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‘Whether I shall turn out to be the hero of my own life, or whether that station will be held by anybody else, these pages must show’
Dickens’s epic, exuberant novel is one of the greatest coming-of-age stories in literature. It chronicles David Copperfield’s extraordinary journey through life, as he encounters villains, saviours, eccentrics and grotesques, including the wicked Mr Murdstone, stout-hearted Peggotty, formidable Betsey Trotwood, impecunious Micawber and odious Uriah Heep.
Dickens’s great Bildungsroman (based, in part, on his own boyhood, and which he described as a ‘favourite child’) is a work filled with life, both comic and tragic.
I’ve been wanting to read more Dickens, and I guess all the raving reviews about Demon Copperhead and the similarities between these two books encouraged me to pick them both up sooner rather than later! It also helped that they fit the 52 Book Club Challenge, and I was also doing The Classics Club challenge!
The Quotes
“I never could have done what I have done, without the habits of punctuality, order, and diligence, without the determination to concentrate myself on one object at a time.”
“There can be no disparity in marriage like unsuitability of mind and purpose.”
“It’s in vain to recall the past, unless it works some influence upon the present.”
“It has always been in my observation of human nature, that a man who has any good reason to believe in himself never flourishes himself before the faces of other people in order that they may believe in him. For this reason, I retained my modesty in very self”
“My advice is, never do tomorrow what you can do today. Procrastination is the thief of time.”
The Narrator(s)
Richard Armitage. Oh, I have such mixed feelings! Intellectually, I feel like the narrator did such an amazing job and is incredibly talented. Emotionally, I hate his voices for some of the characters because they are just so vile and annoying and disgusting! Which are entirely suitable to those characters and brought them to life for me, both a good and bad thing because oh, I hated them!
My Thoughts
It’s weird because my thoughts about this book I think will be forever linked to my thoughts about Demon Copperhead. This book has existed for way longer than Demon Copperhead and has been on my radar before Demon Copperhead was ever written, but since I heard so much hype about Demon Copperhead and ended up reading it first, I almost feel like it’s a duology, each taking place centuries apart.
I had no idea what either book was about, and I had no idea to what extent Demon Copperhead was similar to David Copperfield, so everything was still a surprise to me as I read it. I also thought both books were brilliant, but to be quite honest, my respect and admiration for Barbara Kingsolver has gone up after reading David Copperfield and seeing how she incorporated all the elements of the story into Demon Copperhead. They are both incredible books, and I’m very likely to reread both sometime down the line soon.
My Feels
This is a gorgeous book, and in some ways, I regret not reading it before Demon Copperhead because I would’ve liked to have seen it from a fresh perspective, especially since it came first. But either way, I’m glad I read both. I feel like this book has its ups and downs, but it feels more hopeful, and I love that.
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?
Sadie Montgomery never saw what was coming . . . Literally! One minute she’s celebrating the biggest achievement of her life—placing as a finalist in the North American Portrait Society competition—the next, she’s lying in a hospital bed diagnosed with a “probably temporary” condition known as face blindness. She can see, but every face she looks at is now a jumbled puzzle of disconnected features. Imagine trying to read a book upside down and in another language. This is Sadie’s new reality with every face she sees.
But, as she struggles to cope, hang on to her artistic dream, work through major family issues, and take care of her beloved dog, Peanut, she falls into—love? Lust? A temporary obsession to distract from the real problems in her life?—with not one man but two very different ones. The timing couldn’t be worse.
If only her life were a little more in focus, Sadie might be able to find her way. But perceiving anything clearly right now seems impossible. Even though there are things we can only find when we aren’t looking. And there are people who show up when we least expect them. And there are always, always other ways of seeing.
I had this on my TBR before I read The Bodyguard but ended up reading The Bodyguard first and loved it. I think I’m probably going to read as many of the author’s works as I can!
The Quotes
“The more good things you look for, the more you find.”
“We’re all just doing the best we can. We’re all struggling with our struggles. Nobody has the answers. And everybody, deep down, is a little bit lost.”
