Month: September 2024

Sunday Post | Sweater Weather

Posted September 14, 2024 by Haze in Sunday Post, Weekly Book Memes / 6 Comments

Welcome to the Sunday Post, a weekly meme hosted by Kimberly @ Caffeinated Reviewer to share weekly news and updates on what we’ve been up to on our blog, with our books, and book-related happenings. 

It’s Cool, That’s What I Tell ‘Em

Last week was cooler and we’ve started getting out the sweaters! This week is going to be more of the same. I’m really looking forward to autumn!

On the running front; I only went a couple of times this past week, but in my defense, it was mostly because husband and I went on a hike on Sunday and my muscles were sore for a couple of days! I made up for it by doing extra yoga exercises later in the week though! We’re planning to hike again this weekend if we can.

Other than that, I’ve been mostly just moaning and groaning about my sore muscles while totally exploiting them as the reason I can’t do anything except sit around and read my books! Bonus: school has officially started so I have more time to laze about in secret while husband is at work. 😂

All the happy things:

  1. Now that the weather is cooler, we’ve been enjoying more delicious soups! I made hot and sour soup on Monday, and the husband made bak kut teh on Thursday.
  2. I love my husband very much, but I also really enjoy having the house all to myself more often now while he’s at work!
  3. I’m really happy about that hike, even with the sore muscles. I want to do more!
  4. The book community with all the buddy reads is making me really happy. I’ve been there for about a month now and getting to know the people there better. It’s been really fun and welcoming, and I’m also having such wonderful discussions about the books we read.

The Books

Books I read last week:

  1. The Girl from Rawblood by Catriona Ward – I love the vibes, but I hated the audiobook production! I’ve heard a lot about this author and wanted to try her books, but I think next time I’ll stick to a print copy.
  2. I Who Have Never Known Men by Jacqueline Harpman – This was an unexpected favorite. It’s very speculative and I both love and hate the uncertainty. I feel it’s a great philosophical exploration though and it’s really giving me lots to think about.
  3. The Girl from the Other Side Volume 8 by Nagabe – Continuing with the series. I think this is one of my favorite volumes out of the ones I’ve read so far!
  4. Born A Crime by Trevor Noah – This was so good! I love Trevor Noah and now I think I love him more. I love the way he tells his stories; they are so eloquent, funny, and emotional all at once!

Book(s) I’m reading:

  1. Goddess of the Hunt by Tessa Dare – I needed something light and romantic for a palate cleanser. I feel like I’ve been reading a lot of heavy books recently. And now that it’s close to Halloween season, there are darker books to come!
  2. One Dark Window by Rachel Gillig – Apparently this book has been talked about a lot in social media spaces, but I haven’t heard of it before. I signed up for the buddy read blind and I’ve only just started reading.

Last Week on The Blog

This Week

I’m almost finished with Goddess of the Hunt, and then I’ll be able to focus on One Dark Window. I’ve got a lot of darker reads in the queue but I might end up reading a few romances in between just to lighten the mood.

How was your week? I hope you had a great week last week, and I hope you have a great one again this week!

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Book Review | Born A Crime by Trevor Noah

Posted September 13, 2024 by Haze in Book Reviews / 3 Comments

Born A Crime by Trevor Noah

The memoir of one man’s coming-of-age, set during the twilight of apartheid and the tumultuous days of freedom that followed.

Trevor Noah’s unlikely path from apartheid South Africa to the desk of The Daily Show began with a criminal act: his birth. Trevor was born to a white Swiss father and a black Xhosa mother at a time when such a union was punishable by five years in prison. Living proof of his parents’ indiscretion, Trevor was kept mostly indoors for the earliest years of his life, bound by the extreme and often absurd measures his mother took to hide him from a government that could, at any moment, steal him away. Finally liberated by the end of South Africa’s tyrannical white rule, Trevor and his mother set forth on a grand adventure, living openly and freely and embracing the opportunities won by a centuries-long struggle.

Born a Crime is the story of a mischievous young boy who grows into a restless young man as he struggles to find himself in a world where he was never supposed to exist. It is also the story of that young man’s relationship with his fearless, rebellious, and fervently religious mother—his teammate, a woman determined to save her son from the cycle of poverty, violence, and abuse that would ultimately threaten her own life.


