August 2025 - What are you reading?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm at my dad's beach house where, for the past two summers, I have tried to read "My Brilliant Friend" and could not get past the first 50 pages. I am giving it another go this summer, and . . . meh. I think I'm the only person who doesn't love this book. Is it something that gets better and is worth plowing through? I don't like the narrator's "voice," and I'm wondering if that's a translation thing.

This is pretty much word for my word my experience with the book too. So, no, you are not the only person who didn't love the book.

Hated it. There are some books I think I don't like but I can see why others might. I really do not understand this one. People absolutely love this one. But, it was just awful and whatever others see in it completely eludes me.

[Anonymous]

Debating quitting Long Island Compromise on account of poor writing (I'm 40 pages in) but after slogging through the beginning, I want to hope that as a whole, it will get better.

Just finished Family, Family by Laurie Frankel. I enjoyed it, but not quite as much as I liked This is How it Always Is.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I am sort of stuck 1/4 of the way into City of Girls by Elizabeth Gilbert. It was sort of fun in the beginning, but the characters are pretty shallow and it doesn't seem to be going anywhere. If folks like/hated it, please feel free to vote on whether it's worth continuing.

On the other side of the spectrum, I am also stuck about 2 "chapters" in to Olive Kitteridge and disliking the "short story"-esque format though I've liked other books by the author (Lucy Barton). Inertia alone may lead to DNF (at least in the short term).

Okay, I've finished City of Girls, which became much better after-- I don't think this is a spoiler but here's a warning anyway ... ... ... ... a turning point midway through the protagonist's narrative. Weirdly, I found the first half, the supposedly razzle-dazzle theater world part, pretty tiresome, and it should have been cut by 30%+.

I've also started "Sandwich." By Catherine Newman, who I was surprised to realize wrote a "new Mom" blog** that I read like a million years ago when my DCs were babies. I'm enjoying the book but I can't tell how much that is because of my own nostalgia for those days and her earlier "work"-- which incidentally, is sort of a theme of the book as well.

**Obviously, she was a gifted writer even back then but her style was somewhat overwrought with metaphor and figurative language and I recall always thinking "jeez, this is really someone who could use a good editor!" Well, dear reader, I think she found one!