“But I guess that’s the great thing about life—it gives you chance after chance to rethink it all. Who you want to be. How you want to live. What really matters.”
“Light matters just as much as darkness. Play matters as much as work, and kindness matters as much as cruelty, and hope matters as much as despair. More so, even. Because tragedy is a given, but joy is a choice.”
My Thoughts
Amnesia is an overdone cliché, but face blindness is something completely new and in this story, allows us to imagine some of the same scenarios that amnesia could put the protagonist in. It’s a tiny bit cheesy and dramatic, but I loved how the story played out and I love the chemistry between the main characters! I’m also not a huge fan of miscommunication tropes in general, but it worked for this story, and I think to an extent, it’s genius how the author uses these tools and mold them to tell a wonderful and hilarious love story!
My Feels
I loved this one and I think it might be my favorite romance so far this year, which is saying a lot because I’ve read a couple of great ones so far! I can’t wait to read more from Katherine Center!
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?
Charlie, a highly-strung, openly gay over-thinker, and Nick, a cheerful, soft-hearted rugby player, meet at a British all-boys grammar school. Friendship blooms quickly, but could there be something more…?
Charlie Spring is in Year 10 at Truham Grammar School for Boys. The past year hasn’t been too great, but at least he’s not being bullied anymore. Nick Nelson is in Year 11 and on the school rugby team. He’s heard a little about Charlie – the kid who was outed last year and bullied for a few months – but he’s never had the opportunity to talk to him.
They quickly become friends, and soon Charlie is falling hard for Nick, even though he doesn’t think he has a chance. But love works in surprising ways, and sometimes good things are waiting just around the corner…
I was looking for a quick read and the books were available on Libby. I didn’t expect to love them so much but I just blew right through all of them and it might be my favorite thing in the whole world!
The Quotes
“You can’t tell whether people are gay by what they look like. And gay or straight aren’t the only two options.”
“There’s this idea that if you’re not straight, you HAVE to tell all your family and friends immediately, like you owe it to them. But you don’t. You don’t have to do anything until you’re ready.”
“We reached the point where we knew that whatever people said or thought about us, we knew who we were. And we loved ourselves anyway.”
The TV Show
There’s also a TV show based off the graphic novels and I love it! The cast is amazing; I love their chemistry and how everything just sizzles on screen!
My Thoughts
I don’t read a lot of graphic novels and I didn’t think I’d be interested in these books at all because they were about teenage romance and I’m way past that stage. I do still read fantasy YA because of the fantasy/adventure elements, and I used to love contemporary YA but haven’t been able to relate in years. So it was such a wonderful surprise to read these and realize how much I love them! Nick and Charlie has become one of my favorite fictional couples ever, if not *the* ultimate favorite. They are the cutest and I can’t stop shipping them! This is one of the most wholesome stories ever and it brings me so much joy!
My Feels
All the feels! All the joy! All the wholesomeness, all the cuteness, these books are everything! It’s such a feel-good, happy, heartwarming, cute aggressive, lovely and loving story! I feel like everything in the world could be going wrong, but I could read about Nick and Charlie, and the whole world would be alright again. They are everything good in this world, and we must protect them at all costs!
My Rating
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐/5 stars.
Have you read this series? Would you read it or watch the show? Did you like it or do you think you would like it?
In this groundbreaking bestseller, Lundy Bancroft—a counselor who specializes in working with abusive men—uses his knowledge about how abusers think to help women recognize when they are being controlled or devalued, and to find ways to get free of an abusive relationship.
He says he loves you. So…why does he do that?
You’ve asked yourself this question again and again. Now you have the chance to see inside the minds of angry and controlling men—and change your life. In Why Does He Do That? you will learn
• The early warning signs of abuse • The nature of abusive thinking • Myths about abusers • Ten abusive personality types • The role of drugs and alcohol • What you can fix, and what you can’t • And how to get out of an abusive relationship safely
“This is without a doubt the most informative and useful book yet written on the subject of abusive men. Women who are armed with the insights found in these pages will be on the road to recovering control of their lives.”—Jay G. Silverman, Ph.D., Director, Violence Prevention Programs, Harvard School of Public Health
I’ve seen so many recommendations for this book and I’ve been in a few abusive relationships so it made me curious. I’m also a people pleaser and have a hard time with boundaries and saying no. I wanted to find out what this book had to say and what I could learn from it.
