This has been the longest week! I’m genuinely shocked to realize that Whidbey was only a few days ago. Time does not fly.
I finished Exit West very quickly. (Not bragging, it’s a short and fast one.) This was a real little gem. I found it so incredibly moving and I am so glad I wasn’t in a public place when I was getting toward the end. Kind of an out of nowhere ugly cry there. High recommend.
After that I moved on to All our Wrong Todays. This was pretty much Back to the Future meets Ready Player One; I love BTTF and hate RPO, so it was all over the place for me. I love time travel fiction and that part was all done very well. (The surprise real-time journey was one of the funniest things ever.) I never warmed to the main character here so that was a big downside. He mostly got on my nerves, and I didn’t have any investment in the love story, which was a big part of the plot. Very half and half on this.
I still don’t really know what to say about White Tears. Man, this book! I was expecting something much more straightforward than this; it’s got a ghost story/supernatural element to it that I didn’t know about but I loved it. This is one of those times when you have to let it be the book that it is, and just go with it. Really cool ending and I’ll definitely check out some of his other stuff.
Today I finished up No One Is Coming to Save Us. It’s sort of billed as a Great Gatsby retelling, and while there are some parallels, it’s really its own story. This certainly took its time, but great writing and great characters. I liked this a lot; I guess it’s been a pretty good week.
I had a lot of angst about what to start next, because I have so many books out from the library right now and it’s making me twitchy. There are some good ones on deck but, I finally decided to start rereading Was. I loved this when I was about 23, but my taste from that time is sometimes suspect. BUT, my brother Kevin also loved this book, and he and I rarely like the same books unless they’re by Harry Crews, so this could be a keeper. I have a pretty steep TBR pile right now so I hope it’s worth it!
