this was brilliant! doing a short story collection of reimagined fairy tales could easily veer into cliche or heavy-handed, but link has such a prolific imagination and expansive way of approaching this retelling concept. i think she succeeds in that she works from the perspective of considering each original fable’s themes and overall tone rather than trying to replicate exact plotlines or transpose age-old stories into modern-day iterations. so cleverly written, so haunting; her writing propels the reader forward, hungry to uncover the secrets in the story. the twists are never easily predictable, the prose is vivid and creative. i love that one of the authors who blurbed the book on the back cover called these “Linkian fairy tales” because they truly feel singular and i’m excited to read more of kelly link’s work to hear more of her voice and style. 

Laserwriter II by Tamara Shopsin

lighthearted fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

2.75

mehh. it wasn’t my thing but it was fun to read something a bit different. very spare and bare bones writing which i find compelling at times but this just didn’t hit for me. would be nice if you’re looking for something quick, slice-of-life, peek into a very niche community. i don’t really care much for books where i can’t really dig into the psyches of the characters. also all the technical stuff went wayyy over my head i’m afraid, just hard to find much of a connection with this book for me.