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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 Set in/Take Place During X
I’m choosing books set in the dream realm for today’s topic. The distinction for me with “dream realm” is that they are not portals to an alternate world, but rather a place where you can only go with your mind, ie. your body does not follow.
Having said that, I haven’t read some of the books below (and some I read a while ago and might have forgotten details) so I can’t be 100% sure if they fit the criteria. I’ve added them here based on their book descriptions, what others have said about them, and other non-spoilery info. If you’ve read them and you think I’m wrong, feel free to let me know!
Top Ten Books Set in the Dream Realm
The Mask of Mirrors by M.A. Carrick – This series has one of the best world-building and magical lore. Most of it relates to card divination but it also includes navigating the spiritual realm. It needs a reread!
The Ghost Bride by Yangsze Choo – This is one of my favorite books that I’ve talked a lot about. A big part of the story has the FMC’s body sick and unconscious and her spirit spending a lot of time in the underworld.
Long Live Evil by Sarah Rees Brennan – A recent favorite, but interesting enough, it also has the FMC sick and I’m assuming in a coma, while her consciousness is in another world.
Super Powered by Drew Hayes – This is a series featuring super powered young adults. One of them has the ability to go into people’s dreams and influence them that way. I loved the series, it was so much fun!
Doctor Sleep by Stephen King – The sequel to The Shining, it follows a now-adult Dan. Dan and another one of the MCs, Abra, communicate through dreams. One of my favorites from the King.
The Lathe of Heaven by Ursula K. Le Guin – I have heard much about this book but haven’t read it. It’s a scifi story where the MC’s dreams can affect reality. Definitely adding to my TBR.
Dreamfall by Amy Plum – This is a thriller/horror where the MCs participate in some kind of sleep study and end up stuck in the dream together. It sounds so good!
Dreamology by Lucy Keating – This is a romance where the two MCs dream about each other all the time, but one day they meet and realize the other person is real! I’m intrigued!
Palimpsest by Catherynne M. Valente – I’ve only read one book by the author but loved it. This one is about a world that you can only access through dreams, but you have to sleep with someone who’s already been there.
Strange the Dreamer by Laini Taylor – Dreams choose the dreamer in this book. I had this on my TBR but forgot all about it. Now it’s back on my radar!
Have you read any of these books? What did you think of them? Would you read any of these books?
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.
Unsleeping Grumpy
I haven’t been getting enough sleep this last week, and that means I’m not a Sleeping Beauty, but rather, an Unsleeping Grumpy. It’s no fun. I have been so irritable lately even though it’s been an objectively good week.
Ironically, I bought some new pillows and a duvet last week because the old ones were wearing out, and the cats have also started sleeping with us at night more regularly, which have given me a such a lovely sense of peace and coziness; so I should be sleeping better, but I’m not… Hmm…okay, maybe I should clarify. I have actually been sleeping better in terms of quality, but I haven’t been getting enough sleep in terms of quantity. And since we’re being honest, I have to admit it’s my own fault because I’ve been staying up late reading.
And therein lies the truth; I did it to myself. 😭
It’s hard to regret choosing reading over sleeping, but I’m not as young as I used to be and lack of sleep affects me a lot more than it used to. I have to be a responsible adult now. Ah, well.
On my watchlist: I have been watching Building the Band on Netflix and I am so hooked! I’m loving SZN4 and Soulidified and I can’t get enough of them! I think no matter who wins, these two bands are going to do well post-show. 3Quency is really good too, but I don’t like them as much as the first two bands.
There’s also some drama with a couple of the other teams that are annoying to watch, but part of the draw of reality tv, I guess. I’m just impatiently waiting for the next episodes to be released this week, and then after the show, I want all the deets on what the bands have been doing since then! As I said, I’m pretty sure at least a couple of these bands are going to keep going strong no matter who wins the show, and I’m excited to see it!
The Books
Books I read last week:
Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy – It’s been on my TBR for ever and I finally finished it. I ended up getting quite sick of the characters, but I love how Tolstoy kept me interested in their drama. I just couldn’t stop reading!
Atmosphere by Taylor Jenkins Reid – This book played with my emotions like a cat plays with its prey. It gave 100% emotional damage and I was ugly crying at the end.