For the Reading Challenge(s):
2024 Nonfiction Reader Challenge
2024 Diversity Reading Challenge
2024 Audiobook Challenge


The Reason

I really like Trevor Noah and I’ve heard such great things about this book, especially the audiobook as narrated by him!

The Quotes

“The first thing I learned about having money was that it gives you choices. People don’t want to be rich. They want to be able to choose. The richer you are, the more choices you have. That is the freedom of money.”

“Language, even more than color, defines who you are to people.”

“Being chosen is the greatest gift you can give to another human being.”

“You want to live in a world where someone is good or bad. Where you either hate them or love them. But that’s not how people are.”

The Narrator(s)

Trevor Noah, the author himself. I love listening to him, I wish there was more!

My Thoughts

I watched some of Trevor Noah’s clips on the Daily Show and his comedy shows and I really enjoy them! He comes across as really self-aware and a great person overall, but I don’t know very much about him. There’ve been so much praise about this book, and I’ve been so curious about him and the book, but I held off reading for a while because I wanted to listen to him narrate it on audiobook, and it was so worth the wait.

I love the way he tells his stories, the different languages that he incorporates into the story, his expressive style, his amazing sense of humor, and the way he handles sensitive topics. He talks about difficult things; his own life growing up poor, in an apartheid regime, with an abusive stepfather, but he still manages to retain his humor and gratitude. I love the way he adores his mother, and the way he appreciates his relationship with his biological father. It’s such a privilege getting this glimpse into his life.

I was already a fan, but I think I’m a bigger fan now after reading his book!

My Rating

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐/5 stars.

Have you read this book? Would you read this book? Did you like the book or do you think you would like it?

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Book Review | I Who Have Never Known Men by Jacqueline Harpman

Posted September 13, 2024 by Haze in Book Reviews / 1 Comment

I Who Have Never Known Men by Jacqueline Harpman

“As far back as I can recall, I have been in the bunker.”

A young woman is kept in a cage underground with thirty-nine other females, guarded by armed men who never speak; her crimes unremembered… if indeed there were crimes.

The youngest of forty—a child with no name and no past—she survives for some purpose long forgotten in a world ravaged and wasted. In this reality where intimacy is forbidden—in the unrelenting sameness of the artificial days and nights—she knows nothing of books and time, of needs and feelings.

Then everything changes… and nothing changes.

A young woman who has never known men—a child who knows of no history before the bars and restraints—must now reinvent herself, piece by piece, in a place she has never been… and in the face of the most challenging and terrifying of unknowns: freedom.


The Reason

This was my online bookclub’s BOTM and one of the other bookclub members said it was really good so I got curious and excited!

The Quotes

“If you do something that is forbidden, it is the action that is the target. If you do something that isn’t forbidden, and they intervene, then it’s not the activity that’s attracting the attention, it is you yourself.”

“By remaining silent, they were creating a girl who didn’t know and who would regard them as the custodians of a treasure. Did they only keep me in ignorance so they could pretend they weren’t entirely powerless?”

“I understood that, alone and terrified, anger was my only weapon against the horror.”

“Sometimes, you can use what you know, but that’s not what counts most. I want to know everything there is to know. Not because it’s any use, but purely for the pleasure of knowing, and now I demand that you teach me everything you know, even if I’ll never be able to use it.”

My Thoughts

I loved this book! I’m not sure if I’ll be able to talk about what I loved most about it without giving away spoilers, but I’ll try.

This book is written without chapter breaks, and yet somehow it felt interesting enough that I kept reading, on print, without feeling bored or needed to take breaks. The lack of chapter breaks also corresponds to the story itself because the women’s imprisonment not being marked by any sort of time-keeping felt parallel to the story not being marked by chapters. There were also some other parallels to later parts of the story about not having markers. I loved that!

It’s a very thought-provoking read and I love that it had so much fodder for speculation and uncertainty. Definitely worth reading!

My Rating

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐/5 stars.

Have you read this book? Would you read this book? Did you like the book or do you think you would like it?

