Super fun busy week again. I somehow managed to get a lot of reading in even though I feel like I was busy busy busy every day.
Our Little Racket was okay, but it should have been so much better. I love WASPy New England family dramas, and I’m always interested in fiction related to the 2008 crash, so I was prepared to love this. The characters are great, and so is the writing, but the story is sort of drawn out and limited on plot. It felt more like a situation than a story and it had no business being 500 pages long with so little happening.
After that, I finally got around to finishing Permanent Midnight. I really liked this even though memoirs aren’t so much my thing. (I have read three this year, three more than I normally would.) I would have loved more Hollywood dirt, and more of an epilogue, but overall this was entertaining and gripping. I never really think about Jerry Stahl but I’ve now read and loved at least three of his books, so good on you, Jerry.
Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine is one of those books that I just want to hold on to forever. I know people have compared this to The Rosie Project and A Man Called Ove, but I felt like this was so much more authentic and true. I loved this character and I loved where the story went and I loved how things turned out. Really special book and I can’t wait to see what comes next from this author.
Pretty good week, because next up was Eat Only When You’re Hungry, which I also loved. This is a little gem of a book. I will always, always read a novel about people with weight and body issues, and this gave a really interesting spin on that topic. I kind of expected it to be funnier because this author is hilarious but it had a pretty serious bent. It reminded me in a way of the movie Broken Flowers, and I think it could be a pretty good movie itself.
Right now I am flying through It Happens All the Time. Amy Hatvany is always a really solid writer for me, and I love that she’s local and my age and a redhead. I’m dying to see how this turns out, because one of my best reader friends says she had some issues with this one, but her review has a spoiler in it, and I am a big no spoilers person, so I need to finish this ASAP so we can discuss. It draws you right in and moves fast, so I’ll be talking to you soon, Michelle!