Books I’m reading:
A Very Punchable Face by Colin Jost – Listening to this on audio right now. I’m about 35% in. I love him on SNL and Pop Culture Jeopardy!
The Love Haters by Katherine Center – I’m about 40% into this and really enjoying it! It’s funny and lighthearted and I’m loving the interactions between the two MCs.
Last Week on The Blog
So many posts the week before and only this one last week.
I want to finish up the two books I’m currently reading, and I also have If On A Winter’s Night A Traveler by Italo Calvino on the to-read list. I have to finish it before the week it out because our bookclub is meeting this weekend!
How was your week? I hope you had a great week last week, and I hope you have a great one again this week!
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 with Honorifics in the Title
I like today’s topic and I can’t wait to see everyone’s lists, but I missed several previous TTT topics that I really want to do so I decided to go with Books on My Summer 2025 TBR for my topic today! We did Books I’d Like to Re-read last week and I stated that I wanted to read them soon so they are definitely on my Summer TBR as well, but I’ll try to go with different titles today!
Top Ten Books on My Summer 2025 TBR
If On A Winter’s Night A Traveler by Italo Calvino – It’s one of my in-person bookclub friend’s favorite book and I’m excited to read something she likes.
Between Two Fires by Christopher Buehlman – A different bookclub friend’s favorite book, I’m always excited to see what my friends love to read.
Atmosphere by Taylor Jenkins Reid – I love TJR and I love Julia Whelan who narrates this. Definitely listening to this one on audio.
The Mighty Red by Louise Erdrich – I’ve read one other book by the author and loved it. I’m curious to read another and I thought this one sounded interesting.
The Seven Year Slip by Ashley Poston – This has been on my TBR for ages now, plus it’s been talked about favorably. I really should get to it soon!
The Love Haters by Katherine Center – I’ve read and loved several other Katherine Center books and I’m sure I’ll like this one too.
The Anthropocene Reviewed by John Green – I’ve heard so many rave reviews about this one I got curious. I’ve read a couple of the author’s books and liked them, but this one is nonfiction.
A Man Called Ove by Fredrik Backman – I’ve been meaning to read this but never got around to it. I recently watched the movie and loved it so it’s motivating me to read this sooner rather than later.
Never Flinch by Stephen King – I don’t care what people say, Holly is one of my favorite SK characters and I can’t wait to read more of her!
The Glass Chateau by Stephen P. Kiernan – This one came out two years ago and I had been anticipating it before it even released. I don’t know why I haven’t read it!
Have you read any of these books? What did you think of them? Would you read any of these books?
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.
I’m Back Again!
My last Sunday Post was four months ago and I cannot understand how time passes by so quickly! I could’ve sworn it was only two months ago, max! It’s worse because I actually mentioned in my last Sunday Post that I really wanted to make an effort to do the Sunday Posts and to check in with everyone. How quickly I have forsaken my words. 😭
Well, I’m going to try again! Please forgive me!
I updated a little bit about what’s been going on with me in my last Monthly Wrap Up, but the quick recap is that we lost our beloved Loki last month, and I’m going back to school in the fall. Bad news, good news.
We’re still missing Loki. We’re okay most days, but sometimes when we come across a reminder we start crying again. My husband was cleaning yesterday and found Loki’s old collar and tag. He started crying and then I started crying. I know it’ll get better, it just sucks right now.
Going back to school for me is a good thing, an exciting thing! But I’ve also been a little anxious with the back to school prep, especially since I haven’t been in school for years! I’m still working on the paperwork, enrollment, and all the administrative stuff, which is keeping me busy but should be done really soon!
On my watchlist: I just finished watching Season 1 of Murderbot and I loved it!!! I was surprised that there were ten episodes to Season 1 because the first book was so short, and I wondered if maybe they decided to merge a couple of books into this season, but nope, the first season is based on the first book and that’s it.
To be fair, each of the episodes are only 20-30 minutes long and they do flesh out the story a little bit. I thought they did a pretty great job of it. I don’t remember all the details of the book but I feel like they got the important details down. I’m very happy about it, and I’m excited to see what they do with the next seasons!
Has anyone else watched it and/or read the books? I’d love to know what you think!