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Book Review | The Girl From Rawblood by Catriona Ward

Posted September 13, 2024 by Haze in Book Reviews / 0 Comments

The Girl From Rawblood by Catriona Ward

In 1910, eleven year old Iris Villarca lives with her father at Rawblood, a lonely house on Dartmoor. Iris and her father are the last of their name. The Villarcas always die young, bloodily. Iris knows it’s because of a congenital disease which means she must be strictly isolated. Papa told her so. Forbidden to speak to other children or the servants, denied her one friend, Iris grows up in solitude. But she reads books. And one sunlit autumn day, beside her mother’s grave, she forces the truth from her father. The disease is biologically impossible. A lie, to cover a darker secret.

The Villarcas are haunted, through the generations, by her. She is white, skeletal, covered with scars. Her origins are a mystery but her purpose is clear. When a Villarca marries, when they love, when they have a child – she comes and death follows.

Iris makes her father a promise: to remain alone all her life. But when she’s fifteen, she breaks it. The consequences of her choice are immediate and horrific.

Iris’s story is interwoven with the past, the voices of the dead – Villarcas, taken by her. Iris’s grandmother sets sail from Dover to Italy with a hired companion, to spend her final years in the sun before consumption takes her. Instead she meets betrayal, and a fate worse than death. Iris’s father, his medical career in ruins, conducts unconscionable experiments, to discover how she travels in the Villarca blood. Iris’s mother, pregnant, walks the halls of Rawblood whispering to her, coaxing her to come. As the narratives converge, Iris seeks her out in a confrontation which shatters her past and her reality, revealing the chasm in Iris’s own, fractured identity. Who is she? What does she desire? The answer is more terrible and stranger than Iris could have imagined.


For the Reading Challenge(s):
2024 Audiobook Challenge


The Reason

I’ve heard good things about Catriona Ward but have never read her books. This was a buddy read so I thought it might be a good opportunity to try one.

The Narrator(s)

Liz Pearce, Steven Crossley, John Keating, Elizabeth Sastre, Jenny Sterlin. This was painful to listen to on audio. The narrators were fine, but the sound engineering was so bad and it really detracted from my listening experience. The volumes between chapters were inconsistent, and there was one chapter where the volume varied so much I had to keep turning it higher and lower as I was listening to it! The soft parts were so difficult to hear and the loud parts were sudden and hurt my ears. I didn’t enjoy listening to this on audiobook at all!

My Thoughts

I feel like I missed a lot of details and the nuances of the story because of the audiobook production, and it made me doubt my listening comprehension of the book. This book is told in multiple POVs, across multiple timelines, and it jumps about a bit. There were many times when the story jumps to something that wasn’t mentioned in previous chapters and I had to wonder if I missed something or if it was a stylistic choice. I enjoy time jumps and missing pieces of the puzzle as stylistic choices, but I couldn’t be sure that was what was happening here while listening to it. I had to repeat entire chapters of the book because I was so confused.

Having said that, I love the vibes of the book and the writing style. It feels very gothic and is reminiscent of Frankenstein, which is one of my favorite books. The vibes and writing style is enough to make me want more, but I think next time I’ll try a print version of Catriona Ward’s books.

My Rating

⭐⭐⭐/5 stars.

Have you read this book? Would you read this book? Did you like the book or do you think you would like it?

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Book Review | Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky

Posted September 13, 2024 by Haze in Book Reviews / 1 Comment

Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky

Raskolnikov, a destitute and desperate former student, wanders through the slums of St Petersburg and commits a random murder without remorse or regret. He imagines himself to be a great man, a Napoleon: acting for a higher purpose beyond conventional moral law. But as he embarks on a dangerous game of cat and mouse with a suspicious police investigator, Raskolnikov is pursued by the growing voice of his conscience and finds the noose of his own guilt tightening around his neck. Only Sonya, a downtrodden sex worker, can offer the chance of redemption.


For the Reading Challenge(s):
2024 Audiobook Challenge
The Classics Club


The Reason

I’d been wanting to read more classics, hence the reason I joined The Classics Club, and I’d been wanting to read Dostoevsky, and this happened to be one of the buddy reads in my online bookclub, so it all worked out and made me read a book I would’ve otherwise kept putting off.