The Quotes
“Your abusive partner doesn’t have a problem with his anger; he has a problem with your anger.”
“The scars from mental cruelty can be as deep and long-lasting as wounds from punches or slaps but are often not as obvious. In fact, even among women who have experienced violence from a partner, half or more report that the man’s emotional abuse is what is causing them the greatest harm.”
“An abuser can seem emotionally needy. You can get caught in a trap of catering to him, trying to fill a bottomless pit. But he’s not so much needy as entitled, so no matter how much you give him, it will never be enough. He will just keep coming up with more demands because he believes his needs are your responsibility, until you feel drained down to nothing.”
“One of the obstacles to recognizing chronic mistreatment in relationships is that most abusive men simply don’t seem like abusers. They have many good qualities, including times of kindness, warmth, and humor, especially in the early period of a relationship. An abuser’s friends may think the world of him. He may have a successful work life and have no problems with drugs or alcohol. He may simply not fit anyone’s image of a cruel or intimidating person. So when a woman feels her relationship spinning out of control, it is unlikely to occur to her that her partner is an abuser.”
The Narrator
Peter Berkrot. Great narrator, clear and expressive.
My Thoughts
I got a lot out of this book and I think it’s really great for helping women recognize if they are in abusive relationships. I think it can also help abused women to navigate the self-blame mentality that they often have – “if I was better, he wouldn’t have lost his temper”, “it’s my fault for making him angry”, etc. Abusers gonna abuse, and it’s not your fault.
One thing that I’m not sure I agree with is the author’s belief that women cannot abuse men. He mentions that a lot of the time, what happens is that the men abuse the women to the point that the women become hysterical and/or fight back to defend themselves, then when witnesses/police arrive, the men act all calm but bruised from the women fighting back, while the women are hysterical and look crazy, and so it seems like the women were the abusers. While I’m sure that definitely happens, I also believe that women absolutely can be the abusers towards men.
This book was written more than 20 years ago so I don’t know if the author’s stance has changed or if there is an updated version, but I just want to mention that.
My Feels
This book made me sad in the beginning, because it reminded me of how young and naive I was, and how much I didn’t know and still don’t know, my difficulty in standing up for myself and saying no. I wish I had been stronger.
The later part of the book scared and infuriated me. It’s no wonder so many abused women find it difficult to leave and/or ask for help; there’s so much victim-blaming, and it’s so hard to get people to believe you when the abuser appears charming and great to everyone else, and you feel like a crazy person. And sometimes it’s the people who are supposed to help and advocate for you that are doing the most harm! We as a society need to do better. I don’t know how, but maybe a good start is for everyone to read this book regardless of whether you’ve ever been in an abusive relationship, because it’s a good bet that someone you know might be in one.
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?
Carrie Soto is fierce, and her determination to win at any cost has not made her popular.
By the time Carrie retires from tennis, she is the best player the world has ever seen. She has shattered every record and claimed twenty Slam titles. And if you ask her, she is entitled to every one. She sacrificed nearly everything to become the best, with her father as her coach.
But six years after her retirement, Carrie finds herself sitting in the stands of the 1994 US Open, watching her record be taken from her by a brutal, stunning, British player named Nicki Chan.
At thirty-seven years old, Carrie makes the monumental decision to come out of retirement and be coached by her father for one last year in an attempt to reclaim her record. Even if the sports media says that they never liked the ‘Battle-Axe’ anyway. Even if her body doesn’t move as fast as it did. And even if it means swallowing her pride to train with a man she once almost opened her heart to: Bowe Huntley. Like her, he has something to prove before he gives up the game forever.
In spite of it all: Carrie Soto is back, for one epic final season. In this riveting and unforgettable novel, Taylor Jenkins Reid tells a story about the cost of greatness and a legendary athlete attempting a comeback.