The Books
Books I read last week:
The Accidental Text by Becky Monson – I was in the mood for some romance and I stumbled upon this book while browsing by availability. It sounded fun and it was! I enjoyed it very much!
The Wild Robot Protects (The Wild Robot #3) by Peter Brown – The third book in the series. I loved the movie and I was thrilled to find out there were books!
Swept Away by Beth O’Leary – I’ve enjoyed the author’s previous works and was excited for this but it turned out a little disappointing.
Books I’m reading:
Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy – I am currently about 35% in and finding it all very dramatic and interesting!
Last Week on The Blog
Whoa, this is what catching up on all the book reviews I procrastinated on looks like! And I’m not even done yet! 😭
I’m hoping to finish Anna Karenina this week. I also want to read Atmosphere by Taylor Jenkins Reid, and hopefully get started on The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoevsky. The Brothers Karamazov is a buddy read that I signed up for a year ago! The deadline is coming up and I have to read it soon if I wanna make it but it’s my own fault for leaving it to the last minute.
How was your week? I hope you had a great week last week, and I hope you have a great one again this week!
Fifteen-year-old Kambili and her older brother Jaja lead a privileged life in Enugu, Nigeria. They live in a beautiful house, with a caring family, and attend an exclusive missionary school. They’re completely shielded from the troubles of the world. Yet, as Kambili reveals in her tender-voiced account, things are less perfect than they appear. Although her Papa is generous and well respected, he is fanatically religious and tyrannical at home—a home that is silent and suffocating.
As the country begins to fall apart under a military coup, Kambili and Jaja are sent to their aunt, a university professor outside the city, where they discover a life beyond the confines of their father’s authority. Books cram the shelves, curry and nutmeg permeate the air, and their cousins’ laughter rings throughout the house. When they return home, tensions within the family escalate, and Kambili must find the strength to keep her loved ones together.
Purple Hibiscus is an exquisite novel about the emotional turmoil of adolescence, the powerful bonds of family, and the bright promise of freedom.
I read We Should All Be Feminists by the same author some time ago and had been meaning to read more of her works.
The Quotes
“There are people, she once wrote, who think that we cannot rule ourselves because the few times we tried, we failed, as if all the others who rule themselves today got it right the first time. It is like telling a crawling baby who tries to walk, and then falls back on his buttocks, to stay there. As if the adults walking past him did not all crawl, once.”
“We did that often, asking each other questions whose answers we already knew. Perhaps it was so that we would not ask the other questions, the ones whose answers we did not want to know.”
“The educated ones leave, the ones with the potential to right the wrongs. They leave the weak behind. The tyrants continue to reign because the weak cannot resist. Do you not see that it is a cycle? Who will break that cycle?”
“I cannot control even the dreams that I have made.”
The Narrator(s)
Lisette Lecat. She’s a wonderful narrator, she had just the right emotional expression.
My Thoughts
I’m not sure how I can begin to gush about this book. It is so emotionally powerful, heartbreaking, and completely pulls you in. I’d only read We Should All Be Feminists by Adichie previously and it was a short nonfiction, but I respected the way she wrote and expressed her ideas so clearly. I had been meaning to read more of her works and only just finally read this one.
The writing is so powerful; it gut punches you from the very beginning and just keeps getting more and more intense. Realizing that this is Adichie’s first book makes it even more incredible. You really get into Kambili’s mind, feel her feelings, care for her. I have a visceral hate for her father, and so much sadness for her circumstances. I am still feeling my feelings over this book and I am very much wanting to read more of her books after this.
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?
Two writers compete for the chance to tell the larger-than-life story of a woman with more than a couple of plot twists up her sleeve in this dazzling and sweeping new novel from Emily Henry.
Alice Scott is an eternal optimist still dreaming of her big writing break. Hayden Anderson is a Pulitzer-prize winning human thundercloud. And they’re both on balmy Little Crescent Island for the same reason: To write the biography of a woman no one has seen in years–or at least to meet with the octogenarian who claims to be the Margaret Ives. Tragic heiress, former tabloid princess, and daughter of one of the most storied (and scandalous) families of the 20th Century.
When Margaret invites them both for a one-month trial period, after which she’ll choose the person who’ll tell her story, there are three things keeping Alice’s head in the game.