The Quotes

“To go wrong in one’s own way is better than to go right in someone else’s.”

“Existence alone had never been enough for him; he had always wanted more. Perhaps it was only from the force of his desires that he had regarded himself as a man to whom more was permitted than to others.”

“The man who has a conscience suffers whilst acknowledging his sin. That is his punishment.”

“What do you think, would not one tiny crime be wiped out by thousands of good deeds?”

The Narrator(s)

Will Poulter. I was very pleasantly surprised by his narration. I loved that his narration was so clear and easily understandable, and I was surprised with his voices for the characters. It was really easy to listen to because of his narration. And I say this after sampling a couple of other narrators for this book.

My Thoughts

I had been intimidated by this book for ages and thought it would be difficult to get through, but it’s surprisingly easy – maybe because I listened on audiobook with Will Poulter narrating, but whatever helps is good, right? I did get confused with the names and nicknames, as is normal for Russian literature and fantasy novels with made-up names and places, but I was mostly able to follow along with the story and characters. I did have to refer occasionally to the physical book to clear some of the confusion though.

As for the story itself, I have to say that I don’t really connect to the characters and their motivations. A lot of it didn’t make sense to me; why they do the things they did, why they talked so much and did so little, a lot of things happened in their head and in conversations. There were a lot of thinking, and wondering, and existential crises.

However, there were discussions in the buddy read for this book that helped me understand some things better in regards to how the story relates to the beliefs and values of the time and place, and while I’m still not sure that I like the book, I can absolutely see why it’s considered a masterpiece. I also intend to reread this book again because I’m sure that I’ll get more out of it every time I read it, so maybe I’ll have more to say next time.

My Rating

⭐⭐⭐⭐/5 stars. 4 stars because I really enjoyed listening to the audiobook, participating in the discussions for the book, and because I think it’s really well-written despite my disconnect to the characters.

Have you read this book? Would you read this book? Did you like the book or do you think you would like it?

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Top Ten Tuesday | Books That Provide a Much-Needed Escape

Posted September 9, 2024 by Haze in Top Ten Tuesday, Weekly Book Memes / 20 Comments

Welcome to Top Ten Tuesday, a weekly bookish meme hosted by Jana @ That Artsy Reader Girl that features a different bookish topic every week.

Today’s topic is Books That Provide a Much-Needed Escape

I’ve chosen my favorite escapism books that I reread often; there are so many to choose from, of course, but I landed on these books because they also have themes of escape in the stories themselves; escape from imprisonment, from a life of servitude, from death, and so on.

Top Ten Books That Provide a Much-Needed Escape

  1. The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas – Every time I read this book, I am immersed in another world for hours and hours because it’s such a thick book and so intense for all of it. Sometimes I start the audiobook, thinking I can listen to it as background noise since I’ve read it so often before, but nope. Once I start it, I am in it, and nothing else exists. Bonus: The actual escape scene in this book is so thrilling!
  2. The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins – The whole trilogy is an escape for me. Despite the difficult themes, it’s a comfort read for me and going with Katniss on her journey makes me feel better about mine. There are plenty of escape scenes in the trilogy, and they’re all good.
  3. A Game of Thrones by George R.R. Martin – Again, it’s the whole series for me. I love some characters’ POVs more than others, but the whole story, the world, the political intrigue, the people, is all so engrossing. Too many escape scenes in the series to list, but also to be fair, many of them don’t escape.
  4. Red Rising by Pierce Brown – Another series that I love and get engrossed in. I just read the most recently released book this year, so I technically haven’t reread all the books, but it’s still such a great story to escape into. Some of the escape scenes in these books are so harrowing and incredibly satisfying!
  5. The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway – Some people say this book is boring, but it’s one of the most thrilling books I’ve read because I used to go fishing and I loved the thrill of having a fish on a hook and not knowing if you’ll be able to land it. I don’t want to spoil the ending, so all I’ll say is that there is definitely escapism for the MC here.
  6. The Light Bearer by Donna Gillespie – This is one of my favorite childhood books, and I escape into it almost every other year or so. It’s set in the ancient Roman empire in the time of Nero and Domitian, and I love how smart it is. There are so many different kinds of escape in this book; escape from actual imprisonment, escape from wrongful prosecution, escape from tricky situations, biding-your-time escapes, lucky escapes, etc.
  7. The Ghost Bride by Yangsze Choo – I’ve talked about this book before as one that most closely reminds me of my own culture and family history. It’s funny that that would be an escape for me, but the way the story goes, it’s cathartic because the MC goes against her family’s wishes and makes her own way, ie. she escapes what her family plans for her. There are also fantasy and folklore elements which makes the story really wonderful for me.
  8. Life of Pi by Yann Martel – It’s a fantastical story, but I love it. I love how it’s written, I love the philosophical examinations, I love the parts that are calm as well as the parts that are exciting. There is escape from death here, and escape from the harsh elements of nature, but there is also metaphorical escape, I think, if you read deeper into it.
  9. The Neverending Story by Michael Ende – This story provides escape like no other. Bastian literally escapes from some bullies with the help of this book. That happens in the beginning so it’s not a spoiler, but there are certainly more escapes happening throughout the book! This is one of my favorite books as a child and it did so much for my imagination.
  10. The Princess Bride by William Goldman – I mean, who doesn’t love this book? And the movie? They are both so great for escapism. So funny, and heartwarming, and just so perfectly perfect in every way. Plenty of escapes to read about too!

