Special Thursday edition of the week in review, because tomorrow I’ll be runner #5! I’m so nervous excited nervous excited and nervous some more.
I read most of Permanent Midnight over the weekend. Even though memoirs aren’t usually my thing, this one is pretty interesting. It’s fascinating how many times he goes through the hell of getting clean just to start using again. I’ve never had any real struggle with addiction and it just blows my mind. I kind of want it to be more juicy with the Hollywood stuff, but that’s just because I’m a gossip at heart. I will finish it, but I had to set it aside for now because all my holds came up at once and there are some long waiting lists for some of my scores.
Top of everyone’s waiting list was Hunger and I got right to it. I knew I was going to love this and I did. As I just said, memoirs aren’t typically my thing, but I will read them if they cover something that’s really interesting to me, or if I’m a fan of the writer. In this case it’s both. I love love love Roxane Gay and I can’t imagine not reading anything she wrote. And the topic of women and weight and body image issues always hits a very specific nerve for me. I do get that some people find her writing a little repetitive but I didn’t mind that. I feel like she’s being so incredibly brave and honest and true. Perfect book for me.
That’s a tough act to follow, but I had high hopes for Standard Deviation. I do love this author’s writing, and I think she’s got a great book in her somewhere, but this wasn’t it. Audra is one of the most delightful characters I’ve come across in ages, but the book is told from Graham’s viewpoint, and he was kind of a bore. The writing is great but the story goes nowhere; one great character is not enough to hang 300+ pages on, unfortunately. I would also like her to step away from the parentheses and edit a bit. This was just okay but I still think I’ll read whatever comes next from her.
So, funny story. One of the reasons I wanted to read Ill Will was that I know I’ve liked this author’s books in the past. But now that I’m looking at his profile, I’m not sure if I’ve actually read anything by him before. I seem to have him mixed up with both Darin Strauss and John Searles. Don’t know how that happened, but I’m 200 pages in and I really love it so far. I’m dying to know what happens, and I actually like how disjointed it is at times, because the main character is a mess. I love the structure of this book even though I can see why it annoyed some people.
That’s it for now…wish me luck at Ragnar!