One: Alice genuinely likes people, which means people usually like Alice—and she has a whole month to win the legendary woman over.
Two: She’s ready for this job and the chance to impress her perennially unimpressed family with a Serious Publication
Three: Hayden Anderson, who should have no reason to be concerned about losing this book, is glowering at her in a shaken-to-the core way that suggests he sees her as competition.
But the problem is, Margaret is only giving each of them pieces of her story. Pieces they can’t swap to put together because of an ironclad NDA and an inconvenient yearning pulsing between them every time they’re in the same room.
And it’s becoming abundantly clear that their story—just like the tale Margaret’s spinning—could be a mystery, tragedy, or love ballad…depending on who’s telling it.
I have been craving some romance in my tbr and I enjoy Emily Henry’s books.
The Quotes
“There’s an old saying about stories, and how there are always three versions of them: yours, mine, and the truth.”
“Love isn’t something you can cup in your hands, and I have to believe that means it’s something that can’t ever be lost.”
“I find myself thinking that maybe every bit of heartbreak in life can be rearranged and used for something beautiful, that it doesn’t really matter whether I chose this path or I was born onto it, so long as I stop and appreciate the path itself.”
“Just because something doesn’t make money or win awards doesn’t mean it doesn’t have value.”
The Narrator(s)
Julia Whelan! I love her!!
My Thoughts
I generally enjoy Emily Henry’s books and she’s one of my go-to authors for books in the romance genre. Having said that, I don’t always enjoy the stories but I do like her writing, and the fact that Julia Whelan narrates this book cinched it for me.
One of the things that has been mentioned about this book is its similarities with The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo by Taylor Jenkins Reid. I love TJR and I can see the similarities with the premise, but as far as vibes go, they are not the same at all. TJR’s book was much more mysterious and had a little bit more gravitas. This book is a little more lighthearted, and Margaret’s story for me was more of a plot device. It was an interesting story, but it’s not what I’m here for. As I said, I was craving romance, and I wanted romance!
Enter Alice and Hayden. I am completely charmed by Alice and her bright personality. I love that it’s addressed from the beginning and I like how she wins people over; she’s friendly and thoughtful, and says what she thinks, and I love that about her. As for the romance part, I love the way she wins Hayden over just by being her friendly, annoying, charming self. I love the non-sexual, intimate moments between them, the way they interacted with each other, but honestly, it’s mostly due to Alice’s personality. I find it hard not to fall for her myself! I would totally want to be BFFs with her if she was a real person!
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?
When you’ve been set up to lose everything you love, what is there left to fight for?
As the day dawns on the fiftieth annual Hunger Games, fear grips the districts of Panem. This year, in honor of the Quarter Quell, twice as many tributes will be taken from their homes.
Back in District 12, Haymitch Abernathy is trying not to think too hard about his chances. All he cares about is making it through the day and being with the girl he loves.
When Haymitch’s name is called, he can feel all his dreams break. He’s torn from his family and his love, shuttled to the Capitol with the three other District 12 tributes: a young friend who’s nearly a sister to him, a compulsive oddsmaker, and the most stuck-up girl in town. As the Games begin, Haymitch understands he’s been set up to fail. But there’s something in him that wants to fight . . . and have that fight reverberate far beyond the deadly arena.
I’m a huge fan of The Hunger Games, so obviously I had to read this!
The Quotes
“They will not use my tears for their entertainment.”
“You were capable of imagining a different future. And maybe it won’t be realized today, maybe not in our lifetime. Maybe it will take generations. We’re all part of a continuum. Does that make it pointless?”
“Fire is catching, she’d say, but if this one burns down the arena, I say good riddance.”
“In fifty years, we’ve only had one victor, and that was a long time ago. A girl who no one seems to know anything about.”
The Narrator(s)
Jefferson White. It was absolutely wonderful and I was fully immersed.
My Thoughts
I’m a huge fan of the original trilogy for The Hunger Games, but I was initially resistent when The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes came out because I wasn’t interested in President Snow’s childhood. I did end up reading it and enjoying it very much, and also really admiring Collins’ vision of how things started. So when this book came out, I was excited because I am much more interested in Haymitch’s story, and I also have a lot more confidence that Collins will do a great job with it.