Have you read any of these books? What did you think of them? Would you read any of these books?

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Sunday Post | The Neverending Story

Posted September 7, 2024 by Haze in Sunday Post, Weekly Book Memes / 4 Comments

Welcome to the Sunday Post, a weekly meme hosted by Kimberly @ Caffeinated Reviewer to share weekly news and updates on what we’ve been up to on our blog, with our books, and book-related happenings. 

One Book Finished, Five New Books Added to the TBR

The Neverending TBR, amirite? Now it’s worse because last week I finished 3 buddy reads, and signed up for… I lost count, but it’s a lot more buddy reads. A lot. I’m told that it’s normal to get addicted because I’m new to the group and there are so many attractive buddy reads happening, but once I get my sea legs, I’ll probably slow down. 🤞

On the plus side, I’ve managed to finally finish a couple of books that have been on my TBR for ages because of the buddy reads! I also managed to work on a crochet WIP that had been untouched for weeks but finally finished since I’ve been spending more time listening to audiobooks.

All the happy things:

  1. I finally went and ordered my new glasses. I had been putting it off since April. They should be here in about two weeks.
  2. I also put in my Hobonichi order for next year. This was my first year using it and I love it so I’m sticking to it for next year too!
  3. We had KFC last week! We only get it once a month for health reasons, but it’s a treat every time!
  4. Still making those blueberry milkshakes and absolutely loving them!
  5. Husband and I are rewatching Chuck and really enjoying it!

The Books

Books I read last week:

  1. After I Do by Taylor Jenkins Reid – I love TJR and I think she’s a master at writing about relationships. This one is about marriage, and it’s narrated by Julia Whelan, so of course, I got on it!
  2. Our Wives Under the Sea by Julia Armfield – I had heard so much about this and had been wanting to read it for a while. It became a buddy read, so I suddenly had the motivation to finally read it.
  3. Dark Places by Gillian Flynn – I read this before and forgot. It became a buddy read and I got excited about it, so I signed up and really enjoyed it because I forgot how it ended too.
  4. Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky – It’s been on my TBR for ages but I’ve always felt daunted by it. I finally read it, because it was a buddy read and because there’s a Will Poulter narration for the free audiobook on Audible. It wasn’t as daunting as I expected, but I did get easily confused with the names, especially since I was on audio.

Book(s) I’m reading:

  1. The Girl from Rawblood by Catriona Ward – I’ve heard a lot about Catriona Ward and got curious. This happened to also be buddy read so I thought why not try, but the reviews are quite polarizing so I’m not sure if I’ll end up finishing. I’m only about 15% in.

