I was excited about The Babysitter: My Summers with a Serial Killer because what a fascinating story! The line where her mom brushed off the author’s surprise and concern over being babysat by a serial killer by saying that she wasn’t killed so it was no big deal was great and really set up the … Continue reading
As you may have noticed over on Instagram, I’ve taught myself how to weave by using Lindsey Campbell’s book, Welcome to Weaving: The Modern Guide and her online classes. It’s really kept me too busy to be updating here and other places! You can’t be blogging and tweeting when both hands are full. I first … Continue reading
I loved the idea of We Came, We Saw, We Left: A Family Gap Year by Charles Wheelan but I came out of it thinking this man must be incredibly exhausting and dare I say boring to be around. I’ve read a lot of travel and family memoirs and this was an odd one. There … Continue reading
I came across this one in a NYT column and put it right on my holds list. It sounded intriguing–a man with three wives found dead near his rural compound. What a disappointment! I’m not entirely sure if Marilyn Stasio actually read the book. I didn’t get the impression from Black Widows or interviews with … Continue reading
I found A Spy in the Struggle a little puzzling. The concept was unique and I like how it touched on real issues and was topical (there is even a Covid-19 reference) but the main character was so flat. Her thinking was very black and white and childlike. It was very difficult to believe she … Continue reading
I started The Man Who Ate Too Much: The Life of James Beard by John Birdsall as an ARC and couldn’t get through it then tried again when it was published. This time I was able to put my finger on what bothered me. I understand the impulse to make the subject of a biography … Continue reading
What a mess All Over the Place: Adventures in Travel, True Love, and Petty Theft turned out to be. I was ready to be dazzled but I was mostly left thrilled that I don’t know this woman. I think she thinks she is being charming and self-deprecating but she really comes across as smug and … Continue reading
I read Heidi Pitlor’s first book back in March. I had found it a little odd stylistically but the subject matter–a wife disappears–was interesting and dealt with in a serious fashion that this current trend to the sensational in publishing rarely seems to do well. This book is about another woman on the margins of … Continue reading
I have read all Caroline Leavitt’s books since I was in high school in the late ’90s so I was excited to read this one. I follow her on Twitter so I knew it was a loose fictionalization of the author’s own coma experience so that intrigued me. She said that she had been in … Continue reading
The Lady’s Handbook for Her Mysterious Illness by Sarah Ramey was really a mess on a lot of levels. I was very interested in the book as someone who had/has a mysterious illness myself but the unacknowledged privilege, the transphobia, the strange, circular, repetitive way she wrote, weird views on the source of racism (it’s … Continue reading