Reading Haymitch’s story, I like getting to know him better. I like learning what really happened with him. I don’t think this story could work on its own but somehow I love THG enough that I want to know more, not just about him, but about other characters too. I’d love a book about Finnick as well, and Johanna, and Beetee, and Mags, and several other characters. I know a lot of people think additional books in THG universe aren’t necessary, and I agree somewhat that I don’t think any of these stories work on their own but I still want to know them!
Perhaps a happy compromise for me is an actual manifestation of that memorial book that Katniss and Peeta were working on, a sort of dictionary/encyclopedia type book with pictures and information about the Victors throughout the years, the people who loved them and whom they loved, anecdotes about them. I would love that!! In any case, at this point I’m not tired of THG world yet and I’ll probably read more if Collins wrote them!
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?
One of the most remarkable true-crime narratives of the twenty-first the story of the world’s most prolific art thief, Stéphane Breitwieser.
In this spellbinding portrait of obsession and flawed genius, the best-selling author of The Stranger in the Woods brings us into Breitwieser’s strange world—unlike most thieves, he never stole for money, keeping all his treasures in a single room where he could admire them.
For centuries, works of art have been stolen in countless ways from all over the world, but no one has been quite as successful at it as the master thief Stéphane Breitwieser. Carrying out more than two hundred heists over nearly eight years—in museums and cathedrals all over Europe—Breitwieser, along with his girlfriend who worked as his lookout, stole more than three hundred objects, until it all fell apart in spectacular fashion.
In The Art Thief, Michael Finkel brings us into Breitwieser’s strange and fascinating world. Unlike most thieves, Breitwieser never stole for money. Instead, he displayed all his treasures in a pair of secret rooms where he could admire them to his heart’s content. Possessed of a remarkable athleticism and an innate ability to circumvent practically any security system, Breitwieser managed to pull off a breathtaking number of audacious thefts. Yet these strange talents bred a growing disregard for risk and an addict’s need to score, leading Breitwieser to ignore his girlfriend’s pleas to stop—until one final act of hubris brought everything crashing down.
This is a riveting story of art, crime, love, and an insatiable hunger to possess beauty at any cost.
“It isn’t action, he suspects, that usually lands a thief in prison. It’s hesitation.”
“Art is the result of facing almost no survival pressure at all. It’s the product of leisure time. Our big brains, the most complex instruments known in the universe, have been released from the vigilance of evading predators and seeking sustenance, permitting our imagination to gambol and explore, to dream while awake, to share visions of God. Art signals our freedom. It exists because we’ve won the evolutionary war.”
“In the eyes of the law, how a thief steals is more significant than what’s taken: robbing a candy bar with a gun is worse than carrying off a Cranach painting unarmed.”
“Knowing when not to take an item, however deflating, is mandatory for a thief expecting career longevity.”
My Thoughts
I’m not an art afficionado, but I do appreciate art very much and hold them very much sacred. Not just the famous works, but also the ones regular unskilled people like me do at home, and while regular people art isn’t very valuable, I still feel the pain when I hear of any art getting lost, stolen, or destroyed, because it’s not about the monetary value, but the emotional value of the art.
I have no inkling of the monetary value of most famous artworks but I’m sure their emotional value is priceless because of what they mean to so many people. Reading this book really helps me to appreciate the kind of passion that people can feel about art.
Breitwieser’s story was interesting to read about. He was such an intriguing person to read about; his upbringing, his obsession with artworks, his thought processes, his approach system to acquiring art… Seeing his relationship dynamics with his girlfriend and his mother was really interesting too. My emotions through the progression of this book was all over the place because the story was told so well!
The ending left me so angry at Breitwieser and so sad about the art, but I cannot deny that this was a great book, told so well by the author, and well 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?
The Spellshop is Sarah Beth Durst’s romantasy debut–a lush cottagecore tale full of stolen spellbooks, unexpected friendships, sweet jams, and even sweeter love.
Kiela has always had trouble dealing with people. Thankfully, as a librarian at the Great Library of Alyssium, she and her assistant, Caz—a magically sentient spider plant—have spent the last decade sequestered among the empire’s most precious spellbooks, preserving their magic for the city’s elite.
