I read Karen Joy Fowler’s The Jane Austen Book Club several years ago and really liked it a lot, but I hadn’t thought to look up anything else by her. Several people had talked up We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves, and I saw the audiobook at my local library. Why not? I thought. So I let it unfold on me slowly, but I found it was a book that quickly gained my interest while I commuted to and from work. Rosemary Cooke is our […]
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I AM NOT PLEASED
Oh We Are Completely Besides Ourselves, why is such an awesome title wasted on a book I didn’t like? I did not like this book guys. I actively detested the point of the narrative from about halfway through. I cannot honestly suggest it to you, but I feel a little bad about that since it did work for other people. Seriously, I think I’m the only one on Cannonball Read who rated it below four stars. So, take my review with a grain of salt. […]
Better than expected
I’ve read, and didn’t particularly like, The Jane Austen Book Club, so I wasn’t especially interested in reading another book by Karen Joy Fowler. However, what happens so often these days occurred again: I saw a number of positive reviews of We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves (2014) on Cannonball Read, and they convinced me that I should give it a try. The story revolves around Rosemary Cook, a rather aimless college student at UC Davis with little to no friends. We know almost immediately […]
Best. Title. Ever.
The award for the best title of 2014 has to go to Karen Joy Fowler, don’t we think? It is the reason I even gave this a second glance, and then the deliciously cryptic description hooked me right in. In reviewing this wonderful book, I’m likely going to get spoiler happy, so if you don’t know the big reveal of the novel and don’t want to before you pick it up, stop reading now. Still here? Well ok then. Don’t say I didn’t warn you. […]
We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves
My sister-in-law read Karen Joy Fowler’s We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves and then gave it five stars on Goodreads with this review: “Don’t read any reviews on this book just read it.” She’s not one to be prolific with the perfect ratings so I did just what she advised and I can only suggest you do the same. Unfortunately, when I tried to be a good library citizen (the book was due back and I couldn’t renew due to a wait list), I looked […]
Fiction Reviews Dump
She Who Became the Sun by Shelley Parker-Chain
Another Place You've Never Been by Rebecca Kauffman
The Idiot by Elif Batuman
Detransition, Baby by Torrey Peters
On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous by Ocean Vuong
Too Bright to Hear Too Loud to See by Juliann Garey
Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead by Olga Tokarczuk
Dietland by Sarai Walker
A Good Neighborhood by Therese Anne Fowler
Apologies in advance, and I hope I can be forgiven for the end-of-the-year review dump. I’ve had bits and pieces to say about the books I read but it never felt well-formed enough to tell others about them. So, here we go, a review dump of some of the fiction I read this year. A Good Neighborhood | Therese Anne Fowler We’ve all been reading long enough to know that a book titled A Good Neighborhood is not actually about a good neighborhood. It’s about […]