I first met Carrie Soto as a side character in Malibu Rising, which is one of my favorite TJR books. I didn’t think I’d like this book because I’m not a tennis fan and I know nothing about it, but I should’ve known that TJR would make me fall in love with Carrie.
The Quotes
“We live in a world where exceptional women have to sit around waiting for mediocre men.”
“Grief is like a deep, dark hole. It calls like a siren: Come to me, lose yourself here. And you fight it and you fight it and you fight it, but when you finally do succumb and jump down into it, you can’t quite believe how deep it is. It feels as if this is how you will live for the rest of your life, falling. Terrified and devastated, until you yourself die.
“One of the great injustices of this rigged world we live in is that women are considered to be depleting with age and men are somehow deepening.”
“People act like you can never forget your own name, but if you’re not paying attention, you can veer so incredibly far away from everything you know about yourself to the point where you stop recognizing what they call you.”
“No matter how good I was on the court, I was never good enough for the public. It wasn’t enough to play nearly perfect tennis. I had to do that and also be charming. And that charm had to appear effortless.”
The Narrator(s)
Stacy Gonzalez, Mary Carillo, Patrick Mcenroe, Rob Simmelkjaer, Brendan Wayne, Max Meyers, Reynaldo Piniella, Vidish Athavale, Tom Bromhead, Heath Miller, Julia Whelan, Sara Arrington.
Stacy Gonzalez is the main narrator and the voice of Carrie Soto. The other narrators voice commentators and articles in the story. Stacy Gonzalez is a pretty good narrator but there were parts where I felt like the inflections didn’t fit the intention. I still enjoyed listening to the book very much though!
My Thoughts
I didn’t expect to love this book as much as I did. Carrie is such a stand-out character that I even noticed and remember her from her tiny cameo in Malibu Rising. Trust me when I say I normally don’t remember stuff like that, but Carrie was too memorable a character. I also love that she was almost in her 40s when she decided to get back into the competition. There were many instances in the book where the double standard between men and women sportspeople were called out as well, and I’m totally here for that.
My Feels
Carrie’s drive and will to win is palpable in the story. You can feel it through the pages, you can feel just how important her goal is to her, and so it becomes important to you as well. The way the story was told, going through her journey with her, discovering what’s important, learning to love and trust other people, all of it was so impactful. This book is a contender for my most favorite of TJR’s work!
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?
“Anyone will tell you the born of this world are marked from the get-out, win or lose.”
Set in the mountains of southern Appalachia, this is the story of a boy born to a teenaged single mother in a single-wide trailer, with no assets beyond his dead father’s good looks and copper-colored hair, a caustic wit, and a fierce talent for survival. In a plot that never pauses for breath, relayed in his own unsparing voice, he braves the modern perils of foster care, child labor, derelict schools, athletic success, addiction, disastrous loves, and crushing losses. Through all of it, he reckons with his own invisibility in a popular culture where even the superheroes have abandoned rural people in favor of cities.
Many generations ago, Charles Dickens wrote David Copperfield from his experience as a survivor of institutional poverty and its damages to children in his society. Those problems have yet to be solved in ours. Dickens is not a prerequisite for readers of this novel, but he provided its inspiration. In transposing a Victorian epic novel to the contemporary American South, Barbara Kingsolver enlists Dickens’ anger and compassion, and above all, his faith in the transformative powers of a good story. Demon Copperhead speaks for a new generation of lost boys, and all those born into beautiful, cursed places they can’t imagine leaving behind.
I’ve been hearing so many great things about this book, and I’ve also been wanting to read David Copperfield but haven’t gotten around to it. Now that I’ve finished this one, I’d like to read David Copperfield soon!
The Quotes
“The wonder is that you could start life with nothing, end with nothing, and lose so much in between.”
“At the time, I thought my life couldn’t get any worse. Here’s some advice: Don’t ever think that.”
“Actual fact: you could make an entire second world out of what people throw away. The landfill is where I figured out one of my main philosophies, that everybody alive is basically in the process of trading out their old stuff for different stuff, day in day out.”