When a revolution begins and the library goes up in flames, she and Caz flee with all the spellbooks they can carry and head to a remote island Kiela never thought she’d see again: her childhood home. Taking refuge there, Kiela discovers, much to her dismay, a nosy—and very handsome—neighbor who can’t take a hint and keeps showing up day after day to make sure she’s fed and to help fix up her new home.
In need of income, Kiela identifies something that even the bakery in town doesn’t have: jam. With the help of an old recipe book her parents left her and a bit of illegal magic, her cottage garden is soon covered in ripe berries.
But magic can do more than make life a little sweeter, so Kiela risks the consequences of using unsanctioned spells and opens the island’s first-ever and much needed secret spellshop.
Like a Hallmark rom-com full of mythical creatures and fueled by cinnamon rolls and magic, The Spellshop will heal your heart and feed your soul.
“It wasn’t that she didn’t like people. It was that she liked books more. They didn’t fuss or judge or mock or reject.They invited you in, fluffed up the pillows on the couch, offered you tea and toast, and shared their hearts with no expectation that you’d do anything more than absorb what they had to give.”
“Books should be shared with everyone who wants to open their minds and hearts to them.”
“Of course knowledge is dangerous. But ignorance is even more dangerous”
“If there was a book involved, that automatically made any course of action much more sensible.”
The Narrator(s)
Caitlin Davies. I enjoyed it very much!
My Thoughts
This was such a fun book and I loved it! I love found families, I love magic, and I love books!! This story hit all the right notes for me. It just felt so cozy and inviting, and I love how imaginative it is. Caz is wonderful and I love him. There were parts that made me a little anxious but it’s mostly low stakes. There were also parts that were cute and convenient, but you know, it’s not a very serious book so I won’t take it too seriously either. I love the connections Kiela makes, I love the magical elements, and the very interesting ways they find solutions in this book. It’s just a nice, comfort read.
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?
In his journal, Nobel Prize winner John Steinbeck called East of Eden “the first book,” and indeed it has the primordial power and simplicity of myth. Set in the rich farmland of California’s Salinas Valley, this sprawling and often brutal novel follows the intertwined destinies of two families—the Trasks and the Hamiltons—whose generations helplessly reenact the fall of Adam and Eve and the poisonous rivalry of Cain and Abel.
Adam Trask came to California from the East to farm and raise his family on the new rich land. But the birth of his twins, Cal and Aaron, brings his wife to the brink of madness, and Adam is left alone to raise his boys to manhood. One boy thrives nurtured by the love of all those around him; the other grows up in loneliness enveloped by a mysterious darkness.
First published in 1952, East of Eden is the work in which Steinbeck created his most mesmerizing characters and explored his most enduring themes: the mystery of identity, the inexplicability of love, and the murderous consequences of love’s absence. A masterpiece of Steinbeck’s later years, East of Eden is a powerful and vastly ambitious novel that is at once a family saga and a modern retelling of the Book of Genesis.
“And now that you don’t have to be perfect, you can be good.”
“I believe a strong woman may be stronger than a man, particularly if she happens to have love in her heart. I guess a loving woman is indestructible.”
“But the Hebrew word, the word timshel—‘Thou mayest’— that gives a choice. It might be the most important word in the world. That says the way is open. That throws it right back on a man. For if ‘Thou mayest’—it is also true that ‘Thou mayest not.”
“Sometimes a man wants to be stupid if it lets him do a thing his cleverness forbids.”
The Narrator(s)
Richard Poe. It was good, no complaints.
My Thoughts
I think I would’ve liked it more if I didn’t have such high expectations from the get-go. A friend from years ago once told me this was her favorite book and talked it up so much that I had the impression I was going to be blown away. Add to that, the fact that it’s been 20 years since and the legend of the book has only grown in my mind, so perhaps it was unsurprising that I would be disappointed.
In the interest of fairness though, I’m being as objective as I can about my thoughts on this book. I love Lee, he was the best character in the book, but I didn’t like most of the other characters. The women especially weren’t developed well enough; it didn’t feel like they were real people but rather just plot devices and caricatures.
I get that this story is a retelling of the Adam & Eve, Cain & Abel stories, but it felt a little on the nose and doesn’t bring anything new to the table. I love retellings, but I need them to serve the story a little more than this!
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?