Last Week on The Blog

This Week

More buddy reads to get through;

  • Cujo by Stephen King
  • I Who Have Never Known Men by Jacqueline Harpman
  • I Fell In Love With Hope by Lancali

I’ve got lots more and I’m enjoying the buddy reads in general, but I might give myself a break and maybe drop out of some of them. We’ll see!

How was your week? I hope you had a great week last week, and I hope you have a great one again this week!

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Book Review | Dark Places by Gillian Flynn

Posted September 6, 2024 by Haze in Book Reviews / 0 Comments

Dark Places by Gillian Flynn

Libby Day was just seven years old when her evidence put her fifteen-year-old brother behind bars.

Since then, she has been drifting. But when she is contacted by a group who are convinced of Ben’s innocence, Libby starts to ask questions she never dared to before. Was the voice she heard her brother’s? Ben was a misfit in their small town, but was he capable of murder? Are there secrets to uncover at the family farm or is Libby deluding herself because she wants her brother back?

She begins to realise that everyone in her family had something to hide that day… especially Ben. Now, twenty-four years later, the truth is going to be even harder to find.

Who did massacre the Day family?


For the Reading Challenge(s):
2024 Audiobook Challenge
2024 Library Love Reading Challenge


The Reason

It’s a buddy read and I enjoyed Gillian Flynn’s other books!

The Quotes

“I was not a lovable child, and I’d grown into a deeply unlovable adult. Draw a picture of my soul, and it’d be a scribble with fangs.”

“You think you know the answer, you’re going to find peace? Like knowing is somehow going to fix you? You think after what happened there’s any peace for you, sweetheart? How about this. Instead of asking yourself what happened, just accept that it happened.”

“Don’t be discouraged – every relationship you have is a failure, until you find the right one.”

“I appreciate a straightforward apology the way a tone-deaf person enjoys a fine piece of music. I can’t do it, but I can applaud it in others.”

The Narrator(s)

Rebecca Lowman, Cassandra Campbell, Mark Deakins, Robertson Dean. They were all great, I loved listening to the audiobook!

My Thoughts

Funny story; apparently I read this book before in 2016 and forgot that I read it. I forgot pretty much everything about it, to the point that the final reveal at the end didn’t even occur to me and surprised me all over again! Which is pretty great, tbh, because I got to experience it all over again for a second time.

This was another buddy read and as always, I loved the experience of reading it with other readers and reading their comments about the book. One of the things I love most about Gillian Flynn is her ability to write flawed and unlikeable characters and yet make you root for them, understand them, put yourself in their shoes.

Libby is very flawed, but I love that she’s also very self-aware about her flaws. She’s not as self-aware about her strengths but that’s a lot of us. She’s relatable that way. Once things started getting into motion, I felt her compulsion to find out more about what happened to her family. I would feel the same way too. I would need answers. It’s such a painful thing to have happened at all, and I get that having answers don’t erase that bad things happened, but it does help to have questions answered.

Completely worth reading/rereading!

My Rating

⭐⭐⭐⭐/5 stars.

Have you read this book? Would you read this book? Did you like the book or do you think you would like it?

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Book Review | Our Wives Under The Sea by Julia Armfield

Posted September 6, 2024 by Haze in Book Reviews / 0 Comments

Our Wives Under The Sea by Julia Armfield

Miri thinks she has got her wife back, when Leah finally returns after a deep-sea mission that ended in catastrophe. It soon becomes clear, though, that Leah is not the same. Whatever happened in that vessel, whatever it was they were supposed to be studying before they were stranded on the ocean floor, Leah has brought part of it back with her, onto dry land and into their home.

Moving through something that only resembles normal life, Miri comes to realize that the life that they had before might be gone. Though Leah is still there, Miri can feel the woman she loves slipping from her grasp.

Our Wives Under The Sea is the debut novel from Julia Armfield, the critically acclaimed author of Salt Slow. It’s a story of falling in love, loss, grief, and what life there is in the deep deep sea.


The Reason

This has been on my TBR forever! I’ve heard so much about it and it intrigued me because the plot sounds a little like an old favorite book of mine, The Season of Passage by Christopher Pike. I finally read it because it was a buddy read and that gives me motivation!