“I think most of humankind would agree, the hard part of high school is the people.”
“When your parent clocks out before you clock in, you can spend way too much of your life staring into that black hole.”
The Narrator
Charlie Thurston. He was pretty great! I enjoyed his narration, was able to follow the story well, and I have no complaints.
My Thoughts
I had no idea what to expect going in. The only thing I knew about the book was that it’s a retelling of David Copperfield by Charles Dickens, and the only thing I knew about David Copperfield was that it’s supposed to be Dicken’s favorite book that he wrote. I feel like the subject matter isn’t something I’d normally be interested in, but people kept praising the book and David Copperfield is also one of those classics I knew I wanted to read someday, so I decided to dive in. I’m so glad I did because I got completely immersed in Demon’s life. The story was so well-written, so compelling, and it made me feel so many things.
My Feels
Empathy, anger, compassion, helplessness, hope, fear, heartbreak… it’s all here. It’s a roller coaster of emotions and what a ride it was! There were parts where I got so overwhelmed with the anger and heartache, I had to take a break and come back. There’s so much about this book that I can’t articulate as well as I wish I could, but I feel like it’s one that I’ll come back to and get more out of each time I do. I’m also really looking forward to reading David Copperfield soon.
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?
A shimmering, joyful new novel about a pair of opposites with the wrong thing in common.
Daphne always loved the way her fiancé Peter told their story. How they met (on a blustery day), fell in love (over an errant hat), and moved back to his lakeside hometown to begin their life together. He really was good at telling it…right up until the moment he realized he was actually in love with his childhood best friend Petra.
Which is how Daphne begins her new story: Stranded in beautiful Waning Bay, Michigan, without friends or family but with a dream job as a children’s librarian (that barely pays the bills), and proposing to be roommates with the only person who could possibly understand her predicament: Petra’s ex, Miles Nowak.
Scruffy and chaotic—with a penchant for taking solace in the sounds of heart break love ballads—Miles is exactly the opposite of practical, buttoned up Daphne, whose coworkers know so little about her they have a running bet that she’s either FBI or in witness protection. The roommates mainly avoid one another, until one day, while drowning their sorrows, they form a tenuous friendship and a plan. If said plan also involves posting deliberately misleading photos of their summer adventures together, well, who could blame them?
But it’s all just for show, of course, because there’s no way Daphne would actually start her new chapter by falling in love with her ex-fiancé’s new fiancée’s ex…right?
It’s Emily Henry, of course I had to read it! And of course I waited for the audiobook because it’s Julia Whelan narrating it!
The Quotes
“You can’t force a person to show up, but you can learn a lesson when they don’t.”
“It’s a library, Daphne. If you can’t be a human here, where can you?”
“I’ve been reading since I was six. I’m getting pretty good.”
“You can’t untell someone your secrets. You can’t unsay those delicate truths once you learn you can’t trust the person you handed them to.”
“I believe you should and will have everything you’ve ever wanted, if you’re not too scared to go after it.”
The Narrator
Julia Whelan. She’s the perfect narrator for this book. I loved her interpretation of it and I’m just awed by her voice acting. The inflections and emotions that went into every single scene of the book was just perfect. I felt every feeling!
My Thoughts
This might be one of my favorite Emily Henry books! I love the jokes and the chemistry between the two MCs and I literally laughed out loud several times! I read this book with my book club buddies – it wasn’t a buddy read, we all just happened to get the book at around the same time, and it was so fun to see everyone reacting to and gushing about the book.
My Feels
It was just a plethora of feelings. Julia Whelan’s narration definitely did help with making me feel like I was right there and witnessing everything Daphne was going through; the good and the bad, and all the funny parts as well. It’s just so perfect and I loved 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?
Maya Angelou’s debut memoir is a modern American classic beloved worldwide. Her life story is told in the documentary film And Still I Rise, as seen on PBS’s American Masters.
Here is a book as joyous and painful, as mysterious and memorable, as childhood itself. I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings captures the longing of lonely children, the brute insult of bigotry, and the wonder of words that can make the world right. Maya Angelou’s debut memoir is a modern American classic beloved worldwide.
Sent by their mother to live with their devout, self-sufficient grandmother in a small Southern town, Maya and her brother, Bailey, endure the ache of abandonment and the prejudice of the local “powhitetrash.” At eight years old and back at her mother’s side in St. Louis, Maya is attacked by a man many times her age—and has to live with the consequences for a lifetime. Years later, in San Francisco, Maya learns that love for herself, the kindness of others, her own strong spirit, and the ideas of great authors (“I met and fell in love with William Shakespeare”) will allow her to be free instead of imprisoned.
Poetic and powerful, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings will touch hearts and change minds for as long as people read.
This has been on my TBR forever and it was available on audio, so I decided to finally read it.
The Quotes
“Hoping for the best, prepared for the worst, and unsurprised by anything in between.”
“There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you.”
“Words mean more than what is set down on paper. It takes the human voice to infuse them with shades of deeper meaning.”
“Without willing it, I had gone from being ignorant of being ignorant to being aware of being aware. And the worst part of my awareness was that I didn’t know what I was aware of. I knew I knew very little, but I was certain that the things I had yet to learn wouldn’t be taught to me at George Washington High School. ”
“Instead, pursue the things you love doing, and then do them so well that people can’t take their eyes off you.”
The Narrator(s)
Read by the author herself. I always love it when the author narrates, because you can hear the inflections and emphasis in the places they meant them. She also sings the verses, and they were beautiful to hear.
My Thoughts
This is one of those books that come highly recommended and that you hear referenced all the time. I’ve been meaning to read it for a long time because of hearing so much about it, but I had no idea what I was in for. I’d expected it to be deep and meaningful just from all the references about it, and having an idea of what life must have been like for a black woman in those days, but I have a long way to go for learning and understanding it.
My Feels
I don’t know how Maya Angelou managed to write about her painful and defining moments in such a beautiful and lyrical way. I have no words to describe the feelings, but there were parts I had to stop and just take time to process. This is such a powerful 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?
A masterful true crime account of the Golden State Killer—the elusive serial rapist turned murderer who terrorized California for over a decade—from Michelle McNamara, the gifted journalist who died tragically while investigating the case.
“You’ll be silent forever, and I’ll be gone in the dark.”
For more than ten years, a mysterious and violent predator committed fifty sexual assaults in Northern California before moving south, where he perpetrated ten sadistic murders. Then he disappeared, eluding capture by multiple police forces and some of the best detectives in the area.
Three decades later, Michelle McNamara, a true crime journalist who created the popular website TrueCrimeDiary.com, was determined to find the violent psychopath she called “the Golden State Killer.” Michelle pored over police reports, interviewed victims, and embedded herself in the online communities that were as obsessed with the case as she was.
At the time of the crimes, the Golden State Killer was between the ages of eighteen and thirty, Caucasian, and athletic—capable of vaulting tall fences. He always wore a mask. After choosing a victim—he favored suburban couples—he often entered their home when no one was there, studying family pictures, mastering the layout. He attacked while they slept, using a flashlight to awaken and blind them. Though they could not recognize him, his victims recalled his voice: a guttural whisper through clenched teeth, abrupt and threatening.
I’ll Be Gone in the Dark—the masterpiece McNamara was writing at the time of her sudden death—offers an atmospheric snapshot of a moment in American history and a chilling account of a criminal mastermind and the wreckage he left behind. It is also a portrait of a woman’s obsession and her unflagging pursuit of the truth. Framed by an introduction by Gillian Flynn and an afterword by her husband, Patton Oswalt, the book was completed by Michelle’s lead researcher and a close colleague. Utterly original and compelling, it is destined to become a true crime classic—and may at last unmask the Golden State Killer.
This has been on my TBR for years but I kept putting it off because my mental health hadn’t been the best for the last few years and the subject matter of this book certainly wouldn’t help. I’ve been feeling much better recently and I thought I should finally get this read.