The Quotes

“I used to think there was such a thing as emptiness, that there were places in the world one could go and be alone. This, I think, is still true, but the error in my reasoning was to assume that alone was somewhere you could go, rather than somewhere you had to be left.”

“I want to explain her in a way that would make you love her, but the problem with this is that loving is something we all do alone and through different sets of eyes.”

“To know the ocean, I have always felt, is to recognize the teeth it keeps half hidden.”

“When something bad is actually happening, it’s easy to underreact, because a part of you is wired to assume it isn’t real. When you stop underreacting, the horror is unique because it is, unfortunately, endless.”

My Thoughts

This is a gorgeous book with so many quotable quotes. It’s beautifully written, so lyrical and emotional. It’s not what I initially expected, but I did end up loving it, especially since it was a buddy read and reading everyone else’s thoughts added a lot to my own reading experience.

It’s listed as horror and I expected some tangible sea monster kind of story, but some of the other readers mentioned the horror of losing a loved one, or watching as bad things happen and there’s nothing you can do about it. I loved that take on it. I also love that the book was divided into sections corresponding to the zones of the ocean, and the deeper you go into the zones, the deeper you go into uncharted territory of the mind as well.

It’s so haunting and beautiful, and I’m glad I finally read it.

My Rating

⭐⭐⭐⭐/5 stars.

Have you read this book? Would you read this book? Did you like the book or do you think you would like it?

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Book Review | After I Do by Taylor Jenkins Reid

Posted September 6, 2024 by Haze in Book Reviews / 0 Comments

After I Do by Taylor Jenkins Reid

When Lauren and Ryan’s marriage reaches the breaking point, they come up with an unconventional plan. They decide to take a year off in the hopes of finding a way to fall in love again. One year apart, and only one rule: they cannot contact each other. Aside from that, anything goes.

Lauren embarks on a journey of self-discovery, quickly finding that her friends and family have their own ideas about the meaning of marriage. These influences, as well as her own healing process and the challenges of living apart from Ryan, begin to change Lauren’s ideas about monogamy and marriage. She starts to question: When you can have romance without loyalty and commitment without marriage, when love and lust are no longer tied together, what do you value? What are you willing to fight for?

This is a love story about what happens when the love fades. It’s about staying in love, seizing love, forsaking love, and committing to love with everything you’ve got. And above all, After I Do is the story of a couple caught up in an old game—and searching for a new road to happily ever after.


For the Reading Challenge(s):
2024 Audiobook Challenge
2024 Library Love Reading Challenge


The Reason

It’s Taylor Jenkins Reid! And it’s Julia Whelan narrating! I don’t need any other reasons.

The Quotes

“Isn’t it nice … once you’ve outgrown the ideas of what life should be and you just enjoy what it is.”

“Here is what I can tell you. All that matters in this life is that you try. All that matters is that you open your heart, give everything you have, and keep trying.”

“I know it will be OK because everything is OK in the end. And if it’s not OK, it’s not the end.”

“I’ve come to realize that resentment is malignant. That it starts small and festers. That it grows wild and unfettered inside of you until it’s so expansive that it has worked its way into the furthest, deepest parts of you and holds on for dear life.”

The Narrator(s)

Julia Whelan. She’s the GOAT!

My Thoughts

TJR is so good at writing about relationships and family. While reading this book, I kept thinking that she really knew how to capture the essence of relationships, the everyday things that make up a life together, and it’s just so relatable. I don’t necessarily agree with some of her take on relationships, but I do feel that she definitely captures them well.

This book isn’t my favorite from TJR, but I did like it and it made me appreciate my own relationship with my husband very much. We’ve got our own ups and downs, but I think the one thing we do right is that we are always interested in each other. We talk all the time and it never gets boring, we play together, we listen to each other and never take the other for granted. Don’t get me wrong, we have disagreements and bad days too, but it’s always us against the problem.

One of the things I love most about reading is that it make me think and reflect on my own life, and I think this one did a great job of it. I’m not the biggest fan of the story and the MCs themselves, but it was fascinating to see how their marriage worked.

My Rating

⭐⭐⭐⭐/5 stars.

Have you read this book? Would you read this book? Did you like the book or do you think you would like it?

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