The Quotes
“I love reading true crime, but I’ve always been aware of the fact that, as a reader, I am actively choosing to be a consumer of someone else’s tragedy. So like any responsible consumer, I try to be careful in the choices I make. I read only the best: writers who are dogged, insightful, and humane.”
“He loses his power when we know his face.”
“What is the lasting damage when you believe the warm spot you were just sleeping in will be your grave?”
“I don’t care if I’m the one who captures him. I just want bracelets on his wrists and a cell door slamming behind him.”
The Narrator(s)
Gabra Zackman, with an introduction by Gillian Flynn, and an afterword by Patton Oswalt. It was very well-done.
My Thoughts
There was so much to process here. I loved how it was written and organized, and I love the biographical nature of the author writing down her thoughts about the case and including personal information and why it’s important to her. I care about the case because she cares about the case, and I think it’s important to have just as much highlight on the people who put the work into solving the case, as it is on the victims and perpetrators. There are so many crimes that go unsolved because sometimes people just don’t care enough, and perhaps it’s not always healthy for any one person to care too much, but I still respect that they do care.
I have seen some discussions online about how the author didn’t contribute to solving the case and didn’t even have the killer in her sights, and while the latter may be true, I don’t agree with the former. The fact that she kept the case active and in the spotlight (with her true crime blog), kept talking to detectives, witnesses, and victims, kept doing research and cross-checking data, kept bouncing ideas off of other people who were also still working on the case, is a huge contribution to making sure someone was taking action to find the killer, and to disregard that is ignorant and disrespectful.
My Feels
It was horrifying to read about all the terrible things the killer did, and to so many victims. It was heartbreaking to read about the victims, the fear, the powerlessness, the devastation of so many families and those left behind. It was infuriating to think of all the close calls where they could’ve caught the killer but didn’t. And it’s so sad to realize that the author didn’t live to see the killer caught and her life’s work achieved. But I am glad that I finally read this 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?
1970s Afghanistan: Twelve-year-old Amir is desperate to win the local kite-fighting tournament and his loyal friend Hassan promises to help him. But neither of the boys can foresee what would happen to Hassan that afternoon, an event that is to shatter their lives. After the Russians invade and the family is forced to flee to America, Amir realises that one day he must return to an Afghanistan under Taliban rule to find the one thing that his new world cannot grant him: redemption.
It’s the chosen Book of the Month for my in-person book club’s April read.
The Quotes
“For you, a thousand times over”
“It may be unfair, but what happens in a few days, sometimes even a single day, can change the course of a whole lifetime…”
“And that’s the thing about people who mean everything they say. They think everyone else does too.”
“There is only one sin, only one. And that is theft. Every other sin is a variation of theft. When you kill a man, you steal a life… you steal his wife’s right to a husband, rob his children of a ather. When you tell a lie, you steal someone’s right to the truth. When you cheat, you steal the right to fairness… there is no act more wretched than stealing.”
The Characters
Amir is a very flawed character, but such a complex person as well, and it was very interesting to read the story from his POV. Baba, Hassan, and several other characters including the unlikable ones, are very interesting as well. I feel like the author has an incredible skill for writing complex characters and I really appreciate that.
My Thoughts
This story gave me so much food for thought and so many feelings too. The complexity of relationships, especially the familial ones, societal expectations and the need of the ego to live up to them, the hypocrisy of appearing perfect in public and behaving badly in private. I get the fear of judgment and the shame, I’ve felt it myself many times throughout my life, and I think that’s the beauty of this story. It makes you wonder what you would do if you were in the same position. Amir is flawed, and he has done horrible things, but he was also a literal child neglected by his only parent who he desperately wants to please. And even as you see him grow and become a man, there are so many other instances within this story where you wonder what you would do if you were in that position.
My Feels
There is so much heartache and bittersweetness here. I can feel the nostalgia, and the sense of “missing it but knowing that you can never go back”. I believe there’s a word for it in another language but I don’t remember it. I love how the story came a full circle and I love that my book club chose this book for April!
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?
